Review of The Darkening (Mass Market Paperback)

This is a bit of a hybrid when it comes to a horror novel. It reads more like a tom clancy with supernatural players in it not to mention some Lovecraft.The story centers around a man named Dylan that is plagued by awful dreams that he can't remember and he wake's up in a different part of his house not knowing how he got there.The other central character is Lucy who feel's as if she is missing something but doesn't know what.

The villains in this book are none other than lovecrafts old ones and the cult that worship them. Opposed is a group called rex deus who try to thwart them at every turn. Both groups want to get there hands on lucy and dylan. The old ones are trying to break through and only lucy and dylan can put a stop to them.

This novel is good but lacks genuine scares and relies more on action. Not that that is a bad thing but when i read a horror novel i want to be a little creeped out so that is my main complaint. Also the ending was abit of a let down when you consider where your being led throughout the book. I reccommend to most out there and i look forward to reading some more by this author.

Product Description
IT BEGINS WITH A BLACKOUT.

All electrical power ceases to run. Even the sun seems a little dimmer. Cities come to a halt. And then their inhabitants vanish.

But a small, clandestine group of warriors has been preparing for this moment for centuries. Their hopes rest on two strangers, a thousand miles apart, who hold the keys to the world's salvation: Dylan Barnes, a martial arts instructor who teaches his students the art of inner balance but is plagued by shadows only he can see and voices muttering in a language only he can hear; and Lucy Devereau, a private investigator who earns a living by prying into the lives of others but is haunted by her own birthright-and the mystery of her true parents.

The world around them-our world-is slipping into darkness. Now, as fate and blood push them to the front lines of an extraordinary battle, Lucy and Dylan must stare into the face of something ancient, something impossible, something that has come to blot out the light-forever.

Click Here to see more reviews about: The Darkening (Mass Market Paperback)

Review of Dinosaur Wars (Paperback)

If you like disaster and alien-attack novels, dinosaur resurrection novels, survival novels, crazy-wild sc-fi\fantasy that reads fast and fun, with a cliff-hanger feel from chapter to chapter, Thomas P. Hopp's DinoWars story is a great night's escapist feast. It is a first novel, so there are issues of polish that I anticipate will disappear in subsequent offerings by the author.

The unexpected plot builds well around believable characters. And there are great lines throughout that makes you feel like you are somewhere between a Flash Gordon or Edgar Rice Burroughs episode and an "Aliens" movie. For example (from page 56):

Chase was dumbstruck. Seeing his confusion, the man spat some tobacco juice. "You been up in the hills or something? That's some sort of alien death ray up there." The man cast a worried glance at the moon. "The whole world's under attack. That's what's wrong with the radio.Moon ray took out the radio station. Good country music. I'm gonna miss it."

With T-Rex's "blood-curdling roar" in the front yard, a real "death ray from space," and a friendly family of hay-eating parasaurolophuses waiting for their next meal to be dropped to them from the hayloft, Thomas Hopp pulls off a great addition to the growing sci-fi/fantasy dinosaur subgenre. The second book in the series is available, "Dinosaur Wars: Counterattack," and a third is in the works. I look forward to reading more. Visit his website at: http://thomas-hopp.com/

Product Description
A 65 million year old civilization, buried under a mountain in Montana. A space invasion of intelligent human-sized dinosaurs returning to claim their home world. M1A2 Abrams tanks and Apache attack helicopters in desperate counterattacks. And young lovers caught at the epicenter of a battle for the Earth. Dinosaur Wars is a military science fiction novel with an overload of stories: Chase Armstrong, the Yellowstone wolf biologist who finds himself dead-center in the greatest wildlife restoration project ever, as dinosaurs return to the high plains of Montana; Kit Daniels, a cattle rancher's daughter who is swept up with Chase at the center of the conflict; Captain Vic Suarez, Abrams tank commander and leader of America's last best hope, Fox Troop; and Gar, the Kra, dinosaurian second-in-command of the invasion force, with a soft heart for the creatures he has vowed to exterminate -- humanity. Dinosaur Wars brims with action, adventure and romance.

