Remember Bowling Green: The Adventures of Frederick Douglass, Time Traveler review

Remember, Remember, the 10th of March
The Day of Ronald Trump's start
I see a reason, that time-traveling treason
Should make his campaign stop

    Okay, I'm not exactly a poet but, fortunately, Frederick Douglass is. This is basically a political polemic inspired by the arrival of a certain controversial figure in the White House. However, if you don't mind heavy-handed political satire then I recommend this book in the same category that I recommend the Illuminatus Trilogy by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson. Just without the sex, which admittedly means the Illuminatus Trilogy wins in any contest. Despite this, it does feel like a really oft-kilter episode of Doctor Who and I can't say I disagree with the message being the Left-leaning trust-fund baby anarchist that I am.

    The premise begins when a masked shooter massacres sports fans in Bowling Green, Kentucky. This ia a reference to the infamous fake news cited by Kellyanne Conway to justify the ban on Muslim immigrants to the United States in February 2017. While I suspect that event will be just one political gaffe in a long series of them, it was enough to spark the imagination of the authors. The Bowling Green Massacre turns out to be a false flag operation by caricature Roland Krump and his media baron Scanlon in order to buy up all of the city's property then gentrify it under the population's nose.

    As evil plans go, it's mostly noticeable by the fact it asks us to believe anyone would want to buy Bowling Green since I've been there and know that's only slightly more believable than the Illuminati. *makes the sign of the Golden Temple that only the true followers of the Pyramid can perceive* However, Frederick Douglass is friends with H.G. Wells and has a time machine. Foreseeing that Krump will eventually destroy the world, he resolves himself to eliminate the politician before his plan can go off.

    I also mean eliminate as, unlike the Doctor, Frederick Douglass has no problem straight up murdering Krump or his equally scummy relatives across the timeline. Unfortunately, unlike the Doctor, Frederick is actually quite bad at murder. He manages to screw up a number of his attempts to alter history despite his otherwise capable self and it's up to a group of Bowling Green residents to undermine Krump's over-the-top evil in the present. Ultimately, it all comes down to a single rally which has the potential to propel Krump to the highest office in the...well, county! Can our heroes stop him!? Well, they have Frederick Douglass and a time machine so if they can't then they really don't deserve to win.

    I really enjoyed the supporting cast in this one and they could have carried the novel even without the space and time bending poet from the past. I also thought it was a nice fake-out to have one of the protagonists named Hannity and have him NOT turn out to be evil given the thinness of the caricatures. I also felt the most intelligent piece of satire in the book is that Krump's plans mostly succeed because they're so monumentally obvious and over-the-top crazy that no one is able to object before he's done. Much like his real-life counterpart.

    The only real objection I have to the book is it feels the need to be more obvious with its caricature than it needs to be. There's a lot of references to President Drumpf, his candidacy, and plans which feel less clever than they needed to be. I think we all got who Krump was supposed to be from the beginning so we didn't need tiny hands or "Make America Awesome" to remind us. Also, real-estate scams are things Trump did in real life so it would have been nice to discover he was at the head of an alien invasion or was actually a human-suit for a colony of sentient spiders or something suitably over-the-top.

    In conclusion, I very much enjoyed Remember Bowling Green and I hope people will check out this book. Obviously, some people will probably be offended by the politics but we've got plenty of right-leaning fiction out there too and this is just a bit of fun either way. If David Weber can have welfare lead to French Revolution Nazism in Space (see Honor Harrington) then the left can have this.

9/10

The Little Ships (Alexis Carew 3#) by J.A. Sutherland review

    I've mentioned on numerous occasions how much I love J.A. Sutherland's Alexis Carew series. I've already reviewed the first two books in the series but had to take a brief break before working on the third. I'm glad I did as it allowed me to read it with a fresh mind to absorbing the character's latest adventures. Given the book takes Alexis to her seventeenth year, it also prevented me from being too confused if I'd read them back-to-back-to-back.

    The premise is Alexis Carew has been recruited for a clandestine meeting with the Grand Republic of France (in SPACE). Being forced to learn dancing, polite conversation, and etiquette--she is also educated in the history of the setting. It turns out that the present state of the galaxy is due to a revolt by Deutchland (In SPACE) losing its Hanover colonies, followed by said colonies becoming an aggressive military dictatorship. Now New London, France, and Deutchland struggle to keep Hanover's ambitions in check. In the current war, New London fights alone and they're hoping to bring the Grand Republic in on their side against the Hanover. Alexis will be critical to this as she has, however briefly, had contact with the locals on the Hanover-aligned but culturally French Berry March worlds.

    I must confess to a certain amount of disappointment to Hanover's portrayal and the use of them as the central antagonists in this story. It seems virtually all science-fiction invariably turns to some variant of Space Nazis as the enemy. In this case, the Hanover are stated to believe they wish to rule all of the galaxy and I wouldn't be surprised if they were meant to believe themselves superior. I say this is a disappointment, really, because I rather like the idea of the Napoleonic Wars in Space and would have been interested in seeing the Grand Republic or its allies as the enemy.

    Despite this, I actually enjoyed watching poor Alexis struggle to keep her dignity despite the fact she was wholly unsuited for court life. It's also nice to see her deal with situations that she's out of her depth with but still trying to understand. The straightforward Lawful Good Alexis is a poor fit for a story which is fundamentally about realpolitc, espionage, and propaganda. Yet, that's precisely what makes the story intriguing as it forces Alexis to confront, again, New London society is not all that great.

    I liked the depiction of French culture in the book even if it tended to veer a tad into the stereotypical (was it really necessary to make the ambassador smell bad as well as be a lecherous old man?). Still, there were quite a few interesting characters and the return to the Berry Marches is something I was actually looking forward to after their introduction in Mutineer. We also get a return of the characters there and knowing what happens as a result of Alexis' actions was poignant to say the least.

    The book is roughly divided between two different sections with the first being Alexis' political nightmare in New Paris and the latter being a disastrous military campaign in the Berry Marches. The book adapts the Dunkirk evacuation but goes beyond to show just what happens in places where overconfidence outstrips planning. We also get to deal with some other interesting elements of war like pregnancies (not Alexis') as well as vengeance killings against those even tangentially connected to the enemy. I appreciate this Gray and Gray Morality and wonder if we'll get to see any "good" Hanover characters.

    In conclusion, this is an excellent continuation of the series. Despite being YA novels, Alexis Carew deals with many serious issues and I'm intrigued by their mix of sci-fi as well as historical fiction. I hope J.A. Sutherland will continue to adapt famous naval battles and events as they make the series all the better.

9/10

Ciaphas Cain, Hero of the Imperium review

    In the grim dark future, there is only black comedy. The word grimdark is a portmanteau created created by 4chan to make fun of the opening crawl of Warhammer 40K's text i.e. "In the grim dark future there is only war." This is due to the fact Warhammer 40K was originally created as a parody setting of countless over-the-top dark science fiction elements blended together with what was, essentially, a really dark campaign of Warhammer. Which was, itself, a really dark campaign of Dungeons and Dragons.

    Eventually, the rise of George R.R. Martin resulted in grimdark being primarily applied as a term to doorstopper "realistic" fantasy stories in the same vein. The connection to Warhammer 40K was de-emphasized and there were actually questions whether dark science fiction qualified as grimdark at all. I strongly disagree with that, part of the reason I created Lucifer's Star, and will now share one of my favorite series from the Warhammer 40K universe. I speak, of course, of Ciaphas Cain, HERO OF THE IMPERIUM!

    The premise for the books is a Colonel Commissar Ciaphas Cain has recently died of natural causes and his occasional lover, Inquisitor Amberly Vail, has decided to assemble his deathbed "confession"/memoirs into historical documents for the Inquisition's archives. The fact we know Ciaphas Cain manages to survive to a ripe old age despite living in the ultimate hellish universe and die as a beloved hero should suck all tension from the book--but doesn't, because the whole point of the series is analyzing what it means to be the One Sane ManTM in a universe driven by blind fanaticism.

    Ciaphas Cain, you see, died as a legendary war hero but believes himself to be a secret coward and fool who survived myriad encounters with Chaos, Orks, Tyranids, as well Tau (one of these is not like the others) due to an inappropriate desire not to get himself killed in the line of duty. To facilitate this heretical idea, he also has the idea of keeping his fellow soldiers alive to serve as human shields against the enemies trying to kill him. The fiend!

    Much of the book is a deconstruction of typical ideas found in fantasy (light or dark) where zeal replaces good tactics as well as prudence. Death is always around Commissar Cain so he does his absolute best to be prepared before things go utterly poing shaped (as he's fond of saying) as they inevitably do. Despite this, this isn't a source of pride to the Commissar but an actual source of shame as the body count inevitably includes friends as well as loved ones but he manages to escape to another day.

