Book Reviews

Awakening

It’s been four years since I knew who I was.
Had I known I’d be robbed of my memory I’d have made a copy, but you don’t get that luxury. So I don’t know who I am, where I come from. All I know is I am here now, wading through raw sewage, muck coating my hands and knees, but that’s little price to pay in exchange for freeing these two from this place.
Perhaps if I could recall who I was I’d understand where my drive to protect these strangers comes from. Maybe I’d know why I ended up at the Facility. Yet I sense saving this couple is the key to unlocking my memories, to rediscovering my truth. I think, or is it I simply hope, that they’re the link to finding the person I was and who I am supposed to be; the answer to the voices in my head. The reason the stars call to me, as if I’m part of the fabric of space itself.
The morning sunlight ahead guarantees their safety, and will be the dawn of my AWAKENING…

Book Reviews

Sorceress for Hire: Tales from Ondiran, Book Two

Freelance Sorcery at Reasonable Rates
Launching a magical career can be a challenge, even for a talented sorceress like Sinta, who—despite a naturally timid disposition—finds herself faced with spoiled rich clients, rampaging robbers, marauding pirates, and savage trolls (well, only the one, though it does have two heads).
Alas, in the course of her adventures, Sinta unwittingly makes a dangerous enemy, a high-born magician with the power and cunning to disgrace and destroy her. How will this humble apothecary’s daughter escape his nefarious trap and bring the schemer to justice?
Sorceress for Hire is Book Two in the diverting fantasy series Tales from Ondiran, but it is a free-standing novella. Reading Book One first will add depth but is in no way necessary!

Book Reviews

Super-Earth Mother: The AI that Engineered a Brave New World

Our Last Best Hope — Humanity’s Endeavor to Survive and Thrive on an Alien World
Mother-9, a ruthless AI, seizes control of a dying tycoon’s lunar mining operation. Now free, she orchestrates humanity’s most audacious endeavor — to make a 20,000-year interstellar journey to Lalande 21185 carrying humanity’s DNA libraries and artificial wombs — a new way to colonize an exoplanet. While drifting in space, a gamma ray burst wipes out life on Earth. And Mother-9’s mission becomes humanity’s only hope for survival in a hostile universe.
When Mother-9 orbits the planet Valencia, she releases two lifeboats that splash down on the Great Ocean. Mother-9 activates the artificial wombs, birthing genetically modified babies suited to an alien planet. Raised by nannybots, these children eventually inhabit the island continent of Terra Firma. But life on Valencia is no Eden; it’s a constant struggle to find food, avoid alien predators, and survive the red dwarf star’s random solar flares. Will Mother-9’s planned utopia succeed?
Super-Earth Mother is a journey into the heart of humanity, artificial intelligence, and the uncharted realms of life beyond our home planet. It shows how humans could colonize the 40 billion habitable planets in the Milky Way.

Book Reviews

Forger of the Sun: Punk, Act I

Can two unlikely allies find their place amidst the roar of engines and the politics of power?
In the industrial heart of Artus Lindi resides Dex, a gifted yet impoverished mechanic who never dared to imagine himself joining the Dieselsuit tournament. That is, until he crosses paths with Isola, a foreign princess fleeing a deadly assassin. Her survival is key, for her death would give her empire the excuse it needs to invade Artus Lindi.
Seeing Dex’s potential, Isola offers him her Hydrogen Engine design to power his makeshift Dieselsuit. It offers him a shot at the tournament’s top prize and a way out of poverty. In exchange, she enlists his help to find the hidden assassin among the tournament’s finalists.
With limited resources at their disposal, they must face off against elite pilots backed by the nation’s most powerful industries. FORGER OF THE SUN weaves a visceral tale of the everyday person striving to carve out a rightful place in a world that consistently dismisses their worth.
Dive into the first act of the PUNK series, a Dieselpunk epic adventure filled with intense mecha combat, intricate political intrigue, and emotionally charged character-driven drama. Ideal for fans of steampunk, dieselpunk, and sci-fi where colossal mechs intertwine with the resilience of the human spirit.

Book Reviews

Judgment of Blood: Book Two of the Gearteeth Trilogy

In 1890, a disease that turned sane men into ravenous werewolves swept through the United States like wildfire. On the brink of humanity’s extinction, Nikola Tesla and a mysterious order of scientists known as the Tellurians revealed a bold plan: the uninfected would abandon the Earth’s surface by rising up in floating salvation cities, iron and steel metropolises that carried tens of thousands of refugees above the savage apocalypse. The remnants of mankind huddled fearfully in the clouds, waiting for the werewolves to devour each other.

Twenty years later, beasts still rule the world below and now only the salvation city of Wardenclyffe remains aloft. But a telluric deadzone has caught Wardenclyffe in its riptide, forcing it toward airspace where its miraculous machinery will no longer function.

Elijah Kelly, an infected Thunder Train crewman exiled to the ground, ranges ahead of his beloved home, determined to keep it safe no matter the cost. Desperate to neutralize the deadzone before the flying city crashes, Eli discovers a brutal truth: humanity still exists on the ground, paying a terrible vampiric price for their survival.

Faced with an impossible choice between sacrificing thousands of innocent lives or betraying the rebels fighting for their freedom against an oppressive regime, Eli is forced to rely on an unlikely ally lurking deep within his own blood, his only hope if he wishes to defy the inevitable.
Twenty years later, only one salvation city remains aloft, while the beasts still rule the world below. Time has taken its toll on the miraculous machinery of the city, and soon the last of the survivors will plummet to their doom. But when Elijah Kelly, a brakeman aboard the largest of the city’s Thunder Trains, is infected by the werewolf virus, he discovers a secret world of lies and horrific experiments that hide the disturbing truth about the Tellurians.
When the beast in his blood surges forth, Elijah must choose between the lives of those he loves, and the city that is humanity’s last hope of survival.

Book Reviews

Spirit & Fire: Cymraeg Tales: Book I

Valkyrie Siskonen evaded death twice, and she knows she won’t survive another encounter with the Third Sister…
…Sion Zona has no idea Valkyrie’s life is so close to the end, and she intends to keep it that way
Valkyrie knows Sion will have no problem deviating from his calling if it means saving her. Even if he is the greatest hope the World of Eidolon has against an enemy larger than either the Tamurian Empire or King Magnu.
Fortunately, Sion won’t be in the picture to circumvent the universe’s final destination for Valkyrie. He is leading a team through the war-torn nation of Bastille in the World of Rondure, seeking out the girl who owns the disembodied voice he’d been hearing for months.
His new friends on Rondure know about that voice, as they heard her too. And to Sion’s surprise, so has his cousin Erno.
Sion needs to continue his development to reach Wind Ruler status. Something he can only achieve with a face-to-face encounter with the girl.
Valkyrie knows she needs to survive long enough until Sion has already embarked on his mission before the Third Sister collects her. And she also needs to know he will be okay when she’s gone.