Lost Is The Night - Greg James

   2014; 174 pages.  Full Title: Lost Is The Night: A Grim Dark Fantasy Adventure.  Book 2 (out of 3) in the “Khale the Wanderer” series.  New Author? : No.  Genres: Dark Fantasy; Time Travel.  Overall Rating : 7½*/10.

 

    Khale the Wanderer is a stranger in a strange land.  He seeks only shelter for the night, and if luck is with him, yon castle will take pity on him and let him sleep in the stable.  The castle guard that is approaching him will hopefully not try to kill him.

 

    “Master Khale, you are welcome to Castle Barneth.”  The guard somehow knows who he is?  Khale’s self-preservation reflexes go on full alert.

 

    “Come with me, if it pleases you.  The feast is begun and Lord Barneth awaits your company.”  Khale's jaw drops.  He, a lowly traveler, is on the guest list?  Surely this is a trap of some sort.  Can things get any weirder?

 

    “The feast is in your honour, and you are missed.”

 

What’s To Like...

    Lost Is The Night is the continuation of the journey of Khale, a sort of “Conan the Barbarian” protagonist.  It is the sequel to Under A Colder Sun, which I read a couple years ago, and is reviewed here.

 

    Despite the feast being already underway, there are priorities.  Khale is caked with dirt and foul odors from his journeying, and requests a bath, which the steward of Castle Barneth readily arranges.  The bathing amenities include Cacea, a beautiful maiden who will do the scrubbing of Khale.  We’ll let you guess whether other services are offered.

 

    The main storyline involves the subsequent adventures of both Khale and Cacea.  The book’s subtitle, “A Grim Dark Fantasy Adventure”, is quite apt.  The fantasy in this book, and indeed, this series, is not lighthearted, nor intended for kids.  Lord Barneth’s sigil is a red wheel with a crucified victim on it.  The tone of the book reflects that.

 

    I enjoyed the gradual evolution of Khale’s character.  He started out in this series a total anti-hero, but here we are seeing him learning to care about others and about the role he plays in the events unfolding around him.  Does he get to make his own decisions when Thoughtless Dark stands before him?  Or is he simply a meat-and-bones puppet on strings, being manipulated by a higher power?

 

    The ending is appropriately grim and dark, highlighted by an exciting fight scene.  None of the plot threads are resolved, but hey, that’s presumably what the next and final book, Hordes of Chaos, is for.

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Goetic (adj.) : pertaining to black magic or necromancy.

Others: Xanthic (adj.); Foetor (n.); Benighted (adj.).

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.1*/5, based on 52 ratings and 16 reviews.

    Goodreads: 3.82*/5, based on 38 ratings and 5 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    “Good evening, Master Khale.  I am Bartell, his Lordship’s steward, and I will attend to your needs.”

    Khale looked him over.  Dressed in blue-green silks, he looked, for all the world, like an over-embroidered cushion.  The wrinkles in his face wept dry tears of perfumed powder.  When the man smiled falsely at him, the Wanderer saw familiar signs of a life spent eating too many sweetmeats and loqma cakes.

    Rotten on the inside, fragrant as morning on the outside.

    He could taste the sin hanging in the air around this one.  (loc. 180)

 

    Murtagh was speechless as the nightmare thing before him finished pouring the last traces of itself from the bowl where it had been in repose.  The elongated mass rushed at him, a tide of black quicksilver moving across the chamber in a single, sinuous motion that consumed the space between them.  Its lipless mouth opened and continued to open, becoming a gaping wound that muttered to itself in the language of decayed silt and haunted mires.  (loc. 1638)

 

Kindle Details…

    Lost Is The Night sells for $2.99 at Amazon right now.  The other two books in the series go for the same price.  Greg James has several other series and standalone e-books available on Amazon, ranging in price from $0.99 to $2.99.

