The Beginning Of The End:Book One by Michael Edward I liked the premise of this book. I liked the internal story. I would have loved to be able to say I loved this book- but I can’t. And, I do understand that there is a certain kink in the method of this writer- I just think that someone reading this should come prepared. It might just be me, so take this with a grain of salt. After all, I watch movies with similar genre element, but not too many times do I read books of this genre. There were several things that started out as little annoyances and just kept building into grating elements. First I’ll give some back ground on the story. We start with Heather, who seems to have had an accident or something and has lost her memories. Then there is a disembodied voice that tries to help her through her panic as she becomes aware of memories and realizes she has a brother and she thinks something is wrong. The voice tries to calm her and then proceeds to say that she’s going to go on some sort of mind travel journey into the past to obtain a full picture of something that will help her. Then, apparently in the mind travel, we are at Seaborn a quaint community that seems to be quiet and sheltered. When we arrive, there seems to be something which is going to cause a stir in their community. We start with a group of youths Dasha, Jorn, and Kasper. They are concerned about their friend Maggie and her father Orloff, something is wrong but they are afraid to approach the adults of the council. This is where two of the problems start for me. And, again it might just be me, but there are several-not all-but a lot of times where it looks like contractions are avoided. Now I know some people don’t like them in some writing, but it began to sound a lot like a certain android we will not mention. There were a few contractions, but many times the lack of them showed up in dialogue and sounded stiff and unnatural. The next thing is that it begins a rather annoying trend that works into the entire novel. This could be a device for part of how this Heather is seeing things but it’s still annoying. We begin head hopping back and forth between the three each time we get the full thoughts and emotions of these people and its like some hot potato game. When they link up with the adults it hops over to them quickly. Now we have Karen, Savannah, Jackson,Gordon, Orloff, Tracy and Perry. It seems that Orloff’s wife and daughter are missing. And soon we find out that Dasha has been communicating with some voice in her head that takes the name Ikron. Ikron has been taking Dasha on Mind travels and now, using Perry’s memories, is going to take her to her grandfather’s birth. This feels like that mirror in a mirror thing starting here. Now its Dasha watching(maybe Heather watching Dasha watch) and we go to Carol and John Writer, Doctor Holfman, and Tom Brady. Carol is nineteen pregnant and frightened. Doc is getting prepared to deliver her and everyone is excited. Carol starts ranting about it being a mistake to have the child suggesting they should have aborted it. At the time of birth the lights go out and when they come back on there is one baby and 5 dark clouds of energy. It’s difficult to say if Carol delivered all of that but that’s the suggestion. Carol declares that Ethin is here and the room grows cold and Sheriff Tom Brady acts like he’s gone mad. A strange person shows up and in the end only John and Holfman and the baby-Jason- are left alive. Fast forward to when Jason is a teen. The cast of names grows exponentially. We get to know some of them dearly and the head hopping begins to get thick though I think I understand it’s purpose. This novel is like some of my old favorite movies; Aliens, Terminator, all the night of the living dead. People are going to die and it seems we’ll be in many of their heads at the time that that occurs. That means we’re introduced to all of them even some that would seem minor just for this privilege. This is the hot potato of death. Well, its just a hot potato for a while until the terrible five show up.Of course these five are somehow related to Jason. And Jason is the only one who can do whatever must be done with Ethin and so they are out to get him but they also have to rack up some soul points by killing over a hundred people. Only they call it end or ending them. They do this seemingly quite freely using a weapon that causes no excess blood. This is okay with me because I hate those descriptive bloody scenes anyway. So, other than Jason don’t get too fond of anyone. Now, I really do like some of the basic idea here. There’s a parallel or alternated universe where Ethin has been defeated by his enemies, so he is going to come to Earth and prepare for a comeback. This somehow involves having only a small pocket opened into our world that can only be expanded after a specific amount of ‘ends’ to the inhabitants. Jason’s mother has left him some information that will help him which his father has so sparingly left till just this very last moment to give to his son. There’s even a part where things get so bad they have to get away quickly and somehow leave the book with all the clues, so they have to come back. All this time we’re doing head hopping, even into the head of very minor characters that we’ll get to know long enough to watch them die from an up close and personal place. So if you like those breathtaking seat of your pants thrillers that show you everything-except this time for the blood and gore- this