Deep Space Boogie - Scott Baron

   2021; 138 pages.  Book 1 (out of 5) in the “Warp Riders” series.  New Author? : Yes.  Genres : Space Opera; Science Fiction; Space Exploration.  Overall Rating: 7½*/10.

 

    Space.  The final frontier.  It’s big.  Hugely big.

 

    Just ask Captain Sadira Perez.  She’s just volunteered to lead a mission into deep space, looking for a planet with sentient lifeforms on it, and with a less than friendly disposition.  Their space travel technology is superior to ours, judging from a recent initial encounter with them, where they came this close to destroying one of our starships, then went warping away (think Star Trek) to regions unknown.

 

    Our Artificial Intelligences (“AI”) have given Sadira the general direction to which they fled.  But who knows how far they jumped?  We humans have warp technology as well, but the AI estimates it will still take at least five years to scout that part of the galaxy, and that assumes nothing goes wrong.

 

    Alas, Murphy decided to pay a visit to Sadira (their way of citing Murphy’s Law), and right off the bat her ship’s warp drive overheated, which almost blew all aboard to smithereens.  Things were eventually brought under control, but now their AI's star charts are useless, and they have no idea where they are, how to get home, or how to get to the galactic area they’ve been assigned to scout.

 

    That five-year estimate for the mission seems rather low right now.

 

What’s To Like...

    Deep Space Boogie is the opening book in Scott Baron’s space opera “Warp Riders” series.  Amazon labels it “Book One of Six”, while at Goodreads it’s called “Book 0.5 of Four”.  Goodreads’ designation is probably more accurate, since Deep Space Boogie is of novella length (130 pages or so), and, I gather, serves as the prequel to the series.  Scott Baron also offers the first two installments bundled together, which is the way I’m reading them.

 

    The book is a fine example of Space Opera; the reader is treated to various creatures (humans, AI, cyborgs, chithiid, and other extraterrestrials), weapons (railguns plasma cannons, pulse pistols and cannons, and furry pink ferocity), and gizmos (stasis pods and warp drives).  The action begins immediately, the pacing is brisk, and I don’t recall any awkward info dumps.  The main purpose of the story appears to be to introduce the reader to the ship’s crew and explain how they all got thrown together.

 

    There’s a fair amount of wit and humor, mostly in the dialogue, but it doesn’t overshadow the main storyline.  Some of the action may be over-the-top, but this is first and foremost a space opera, not a spoof or a satire.  I thought the characters were well developed; each crewmember has his or her (and in one case, both) own individual traits.  The editing is good, which was a welcome relief from a lot of efforts by indie authors.

 

    There aren’t a lot of characters to keep track of, which makes sense since we’re following the crew of a single spaceship as they blindly hop around the galaxy, desperately trying to find a familiar location.  There’s a nice mix of “races” in the crew (see above), and my favorite one is the last to join.  It will be yours as well.

 

    The ending is decent with a nice little twist to it that I didn’t see coming.  The immediate plotline is tied up, but the overall one – Sadira and her team finding their way home – remains open.  I don’t view that as a negative; the book’s purpose is to get you ready for further warp-jumping adventures, and I appreciate the author not sinking to the use of a cliffhanger.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.7*/5, based on 32 ratings.

    Goodreads: 4.10*/5, based on 40 ratings and 14 reviews

 

Excerpts...

    “Okay, listen up, everyone.  We’re going to try something.  If it works, we’ll lose gravity and life support for a few minutes, so stay calm and conserve air until we get it back up and online.”

    “And if it fails?” Goonara’s wavering voice asked.

    “It’ll be over so fast we won’t even know it.” Sadira replied.  “But think positive.”

    “Yeah,” Moose chimed in.  “And if we blow up, at least we’ll go out on a happy thought.”  (loc. 626)

 

    Sure, they’d have one another’s company on those long runs, but neither had formed any sort of affectionate bonds with anyone when they were back home, and the only love between them was the platonic variety.

    Having something to pour his love into had given her friend an outlet neither had realized he needed.  And as much as it had never even been a blip on her mental radar, it seemed her crew now had a mascot.