    Cain is ostensibly based on Harry Flashman, at least the George MacDonald Fraser version but actually reminds me a good deal more of the WW1 incarnation of Edmund Blackadder. He is, much like said character, trapped in a situation destined to kill him (or not in Cain's case) so all of his deeds are designed around surviving that inevitable fate. Also, his resigned jibes contrast against the blind stupidity of those around him.

    I'm actually as fond of the supporting as I am of Cain himself. Colonel Kasteen is a wonderful supporting cast member, serving as Cain's platonic life partner. A wonderful snarky scarlet-haired soldier who would have made an excellent protagonist in her own series. I actually was disappointed the author didn't have them hook up despite that being the embodiment of cliche as well as against regulations. Note: Cain, amusingly, has a quite active love-life despite the fact his primary lover could have the planet he's on bombarded.

    Cain's Valhallan unit from a Nordic-Russo Ice world is a dark and hilarious gang of killers who are more upset about the fact they have different dining habits than they're all going to die horrifyingly in their next engagement (probably). The fact it's made of two single-sex regiments smashed together is also a source of some intentional hilarity in the early parts of the series.

    Fans of grimdark may think this isn't a qualifier because Commissar Cain is hilarious. His dry observations, wit, and ability to out-think his enemies aren't very grim. However, the world is still portrayed as a horror show of tyranny, fascism, and various monsters out to eat humanity at every time. The fact it's presented in a jokey off-hand fashion just makes it more fun like how "The Wheels on the Bus" now includes lines about running over heretics in kindergarten.

    Weirdly, the enemies are also made more terrifying by this approach as the Orks go from being soccer hooligans and working class Londoners to being an implacable force of destruction. Similarly, the Necrons are a mindless unkillable army of Terminators than the somewhat pathetic slaves of their masters which gamers know them to be. Even the Tyranids show themselves to be clever and dangerous conquerors than "mere" animals.

    The books are annotated, it should be noted, by Inquisitor Vail as she adds a near endless amount of funny details to the story. Commissar Cain is trying to be self-deprecating, after all, while she's more interested in the truth both good and bad. Cain is also a raging egomaniac even when trying not to be so he only talks about events which pertained to him and often misses the larger context--that the annotator corrects. It must have been murder on the Black Library editors to do the books this way but I think it's one of the series' best parts.

    The first omnibus puts the protagonist against Tau, Tyranids, and Necrons in stories which I completely approve of. If you are a newcomer to Warhammer 40K or a long time fan, I recommend this collection. I note also recommending the collection since Black Library still refuses to release their books on Kindle so it's better to just get the larger volume than try to collect all the smaller ones.

9/10

Cover sketch for Lucifer's Nebula!

I'm presently working on the sequel to Lucifer's Star, Lucifer's Nebula, which will continue the adventure of Cassius Mass and the crew of the Melampus. Here's the wonderful sketch for its cover by Alex Raspad.

The influences are obvious but that's the point. I'm also glad to have Isla be a bit more in the action this time than on the first cover.

If you're interested, check out the original book here.

The Secret King: First Contact by Dawn Chapman review

    The Secret King: First Contact by Dawn Chapman is the sequel to the first novel, Lethao, which chronicled the journey of the human-like Aonise to the planet Earth after their sun exploded. One part 1970s Battlestar Galactica, one part Jack Kirby, and one part Game of Thrones--it was a very enjoyable story which made me eager to review the next one. Even so, I had to admit a certain amount of trepidation due to my overwhelming hatred of humans.

    Perhaps I should explain. When I speak of humans, I generally mean that Earthlings in these sorts of stories never end up appealing to me. Mankind meeting aliens in the present is always going to either have to bend over backward to make the aliens awful people or will result in us looking like the rednecks of the universe with our general backwardness. Take Doctor Who under the 9th and 10th Doctors? We did not cover ourselves in glory presenting Rose Tyler's family as the model of our species.

    Dawn Chapman avoids the flaws of this (as well as Battlestar Galactica 1980, which it superficially resembles) by presenting the humans of 2016 as surprisingly enlightened. Despite upending everything we know about the universe, evolution, and our place in the universe--the United Kingdom accepts the two-million Aonise into its territory as a peaceful exchange of technology for resources begins. I think we could have spent a little more time on the human reaction to this news but I think the author made a good decision keeping the perspective squarely focused on the aliens during this.

    Rather than deal with the dumb apes on this world, we have the Aonise's perspective on humanity and trying to fit in. There's a little too much focus on the romantic troubles between a few characters from two humans to a adulterous human/Aonise relationship but, overall, I enjoyed the pace as King Kendro tries to make peace while not tipping his hand too much. The fact everyone more or less deals fairly with one another in negotiations was so surprising that it actually counts a genre subversion.

    It's interesting seeing the perspective of a 70s science fiction race like the Aonise have to deal with the mundane humans of our world. The Aonise have what amounts to psychic powers and healing magic while also being tall Flash Gordon dressed people. It makes you hate being a Muggle but there's a few interesting moments which are noteworthy like the fact human genetic experimentation shocks the Aonise as does their willingness to push taboos. There's even a disturbing moment where Kendro debates whether they'll eventually have to "bind" humanity just to keep us in check.

    My favorite subplot deals with the establishment of a new house among the Aonise outcasts. The Heiako are a people who have been treated as vermin so long that even on a rationed starship, they have gangs in order to instill order. The idea of them creating their own noble house to rival the others intrigues me. I'm looking forward to seeing more of them and their rise to power soon. I also like the fact adultery does occur in the "main" couple because, honestly, there are too much books with unrealistic treatments of romance. Some men and women are just cheaters.

    Much of the book depends on your familiarity with the characters from the previous book as well as how much you're invested in their personal crises. It's less about making peace with humanity and the possibility of war (though that's there too) than keeping the heir hidden, the love between two officers, and the continuing threat of Dalamaar. I'm disappointed there wasn't much Lady Katesh as well since she remains my favorite character in the series as well as infinitely more interesting than the ostensible villain.

    In conclusion, I enjoyed First Contact a great deal. While I didn't enjoy it as much as Lethao and think it could have pushed a few more envelopes, it's a solid piece of science fiction from beginning to end.

9/10

The Secret King: Lethao by Dawn Chapman review

    I'm in a space opera kind of mood which, if my genre fondness holds out, means I'll probably spend the next couple of months absorbed in the genre before moving on. That means trying to find good examples from both mainstream and independent authors. While the "easy" sources like Star Trek, Star Wars, and newcomer in the Expanse are out there, I wanted to try something which was not linked to a major franchise. Steve Caldwell (The Bookwyrm Speaks) recommended I try out The Secret King series by Dawn Chapman. I'm glad he did because it was a treat.

    The premise of the book is very similar to Battlestar Galactica in that a space opera civilization of Earth-descended humans must flee their colony world to return to their ancient homeland. However, it's very much in the vein of the original 1970s BSG with Lorne Greene, Richard Hatch, and Dirk Benedict versus the modern version. It also has elements of a Jack Kirby-esque universe of feuding New Gods-esque families, bloodlines, and psychic powers. There's even a few elements of the Silver Age Krypton thrown in. For those who prefer dark and gritty space opera, this is pretty much its antithesis but I'm a major lover of grimdark yet loved this work.

    The premise is Kendro of Aonise is the psychic God-King of said world. Having had a vision of his planet's sun exploding, he's assembled four arks to take them to safety along with the other houses. Unfortunately, no sooner has this come out that their ancient enemies in the Zefron decide to finish their extermination by attacking their refugee ships as they flee. Kendro's life is complicated further by his wife's troubled pregnancy, a mysterious new enemy trying to usurp his throne, and (just to make things complicated) his second-in-command developing adulterous feelings for one of his men.

    The Secret King was apparently developed as a TV series and it's a pity this didn't get a chance as one because the characters grow over their episodic struggles. A book isn't limited by budget, though, and I'm able to imagine the glamorous costumes and scenes hinted inside the work. It also has a nicely balanced cast with the King, his wife, their doctor, the chief of security, and other supporting cast members. There's also some nice subplots related to the fact Aonise is kind of a awful society, despite the king being our lead, since a good portion of its population are treated as second-class citizens because they weren't born with the mystical marks that unite everyone to their leader.

    Kendro is a strong lead character and I was interested in his adventures despite my anti-royalist sentiments even in fiction. You can see he's just imperious enough that I buy him as the hereditary dictator of a long-line of conquerors but nice enough that I believed this was actually going to cause him trouble. I also enjoyed the romance between the King's second and his lover as that was a genuine surprise as well as not a typical lovey dovey story. No, it's a story about regret, duty, and the fact sometimes love just isn't enough.