is the story for you. It has, I think four books, and I do want to know what happens. Maybe even find out how Ethin and his cronies decide, which people have value- what that means- and whether that means they are safe from ending. For me this was a bit difficult reading- I’d expected it to be the wholesale slaughters that would stop me-it turns out there were other issues. Maybe most everyone else can get past my issues and enjoy the nifty plot and the excitement. I still need to find out why Heather had to hop to Dasha who had to hop to Jason through Perry and how Perry’s memories manage to do that wild head to head hopping. Since Jason seems to be Dasha’s grandfather I guess we can assume he will make it through the four books. Or at least most of them. By all means visit the author’s website to get some insight to his process. Sural

Gabriel:Zero Point (Evan Gabriel Trilogy) by Steve Umstead Sometimes the problem with a short intro story to a trilogy; is that it’s difficult to fully capture the nuances of the character that shows up in the real story. Having not read the rest of the story I can’t make a judgement. I love Trevanian and especially his Shibumi and I love Ludlum and his Jason Borne series. But these are not really the type of book I particularly go out of my way to pick up. The reason I mention them is that the story of Evan Gabriel- in this short brought them to mind. We have the focused killer who has a little bit of heart somewhere buried under his hard core. The trick for them is to not let on to too many people or it might compromise your effectiveness. This story takes Evan from not so humble beginnings - at the top of his class at the academy- to his ultimate final evolution to the super soldier. There’s an element in this story that I found predictable- maybe not everyone will. I can’t say because it’s a spoiler. Anyway the story seems to revolve just on the edge of trying to explain Evan’s motivation for being where he is in this military program- while at the same time making it clear that he’s more hijacked into it than anything. The disturbing part is that his superior is painted as a rather ruthless individual who will do anything at all costs to ensure the security of the federation. We really don’t get a chance to see much of how good or evil that thought may be though we see a bit of life in Evan as he struggles with the whole concept. I’ll assume that in the later stories that we see where Even’s heart lies in this matter. I’m not at all sure about Biermann. Anyone who loves those thriller suspense novels with the spies and agents of exceptional ability should love these stories. It will be interesting to see how Evan makes it through all this and if he can retain his humanity. Sural

Adrift On The Sea Of Rains by ian sales Okay, in all fairness I will give this book a five in initially breathing life back into the images of space flight as we know it. But I truly don’t understand the praises given without any real reviews about the story being told and the content and continuity. And with all the five and four star reviews you would expect someone would have more to say than good job in two or less paragraphs. There seems to be few who go into depth. I really wish there had been more before I plunked down my handful of quarters for the story. I had not ever heard of Ian Sales before reading this. Apparently he has a presence in England (UK) with many short stories and work on several web zine sites. You can find him at his own web site and he has links to his book review site that specializes in reviewing the work of female science fiction authors. More important you can go to the Fiction Desk and read some of his work. http://www.thefictiondesk.com/anthologies/the-maginot-line.php I wish I’d done that first. The piece called Faith gives the reader a clear view of the authors style and bent. It seems to be a group of stories that might have been ripped from the pages of news during the heyday’s of space flight. Except in some cases there are bits of twists at the end where in others they seem to follow the headlines. Either way it seems to be an introduction to the paralleled universe of Ian Sales. With an introduction to his twisted endings. This story reads well to begin with; with our hero Vance Peterson the apparent commander of the moon base Falcon. We’re told that he’s been there for two years, though he was only supposed to have been there for six month. There seem to be two events that occurred around three weeks before the end of six months. One is the arrival of Dr. Kendall and The Bell, torsion field generator(which seems to be some device made by the Nazis that can push them through to other dimensions to other earths, which is going to come in handy.) The next event at this same time - unless I’m confused- is the death of earth through human destruction. Peterson seems to blame the Russians, which is interesting when considering things later in the story. The circumstances are grim so the story seems a bit grim and lacking in emotional involvement of the characters. We see mostly Peterson’s frustration. There is very little life in this story because things are pretty monochromatic coming from Peterson’s point of view. I’m a bit unclear about what the present time is, but it’s mentioned that Peterson has reached the two year mark though at the same time it is mentioned that he’s had to put up with Kendall for two years-which can’t be right. Its also mentioned that the last