    And its name was Turd.  (loc. 1626)

 

Kindle Details…

    Deep Space Boogie sells for $0.99 right now at Amazon, as does its sequel, Belly of the Beast.  The other three books in the series each cost $3.99, and you have an additional option of picking up the first two books bundled together for just $0.99.  Scott Baron has several other series to offer, with the books therein costing anywhere from free to $3.99.  Various bundles, containing anything from two to six books in these series, range in price from $0.99 to $23.94.

 

“Ooh, chatty primordial ooze.  I long for the day.”  (loc. 164)

    The quibbles are minor.  There is some cussing, which is typical of most Space Operas.  But it's not excessive: I counted only eleven instances in the first quarter of the book.  There's a nice variety to the cusswords, with a slight preference for “hell”.  That's it for the R-rated stuff; I don’t recall any sex or drugs or rock-&-roll.

 

    One of the crewmembers, Holly (the ship’s AI) has gender-identity issues.  I noticed this before Sadira and her colleagues do, which makes me wonder if it started out as a plot continuity blip.  No matter, it will be interesting to see if/how this impacts any of the other stories down the line.

 

    There’s not much of a backstory given, other than a brief reference to a “Great War” being fought twelve years earlier and which was won by us humans.  However, another reviewer noted that the book is set in the same world as Scott Baron’s Clockwork Chimera series, who's protagonist, Daisy, makes a cameo appearance here.

 

    Finally, if the title had any tie-in with the story, I missed it.  I even searched the e-book version for the word “boogie” but found no hits outside of the title.

 

    7½ Stars.  Add 1 star if you’ve read the Clockwork Chimera series.  I have a feeling I missed something by not doing so.

Death by Black Hole - Neil deGrasse Tyson

   2007; 362 pages.  Full Title: Death by Black Hole and Other Cosmic Quandaries.  New Author? : No.  Genres : Science; Essays; Non-Fiction; Astrophysics.  Overall Rating : 9½*/10.

 

    Consider the following declarations.  The North Star is the brightest star in the nighttime sky.  The Sun is a yellow star.  What goes up must come down.  On a dark night you can see millions of stars with the unaided eye.  In space there is no gravity.  A compass points north.  Days get shorter in the winter and longer in the summer.  Total solar eclipses are rare.

    Every statement in the above paragraph is false.

    (from “Death by Black Hole”, pg. 293)

 

    Are you curious as to why the above statements are untrue?  Do you ask questions like: What would happen if you (or a star) fell into a black hole?  How can 100+ different elements get created from a single "Big Bang"?  What the heck is a supernova?  A quasar?  What’s the likelihood of a killer asteroid wiping us out like one did to the dinosaurs?  Can God and Science coexist?

 

    The answers to the above questions, why those first statements are all inaccurate, plus many more, can be found in Neil deGrasse Tyson’s book Death by Black Hole.

 

    And you don’t have to be an astrophysicist to understand what he’s saying.

 

What’s To Like...

    Death by Black Hole is a series of 42 essays, plus a Prologue, by the eminent author/astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson.  He divides them up into seven sections, and 362 pages, meaning the essays are relatively short: just 8+ pages on average, which my brain appreciated.

 

    The essays cover a wide variety of science-related topics.  Some of my favorites were:

    05 : Stick-in-the-Mud Science

        The amazing experiments you can do with just a stick, a string, and an hourglass.

    12 : Speed Limits

        Measuring the speed of light.

    25 : Living Space

        How likely is life to develop elsewhere in the Cosmos.

    26 : Life in the Universe

        How likely is intelligent life to develop elsewhere in the Cosmos.

    30 : Ends of the World

        Three possible ways it might happen.

    32 : Knock ‘em Dead

        Mass extinctions: what caused them?

 

    This is my second Neil deGrasse Tyson book (the other one is reviewed here), and once again I was in awe of his ability to simplify complex scientific concepts to where even readers with non-technical backgrounds can comprehend and enjoy them.  Tyson has a knack for blending science with modern-day culture.  Deep subjects such as Lagrange points and quasars are mentioned alongside things like Pink Floyd (Dark Side of the Moon, naturally), Star Trek “redshirts”, and astrophysical bloopers Tyson noticed while watching several blockbuster science fiction movies.