    Much of the book is concerned with the issues of surviving once they've taken off from their doomed home planet. There's numerous space battles with the Zefron, questions about using the life-force of the dying to heal those who can be salvaged, succession, as well as what point tradition may or may not serve in a refugee colony. All of these are interesting tidbits and help enrich the larger character-based stories.

    I like the world building in the story as it hints and references rather than outright explains. While it's frustrating in places, we get the sense of an antique society that has existed for multiple millennium and lost its larger history. There's also a grandiosity to the characters speech and mannerisms that makes them feel larger than life. These are people who are dwelling in a somewhat Shakespearian world, which makes their brief psychic sojorn to Earth feel all the more contrasting like Tolkien's hobbits being visited by Gondorians--or people from the 1980 Flash Gordon movie.

    There's some flaws in the book in the fact the first part of the book has a bit of a pacing issue until the arrival of a certain Lady (you'll know when you meet her) who brings a lot of energy to the story. There's also the fact we never really learn anything about the Zefron, who remain frustratingly inscrutable throughout. I would have very much liked to have discovered why they're so hell bent on eradicating the Aonise as we only get an answer which opens up more questions. The story could have used a bit more Dalamaar, too, as he doesn't quite solidify himself as the kind of epic evil ala Ming the Merciless or original Baltar which this kind of story needs.

    Even so, I heartily recommend this book to anyone who loves space opera and wants a colorful fantastic story about psychics, bonds, kings, and spaceships. There's some decent action, excellent plotting, and good storytelling all around. I'm looking forward to the next book in the series and can't wait to pick up a copy.

9/10

Beauty in Ruins: In Space No One Can See You Bleed . . . by C.T. Ph...

 
Beauty in Ruins: In Space No One Can See You Bleed . . . by C.T. Ph...: Beauty and Ruins the review website has posted  a nice little article about my book, LUCIFER'S STAR, and why space stories should be dark and gritty.

I may have written it.

Check it out.

Mutineer (Alexis Carew #2) by J.A. Sutherland review

    Alexis Carew is my favorite new series and one I intend to continue reading as long as J.A. Sutherland continues to write them. I read Mutineer as soon as I finished the first novel, Into the Dark, and it was even better than the original. I think it's because this is a much darker novel and manages to deal with a nearly insurmountable problem for our heroine that reflects a real-life problem in today's military: misogyny from a higher up in a system designed to make sure your superiors are the word of God. The fact this is based on a historical incident in the Age of Sail, minus a plucky Midshipwoman, makes the story all the better.

    The premise is our heroine, still fifteen-years-old and now suffering from PTSD after executing a pirate, has been assigned to the H.M.S. Hermione. It is not a happy ship as its captain, Neils, is a flogging happy tyrant who hates the idea of women in the Navy. Alexis suffers daily indignities and punishments in hopes of driving her to resign.

    Things go from bad to worse after she ends up taking temporary command of Hermione's fighting men. Her decent treatment of them results in Neil's control erodingto the point they're ready to rise up against him. Mutiny is punished by death and those who flee from it are hounded for the rest of their lives by the Navy--what will Alexis do in such a morally complicated situation?

    I have to say J.A. Sutherland created a truly despicable villain in Captain Neils. A man who is so utterly stuck up himself that he refuses to see his men as anything other than extensions of his own will. I don't usually like completely black villains but it's easy to see every single one of his good qualities obliterated away by his station. He's a revolting specimen and yet someone I find entirely believable when interacting with his "lessers." He's easily the strongest of the four presently-released novel's antagonists and I wouldn't mind seeing him return.

    The crew of the Hermione is well-developed and the author manages to make you feel the paranoia which Alexis must deal with. Which of the crew are friends? Which of the crew are foes? Who can be trusted, if anyone? It's an atmosphere of paranoia and exhaustion our favorite Midshipman is dealing with. They have their own stories, too, with my favorite being about a young man who was caught up in a legal impressment.

    The space fleet action is fairly small as the Hermione is a frigate that only preys on merchant traffic due to its cowardly captain. However, there's an excellent action of licensed piracy by our heroine as she figures out how to take a ship which dramatically outguns hers. The action will delight readers even it doesn't involve a single cannon fired. The fact the story stops to talk about the traumatic cost of killing as well as risking your life in battle elevates it beyond many other series.

    We also get some expansive world-building with the introduction of the Berry Marches, which is a Space German-ruled set of Space French worlds that are aiding the Hanover (Space Germany) military forces in fighting New London. I found this to be an interesting bit of world-building even if the characters there act a little too much like French stereotypes. I also felt somewhat off-put by Alexis' crush who feels like he belongs to an entirely different genre of books.

    At the risk of spoilers, I should mention my favorite part of the book is the trial at the end with the evidence, arguments, and testimony being intriguing. Not many space opera books end up with a legal proceeding but given our heroine was involved (however peripherally) in a mutiny was something that deserved to be analyzed at length. I felt this climax was better than any space battle and really added to the story.

   This book actually feels something like two different books because the second half of the novel slows down considerably and deals with the culture of the Berry Marches. Then there's the final stretch of the book that deals with the consequences of the mutiny. I would have greatly enjoyed these getting their own books and I felt they were rushed through here. Despite this, I consider this an extremely enjoyable tale.

9/10

Cover Reveal: Lucifer's Star by C.T. Phipps

Here's the final version of it.

From the bestselling author of The Rules of Supervillainy:

Cassius Mass was the greatest star pilot of the Crius Archduchy. He fought fiercely for his cause, only to watch his nation fall to the Interstellar Commonwealth. It was only after that he realized the side he'd been fighting for was the wrong one. Now a semi-functional navigator on an interstellar freight hauler, he tries to hide who he was and escape his past. Unfortunately, some things refuse to stay buried and he ends up conscripted by the very people who destroyed his homeland.

LUCIFER'S STAR is the first novel of the Lucifer's Star series, a dark science fiction space opera set in a world of aliens, war, politics, and slavery.

Soon to be available in paperback and audiobook form.

Available for purchase from Amazon.com

Gideon's Curse by David Niall Wilson review

   

    I've long been a fan of David Niall Wilson, since the days when he was a writer for Vampire: The Dark Ages. I've read many of his books and enjoyed all of them. However, I think it's fair to say while he works in a variety of genres that his deftest skill is at horror. Gideon's Curse is a pure horror novel and probably his best work yet because it's it pulls no punches and deals with a dark chapter of American history.

    It is a novel about the horrors of slavery as told with the caveat of also being a zombie and ghost story. I'm glad for the latter because, disturbingly, the book might not have been able to be read without the level of the supernatural to make the truly disturbing elements more palatable. There's also a layer of reality to what is being talked about which makes the fictional events all the more disturbing and I don't just mean the fact America's Peculiar Institution is not Gone with the Wind or even Django but something infinitely worse.

    The framing device of the book is that the Pope Plantation is an anachronism in the modern day. A haunted spooky place with only a few descendants of its former slave lords still using human trafficking, albeit migrant workers, to keep planting even as the woods are full of unnatural things.

    A curse akin to the one in Silent Hill hangs over the place where the population continues to labor despite they'd probably be better off anywhere else on Earth. When the last two men of the accursed family kidnap a teenage girl to rape, the terrible curse comes to fruition with a man named Gideon relaying the terrible history of the place to the girl's family. A curse about a preacher who came to the plantation in the aftermath of the Civil War in hopes of missioning to the former slaves and who ends up bringing down the wrath of God or at least his distant cousins.

    The heart of the book is the story of Reverend Gideon and his relationship with the former slave Desdemona, who is a sort of shaman or priestess to the locals. It's a love story but the kind of which Stephen King would tell as Gideon finds himself losing his Christian faith (or perhaps expanding it) as he finds himself confronted with the reality of the supernatural. This, however, layered against the fact he is acting upon a empathy and desire to touch the divine which is innate to how the religion should work.

    This isn't a fuzzy feel good story about a white man and a black woman overcoming the odds, however, but how something good gets destroyed. The locals don't take well to Gideon, his ideas, being in a relationship with a black woman, or the fact he's organizing the locals even under the auspices of ministering. The idea a terrible thing happens is not a spoiler as we know it will happen but how it does is extremely well-handled with the climax being extraordinarily well-written.

    It's difficult really to describe what kind of horror this book embodies since it's a kind of weird morality play that exists in the penumbra between Twilight Zone Christian morality along with Lovecraftian maltheist malevolence. The supernatural is real, arguably impersonal, and God's power seems limited to how it makes his followers feel. Yet, it is the humans who are the monsters and who bring down their doom on themselves.