flight in was Kendall and his equipment and at that time there was two years of supplies. Assuming the destruction so soon, there likely were no more supplies sent. Lastly it is mentioned that there are 4 month supplies left in that Peterson is convinced they will all be dead in 4 months unless they find an earth that hasn’t been destroyed. I know I’m poor at math but this doesn\'t add up though if we allow a slop factor of 4 to 6 months it’s negligible. I could be wrong about the incongruous timelines but I\'ve read this through three time and the last time was slowly and now I have a headache. Anyway Peterson is in charge and since the death of earth 3 people have committed suicide so supplies might last longer. There seems less fear about water and air though I\'ve some questions about the pure oxygen that Peterson seems so free about using up so he can have his private time. With 9 of them left and some one and half or so years gone by; and some incalculable number of shifts in dimensions, Peterson has some time long ago given up his authority and allowed things to just happen around him. This is important because we eventually have to deal with his tantrums about the lack of discipline in some of the people. Something, which he is a major contributor to. The base is 6 years old and falling apart so one would wonder just how well the recycling of water and air is working since the two are somewhat mutually inclusive to each other. It’s got to be getting old and stale and the equipment might not be holding out.(None of that is mentioned beyond it being taken care of but,I do have my worries anyway.) The Bell torsion field generator is the only hope and its the main incongruous sci-fi in an otherwise Science Fiction story. But it is part of the Ian Sales universe and that’s another story available on Amazon. Even with the Bell, the whole story holds up well until they find a new earth then things fall apart quickly. I’m just not believing that after a long period of abdication of his authority that Peterson will get it back so easily and then so easily hijack the mission that is vital to their continued survival. There’s some excellent teamwork and science involved in the calculation of getting someone in space and if we don’t sit and try to figure out why there isn\'t something ready to go without all this calculating then its really neat. I just had this problem with knowing that Kendall showed up three weeks before Peterson was to leave. Apparently his departure relies on a flight from earth coming to pick him up. You would think that they would have a backup ready to lift in case the vehicle delivering his replacement encountered problems. But maybe not. Even so after all that calculation to get what they had up into space, we’re suppose to believe these rocket scientists forget to include food in the calculation and that the food for one person will take up the weight of three; so only one person can go on this three day flight. And that sounds really intelligent; we’ll send one man on a chancy three day flight by himself so we can be saved. I have this feeling that- way back- when Peterson abdicated his authority that the vacuum creates would be filled by the XO or someone else and they would clearly want the best pilot on the job, which apparently is Neubeck. Clearly though the twist of this story relies on Peterson being the pilot. Eventually the reader is shown evidence that Peterson should never have been left in command of anything and that he has a tendency to react impulsively upon his own prejudice. There are other secrets there that implicate him into the whole mess that is the death of earth and even Peterson seems oblivious to this. This book has a rather useless appendix except for the citations and references the readers are intelligent enough to understand the acronym there that haven’t been explained within context and they really don’t drive the story anyway. Needless,you should read as much of Ian’s writings prior to this as you can before reading this to catch the tone of his writing and then it will prepare you for this one and probably the next, which I don’t think I’ll bother to spend my quarters on. Ian seems to believe he’s creating a new genre here, but I\'ve seen all of this before and it might be a mix of several which would fall within speculative fiction. I’m not sure he’s yet reached the pinnacle that he’s looking for. Best of luck in that endeavor. You have recaptured the spirit of Space Flight past. Giving the setting marvelous and sensuous texture. I just wish you could work a bit more on giving the story and the characters some emotion and life. Sural

Lodestone Book One: Sea of Storms by Mark Whiteway This is a really good book with some outstanding characters and world building. There are some interesting though sometimes confusing elements about the Lodestones, which I’m no way going to try to be expert about. The important thing to this type of fiction is that the author try to maintain the rules he’s built into his system-or at least have good reasons for any deviations. I think,without going into real in-depth analysis of the working of the lodestones, the author does a fair job of keeping things real. There is an prologue to story and it almost confused me. I at first thought the whole Kelanni religious order stuff might be based around Kal and had to read back to realize that it existed before. Then I wasn’t sure if they had the lodestones before him or after the Keltar obtained