 

    The book is a trivia nerd’s delight.  I was surprised to learn that an unopened can of Pepsi will float in water, while an unopened can of Diet Pepsi will sink.  I learned the etymology of the words algorithm, solstice, and quasar; laughed at the use of the terms spaghettification and astro-illiteracy; and smiled when the author revealed he’s had an asteroid named after him (”13123 Tyson”).  The world’s record low temperature (-129°F, in Antarctica) gave me shivers, while the world’s record high temperature (+136°F, in Libya) made me break out in a sweat.

 

    The science-oriented trivia was equally enlightening.  I enjoyed learning about Foucault’s pendulum, why the astronomer Percival Lowell honestly believed he observed canals on Venus, and how a Greek mathematician named Eratosthenes calculated the Earth’s circumference (to within 15% of the precise value) in the third century BCE.  The odds of life developing somewhere else in the Universe were much higher than I would have guessed, and I was fascinated that the element Technetium doesn’t occur naturally on Earth but has been found in the atmosphere of a couple of red giant stars in our galaxy.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.8*/5, based on 2,047 ratings.

    Goodreads: 4.07*/5, based on 29,573 ratings and 1,367 reviews

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Syzygy (n.) : a conjunction or opposition, especially of the moon with the sun.

Others: Noctilucent (adj.).

 

Excerpts...

    One night a couple decades ago, while I was on winter break from graduate school and was staying at my parents’ house north of New York City, I turned on the radio to listen to classical music.  A frigid Canadian air mass was advancing on the Northeast, and the announcer, between movements of George Frideric Handel’s Water Music, continually tracked the descending outdoor temperature: “Five degrees Fahrenheit.”  “Four degrees.”  “Three degrees.”  Finally, sounding distressed, he announced, “If this keeps up, pretty soon there’ll be no temperature left!”  (pg. 180)

 

    When people believe a tale that conflicts with self-checkable evidence it tells me that people undervalue the role of evidence in formulating an internal belief system.  Why this is so is not so clear, but it enables many people to hold fast to ideas and notions based purely on supposition.  But all hope is not lost.  Occasionally, people say things that are simply true no matter what.  One of my favorites is, “Wherever you go, there you are” and its Zen corollary, “If we are all here, then we must not be all there.”  (pg. 297)

 

“Get your facts first, and then you can distort ‘em as much as you please.” (Mark Twain)  (pg. 329)

    I can’t think of anything to quibble about in Death by Black Hole, other than a single typo on page 132 referring the reader to “Section 9” for more information about the possibility of God stepping in “every now and then to set things right”.  There is no section 9.  That’s probably a printing error, since correct would be “Section 7”.

 

    A number of Amazon and Goodreads reviewers felt otherwise.  Some of their complaints:

 

    Neil deGrasse Tyson’s writing is too cute.  The book had no pictures of black holes.  The book’s cover was torn and the pages wrinkled.  Fake print.  Too hard.  Too simple (“cute beginner astronomy book”).  Too pessimistic.  Too anti-creation.  Too scary.  Not enough about black holes.

 

    Sigh.  For me, this was a great read that thoroughly met my expectations.  The essays are deep, yet not incomprehensible, unlike some other astrophysics books I’ve struggled through.  I highly recommend it to anyone seeking a greater understanding about how the Cosmos got here, where it’s going, what we know about the objects and forces that make up the Universe, and how we obtained that knowledge.

 

    9½ Stars.  One last teaser for the book.  Chapter 12 presents the history of scientists trying to determine the speed of light, starting with Galileo in the 1600s and continuing to the present day.  It thoroughly fascinated me.  The teaser is: if you wanted to do your own testing, how would you go about trying to measure the speed of light?

2001 - A Space Odyssey - Arthur C. Clarke

    1968; 256 pages.  Book 1 (out of 4) in the “Space Odyssey” series.  New Author? : Yes.  Genres : First Contact; Hard Science Fiction; Movie Tie-In.  Overall Rating: 9*/10.

 

    The evidence is persuasive: extraterrestrial beings have visited us.

 

    They left behind some sort of marker, and we’re not talking crop circles or spaceships either.  Instead, it’s a giant stone monolith buried 30 feet below ground.  Curiously, it was placed on the moon.  Talk about an out-of-the-way location.