    I heartily recommend this book for fans who are interested in Southern Gothic horror stories.

9/10

Available for purchase at Amazon.com

The Tower of Zhaal and The Science of Supervillainy are now available!

Hey folks,

I have great news that THE TOWER OF ZHAAL, sequel to CTHULHU ARMAGEDDON, is now available on audiobook, paperback, and Kindle format for readers. Like the original novel, it's a post-apocalypse story set in the world of H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos.

It has been a year since John Henry Booth's exile from New America and the fall of the Black Cathedral. Cursed with a slow transformation into a monster, he has begun a doomed relationship with fellow escapee Mercury Halsey as they seek some way to arrest his transformation.
 
Dubious hope arrives in the form of the University, the deranged scientists and cultists descended from the staff of Miskatonic University. Except, their offer of help comes at a price. Having sold themselves to ancient aliens called the Yith, they wish John and Mercury to join a group of rogues in hunting down a wayward member of their faculty: a man who intends to release the last of the sleeping Great Old Ones on an already ravaged planet. If they're telling the truth, John and Mercury will be heroes. If.
 
The Tower of Zhaal is the second novel of the Cthulhu Armageddon series, a post-apocalypse continuation of H.P. Lovecraft's popular Cthulhu Mythos.

 
But the bigger news is the SCIENCE OF SUPERVILLAINY, fourth novel in the Supervillainy Saga, is also available in audibook, Kindle, and paperback format. I genuinely believe this may be the best Gary book yet.

Gary Karkofsky a.k.a Merciless: The Supervillain without Mercy™ returns in the fourth volume of the popular Supervillainy Saga. Having discovered the world's greatest superhero slain by his doppelganger from another reality, Merciful: The Supervillain with Mercy™, and the arrogant President Omega, Gary dedicates himself to overthrowing both. Unfortunately, this is harder than it looks since Merciful has all of Gary's genre savviness while President Omega has the entire brainwashed United States military behind him. In the end, though, there can be only one ruler of the world and two of these three feuding villains will have to go.

I think fans of my books will love both of these.

Purchase your copy of THE TOWER OF ZHAAL today!

Purchase your copy of THE SCIENCE OF SUPERVILLAINY today!

Exclusive Interview with J.A. Sutherland!

 Hey folks,

We've got a real treat today with J.A. Sutherland, author of the Alexis Carew series, stopping by to answer some questions about his ongoing series. For those unfamiliar with it, it is a series of books about the titular fifteen-year-old girl serving as a midshipman in the New London space navy.  A girl who, despite her age, ends up caught up in a massive interstellar war between feuding feudal powers and a system to reward the corrupt while punishing the honest. I only enjoy a few YA fiction novels but this has rapidly moved to the top of my list. You can read my review of the first book here.

 
1. So, tell my readers about the Alexis Carew series. What is it about and what separates it from other space sci-fi series?

I typically describe the series as, Space Opera with a very Age of Sail feel to it. Imagine Horatio Hornblower as a fifteen-year old girl in space, and you have the series. What separates it from other series, is that I made a conscious decision to go full-Hornblower – they say never to go full-Hornblower, but I did.

2. How would you describe your main character?

Alexis is the sort of leader that, I think, most people wish they had to follow. She brings out the best in her crews because she’s gained their trust and love. Conversely, the very things that drive that – her sense of duty to those who follow her and her faith in them – is one of the things that’s hardest for her, because the cost of what she has to ask of them is sometimes so high.

3. What inspired you to do a Horatio Hornblower-esque tale in space?

It was one of those where you’ve read everything that’s sort of like what you want to read, but you’re not quite satisfied yet? I’ve always loved both science fiction and Age of Sail fiction, and love the series that have combined those to some extent, especially with female leads. But having read it all, I still wanted more, so I figured there might be others who did too. Luckily I was right about that and the series has found a home with a lot of readers.

4. How do you respond to the fact there's another famous Age of Sail in Space series with a female protagonist [Honor Harrington by David Weber]? Do the comparisons bother you or do you think fans of one will like the other? I certainly love both (though Alexis is already ahead for various reasons).

I think there’s room for a number of series with similar themes in many genres. Aside from the Honorverse, there’re several others that are, basically, Royal Navy in space, and they all have their own take on the concept. Just like there’s room for Ryan, Reacher, and Bauer in the thriller genre (why are all the big thriller characters named Jack?), there’s room for lots of Age of Sail in Space series – and the great thing is that readers get to enjoy them all and find which they like best.

One of the differences is that Weber is exploring this massive, complex, interstellar political thing in the Honorverse, and he’s phenomenal at it – the detail is truly amazing. His Safehold series is another like that. But one of the things I love about the Age of Sail fiction is that it’s so concentrated on the characters. I mean, they’re historical novels, so you can’t do much with the geopolitics involved – the Nile and Trafalgar are going to happen and the way they did, you just insert your characters into them.

So what I’ve very deliberately done with Alexis’ story is to keep that feel. Other than a chapter or two at the beginning of Into the Dark, we’ve always followed Alexis. We’re in her head as the point of view, and that’s something I intend to keep throughout the series.

5. Was creating your space opera setting difficult? What were its inspirations? 

It wasn’t difficult, no. I’m a casual student of economics, so a lot of the universe is driven by that. I set the initial parameters: space travel requires hard, physical labor; travel’s expensive and cargo size is limited, but habitable planets are two-a-penny – then I asked what those incentives would drive people to do.

Once I had that it was just extrapolating what would occur. That there’d be a wide expansion with low-population worlds as different groups wanted elbow room, we’d have large gaps in tech on the colony worlds as their populations grew to exploit resources (modern factory equipment can’t be maintained when the nearest service center is months away), and what would a navy look like in those circumstances?

Today, even on a submarine, we have instant communication between a captain and higher authorities if something dire occurs. When a ship’s months or even a year away from a true authority and communications takes that long too, it changes the dynamics aboard ship. There’s a practical reason that captains in the Age of Sail were “sole master after God”.

6. Do you have a favorite character after Alexis? If so, who?

Avrel Dansby, without a doubt. In fact, he’s getting a spinoff series of novellas to tell his story more thoroughly. He’s a really interesting character, because of how his character arc runs. We meet him in Little Ships at sort of the midpoint of the arc, where he’s this former smuggler, pirate, and rogue – but the backstory of what got him into that makes him a more compelling empathetic character, which I’ve just barely touched on in the short story that tells it. But then, by the time he gets to Little Ships, he’s lost much of that – so he’s charming there, but not so empathetic, as he’s lost his mission a bit. 

7. Did getting all the naval terminology and tactics right require a lot of research and planning?

Thirty-plus years of reading every bit of Age of Sail fiction out there was my research, from Forrester to O’Brian to Pope and Lambdin. Multiple times reading, in some cases. So the terminology comes pretty naturally to me. The difficulty was translating some of it to a scifi setting without changing it too much – for instance, where would you put the masts on a spaceship and does that change the terminology?

Tactics are harder, because we’re dealing with three-dimensions. Luckily, all of Alexis’ actions to date have mostly been two-ship actions, so other than a roll or two, we’ve not seen much of the real tactics involved. It’s more complex than a typical space battle in my world, because in addition to the third dimension the captains have to deal with the wind direction and how that going “up” against the wind, for instance, impacts their ship’s speed and performance.

The typical points of sail (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point_of_sail) are now on a globe, rather than a circle, so it becomes far more complex.

8. Would you classify Alexis Carew as a YA series or not?

The series, not, but the first few books, especially Into the Dark, do have a bit of a YA feel and it’s definitely a coming-of-age story for Alexis – even Mutineer is that, as well. But my intent for the series as a whole is to follow her career as she ages, so I’m not sure if that could be considered YA.

10. How has fan response been so far?

Phenomenal. Far beyond my expectations or hopes. When I first published Into the Dark, I told myself I’d be happy if it sold an average of one copy a day for the first year. So 350 thereabouts in the first year. Readers doubled that in the first month and I’m still flabbergasted.

I’m still constantly astounded by the reviews and, especially, the emails that I get from readers. I’ve had more than one that really touch me, because the series has gotten into some things like PTSD and I’ve heard from readers who really connected with Alexis and her experiences on a level that I never, ever expected.