 

“Slow and predictable,” Khale mocked.  “You fight with too much honour.”.  (loc. 608)

    Surprisingly, I only counted eight cusswords in the first 25% of Lost Is The Night, although five of those were f-bombs.  There are several rolls-in-the-hay and references to three variations of the act of intimacy.  The experience on the red wheel is left to the reader’s imagination but not the outcome.

 

    The editing was good; I espied only one typo, “bows” instead of “boughs”.  As already mentioned, this book takes place immediately after the first book, and there are numerous back-references to events therefrom, so I’d suggest reading this series in chronological order and gearing up that you’re committing to reading all three books in the series.

 

    Finally, keep in mind the books in this series are all short.  The longest book is the first, at a mere 214 pages, and they get progressively shorter as the series continues.

 

    Nonetheless, I enjoyed Lost Is The Night.  It’s a fast-paced action-adventure tale with no slow spots, and the “grim dark fantasy” phrase in the subtitle let me know what to expect as far as R-rated material goes.  I’m curious to see how Greg James manages to resolve all the plotlines in a mere 163 pages of the final book, and will try not to wait two years to read the sequel.

 

    7½ Stars.  One last thing.  You’ll notice “time-travel” is listed as a genre for Lost Is The Night.  When you come to the end of the last chapter, you may, as I did, wonder where the heck the Time Travel was.  Not to worry, you still have the Epilogue to read.

The Devil Colony - James Rollins

   1982; 605 pages (or 647 pages if the short story is included).  New Author? : No.  Book 7 (out of 18) in the “Sigma Force” series.  Genres: Thriller-Suspense; Action-Adventure.  Overall Rating : 9*/10.

 

    It’s a major archaeological discovery!  An Indian burial site, hidden away in a cave in the mountains of Utah.

 

    Maggie Grantham and Hank Kanosh, a pair of professors from nearby Brigham Young University, have been dispatched to do the first inspection of the burial ground.  Professor Kanosh is a historian and a member of the Shoshone tribe.  Including him in the excavation will hopefully quell any protests by Native Americans in the area about desecrating their dead.  So will assigning a detachment from the National Guard to the group.

 

    Cross your fingers, guys.  WAHYA, a militant Native American rights group and already known for carrying out headline-grabbing acts of defiance, will almost certainly have something planned against those who would violate a Native American graveyard.  Plus there’s the Ute curse.

 

    That tribe has a legend which says that if anyone enters a sacred burial area in these parts, they must be killed immediately.  Because if they somehow manage to leave the chamber, the world will come to an end.

 

What’s To Like...

    The Devil Colony is a “save the world” thriller that finds Painter Crowe’s Sigma team traipsing all over the globe trying to figure out what’s going on geologically, while at the same time trying not to get killed by the potently secretive group of bad guys known as "The Guild".  Painter himself gets more involved than usual in the case when he learns that his niece Kai is one of the WAHYA operatives.  Meanwhile, Sigma’s operations chief, Grayson Pierce, finds it difficult to focus on saving the Earth while simultaneously attending to his parents’ plight: his father is succumbing to dementia.

 

    Once again, I was in awe of the number of disparate topics that James Rollins weaves into the complex-yet-coherent storyline: the Anasazi, Iceland, Meriwether Lewis, Mormon historical lore, nanotechnology, Yellowstone, Solomon’s Temple, Fort Knox, the Great Seal of the United States, and many more.  I also liked very much that the main baddie is suitably resourceful when carrying out skullduggery against our heroes.

 

    It was fun to learn about a skeleton called “the Kennewick Man”, since I’ve made several business trips to that town in Washington.  There’s a bunch of French phrases in the text which is always a treat for me, and a smidgen of Native American dialects to boot.  The reader even learns a bit of mild Icelandic cussing (see below).

 

    The pacing is fast and furious, like every Action-Thriller should be.  The basic story is 597 pages long, and is divided into 44 chapters plus a prologue.  The chapters usually are introduced with locations, dates, and times, which is useful when trying to remember who is where and doing what.