From the Publisher
The time is tomorrow morning. The place is Earth. You wake up to the sonic booms of an invasion fleet from space, and the stage is set for Dinosaur Wars. Science fiction novelist Thomas P. Hopp has created a gripping, fast-paced chiller of the ultimate in wildlife re-introduction programs, when creatures who fled the asteroid impact that ended the Age of Dinosaurs return to claim their home world -- our world! Not an alternative history, not a time-warp story, Dinosaur Wars takes off plausibly with Jet Propulsion Laboratory space scientists discovering 65 million year old ruins in a crater at the south pole of the moon. From there, mankind's fortunes go downhill as astronaut explorers of the moon base trigger an automated program to invade the Earth and repopulate it with creatures from the Cretaceous Era, including a species of human-sized, intelligent carnivorous dinosaur. Faced with a massive invasion, America's aircraft and tanks are suddenly hard-pressed to save humanity from extinction.

Click Here to see more reviews about: Dinosaur Wars (Paperback)

Review of Godplayers (Paperback)

Sorry to be wrench in the works but I hated this book...even though I did finish it.It had me hooked when the first few pages contained some very cool concepts:Super beings looking in on a collapsing universe and rooting for the hyper-evolved intelligences contained therein to achieve a sort of godhood--I'm loving all that.Somewhere near the middle I realized with dread that the author was going NOWHERE with any of it.

The book changes reality frames so randomly and often that I just couldn't believe any of it.That kind of thing can work if the author lays the groundwork to make it feel plausible (so masterfully done in John C. Wright's "The Golden Age"), but Broderick just doesn't bother with the legwork.The tech is never explained or even differentiated from fairy tale magic. The characters hardly have a chance to interact before they're hurled off into another reality and have to deal with it.It's hard to get involved with any situation when you know the carpet can be pulled out at any second.

If someone asked me to explain the plot I really couldn't tell them.It's one of those books where a bunch of stuff happens and the characters react to it.The main character certainly has no plan other than exploring and scoring with babes, and the superintelligent players of "the game" NEVER explain what "the game" even is.This is actually what kept me slogging throught to the end.Surely he'll tell me what "the game" is since that's the very reason the characters even exist.But I guess that was asking too much. I had a feeling it involved apposing the "K-machines", but the book pretty much ignores that angle in favor of jumping around "Sliders" style.

Most frustrating of all was the main character who I grew to hate passionately. He gets hurled into a multiverse of super beings and acts like he's at a neighborhood barbeque. He NEVER asks the kinds of questions an actual person would.At the rare occaisions when he gets a chance to talk with friendly characters I'd be mentally screaming at him, "Ask what the hell is going on, you fool!" but he always managed to find other distractions more important than the things crucial to his survival.By the end I was rooting for his death.If we had a Darwin award for fictional characters, he'd be a shoo-in.



Click Here to see more reviews about: Godplayers (Paperback)

Review of The Alianthrope (Paperback)

Mr. Gangelhoff's magnum opus has caused a stirring success and with good reason. The Odyssean style narrative is in perpetual motion, engaging the reader at every turn to revel in the quirky, kinetic dance which is The Alianthrope. I liken the reading experience of The Alianthrope to the epic speediness of Philip K. Dick because, as with any of Dick's work, the visual construction of the words on the page encourage oculomotor coordinations to go into overdrive. I believe the locomotion of The Alianthrope and the reader's exercisedelineated above primarily motivate saccadic people, which is to say those who can effectively & with precision, give meaning to that strange French word, SACCADE, which describes the most elementary faculty that goes into reading. So when Mr. Gangelhoff says something in his own review of the book to the effect of, 'if you want to graduate from the ninth grade it may be a book worth looking into', he has a point, although one hopes the freshman has encountered things of this nature previously, as in perhaps the fourth or fifth grade.

In The Alianthrope we find characters cloaked in exquisite humor and mercurial impulses; everything is in a protean spin. Amongst a whirling salmagundi of humorous action and arcane references, we find that what at first appeared formidable and discouraging, in terms of language, has become fun and rather lighthearted. Mr. Gangelhoff is clearly not afraid to experiment with syntactical arrangements. Thus, for example, on page 299 Mr. Gangelhoff playfully employs a structurally unorthodox dialogue which bandies a mocking allusion to "postmodern verse" and carries with it a sense Derridian obloquy. Or perhaps obscenity.