11. Do you have a planned number of novels in the series?

Not a planned number, no. I’m going to follow Alexis’ career as far as I can. I always say that Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey/Maturin series ended when he died and they published the unfinished draft of his latest as simply 21. So I’ll either get to a natural stopping point of Alexis’ story or you’ll get something like that.  Of course, now I can never publish a book with a number for the title or everyone will think I’m dead …

12. What can we expect from you next?

Privateer, #5 in the series will be out this year – preorder starting in August or before, if I can manage it -- as well as an expanded version of Avrel Dansby’s origin story, that’ll be part of a multi-author boxset this summer. I also plan to release the first in a more traditional steampunk series called Of Dubious Intent (A Dark Artifice Novel) – That, hopefully this year as well.

Thanks to the many readers of the series, I am actively working my way towards quitting the day job and going full-time with the writing thing. It’s still a couple years away, but I can see it, and that will allow me to have a more productive schedule.

Into the Dark (Alexis Carew 1#) by J.A. Sutherland

    I'm a huge fan of David Weber's Honor Harrington series and several other Age of Sail stories which happen to be transplanted into space. I'm also a fan of the original Horatio Hornblower novels. However, my love of the Honorverse has dimmed over the years as the focus became less and less about the titular character. David Weber has become fascinated with the labyrinthine and complex politics of his universe to the deterrent of his female protagonist. So, one can imagine my intrigue at the prospect of a Young Adult series about a similar character which would remain firmly rooted around her adventures. Still, it would be an entirely different series and could it be as good as Weber's own? In fact, I daresay J.A. Sutherland has written an even better story.

    The premise of novels is a riff on a traditional one of a young woman trying to escape an unwanted marriage. In this case, however, it is due to the fact her colony operates under archaic primogeniture rules which means her landowning family will be rendered destitute if her grandfather dies with no male heir or husband for her. Alexis Carew, seeking some way of escaping her situation, ends up becoming a midshipman on a departing royal navy vessel. Immediately, she finds herself put upon by a crew unaccustomed to women in the Fringe as well as the fact she has almost no experience with dark space sailing vessels. Soon, however, the crew will find itself imperiled by what predators await even Royal Navy ships in the void.

    I absolutely love the main character and think of her as one of the best Young Adult protagonists I've read in a very long time. Admittedly, I don't normally read that much Young Adult fiction but she's up there with Katniss and is certainly highly ranked in my fiction protagonists period. A fifteen-year-old-girl who decides that life on her boring, chauvinist world where she fits in like a square peg in a round whole is worth joining Her Majesty's Navy. She's very recognizably a teenage girl even if you see the beginnings of greatness within her.

    Into the Dark follows Alexis as she becomes acquainted not only with the naval terminology and space opera science of the setting but also how the world functions. Her relative ignorance as a poor (well, rich on her world) country girl seeing the big universe justifies a lot of the exposition even as we deal with the consequences of her knowledge. Yet, I never felt the many infodumps and explanations were unjustified or ever boring. It's very much a book about exploring and I think that's actually one of the novel's strengths.

    The author does an exceptional job dealing with the daily realities of how a hypothetical Age of Sail spaceship would operate. I like the development of all of the crew ranging from her bunkmate to the Captain and the guy who repairs spacesuits. None of them are caricatures and all of them are welcoming even if they're somewhat off-put by Alexis' presence (women not being common on naval vessels in the retrograde Fringe--even if they're everywhere else in the setting).

    Unfortunately, I suspect some readers of more traditional sci-fi will be off-put by the deliberate anachronisms. Things like manually loading weapons, that darkspace (hyperspace) works identically to an ocean, hoisting the darkspace sails, and other things which exist entirely for the Rule of CoolTM (if your definition of Cool is Napoleonic Wars ship elements IN SPACCCCE). There's some handwaves, just like there is with the retrograde gender roles, but it doesn't really work too well. You just have to accept them and move on. For me, having played Spelljammer back when it was possible, it was a lot easier for me.

    The actual "plot" doesn't really begin until the very end of the book but, again, this didn't bother me in the slightest as it was the journey which was motivating me. I do think there's an interesting set-up for Alexis that she's joining the Navy in part to eventually return to her family home and reclaim it but I don't think that's going to be the sort of place she'll want to spend the rest of her life after she gets a taste of the universe. The fact I'm interested in how it all works out speaks well of the series.

    In, conclusion, really--highest marks. Buy it! Buy it now! I also recommend people pick up the audiobook version as Elizabeth Klett does an amazing job with the main character as well as the others' voices.

10/10

Paternus by Dyrk Ashton review

    So, basically it's American Gods if it was a action horror movie rather than a whimsical Gaiman-esque road rtrip. This is a compliment to the author because there's a staggering number of mythologies mixed together in this particular oddball stew of Christianity, paganism, Hinduism, and Arthurian lore. Oddly enough, I'm also reminded of Wildstorm's W.I.L.D.C.A.T.S but that's more to show what a strange person I am rather than any influence on Mr. Ashton.

    The premise of the book, loosely, is that the Ashura and Deva have been warring for millions of years on our planet. There's the Good Gods and the Bad Gods except the Good Gods are jackases and the Bad Gods are complete monsters so it's more Neutral Gods and Bad Gods. Virtually every deity in human history is one of the First Born children of Father, the Sky-Father of all mythologies, and most of them have multiple guises among various cultures.

    Two times, the Bad Gods have risen, only to get themselves slaughtered but weakened the Neutral Gods significantly until they're now a shadow of their former selves. Oh and Father is senile, frequently going into decades or even centuries-long comas due to being a utterly mad god. In a scene which I suspect is a subtle nod to Kevin Smith's Dogma, a pair of teenagers find Father comatose in an assisted living facility and help rouse him just as the next slaughter is about to begin with the Bad Gods having raised just about everyone in their ranks from the former two wars from the dead while the Neutral Gods remain diminished to the point of uselessness.

    I have to say this book was a surprise as I didn't know what to expect within it but was pleasantly surprised to find a deep and coherent mythology built around the concept of an eternal war. All of the deities, many of whom are freakishly deformed despite their great power, are affected by the terrible conflict they've never not known. It's an interesting premise and one which I haven't seen before outside of, ironically, a few cartoons where the characters can be battling for millions of years. This is a serious story, though, with even the most benevolent among the deities considering humans little better than servants and uninteresting. The best of the gods fight for themselves, not mankind, while the worst just consider us food or sport.

    I actually found myself more interested in the human characters of the story, Fiona and Zeke, who are a pair of teenagers kinda-sorta in love. There's some nice subversions with their all-too-human story before they get caught up in the conflicts of the gods like the fact Fiona is eager for sex while Zeke is scared. Watching the characters develop and their inevitable power-set emerge was interesting. I also liked how it wasn't a "Chosen One" narrative where one of them suddenly became stronger than the million-year-old beings around them.

    The combat is excellent in the book with the clashes between the gods being huge and epic with weird connotations like in the old myths. They don't just fight with swords or guns but legions of dogs, living thunderbolts, and so on. Every surviving god is a seasoned warrior in a manner older than most Earth nations put together but that doesn't mean they don't die, often in surprising or shocking ways. The author isn't afraid to kill his characters and that adds to the brutality of the conflict.

    Keeping track of all the players in the conflict was a bit confusing due to the fact all of them have multiple names but I eventually got the hang of it. I also liked how things were set up for sequels in a manner which didn't leave the book feeling too disjointed. I'm anxious to see where the author takes this series and give him my full regards. Grimdark urban fantasy is rare and while I'm not sure this quite qualifies, it's close enough for government work.

10/10

LUCIFER'S STAR new cover revealed!

It's been no secret I wasn't very happy with the original cover of LUCIFER'S STAR, my "dark space opera" which chronicles the eternal question of what exactly happens to the mooks of your stereotypical evil galactic empire when they get overthrown. Well, if the story was a gritty war movie's aftermath versus a tale of good versus evil.

I think the new cover, by Alex Raspad, is much-much better, though. Light-years even *rimshot*

But you be the judge.

Cassius Mass was the greatest star pilot of the Crius Archduchy. He fought fiercely for his cause, only to watch his nation fall to the Interstellar Commonwealth. It was only after that he realized the side he'd been fighting for was the wrong one. Now a semi-functional navigator on an interstellar freight hauler, he tries to hide who he was and escape his past. Unfortunately, some things refuse to stay buried and he ends up conscripted by the very people who destroyed his homeland. 

The new cover is perfectly timed for the release of the paperback and audiobook version!

Purchase your copy of the Kindle version today

50 Tips for Writing Grimdark Fiction

I have some experience writing dark fantasy and space opera plus my recent cyberpunk novel. So, I thought I'd throw together all the little rules I made for myself when writing to share with you guys. Ignore them, follow them, or critique them -- they're only opinion.