 

    There’s a bonus short story, 38 pages long, tacked on at the back of the book, and featuring Seichan, a professional assassin and recent addition to the Sigma Force group.  Both tales also come with James Rollins’ trademark “Truth or Fiction” afterword, which I very much appreciate.

 

    The ending is spectacular with a favorable outcome in doubt down to literally the last second.  Humanity is saved (well, you knew that would happen), although The Guild is still alive and well.  The last chapter is an Epilogue with a couple of heartwarming revelations about some of the presumed dead.  Things close with a dazzling Plot Reveal in a six-word last sentence.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.5*/5, based on 4,011 ratings and 974 reviews.

    Goodreads: 3.86*/5, based on 26,982 ratings and 1,329 reviews.

 

Kewlest New Word ...

    Fjandinn (n.) : the devil (Icelandic).

    Others: “what the fjandanum” (phrase, half Icelandic).

 

Excerpts...

    Ryan now understood why they were called lava bombs.

    One sailed past overhead, raining flaming ash.  Cinders burned his cheeks, his exposed arms, reminding Ryan all too well that his vehicle had no roof.

    He ignored the pain and focused on the road ahead.  The Jeep bucked and rocked down the steep, rocky trail.  His left fender crumpled against an outcropping, shattering the headlamp on that side.  The Jeep lifted.  For a moment he swore he was driving on a single wheel, like a half-ton ballerina.  (pg. 207)

 

    Kai stared at a thin pall of dust retreating across the badlands.  Painter and the others had wasted no time, gathering gear and flying off in the rented SUV, even taking the dog.

    But not her.

    Earlier, she’d reined in her anger, knowing it would do her no good.  Bitterness still burned like coal in her gut.  She’d been here at the start of all this mess.  She deserved to see it through to the end.  They kept saying that she had to bear the consequences of her actions like a woman, yet still treated her like a child.  (pg. 276)

 

Kowalski plus fireworks.  Not a good combination.  (pg. 563)

    There’s very little to gripe about in The Devil Colony.  The cussing is surprisingly sparse; I counted just six instances in the first 20% of the book.  Later, several f-bombs appear, plus a pair of references to genitalia.

 

    I only noted one miscue: sheered/sheared, which mean someone did a topnotch job of editing.  And some of the “Mormon history beliefs” used as keys to solving various conundrums in the tale are shaky at best, with the author admitting that in the Afterword.  But they contribute to the fascinating storyline, so all’s well that ends well.

 

    This was the seventh book I’ve read in the Sigma Force series.  I have high expectations each time I begin one, and I’ve never yet been disappointed.  The plotlines are complex, the world-building and character development are great, and the storytelling is outstanding.  No wonder James Rollins is my favorite Action-Thriller writer.

 

    9 Stars.  Oh yeah, one last thing.  When’s the last time you read a story where a pod of killer whales (orcas) had a life-saving experience?

Subterranean - James Rollins

   1999; 410 pages.  New Author? : No.  Genres : Thriller & Suspense; Action-Adventure.  Overall Rating: 8½*/10.

 

    Antarctica.  The only continent that doesn’t support native life.  Animals like penguins and walruses may live there; but they have to get their sustenance from the surrounding oceans.

 

    It’s been that way for millions of years, but not forever.  Earth’s tectonic plates shift slowly but inexorably.  Antarctica wasn’t always stuck at the South Pole.  Theoretically, someday we will dig down through all that ice and look for traces of plant life in the form of fossils.  Maybe even animal life.

 

    But that’s somewhere in the future.  At least that’s what paleoanthropologist Ashley Carter thinks.  Until someone contacts her and wants her to travel down to Antarctica to check out a recently discovered underground cavern.

 

    Which was found to have abandoned cliff dwellings in its walls.

 

What’s To Like...

    Subterranean is an early book by one of my favorite Thriller authors, James Rollins.  It predates his more famous Sigma Force series, and utilizes his standard, and satisfying, plot structure:

    Assemble a team of heroes and send them off on an adventure,

    Scatter them, put them all in peril, and make one or more of them a baddie,

    Keep the storyline interesting by jumping from one hero to another,

    Toss plot twists aplenty into the tale,

    Use incredible timing to get the gang back together for an over-the-top ending.