 

    Needless to say, we Earthlings didn’t discover it until we made it to the moon and began to analyze what’s beneath its surface.  The slab's strong gravitational field was what clued us in that it wasn't a naturally-occurring object.

 

    Further testing showed that the monolith has been there quite some time.  About three million years, give or take a few millennia.  If some alien civilization possessed space travel technology that long ago, think of how more advanced they must be now.  Although to be honest, burying a marker underground, and on the moon, doesn't make a lot of sense.

 

    I wonder if they left any other monoliths behind for us.

 

What’s To Like...

    2001 – A Space Odyssey is Arthur C. Clarke’s companion book to Stanley Kubrick’s brilliant, spectacular, and incredibly popular 1968 sci-fi movie of the same name.  The "Introduction" in the front of this book (the “Millennial” Edition) details the extensive collaborative effort by these two geniuses to create a blockbuster sci-fi epic, with plans for the film and the novel to be released at the same time.

 

    I’ve seen the movie (three times!) and decided to now read the book.  I was surprised how much they differ, despite the Kubrick/Clarke partnership.  Some examples: the opening “man-ape” scenario in the book is played out in greater detail, with its monolith, dark and silent in the movie, performing some dazzling pyrotechnics.  Later on, HAL’s demise plays out differently and his/its reason for failure is explained in greater detail.  And perhaps most notably, the main mission’s destination in the book is now Saturn; while the movie’s endpoint is Jupiter.  Wikipedia gives a complete list of the differences; the link to it is here.

 

    The overall sequence of scenes is the pretty much the same.  Things start with the man-apes, then hop on a flight to the moon to look at the monolith.  After that, we join HAL, Dave, and Frank on a spaceflight to Jupiter, the final destination in the movie, and a gravitational booster in the book to save on gas for the trip to Saturn, where, when we arrive, we find a familiar object waiting to greet us.

 

    The book is written in a “hard science fiction” style; while the movie focuses on stunning visual effects.  I enjoyed Clarke's choice of the rarely-used but completely-awesome word “waldoes”, and had to YouTube the music references to “Verdi’s Requiem Mass” and the obscure “Walton’s Violin Concerto”.  In light of the present-day pandemic, the book’s mention of China being accused of initiating a “blackmail by synthetic disease” plot was eerily prescient.  And I appreciated Arthur Clarke addressing the urban legend about how the computer HAL got its name.  Hint: it is not a clever transition from the acronym IBM by moving each letter one spot earlier.

 

    The movie-vs-book ending is a trade-off.  You can’t reproduce the movie’s fabulous psychedelic climax with words, but Clarke does give a better explanation of it.  Neither version explains the appearance, purpose, and destiny of the Star Child, and the ease with which it destroys a missile-carrying satellite.  Presumably that will be addressed in the sequel, 2010 – Odyssey Two, which exists in both book and film formats.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.7*/5, based on 2,728 ratings.

    Goodreads: 4.15*/5, based on 280,092 ratings and 6,537 reviews

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Quietus (n.) : death, or something that causes death, regarded as a release from life.

Others: Ablative (adj.).

 

 

Excerpts...

    At last, one of Man’s oldest questions had been answered; here was the proof, beyond all shadow of doubt, that his was not the only intelligence that the universe had brought forth.  But with that knowledge there came again an aching awareness of the immensity of Time.  Whatever had passed this way had missed mankind by a hundred thousand generations.  Perhaps, Floyd told himself, it was just as well.  And yet — what we might have learned from creatures who could cross space, while our ancestors were still living in trees!  (loc. 1094)

 

    “Mission Control has just dropped a small bomb on us.”  He lowered his voice, like a doctor discussing an illness in front of the patient.  “We may have a slight case of hypochondria aboard.”

    Perhaps Bowman was not fully awake, after all; it took him several seconds to get the point.  Then he said, “Oh — I see.  What else did they tell you?”

    “That there was no cause for alarm.  They said that twice, which rather spoiled the effect as far as I was concerned.”  (loc. 1878)

 

“The thing’s hollow – it goes on forever – and – oh my God! – it’s full of stars!”  (loc. 2686)

    I don’t really have any quibbles with 2001 – A Space Odyssey, neither with the movie nor the novel.  True, both leave a lot of plot threads unresolved, the movie more so, but the ending in both cases is at a logical point.