1. Being good doesn't make you win and it may make you lose as well as lose badly.

2. Curse with real cuss words because real people don't say feldercard or Sithspit.

3. Villains should be terrifying and commit atrocities. Not guys who wear black while being generically evil.

4. Villains should have a reason for what they do, even if it's "I like gold and/or killing people."

5. Heroes should be flawed, if not actually bad people themselves. It's cool as long as they're
INTERESTING.

6. Frequent traumatic backstories work well as long as you don't make them silly.

7. The world should be full of corruption where money, power, and position matter. You know, like our world.

8. If a plucky rebellious noblewoman or man bucks social convention, actual terrible consequences will occur.

9. When someone is motivated by HONOR, they probably mean an archaic social value system which is horrifying in some respect.

10. People should die. Everyone living at the end with happy endings is a cop out.

11. Don't cheat and make your enemies orcs or robots. Heroes kill PEOPLE in war.

12. If you do use monsters, make them inscrutable and terrifying.

13. Alternatively, if you do use orcs or robots, make it clear killing them out of hand is a hate crime like killing "Natives" or "Savages" as has been the excuse in our land.

14. Racism is a factor for much of human history. It's not magically solved by saying everyone should get along.

15. Ditto classicism. Uppity nobles, unfortunately, ruled for much of human history despite being morons.

16. Speaking of nobles, rulership by birthright shouldn't mean you're qualified for the position. You may luck out with a Ned Stark but you're just as likely to get Joffrey or something in-between.

17. Advanced technology or magic will not solve social issues but will make it easier to screw over the little guy.

18. Magic should probably be mysterious, horrific, or have some kind of terrible cost.

19. Super technology should probably be available only to the super rich or used to keep those without it down.

20. Killing a single man in a well-described way is more interesting than killing six or twenty guys in a "badass" way.

21. If gods exist in your universe, then they should either be mysterious or dicks. Nothing sucks the momentum out of a story more than Eru or Paladine looking out for you.

22. Characters can have mixes of good and bad qualities which should confuse readers. A really racist classicist soldier might be incredibly fond of children and a devoted friend. A psychopathic blood knight may be YOUR psychopathic blood knight.

23. Romance should be complicated, ugly, and possibly broken. A noblewoman may run off with her mercenary lover then leave a week later after living in his conditions. It makes the world seem more grounded.

24. Don't scrimp on the horror of fantasy staples. If you see a zombie, don't think "it's a zombie" but make it clear it's a horrible shambling parody of humanity that stinks.

25. Speaking of stinking, details like the fact bodies often empty themselves or smell terrible after a time and so on are often overlooked details in regular fantasy.

26. It's often good to draw a comparison between "ideal" and "truth." The Night's Watch wouldn't be nearly so interesting if not for the fact Jon Snow believed they were awesome badasses before finding out the reality.

27. Aliens and monsters should very probably be "alien" rather than funny looking humans unless they're an offshoot of humanity. More like xenomorphs or slugs which are difficult to even comprehend.

28. Conversely, don't make "good" races like the elves unless the lesson is, "The elves welcomed humanity with open arms and were subsequently slaughtered by them."

29. If you use traditional fantasy races, make a twist on them. If elves exist in space, making them Space Nazis who loathe inferior humans is a good idea.

30. Also, take a page from Richard K. Morgan. If you do make elves, no reason not to name them something else like Zorath or Ibnar. Throw out the pointy ears too.

31. Grimdark worlds have sex rather than "just" romance. Characters will have meaningless hook-ups, think about it, and act on lust rather than love all the time.

32. Remember the little guys. While almost all the mains in A Song of Ice and Fire are nobles, Alien benefits for the fact its protagonists are a bunch of space truckers.

33. War is a nasty and brutal thing which consumes the lives of its participants like kindling. If it contains any glory for the protagonists, it should be on the backs of many forgotten souls or a hollow thing.

34. Selfishness is a virtue in grimdark. Those who look out for themselves often end up better than those who would die for a higher ideal.

35. Throw the narrative off the best laid plans whenever possible. If the heroes are going to go on a heroic months long journey to find the Ring of Antioch, cut forward the next chapter to find out the ring wasn't there and they're now bankrupt.

36. Black humor is never a bad idea. A good laugh often is the best defense against a good cry but never have the characters take events LIGHTLY.

37. Reward some measure of ruthlessness. Baelor the Blessed's brother probably murdered the Priest King of Westeros to stop a war of conversion and....well, it made him king and saved thousands of lives.

38. You can make a lot of horrible people into likable protagonists just by giving them something they love, be it their family or companions or just life itself.

39. Disease, filth, and poverty are rampant in the worlds. Even if it's on a space station or in the capital.

40. Unfairness should be a fact of life and often bitterly ironic. There might be a Prince who is wise, intelligent, kind, and destined for greatness except for the fact he's third in line for the throne.

41. Wars should be fought for land, power, or slights as anything "noble." Also, the noble thing may make things worse.

42. Don't be afraid to take traditional story structures and invert them. A Prince may come to rescue Rapunzel, only to find out she's locked up because she turns into a cannibal monster during sex.

43. Understand what, if any, gender roles exist in your univese and how people lash at them for good or ill. Ripley was a space trucker like anyone else, Caitlyn Stark tried to live up to the ideal, Arya hated it, and Cersei may genuinely have been driven mad by them. Don't forget they also apply to men as Lois Bujold made point of in how men of the Barrayar race were enslaved by their violent honor culture as much as the women.

44. Occasionally throw in the genuinely good among the ambiguous and awful. It makes things more tragic when bad things happen to them.

45. If the plucky underdogs are against a vastly superior force. They had better have some crazy ass solution or trick because they're going to lose.

46. Sudden violent deaths or long lingering ones can work wonders for a narrative.

47. Try to capture more than just descriptions of places but how they taste, smell, and make characters feel.

48. Slavery is awful and full of unimaginable abuses--but also something very common throughout history.

49. If you have an oppressed population or race, don't make them nobly suffering victims. Oppression doesn't make you a better person. It just makes you oppressed.

50. Sometimes there's no right answer. You just choose one evil over another and live with the consequences.

Red Sister by Mark Lawrence review

"Friendship is, well, it’s caring for somebody more than you do yourself."
"Fool, that’s not friendship, that’s love."
-The Doctor and Zagreus, Zagreus audio drama

    Red Sister is the third series to come out by Mark Lawrence, who holds the position as the third most famous grimdark author alive after George R.R. Martin and Joe Abercrombie. Indeed, he might be the second most famous since George R.R. Martin doesn't self-identity as that sort of author.

    His first series, The Broken Empire Trilogy, showed a Lelouch-esque boy genius destined to conquer the world like Alexander and prepared to sacrifice his soul in the process. The second, The Red Queen's War, followed the corrupt lothario Prince Jalan as he struggled to avoid doing the right thing as such always ended up being difficult. Both took place in the Hundred Kingdoms and were delightfully dark fantasy.

    Red Sister, by contrast, takes place in a new world called the Corridor. Much like the previous volumes, it is a Medieval fantasy world but eschews the post-apocalypse elements to take place in what appears to be a planet suffering an ice age. It stars Nona Grey, a young peasant girl who is sold to a slaver who sends her briefly to the fighting pits before she ends up "rescued" from the noose by the region's militant order of nuns.

    In the process, Nona, makes an enemy out of a serial killer pedophile as well as his extraordinarily rich father. As the words "serial killer pedophile" are used in this description, one should note this is not going to be a story with much in the way of moral ambiguity nor is the fact the protagonist a young girl a quality which makes it lighter fiction.

    Some people label this Young Adult fiction due to the protagonists age while others believe this is just dark fantasy which stars children. Honestly, I think it's both and note that as a teenager, I loved reading dark and horrible stuff. It's why the Hunger Games is good and its derivatives aren't. The Hunger Games was awful to its protagonists and that's what made it awesome.

    So is Red Sister any good?

    Oh definitely. I have some complaints but, overall, I think Nona is every bit as enjoyable as Mark Lawrence's other protagonists. She has her faults, not being nearly as smart as Jorg or as funny as Jalan, but she is tirelessly determined. In fact, Nona is aggressively ignorant of the way the world "should" work and refuses to change when people try to teach her otherwise. She just doubles down on her own self-made of honor and stabs anyone who violates it. Nieztsche may have a disciple in this world.

    Much of the book is devoted around the principle of what friendship really means. While this is a topic which seems more appropriate for a Saturday Morning Cartoon, Lawrence adults it up by making it clear this is about what real bonds are made of. Nona is willing to fight, die, and kill for her friends but expects them to hold to the same standard of companionship. It's a Band of Brothers-esque friendship with none of the twee despite the protagonists all being adolescents, with the exception of a few flash forwards to their adult days.