Mr. Gangelhoff flips neologisms like a cook making a breakfast of champions might flip flapjacks. The reader is taken logo-dancing through the kitchens of Mr. Gangelhoff's new lexicon, a language spoken by a true logophile. In the book we find words like 'vaped'. We find examples everywhere of the author bending the parameters of the English language. On page 442 we can see such experimentation: "Yes, I've become the compleat anglophile," said Fandango. "A peon of Albion, I paean the pennons of Arthur! " Here the author is having homophonic fun with the language. The book is filled throughout with such linguistic fun. I intend to resume this review anon, and hope that it can be read as a benefit to those who have not yet had the ecstatic experience of The Alianthrope, but more importantly, that it be read by those who have and who know whereof I speak. This review is as yet in unfinished form.







Product Description
ALIENS INVADE EARTH AND STEAL ITS SCIENCE FICTION!


Aliens steal Earth's science fiction and disseminate it across the Universe.Coveted everywhere by all peoples, its possession causes a Universal War of Science Fiction.Only the sci fi fan extraordinaire, Sargon, abducted from Earth and prophesied to rule the Universe, can make the Universe safe for science fiction and return Earth to its rightful throne as the only legitimate birthplace of science fiction. Or can he?

About the Author
Rich Gangelhoff was born in 1957into a middle-class American family.He lived in England until his parents' death in a jet airplane struck by a stray missile, brought himin 1968 to Minnesota.Enraged by his bourgeois environment there,he fled the state in 1975.Dropped out of three universities by 1978, living off his inheritance, he insinuated himself into various libraries across the U.S.A.He then studied dishwashing for three years, after which Target, Inc. imprisoned him for another fourteen.He fled work one day in 1998 to focus on his magnum opus, The Alianthrope.He currently works in a used bookstore, in a self-imposed exile from nowhere.

Click Here to see more reviews about: The Alianthrope (Paperback)

Review of Lightning Days (Paperback)

Archaeologists have told us that Neanderthals have been extinct for thirty thousand years. It is also believed that Neanderthals were quite primitive and never really developed any cities or advanced technology. But everything we ever thought about Neanderthals was completely wrong.

A group of British soldiers (mostly weekenders) is sent on a mission into the Afghan desert. The men have absolutely no idea what they are supposed to be looking for but soon find themselves in a life or death situation that will determine the fate of the earth. It would seem that Neanderthals had been surviving through "shifting". Certain members of the Thals had the unique ability to transport themselves into alternate earth realities and live peacefully with the indigenous life forms. This process worked fine until the Thals met a civilization called the Sauroids who decided that shifting was disrespectful to their God. The Sauroids decided that the only course of action was to get rid of all of the alternate earths (including our Earth) except their own.

I thoroughly enjoyed Lightening Days. So much speculation has been made about Neanderthals that it is nice to see a book that uses that potential and lack of solid data to create a great science fiction novel. I also thought that the type of technology used by the Thals fit well into the story making it more believable while creatively providing background information on the Thals' history.

Product Description
There's a mystery in the caves of Afghanistan...

British Special Agent Josh Cassidy knows there is no such thing as a routine mission when he is sent to accompany an ill-prepared band of reservists on a hastily prepared mission into the heart of Afghanistan. The mysterious heat source that showed up on the military satellites could be just about anything, but nobody is prepared to find a group of refugees from an alternate universe:a group of intelligent, NEANDERTHAL refugees.

Sophia and her people have shifted universes for years, trying to keep ahead of the vicious race of Sauroids that is intent on exterminating the Thals. Now the long-running battle has come to our universe, and Josh Cassidy is the only man who stands between the Sauroids and the total annihilation of everyone on the planet Earth.

Click Here to see more reviews about: Lightning Days (Paperback)

Review of Hybrids (Neanderthal Parallax) (Mass Market Paperback)

I'm a big fan of Sawyer.I loved the first two books of this trilogy, and Hybrid lived up to what I've come to expect from Sawyer.It was a real page turner -- UNTIL about 2/3rds through the book.

Did Sawyer just get tired of writing this trilogy?

All of a sudden, the book turns to silliness.It's almost a parady of Sawyer's work.The theological thoughts are no longer delightful little subplots of a page or two, but drag on and on into endless garbage.The ending reads like a B-Movie from the 1950s with a crazed individual trying to destroy a world.At the stroke of midnight on New Year's -- well, I don't want to spoil the ending for you.It was bad enough for me to have to read it myself.

I often recommend Sawyer's books to friends, but I can't recommend this one.Hopefully this doesn't reflect Sawyer's future work.



Click Here to see more reviews about: Hybrids (Neanderthal Parallax) (Mass Market Paperback)

Review of Signal to Noise (Mass Market Paperback)

Signal to Noise reads much like one would imagine a corraboration between Philip K. Dick and Larry Niven would read.The science is generally hard (with one exception: see below), but not nearly so hard as the oppressive sense of paranoia and lurking evil.