 

    In addition to lots of thrills and spills, Rollins examines what might occur if an isolated landmass, in this case Antarctica, is given millions of years to follow its own separate path of evolution.  In the real world, the Galapagos Islands give us a glimpse of what can happen, so does the second excerpt, below.

 

    There are a bunch of creatures for our adventurers to meet and flee from, usually unsuccessfully.  Listing them here would be a spoiler, but my favorite one was nicknamed “Tiny Tim” and is very definitely not the urchin from Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.

 

    Both the good guys and the baddies suffer some casualties along the way, and everything builds to an over-the-top, boffo ending.  All the plotlines get tied up, and there’s even some literary space for a sequel although I don’t think James Rollins ever penned one.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.3/5 based on 3,429 ratings and 767 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.02/5 based on 26,250 ratings and 946 reviews.

Excerpts...

    “I have a proposal to—”

    “Not interested.”  She pointed to the door.  “You and your entourage can hit the trail now.  Thanks anyway.”

    “If you’ll only lis—”

    “Don’t make me toss your butt outta here.”  She snapped her arms toward the screen door.

    “It pays a hundred grand for two months’ work.”

    “Just get your—”  Her arm dropped to her side.  Clearing her throat, she stared at Dr. Blakely, then raised an eyebrow.  “Now I’m listening.”  (pg. 10)

 

    She helped him sit up and raised a cup to his lips.  With shaky hands, he collected the cup and managed himself.

    “What happened?” he asked, glancing at Khalid, who now snored quietly from under the wet cloth.

    She explained the story of poisonous fungal spores while he finished his water.

    He handed her the cup.  “Is there anything down here that doesn’t want to eat us?”

    She grinned at him.  “This is a hostile environment.  I think for anything to survive it must learn to utilize the scarce resources to the fullest.  That means intense competition and varied modes of attack.”

    “Great.   What’s next?  Carnivorous butterflies?”  (pg. 206)

 

“Great, we’ve been captured by a bunch of kangaroos.”  (pg. 246)

    There’s not much to nitpick about in Subterranean.  I counted 21 instances of profanity in the first 10% of the book, and there were a couple of rolls-in-the-hay later on.  That’s pretty normal for a thriller novel.  I only caught one typo, breech/breach, so the editing was very good.

 

    The timing of some of the action scenes and heroes reuniting with each other seemed incredibly coincidental at times; such as Tiny Tim’s ultimate contribution to the action.  But hey, if it heightens the excitement, I’m all for it.  My biggest quibble concerns the stereotypical portrayal of one of the bad guys.  Just for once, can we please build a character from the Middle East who isn’t a brainwashed, murderous, zealot based on his religion and ethnicity?

 

    But I quibble.  Overall, I thought this was a solid debut Action-Adventure novel by James Rollins which showcases his literary and storytelling talents and hints at more exciting novels being penned by this author as he gets comfortable in this genre.

 

    8½ Stars.  One last thing.  I liked that the outcome of Subterranean would have a permanent impact on our world.  Creatures and beings we didn’t know are about to emerge  from the depths of Antarctica, and the only event to compare it to would be the (re)-discovery of the New World by Europeans in 1492.  I for one would love see what James Rollins could do with such a scenario.

Knights of the Apocalypse - Benjamin Wallace

   2015; 244 pages.  Book 2 (out of 5) in the “Duck and Cover” series.  New Author? : No, but it’s been a while.  Genres : Post-Apocalypse Thriller; Action-Adventure; Dark Humor.  Overall Rating : 8½*/10.

 

    Sometimes you just get tired of running away.

 

    That’s true for Jerry, aka "the librarian", aka "the post-apocalyptic nomadic warrior" and Erica, who’s fleeing with him.  They are wanted in what remains of Texas after the bombs fell there, and their faces are shown on Wanted Posters all over the place.