theirs- I’m thinking maybe after and he may have played a role in that but later there is mention of a Kel Stones almost as a separate thing- by a character in the real story so I’m still a bit confused. That might get cleared up for me later in this series of books. The world of the Kelanni is one of a world with three suns- I don’t remember any moons. The actual orbits and movements of the suns and the planet are still muddled in my mind and an orbital diagram might have been helpful. It’s possible, since it seems that the large red sun never sets, that the Kelanni world is like the moon orbiting a sun instead of planet with only one side facing the big red sun, Ail-Mazzoth. There are two smaller sons that move around the sky and those are what confuse me the Ali-Gan yellow sun and Ali-Kar white sun. I don’t understand how they orbit and what the relationship is to the Kelanni world and Ail-Mazzoth. My confusion asside: This seems to be a story about Shann who is a young girl living in a small village where the Kelanni religious orders Keltar are extracting tribute in the form of slave labor. Her parents were taken some time in the past and she lives with relatives and has dim view of the religious leader and the Keltars. I would guess that explains why she tries to help someone who seems to be attempting to save the tribute slaves from being taken by the prophet’s Keltar’s. Her attempts lead to her having to go on the run from the Keltar. We learn somewhere along the line that Kelanni have tails. It’s sort of almost in passing and not much time is dwelt upon the subject. Later it becomes a major plot point so it might have been useful to have the tails mentioned- as in having some purpose to remind us of their existence before the plot point arrives. There are more major characters in the book with Keris a Keltar who initially assists in the pursuit of Shann. Alondo and Lyall are the rebels-Lyall is the one Shann helped. Then there is a large beetle like bug named Boxx; he’s a Chandara and they live very long lives. At some point it’s difficult to tell who’s story this is but since it starts with Shann and ends with Shann I will call it her story. They all eventually get together and begin a convoluted escape from the prophet and his Keltar. As things unfold the escape route makes perfect sense as they work together in a mission to save all of the Kalanni from the Unan-Chinneroth, the one “without a tail”. Pretty important that tail everyone takes for granted. On the other hand it could have been the one without a nose; so, even without many mentions about the tail this does work. The quest takes them to the other side of the planet- which may be freezing cold- or not- depending on those orbits of the other suns. This is a good fantasy and fair Science Fiction -I think it could use a bit more explanation in some of the science- a bit of romance with a strong female character. I recommend this to anyone except the few nitpickers who ‘have’ to know all the facts about how lodestones work (or shouldn’t) and orbits of planets and suns. It’s good for a couple nights entertainment and a good prelude to: THE REST OF THE STORY- there is a volume containing books 1-3 available. Sural

Ordinary (The Anything But Series)by Lindy Zart So this is another in the series of free offerings. Unfortunately I\'m not sure It\'s still free. Now, because it\'s free, I should at least be civil and nice. But at the risk of spoiling things- You can\'t end it like that. Granted I\'ll give that this is almost like a Zombie Apocalypse novel, but it\'s really not- so there. Make no mistake, I really liked this story and I\'ll be waiting for the other half of it to make it to e-print. This story has many elements of similar novels of this type: Honor lives with her mother and sister and has lost her father. She\'s living a life that she\'s about to discover is a lie. There are people who are out to get her- with the notion they want to help. Do they really? Honor doesn\'t know and is struggling to trust anyone after her world has just been destroyed and re-arraigned. It all starts when she notices Christian, an acquaintance and classmate, exhibiting odd behavior- which pales to the odd behavior around them as no one else seems to notice. Later she sees what she thinks is Christian being abducted. The very fact that she could see what Christian was going through has put her in danger, but it will take her a bit of time to discover that. Honor, who is one of those people who probably brings every stray dog they find home, is concerned for Christian. It almost looks as though her concern is what gets her into trouble, but she\'s already there it just hasn\'t caught up to her. Honor has two school related nemesis, Natasha and Ryder, who figure into the gang of people who try to \'save\' her. In Honor\'s universe there was a virus that was accidentally released which over time began to manifest itself with dramatic changes in the DNA of those affected. There are three types of people the UD\'s who become zombie like, the UDK\'s who are able to control and eliminate the UD\'s and the ordinarys who may carry the virus but show no signs. -----------------Spoiler- maybe but maybe not-------------------------- Now, and this is speculation and not a spoiler unless I\'ve speculated correctly, this really sounds like a- lets make the ultimate soldier gone bad scenario. Once again we\'re making soldiers with no way to safely integrate them back into society. Only this time were growing them up to a trigger date without any good missions to point them at. ------------------end spoiler alert------------------------------------ Honor has to start trusting her instincts because she can\'t trust anything that\'s she\'s being told. The problem is that this lack of information could get her and some of her friends and acquaintances killed. And as things unfold- that may be someones plan. This is a well told story and though it seems to be cliffhanger-ish it does stand well alone and definitely grabbed my interest to where I will buy the next book once it comes out. There are plenty of unresolved threads-but as you can see it gives much room for speculation and imagination until the writer gets that second half out. While waiting Lindy has another series out that you can read. Sural