Everyone around Jack, the protagonist, is a potential enemy.Every time he takes a step forward, he runs the risk of finding that he's been walking in the wrong direction.Even his good intentions can have (literally) Earth shattering consequences.And we, the audience, share his paranoia.After awhile, the reader begins to feel like he's navigating a bewildering maze of smoke and mirrors, filled with razor-wire and spring-loaded spikes.

The one area where hard science gives way to soft metaphore is via the sophisticated neural-integrated virtual reality technology of the book.Here the book really starts to seem like a PDK work.In a brilliant variation of the tired, old VR theme, Nylund does not create his artificial experiences out of pixels projected on to retinas, but out of vivid metaphors projected directly into the brain.There is a very literal dream quality to those sequences, heightening the sense of paranoia and the nightmare sense of running down an infinite corridore being chased by ever-closer enemies.

It is a good book.True, it could have been better.The characters could have had a tad more depth (although, in a story filled with shadows, too much depth can be a bad thing) and some of the philosophizing strike a tin note.Never the less, it is an engaging and compelling story that plays to that part of our psyche that Kafka used to explore so very well.It was the stort of story that demanded completion by me even as I came to feel stifled by the oppressiveness of the plot.It is absolutely sadistic that it leaves so much to the sequel -- and absolutely delightful that it torments the reader by doing so.



Click Here to see more reviews about: Signal to Noise (Mass Market Paperback)

Review of Moonwar (Mass Market Paperback)

I shall write of both "Moonrise" and "Moonwar."

These are the stories of Moonbase, a permanent lunar settlement built by an American corporation in the mid-21st century.These tales chronicle the political and societal tension wrought by unpopular scientific endeavors, and the unforeseen consequences thereof.The books portray a future wherein a new fascism creeps across the entire globe, embraced by a superstitious public, and at dire odds with the free-thinking scientists living on the Moon--men and women who journeyed there to escape the shackles of Earthside ignorance and fear.You will find intrigue, betrayal, villainy, sexual bartering, rugged individualism, and even love within these books' pages.

But Ben Bova's vocabulary is disappointing.His dialog is often uninspired and even predictable.His narrative, his pacing, his exposition, his character development, and even his plot development are all very Saturday matinee.Even worse, his understanding of relationships is shallow.

But what gets these books off the ground and keeps the reader till their last pages is Ben Bova's love of space exploration.The man fervently believes that space exploration will benefit all of mankind, and not just the bureaucrats or big business.When Ben Bova describes an exclusively astronomical scene, his passion is undeniable.In the first book, there's a scene wherein an 18-year-old walks upon the lunar surface for the first time, and it borders on epiphanous.Ben Bova brings the Moon's unique beauty into sharp focus; sometimes, you can actually feel the regolith beneath your boots.It's this passion, I believe, that makes these books worth reading--in spite of their shortfalls.



Click Here to see more reviews about: Moonwar (Mass Market Paperback)

Review of End of An Era (Paperback)

In my recent trip to the beach, I took along my old copy of Robert Sawyer's End of An Era, a science ficton novel set in both the near future and the distant past. Ten years ago, when I read it for the first time, I was impressed enough by the work that I've been on a Robert Sawyer kick ever since.

A little about the story... In the not-so-distant future, a team of two scientists are sent back on a first, experimental mission into the past, to study and resolve questions regarding the fall of the dinosaurs at the end of the Jurassic. Old friends these two are, but there are recent, and large, strains on their relationship: a divorce, an affair, family illness, to name a few. So, perhaps sending them into the past together is not the best idea, but they have to make do with each other--and what they find.

Sawyer clearly and concisely reviews the theories regarding the extinction of the dinosaurs, and introduces his own...I grant you, with no real evidence, but it makes for an entertaining spin. Along the way, time travel paradox issues are also touched upon, as well as current issues such as public science funding, the economy, and AIDS. The story makes for an entertaining and quick read, and the main character is portrayed as flawed, yet likeable, and intelligent. Hard science fiction, this is not...but that's OK, as the introduction of new concepts and spins on classic problems make this a keeper.

Sawyer containues to be one of the authors I try to keep up with these days, and I do recommend this book to science fiction fans.




Click Here to see more reviews about: End of An Era (Paperback)