 

    But finding a safe haven in a post-apocalyptic world is not easy, and that’s what makes them so optimistic about their arrival in Colorado.  The cities in the Rocky Mountains there fared relatively well in the nuclear holocaust.  Maybe Jerry and Erica can finally find a place to settle down.

 

    Except that they’ve stumbled into a realm called The Kingdom of the Five Peaks, which is ruled by a King Elias, and patrolled by a bunch of armor-clad thugs who go by “Sir names” such as Sir Thomas, Sir Steven, and Sir Dominic.

 

    And we won’t even mention the enigmatic “Sir Nameless.”

 

What’s To Like...

    Knights of the Apocalypse is the second book in Benjamin Wallace’s Duck & Cover series.  I read Book One, Post-Apocalyptic Nomadic Warriors, way back in 2014 (and reviewed here) and remember being blown away by the worldbuilding.  At that point, it was a standalone novel, now this is a completed (presumably) pentalogy.

 

    Once again, the storytelling is top-notch.  The post-nuclear-disaster world of death and destruction is cleverly blended with just enough wit and humor to keep the tone lighthearted.  The small pockets of surviving Coloradans may have to deal with mutants, marauders, monsters, and mountain men, but they also have time to relax while pretending they're back in King Arthur's Camelot.

 

    The main plotline is fairly straightforward.  Jerry needs a new fuel pump for his Cummins B-series truck, and auto parts stores just don’t exist anymore.  King Elias offers to procure the fuel pump, but in exchange Jerry and some other “volunteers” must find and rescue the kingdom's missing princess.  Needless to say, the rescue attempt rapidly gets more complicated, where the most likely outcome for our volunteers/suckers is getting killed, their mission an utter failure, and Erica suffering dire consequences because of that.

 

    I liked when our adventurers traveled along the I-40 interstate; I’ve recently traversed that stretch while going from Tennessee to Arizona.  I chuckled at the slang term used to refer to the apocalypse: “The Crappening”, as well as the built-in design faults in King Elias’s throne.  Sometimes it hurts to be the king.

 

    Everything builds to an exciting and twisty ending, although the main storyline (Erica and Jerry) is not resolved.  Things end at a fairly logical place, but I wouldn’t call it a cliffhanger, which is one of my literary peeves.  Just be aware that reading the next book is a requirement.  I’d normally deduct stars for this, but I’m reading an e-book bundle of the first three books in this series, so it’s not like I have to go find and download the sequel.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.4*/5, based on 150 ratings and 35 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.09*/5, based on 701 ratings and 53 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    “Tie him to the rail!”

    “Throw him in the canyon!”

    “Drown him!”

    “Tie him to the rail!”

    “You already said that, Sarah!”

    “I really like the idea!”

    Jerry raised his hands above his head and motioned for a calm that wouldn’t come.  “All of those sound like perfectly good horrible deaths.  And, considering our first encounter, very fitting.  Especially tying me to the rail, very poetic.”

    “Thank you,” Sarah yelled.  “See, Rob?”  (loc. 5231)

 

    “Did he tell you how we knew each other?”

    Erica shook her head and Brae smiled sheepishly.

    “I don’t blame him for that.  It must have been awkward.  Meeting the ex always is.”

    “The ex?”

    Brae nodded and then put her hands up in defense.  “Don’t worry.  It was a long time ago.  We were over way before the end of the world.”  She laughed at this.  “But you know how it is.  Girl meets boy.  Girl loses boy.  World blows up.  Girl finds boy in a post-apocalyptic kingdom of dorks.”  (loc. 5614)

 

Kindle Details…

    Knights of the Apocalypse sells for $4.99 right now at Amazon, as do the other books in the series, with the exception of Book One, Post-Apocalyptic Nomadic Warriors, which only costs $2.99.  Alternatively, you can buy the first three books as a bundle, as I did, for $9.99.  Benjamin Wallace offers several other series as well; the books in those are all in the $2.99-$4.99 price range.