Weeping for Raven Book One: Inducing The Calm by Mel Kinder This e-book was around five dollars. I\'ve been doing the free ones and usually borrowing the money ones. This is not specifically Science Fiction- it tends more to Paranormal Romance. But, its got this kind of John Carter of Mars leap from one body to another thing going so in that respect its like a Sci-Fi adventure. It has a bit of mystery at first while trying to figure out what is happening. I read a bit of a sampling first and was drawn into the story. Enough that I purchased a copy. It starts with the mystery;someone wakes up in a garden of flowers and trees wondering how they got from their bed to the garden. They think they\'re dreaming and their senses seem to be off a bit; plus they now have a different color hair. The story shifts to Gwen Penn who is registering for classes- perhaps at the local community college. Gwen seems to be a bit of a loner and doesn\'t normally interact with people much more than necessary. While waiting in line she meets Mick who calls himself Mimic, a nickname from an affectation of his which is stuttering. They seem to get along well and even to Gwens surprise- she starts to design a schedule that will intersect with his. Gwen\'s parents are out of the picture. Her mother is institutionalized. She lives with her grandparents and has become codependent on them. They have encouraged her to go to the college of her choice and she\'s decided to make her choice local. It seems that she may not be focused on what she wants to do. Contrary to that Nick seems to have a strong notion of going into Art. Gwen has some ability in that area which might explain the corresponding scheduled. Gwen\'s reserved nature, inward drawn personality is partly there because she has recently lost her best friend Baylee in an accident. She\'s not easily ready to commit to friendships because of this. We don\'t spend much time with this Gwen because most of the story takes place in some alternate universe. This is a universe of magic where everyone has some magical ability and where cars don\'t have wheels and they fly. There are no restaurants because people don\'t eat in this universe. And people get energized from the rays of a dark sun. They\'re daylight seems to be more like moon light at night and extreme dark when the black sun is up. Gwen of course is the one waking up in the garden. It is actually close to a house which is similar to her grandparents house and eventually we find that that is where she lives. She has skipped into another body and discovers that her name here is Alexa Murdock. Alexa seems to live alone-possibly an orphan. Her father died doing experiments related to an epidemic, which is plaguing the world. It seems that the victims are called Wardlows and they are people who\'s spirit has been usurped by demons who are considered bloodthirsty and dangerous. Alexa\'s father thinks there is more to it than that and had tried to create a drug that would induce the same syndrome on someone for a limited time so he could prove this theory. It seems now that Alexa has taken up his work and Gwen is the Wardlow. The original plan was for Alexa to do this while her friend Cat made sure that if it succeeded that the Wardlow would not be found out and Cat and some others could observe and discover the truth. For some reason Cat does not get there in time and a young man named Rook finds her collapsed in the garden and takes her to the hospital. Gwen has an immediate connection to him-which is very odd for her. Rook had been on his way to visit his sister at the hospital. His sister Raven is in a coma and his father is institutionalized because of his grief over the accident that left Raven that way and killed his wife. Gwen wakes up in the hospital and begins the tenuous process of learning about this strange world through Rook. She\'s playing it cool and by the ear because she doesn\'t want to end up institutionalized like her mother. What she doesn\'t know is that there are people who capture and execute Wardlow\'s like her and she shouldn\'t be involved at all with Rook or anyone else except for a select few in some secret group that knows about this experiment. The people looking for Wardlows are called hunters and they work for the TAS The All Seeing. The all seeing work for someone else but they have the ability to find the Wardlows and they send the hunters. The hunters are invisible normally but Gwen is able to see them. That allows her to elude them. For a time. Eventually they will catch up to her. Gwen is falling for Rook, while knowing how wrong that has to be considering she won\'t be staying here and the amount of danger that puts her in. She has to make sure Rook doesn\'t figure out what\'s wrong with her. She also doesn\'t have any idea what Alexa might be doing while she\'s in her world in her body. She\'s also beginning to see some injustice to what\'s happening to the Wardlows and she may have to invest more of herself into this reality to help find an answer. It could cost both Gwen and Alexa their lives. And the secret behind all of this may be something more sinister than just fear of contamination. This is the beginning book of a series that I guess would fall in the Young adult- Paranormal Romance category although it has elements that show up in Science Fiction- that\'s a great thing since that\'s what I like to read. There\'s more to the story- though I don\'t think the second book is yet finished. Sural