    The book also spends a good deal of time developing the world's magical system, which relies on the subject being from one of the world's four tribes that have occasionally inbred over the past millennium. Describing it is difficult but I'd say it's basically like someone merged Harry Potter's bloodlines with the Dark Side of the Force. Most Sisters use their fighting skills in a state of calm but Nona manages to master her powers by being in a state of perpetual barely contained fury.

    I liked the supporting cast as well with each of the young girls and their teachers having a strong well-defined personality. You could argue that some are "the rich one", "the royal one", and "the pious one." Also, I could spot which one of the sisters was going to turn traitor a mile away by their backstory but that didn't hurt things. I understood why Nona bonded so strongly to all the people she met and why they cared for her in return. Indeed, one of my favorite scenes is when I believed the otherwise corrupt clergy was willing to go to bat for her against a rich patron--just because she exposed how a person should be treated and briefly reminded them of their duties (as well as how much of a jackass their prosecutor was).

    I give credit for some really stellar action sequences. Mark Lawrence proves himself a master of sword-fighting, gore, and emotional content in the Bruce Lee sense. The Red Sisters really do master the titular words Sword and Sorcery. There's almost a dozen battles, both serious and otherwise, in the book and all of them are awesomely described.

    Are there flaws? A few.

    Despite being a nunnery devoted to teaching women how to be a cross between Red Sonja and Warhammer 40K's Sisters of Battle, the Convent of Sweet Mercy doesn't actually feel that different from a lot of Hogwarts-influenced fiction. It functions more as a boarding school for those who have the talent of magic versus a place of genuine silent contemplation for the glory of the local deity (The Ancestor). Indeed, Nona isn't devout in the slightest and gets away with heresy and blasphemy that would have gotten me a good beating in modern day Catholic school let alone ancient times.

    The next bit is difficult as I don't want to sound perverted but the book also is weirdly sexless. I'm aware the teenage young women are in a convent/fortress but it does seem a bit strange the subject of sexuality or attraction never comes up. When Harry Potter and company hit fourteen, they thought about it constantly because that was realistic. Nona never seems attracted to anyone nor do any of her fellow novices, which is conspicuous by its absence as they're surrounded by men (or women as a couple of characters' tastes may range). This brought me out of the story just a bit.

    The book also sometimes devotes a little too much to the training montages of Nona and her schooling. While that's arguably the point, the fantasy genre is so littered with magical schools and the students thereof, that it felt a little longer than they should have been. Patrick Rothfuss, at least, put blonde ninjas in his schooling of Kvothe to liven things up. I would have preferred a couple of more field trips into the Emperor's court or gladiator pits than classes where the professors try to poison you.

    Despite this, Red Sister is a great book and one I recommend for Mark Lawrence, grimdark, and YA fans alike. Some folk will dislike the book's central theme (friendship and what it means to have people you can trust) but I think it worked well. Nona is an excellent character and I'm interested in how she's going to develop in future books of the Ancestor series.

9/10

Agent G: Infiltrator excerpt

Here's a sample chapter from my cyberpunk thriller:

 

Chapter One

I was sitting in the driver’s seat of a 2017 Mercedes Benz S-Klasse, staring at a handheld computer screen tapped into the security feed of the Everhope Hotel. It was a cold Chicago night and the tomb-like atmosphere of the parking garage didn’t help. Still, it was appropriate for my job: to kill very rich and powerful people for money.

The target, Marshall Redmond, was fifty-two, possessed a net worth of sixty hundred million dollars, and was currently attending a fundraiser for a cause only the one percent of the one percent could care about. Conservation of a breed of salmon or something. The fat blond man was sitting at the table in the front of the ballroom with his unhappy-looking spouse beside him.

I was dressed in a chauffeur’s outfit, deep in the identity I’d established for myself, and doing my best not to be bored out of my mind. I was G, just G. Once I had a human name and background, but that’d been scrubbed from my brain along with the rest of my past. Real Total Recall stuff. Despite losing almost the entirety of my life, I didn’t sweat the details too much. I was paid exorbitant amounts of money to do what I did and would get the details back after ten years. Supposedly. One thing you learned when working for the—finger quotes—”International Refugee Society” was paranoia. It was the most valuable skill they could teach you.

To allay my boredom, I often tried to figure out why the Society had sent me to kill a target. I mean, obviously, it was because someone had paid them, but I mean the reasons behind the hit. Usually, it was depressingly simple: A target was having an affair and their spouse was a client. A target was a witness to a crime that could bring an end to a multimillionaire’s business. Or a political activist working for some group’s rights, or a political activist working against another group’s (many times the same group. Or someone who had made the mistake of betraying their employer in some way.

Not Marshall Redmond. No, he was special. To look at him, you’d think he was being targeted by his wife for decades of unhappy marriage or by someone he’d bilked out of millions. He looked like Bernie Madoff, not Osama bin Laden. However, it was closer to the latter than former. Marshall Redmond was a terrorist, or at least a terrorist financier. The difference was academic, really, since the former could kill a few hundred people in a bombing while the latter could kill thousands by organizing dozens.

Honestly, that had caught me off guard. People weren’t complex. Nine times out of ten, they were exactly what they appeared to be. It made me curious to see how a guy who’d grown up in the country club circuit had ended up dealing with everyone from ISIS to Red Sword.

“Well, I’ll find out soon enough,” I muttered. “Dead men tell no tales, but the about-to-die are remarkably chatty.”

After waiting twenty minutes for them to arrive, I saw Redmond and his wife part ways and move to their separate cars. Redmond and his bodyguard moved toward this car, the former looking distressed with the latter. Redmond’s bodyguard was a tall, thirty-two-year-old, muscular black man named Charles Dulcimer. Dulcimer was an ex-Navy Seal who had done contracts for Universiti and was currently working for the world’s largest security corporation. He looked violently ill and seconds later threw up on Redmond’s shoes.

“Tsk-tsk-tsk,” I said, shaking my head, adjusting the side view mirror. “You should always watch what you eat, Charles. You never know what someone might have slipped into it.”

Wow, I was so bored I was talking to myself.

Redmond backed away in disgust, yelled some obscenities at the man, and climbed into the back seat of the car. According to the profile, Redmond had never been comfortable with Dulcimer as his bodyguard. At the risk of pulling the race card, I suspected the ex-mercenary’s looks had a large part to play in it. 

I was biracial myself, at least per my medical records, but light-skinned enough to pass as a white man. Doubly so since I dyed my hair blonde. Really, my appearance was perfect for putting people like Redmond at ease. These things I could disguise with the right wigs, contacts, and prosthetics, but tonight I was going as something close to the “real” me. It was dangerous, but the FBI didn’t exactly collect information on the Society either. Hell, they were one of its biggest clients.

“Take me home, David,” Redmond said, looking at his shoes. “God almighty, those people. Do we have a napkin or something in here?”

I reached into the glove compartment and removed some McDonald’s napkins I’d collected just in case this sort of situation happened. Putting on a stereotypical Southern drawl, I said, “Here, sir. I hope these help.”

Redmond took them before shooting me a dirty look. “Have you been eating in my car?”

I continued speaking like the expected hick. “No, sir, I ate outside, washed my hands, and came back in. I put the napkins in because you can never have too many napkins.”

“Good,” Redmond said, patting his interior lovingly. “Do you know that fucker actually wants to rezone the city to attract more foreign investment?”

“That fucker” I assumed to be the mayoral candidate. “Really?”

“Ugh. I’d tell him to go to hell, but I’m getting first dibs on several of those projects.”

I’d been working for Redmond for the better part of a week, having arranged for his previous driver to take a preferred assignment with an ex-fashion model known for banging her chauffeurs. I’d then taken over his job after making sure my name was at the top of the list via my Assistant’s computer hacking. Breaking into the limousine service Redmond used wasn’t exactly a challenge for a woman who had cracked the International Refugee Society’s servers, but Marissa was itching for work as much as I was.

I pulled out the car into Chicago’s busy streets. The most difficult part of the mission was over, and I could dispose of my target at any time. However, as I mentioned before, I was curious about what made a man like Redmond throw away a privileged life for something so ephemeral as politics.  “Do you ever give any thought to the matter of identity?”

Redmond reached into his jacket and pulled out a bottle of prescription pain killers before popping three into his mouth. “What the fuck are you going on about?”

It was over now. Redmond just didn’t know it. I’d managed to replace the contents of his bottle with a much, much stronger dosage, plus several other recreational pharmaceuticals that would kill even a healthy man Redmond’s age. That was just the backup plan, really, to make sure he didn’t get away. Not that I was afraid he would, but I wasn’t a Letter because I took chances. I also had something more . . . elaborate planned for his demise.