 

    The degree of storyline divergence is surprising, particularly in light of the amount of collaboration going on between Clarke and Kubrick, but both of them did a superb job within their respective fields.  We never do meet the monolith-crafting aliens, nor any of the other races of sentient creatures that are implied to exist, but I have no doubt that will be addressed in the rest of the series.

 

    The book version of 2001 – A Space Odyssey was a delight to read, and I was particularly impressed by how closely the hard science fiction proposed in it has matched up with the real-world technological advancements in space travel.  Somehow it seemed fitting that I should read this book in the same week as when Captain James T. Kirk made his ascension into the final frontier.

 

    9 Stars.  I can’t recall any other case of such close collaboration by a movie director and a novelist for the simultaneous development and release of a new movie-&-book combination.  In this age of indie and self-published authors, coupled with TikTok and YouTube video-makers, surely such an alliance should should be common practice.  Authors already co-write novels with other authors.  Why not co-produce your great idea with a movie-maker?

Bombshell - Mike Faricy

    2012; 258 pages.  Book 4 (out of 29) in the “Dev Haskell – Private Investigator” series.  New Author? : No.  Genres: Pulp Thriller; Hard-Boiled Mystery; Private Investigator Mystery.  Overall Rating : 7*/10.

 

    Somebody has been giving Harlotte Davidson, crowd favorite on the English women’s roller derby team, the Hastings Hustlers, the finger.  As in the middle finger.  Middle fingers, actually.  Four of them so far.  Severed human fingers.  Creepy.

 

    The Hastings Hustlers are currently on a US tour, and everyone’s on edge since those fingers were delivered, one apiece, at the last four stops along the way.  Their next match is against the Bombshells, the local roller derby team in Private Investigator Dev Haskell’s hometown of St. Paul, Minnesota.  Dev’s really excited about the Bombshells.

 

    Mostly he’s excited about one of the Bombshells, Justine, aka “Spankie”.  When she mentions that the Hustlers might be interested in some extra security for the St. Paul bout, Dev has an opportunity to mix business with pleasure, and maybe even catch the wacko with the middle finger fetish.

 

    Just where in the world does one go to procure a bunch of middle fingers?  I don’t think Amazon sells them.

 

What’s To Like...

    Bombshell is the fourth installment in Mike Faricy’s signature “Dev Haskell – Private Investigator” series, which is now up to 29 books.  I’m reading them in order, mostly because I have the bundled version of the first seven books.

 

    There’s really only one main storyline: what’s with the fingers, although that branches off into a.) who’s doing it, b.) where’s he getting the fingers from (there are no corpses popping up with missing middle fingers), and c.) what kind of sicko message is the perpetrator trying to convey?

 

    The story is told in the first-person POV, which I’m pretty sure is true for the entire series.  The chapters are short: 51 of them, averaging about 5 pages apiece.  There’s lots of action, and the pacing is rapid.  My favorite side character, Louie Laufen (Dev’s lawyer) gets plenty of ink here, and I get the impression he’s going to show up a lot more in the series, since Dev makes a habit of running afoul of the St. Paul Police Department.  I liked how the relationship between Dev and Detective Manning is developing.  Neither one likes the other, but they’re gradually learning to grudgingly respect each one’s abilities.

 

    Full disclosure: there’s not a lot of roller derby action involved and there seemed to be less attention than usual devoted to Dev’s romantic pursuits.  He still scores several times, but strikes out a lot as well.  There are a bunch neat musical references, with special praise given to Lionel Richie (positive) and Leonard Cohen (negative).  But Ozzy’s last name of misspelled (it’s “Osbourne”, not “Osborn”) which is absolutely unforgiveable.  I’m proud to say I guessed the identity of the perp very early on, even though this isn’t really a whodunit.

 

    The ending is contrived, over-the-top, and eminently entertaining.  Several WTF’s are employed, which will not be detailed since they’d be spoilers.  The main plot thread is resolved with six chapters still to go, but there was a “hidden” plotline lurking in the tale, which gets resolved after the finger-sender has been apprehended.  The book closes with a LOL exchange between Dev and Detective Manning.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.0/5 based on 345 ratings.