Touchstone Trilogy by Andrea K Host. I began reading the Stray which hooked me because it reminded me of some of Robert Heinlein\'s later works where people could take a a left turn in just the right way and end up in another dimension. Maybe even get lost as his character JOB did. And Cassandra is such a dear character- reminding me of one of my favorite book critics whose not afraid to use the f**k word. I could see her as this character when she discovers she\'s lost F**Kity F**K. Sort of jarring as an opening sentence. This novel is done from a first person perspective and that works well for this story. Contrary to what many believe, first person is not what makes this YA its the YA in the story that does that. This is a sort of Young Adult story so it throws one that it starts right way with this type of language-or at least it does us older folk. Her full name is Cassandra Eloise Devlin. She\'s been living a sheltered life in Australia and the last thing she wanted today was to get lost on the way home. Well at that age it\'s a bit embarrassing to get lost. But with this the wrong left turn thing going here it\'s going to take a while for Cassandra to figure out that she\'s not just lost. She\'s LOST. The good news is she has her wilderness survival kit. The bad news is it has everything she might need if she\'s lost in Sydney. Not much use for where she\'s at. At one point she\'s speculating New Zealand- she\'s still thinking just a bit on the shallow side of the galactic pool. In the next few pages I have sympathy for Cassandra because she\'s going to do a lot of camping. I hate camping. And she\'s being forced to do it while still rather lost all the way around. Of course this camping becomes survivalist pretty soon, which is totally different from camping- not that I like it any more.(at least camping usually has the full range from survival roughing it to places that have electricity so you can charge your gadgets and stuff.) No there\'s not hope for that. Things have gotten real by this time when Cassandra has found all sorts of mysterious flora and fauna. They look almost familiar but very much strange and unfamiliar. And very much wild and dangerous. After wearing down her few useful tools and walking endlessly she comes across a settlement. Unfortunately it seems to be abandoned. Having some time to relax a little and become frustrated by her lack of survival skills Cassandra also has a chance to check out the new world to make some few observations about things. (These become handy later but for now its mostly her own curiosity.) She tries unsuccessfully to make her own materials for bedding and clothing and other house items. Thankfully there are others who know of this world and settlement and who also seem aware of the openings between dimensions and worlds through which Cassandra has stumbled. A team of these people show up at her settlement and a couple of them scare the daylights out of her when she wakes up to them hovering over her. At this point though she\'s sick and feverish so she\'s more relieved than frightened. Taken to a hospital like environment she is poked prodded and injected. She doesn\'t understand the language right away but there seems to be a technology that helps her with this. Once she starts to learn things she realizes that she\'s considered a savage and that she possibly will never reach their level. When it finally dawns on her that they\'re treating the savage like a lab rat she begins to balk and that\'s when her true character kicks in. They say that they will try to return her to her home, but they don\'t have a clue yet where that is, though they seem to know how to do it once they find it. Later we find its not so easy to do that. Of course at this time Cassandra also begins conflict with the people who saved her and it interferes with whats up for her future. This is a sort of Science Fiction fantasy and almost Paranormal romance, which will contain some romance for Cassandra down the road. But with the speed bumps she creates for herself in the first two books it\'s going to take a while. I loved this story as Science Fiction. The characters were every much as engaging as I hope for. I\'m a character driven story lover and don\'t much care that all the science is believable nor do I demand a long explanation of the science for validity. It\'s a bonus that there\'s a cute romance story that comes out eventually and of course one whole underlying thread that\'s resolved at the end of the trilogy. I think YA and Sci-Fi and fantasy and paranormal romance lovers will not only love this book but whatever else Ms Host has in that great mind of hers. Keep it coming Andrea. Sural