“Memory. It’s the basis of our identities, but so much of it is malleable. We recast events how we want them to be and how our present-day opinions influence them. For example, a person who commits a terrible crime might think of himself as completely justified in the events and recall things that drove him to it—even if they never happened. It’s why eyewitness testimony is so unreliable. Because a lot of times, what people recall happening didn’t happen at all.”

Redmond started coughing, unable to respond.

“For me, I can’t help but think it raises some interesting philosophical questions. Do we ever really know a person? Are all the various wars and conflicts of history because we interpret events solely through our own perspective? If you are a person without a memory, do you have an identity at all, or are you simply a hollow shell? I prefer to believe we’re like cups, emptied and waiting to be filled anew, but retaining some semblance of our past selves.”

“You . . . “ I heard a gasping, labored voice speak behind me. Looking over my shoulder, I watched Redmond clutching his chest, sweating like a pig and reaching for his cellphone. He was desperately trying to enter the number for 911.

I lifted up a small black box. “This is a cellphone jammer. You can buy them at almost any electronics store. It’s hilarious.”

Redmond dropped his cellphone on the ground. “Why? Is it . . . is it Mahad?”

Mahad al-Malik was a Saudi Arabian real estate developer who was suspected of having ties to Red Sword, but was so low on the totem pole he was allowed to conduct business in the United States. I couldn’t make up this shit if I tried.

“Do I look like the kind of guy who works with terrorists?” I said, chuckling “Then again, you don’t exactly look like that sort of fellow yourself. By the way, my name isn’t David, it’s G. I know—that’s a letter, not a name, but it’s as close as I’ve got. No Men in Black jokes, please.”

“I can pay—”

I rolled my eyes. “I hate when targets say that, I really do. First of all, if I spared your life, then you wouldn’t pay me because you’d call the police or the FBI. Next, if you paid me beforehand, there’d be nothing to stop me from killing you afterward. Use your head.”

Redmond looked at me with pure hatred in his eyes. “You’re . . . insane.”

“Possibly,” I admitted, shaking my head. “The people who employ me put me through a fairly punishing regime of mental conditioning and drug therapies. Things designed to remove those qualities that don’t find humor in your situation, for example.”

Redmond started to cry. It was kind of sad, really. I usually felt better about these things when my target was dirty as fuck. Then again, Redmond was a racist white-collar criminal terrorist, which was a trifecta of things I loathed.

“I would like to know why, actually. That might change a few things.” It wouldn’t, but he didn’t know that.

“The money,” Redmond said, raising his hand into the air. “Red Sword robbed the banks of Mosul of . . . four hundred million dollars . . . they . . . needed someone to launder it.”

I stared at him, frowning. Such a disappointing motive. “Money? Really?”

“I had no choice.” Redmond wheezed, giving the excuse so many other targets gave. “They would have killed me and my family if I’d refused.”

“I’m sure they would have, once you took their money.” I shook my head and turned on the lights again before driving toward Chicago’s industrial district. It wouldn’t be long, now, until Redmond’s heart gave out. I’d have to work quickly if I wanted to make sure I got this whole thing resolved the way I wanted to. A good hit was like a work of art. If it was done properly, it was a remarkable sight and could be talked about for hours. It had to be done just perfectly, though, or the whole thing was ruined.

Redmond proceeded to surprise me again. “You . . . you work for the International Refugee Society.”

I looked into the rearview mirror. “Really? A twit like you knows about the Society?”

Redmond bitterly laughed. “You fucking bastard, they’re the people who arranged the meeting between Mahad and me.”

“As bad as I think my employers are, I don’t think they finance terrorism.” 

Terrorists, by and large, couldn’t afford us.

“They’re going to steal . . . the money.”

“Good for them.”

“I can arrange for the . . . CIA . . . to help you. To protect you. They can . . . get you your memories back.”

Redmond knew way too much to be what he appeared. Worse, he was dangling the one carrot in front of my face that might entice me.

The chance to know who I was.

Pulling onto a set of train tracks just moments before the barriers moved down both in front and behind me, I heard the warning bells as the flagger began flashing. I could see the train coming down from my left. I turned off the headlights to make sure the car wasn’t visible to the engineer. I had to make a choice now. Eh, who was I kidding? There was no choice. “The CIA won’t go against the Society.”

I stepped out of the car, went to the back of the trunk, and pulled out a drugged and confused-looking David Johnson, a.k.a Josh Harden. He was the man whose identity I’d stolen. An ex-convict and registered sex offender who was operating under a false identity while he sold pills to rich clients. We had a vague resemblance. Especially when you put as much effort into not being noticed as I did.

Putting him in the driver’s seat and adjusting his hat to be perfect, I shut the door and walked forward as the 11:30 train barreled down the tracks.  I was fifty feet away before I heard the screeching, smashing, and crushing noise that was the death rattle of Redmond and his driver.

I confirmed both kills before walking away from the crime scene and turning my chauffeur’s attire inside out. The black suit top became a Chicago Cubs sports jacket and the hat a ball cap. The pants would become blue jeans, but I would wait until I was somewhere more private to change those. I also needed to contact the Home Office to confirm my kill.

Cramming my tie into my pocket, I pulled out my cellphone before removing a thin metal wire from its side with a needle at the end. I jabbed the needle into the right side of my temple, linking it up to the IRD implant they’d removed part of my brain to install. Cybernetics came with being a Letter.

The International Refugee Society had access to a lot of technology well above what regular humanity did, and instead of using it to help people, they used it to make better killers. Says something about the world, doesn’t it? I wasn’t the Six Million Dollar Man or anything, but I could run sixty miles per hour without breathing hard and recovered in two days the last time I was shot. OK, maybe I was the Six Million Dollar Man, adjusted for inflation.

“Hello, G, is the mission completed?” A woman’s voice interrupted my musings.

A holographic image of an older, white-haired woman in a white business suit appeared in front of my vision. It was Persephone, the Society’s Director. It was unusual for her to be the one answering this sort 

of call. Usually, Marissa was the one to check on my progress and relay it to my superiors.

“No, I just love stabbing myself in the head with an information jack.”

“You should learn to watch your mouth. If you weren’t my favorite, I’d have it sewn shut.”

“I bet you say that to all the Letters.”

“Yes, but you should at least have the courtesy to not point that out.”

“Yes, Mom.”

I could feel Persephone’s irritation. I had to wonder what sort of person I was to continually challenge my superiors like that. I didn’t want to. I wanted to just serve out my ten years and retire with the ungodly amount of money I’d made during my contract. Preferably some place with large amounts of sunshine and rum. Yet I just had to push. It was unsettling.

“Now, I repeat, is the job done? No complications?”

“None. Tomorrow the headline will read a suicidal chauffeur decided to kill himself and his boss after deciding he couldn’t live with his crimes. Add in the business with the pills in Redmond’s stomach, and his businesses will be radioactive for the next few months. Just like the client wanted.”

Technically, they’d just said Redmond should die in “infamy,” but I’d interpreted that to mean something 

like this.

“We’ll be sending in financial cleaners to his office tomorrow for the next part of the contract. Did he mention anything of importance before you completed your mission?”

“No, ma’am,” I lied, thinking about the whole Red Sword and CIA business Redmond had mentioned. Was it true? Maybe. It didn’t matter now. He was in a hundred pieces and any connection to the Society in his files would be erased tomorrow. It wasn’t my problem, though. I needed to stay loyal. I’d served five years of my ten years of service. I would make it to Reassignment.

“Good. Your payment is awaiting pickup with a bonus for prompt delivery. I’m afraid you’re not going to be able to enjoy spending it on your usual orgy of alcohol, hookers, and cocaine, though.”

“I don’t use cocaine.” I’d also rapidly cut down on my alcohol and hooker intake since beginning my relationship with Marissa. I wasn’t about to tell Persephone that, though, since I didn’t know how that would affect our working relationship. They might reassign her, or worse, and I didn’t want to imagine what life would be like without her. Marissa was one of the few things that made me feel human.

“I need you to come in to the Home Office as soon as possible. This is a time-sensitive issue,” Persephone said, shaking me out of my thoughts. “High priority.”

“Understood.”

“Say hello to the wife while you’re in town. I’m sure she misses you.”

“Like a bullet in the head.”

“Be prompt. Those can be arranged.”

Persephone’s image vanished from view and I removed my information jack. The encryption built into my head meant no one, short of the supercomputers at the NSA, could decrypt our conversations. Theoretically. I couldn’t help but think the Society’s overreliance on technology was a weakness rather than strength. 

“Fuck, I need to get cleaned up,” I muttered, disappearing behind some empty rail cars as police sirens buzzed in the distance.

I was gone before they arrived.

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