    Goodreads: 3.69/5 based on 798 ratings and 75 reviews

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Gobshite (n.) : a stupid and incompetent person (Irish slang).

Others: Tosser (n., British slang); Plonker (n., also British slang)

 

Excerpts...

    In the past thirty minutes I’d been joined by Louie Laufen, my lawyer.  I was still handcuffed, although the cuffs were no longer behind my back.

    “Oh, God,” Louie half burped, then screwed the top back onto a blue plastic Maalox bottle.  “I don’t know what I ate last night.”

    “A bottle of Jim Beam from the smell of that burp,” I said.  (loc. 12216)

 

    “Look, to be honest I tried to get tickets to Lionel, but they were sold out,” I lied.

    “Oh, really?”

    “Yeah, honest,” I said, then leaned back and contentedly sipped my beer, feeling I was in safe territory.

    “So, the fact that you’re involved in this roller derby murder, and working with the police, that doesn’t have a damn thing to do with us being here.  Is that right?”

    I sat forward and choked on a mouthful of beer.  If I felt around, I’d probably detect the thin ice I was suddenly on.  (loc. 13448)

 

Kindle Details…

    Bombshell is priced at $3.99 at Amazon right now, as are all the other books in this series, with the exception of Book 28, The Big Gamble, which is discounted to $2.99.  You can also buy the first seven books bundled together for $9.99, which is quite the savings.  Mike Faricy has several other series for your Kindle, and most if not all of those books go for either $2.99 or $3.99.

 

“How the hell could someone have access to a steady supply of fingers?”  (loc. 12017)

    Most of the nitpicking has already been noted: the WTF’s in the ending, the mangling of Sir Ozzy’s last name, and the rolls-in-the-hay, a staple of this series, and which seem to offend some readers.  The cussing is not excessive – I counted only 13 cases in the first 20% of the book – and the one use of the epithet “douche bag” made me chuckle.

 

    The main problem, as several Goodreads reviewers also noted, is the abundance of typos and grammar misusage.  “Osborn/Osbourne” is just the tip of the iceberg.  Commas are abused, as are apostrophes, and compound words such as raincoat, hairbrush, handcuffed, and fundraising, are habitually separated into two words.  Some of the more humorous slipups were snuggly/snugly, pricy/pricey, and complacency/complicity.

 

    There’s no arguing that these grammar gaffes distract, but I think awarding a one-star rating because of them, as some Goodreads reviewers did,  is excessive.  I recognize that most indie authors double as their own editors, which is inherently ineffective, but getting a couple of volunteers to proofread the manuscript should be cheap (a free copy of the book) and easy (just read it and record any errors).

 

    7 Stars.  Please keep in mind that the focus in these Dev Haskell books is on Dev's humor-filled and action-packed misadventures, both as a PI and a ladies’ man.  As such, it does not include a clever and tightly-constructed mystery.  To steal a quote from another reviewer, “check your brain at the door, and enjoy the ride”.  I did.

Horded - Frances Pauli

   2013; 251 pages.  Book Two (out of five) in the Kingdoms Gone series.  New Author? : No.  Genres: Romantic Fantasy; Fairy Tale Fantasy.  Overall Rating : 7*/10.

 

    There are no gobelins anymore.  Everybody knows that.  They were wiped out years ago in the Final War.

 

    So imagine how shocked the citizens of Ramstown were, including Maera, when one of them popped out of thin air (literally!) into their fair city.  Worse yet, he was obviously a warrior gobelin: big, built, armed, and ugly.

 

    Well, there’s only one of him, and a whole village full of humans, so if the gobelin's spoiling for a fight, he’s going to lose before he kills too many townspeople.

 

    Unfortunately, Maera's the first person he heads for.  He’s muttering something in gobelin-speak; it sounds like “tir talus”, whatever that means.  And then, before anyone can stop him, he does the unthinkable to her.

 

    He kisses her.

 

What’s To Like...

    Horded is the second book in Frances Pauli’s “Kingdoms Gone” series and is pretty much equal parts Romance and Fantasy.  I read the first book, Unlikely, a couple years ago; it is reviewed here.  There are two main plotlines to follow: a.) the gobelin/human love angle, highlighted by Maera’s (and the reader's) quest for the meaning of “tir talus”, and b.) the fate of the gobelin clan that Tal belongs to as it struggles to coexist with humans and rival gobelin tribes.  

 

    We follow two protagonists: Maera, the human outcast whom most Ramstown folks dislike to varying degrees, and Tal, who is not the gobelin introduced above, but rather that one’s younger, less-respected brother.  These are not the same protagonists from Book One, and after peeking at the Amazon blurbs for the rest of the books in the series, that pattern holds true for all five novels.

 

    There’s a smattering of fantasy critters to meet and greet: gobelins, gargoyles, and an imp or two, plus, of course, an abundance of humans.  The main form of magic here involves “pockets”, portals that allow instant movement to faraway places, maybe even parallel worlds.

 

    I presume the target audience is YA girls who enjoy fairytale romance tales.  Horded is a “clean” story: I counted only 17 cusswords in the entire text, and there’s no sex or drugs or rock-&-roll.  There is some fighting, some blood spilled, and a death or two, but the gore is minimal.  I liked the clever use of “alternate cussing” phrases, including “unicorn dung”, “blood and magic”, and “humping unicorns”.

 

    Things close with a decent ending.  Tal and his fellow gobelins fulfill a prophecy, or at least I think they do.  The romance angle does not end how I thought it would, and frankly that’s a plus.  Some of the plot threads remain unresolved, including the fates of Olin and Old Gutra (who and who?), but perhaps these get addressed later on.  There’s a great twist at the very end which serves as a teaser for the next book in the series, Forgotten.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.7/5 based on 5 ratings.

    Goodreads: 4.38/5 based on 13 ratings and 4 reviews

 

Excerpts...

    “You fight like a woman.”

    “You bleed like a pig.”

    Torg groaned and leaned back on one hand.  He used his other to catch some of the blood, winced at the puddle in his palm and then laughed again.  “You only have that one move?”

    “It seems to work … every time.”

    “I just want you to feel what it’s like to be a real gobelin.”

    “Unicorn dung.”  (loc. 3321)

 

    “Maybe it was all supposed to happen like this.”  She thought of the tir talus then.  Gobelins believed in Fate, at least a little.  They had to.  “Maybe everything we do is what we’re supposed to do, even the mistakes.  What Torg does, what you and I do, even what Rulak does, who knows what the purpose is or where it will put us all in the end?”

    “The end may be sooner than you imagine.”  (loc. 3575)

 

Kindle Details…

    Horded presently sells for $2.99 at Amazon.  The other four books in the series range in price from $0.99 (Book 1) to $4.99 (Book 5), or you can pick up the whole series bundled together for a mere $6.99.  Frances Pauli has lots of other books and series available for your Kindle, in varying genres, ranging in length from short stories to novels, and in price from $0.99 to $9.50.

 

“I.  Want.  A.  Bath.”  (loc. 3020)

    Most of the quibbles are the same as for Book One.  The backstory and world-building are minimal, which means the reader is left with lots of questions about things like the Final War and the magic castle,  I couldn't tell the difference between the Tinkers and the Skinners, ditto for the Granters and the Goodmothers, and if you’re a human but not part of the Gentry, does that make you a Muggle?  Finally, the fact that it appears there are different protagonists for each book makes me wonder if Maera and Tal exit the series here.  If so, that would be a shame.

 

    There are a lot of typos in Horded, to the point where it became distracting.  Almost all of them are spellchecker errors, such as aide/aid (four times!), Genrty/Gentry, site/sight, Rultak/Rulak, nauseas/nauseous, gate/gait, forth/fourth, and my favorite, nosily/noisily.  Another round of editing/proofreading is in order, but it’s possible that this has already been done, since the current version of Horded features a different e-book cover than the one I read.

 

    Keep in mind that for Horded’s target audience, teenage girls, the above quibbles probably won’t matter one bit.  They’ll likely be looking for a  plotline akin to Beauty and the Beast, and in that respect, Horded does just fine.  Male readers, no matter what age, need to remember that this story gives equal status to both the romance and fantasy aspects, and tailor their expectations accordingly.  It may not be Lord of the Rings, but it’s still a pretty good read.

 

    7 Stars.  Oh yeah, one last thing.  Any book that has a beast named Henry in it will always get a thumbs-up from me.