 

“Think of it more like a flea market but with fewer homemade wind chimes and more stabbings.”  (loc. 3050)

    I enjoyed reading Knights of the Apocalypse despite the nine-year hiatus from the series, so finding things to gripe about is difficult.

 

    The cussing is sparse—I counted just 16 instances in the first 20%—and most of times it was what I’d call the “milder” terms.  I don’t recall any “adult situations”, although several are alluded to.

 

    The biggest issue was the editing.  Typos were rare for the first third of the book, but around 41% (this book spans 30%-62% in the 3-book bundle) errors began to pop up with distracting frequency.  Perhaps the editor quit halfway through this project?

 

    But please don’t let the typos deter you from reading this series.  Both the worldbuilding and character development are masterfully done, and the storyline is both action-packed and fast-paced.  The wit and humor are an added treat.  Just pick up the e-bundle, and, unlike me, don’t wait a decade between reading the first and second books in the series.  I intend to not be so remiss in reading Book Three.

 

    8½ Stars.  Add ½ star if you’re familiar with, or participate in, activities such as the Society for Creative Anachronisms and/or Renaissance Festivals.  If so, you'll thoroughly enjoy the encounters with the titular Knights of the Apocalypse here.

Bob Moore: No Hero - Tom Andry

   2011; 174 pages.  Book 1 (out of 3) in the “Bob Moore” series.  New Author? : Yes.  Genres : Superhero Fantasy; Action-Adventure.  Overall Rating : 7*/10.

 

    Superheroes are humans too!

 

    Oh, they might enlarge into green beasts when angry, or watch bullets bounce off their chest, or toss balls of fire at their foes, or have quadruple-digit IQs.  But they still go home after work, fall in love, fall out of love, and occasionally lose their cool.

 

    Superheroes sometimes work in pairs, but they rarely stay together for a lifetime.  I can’t picture Robin forever being content to be Batman’s sidekick.  Tempers flare and sharp words are said, suspicions are raised, and questions about one's super-partners arise.  Superheroes may be borderline omnipotent, but none of them are omniscient.

 

    To get answers about their partners, suspicious superheroes need the services of a PI ("Private Investigator").  But not just any PI, it needs to be someone who specializes in working with super-beings.

 

    And that’s where Bob Moore comes in.

 

What’s To Like...

    Bob Moore: No Hero is the opening book in Tom Andry’s “Bob Moore” trilogy.  At 174 pages, it is barely longer than a novella, and is the shortest book in the series.  Book 2, Desperate Times, is 286 pages long, and Book 3, Hostile Territory, is 293 pages.

 

    I liked the way the various superheroes were portrayed.  They might be super fast, super smart, or super powerful (which is why they’re called “supers”), but emotionally, they are just as quick to get jealous or angry as ordinary humans (who are called “tippies”).

 

    The story is told in the first-person point-of-view (Bob’s).  The action starts immediately—Bob gets fired upon in the most literal sort of way—and there’s plenty of action from there on out.  There’s some backstory and worldbuilding early on, then the main plot thread gets started around a quarter of the way through.  A stereotypically brilliant-but-mad scientist hires Bob to investigate why some of his clients are disappearing without a trace.

 

    I chuckled at some of the details that Tom Andry works into the storyline.  Bob’s “Inertial Dampener” is a neat gizmo; the “Portable Persona Projector” was fascinating; and I chuckled at the “Super Lane” which is sort of an HOV lane on the roads reserved for superheroes zipping along at supersonic speeds.  It was also amusing to find out that unfaithful “sidekicking” was considered by superheroes to be much worse than a super-partner merely having a torrid love affair on the side.

 

    Things build to a decent, but not particularly twisty, climax.  The disappearing clients mystery is solved, and the main baddie is dispatched with anticlimactic ease.  The story closes with an Epilogue that was rather touching.

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Tippy (n.) : a person without any superhero powers; a muggle.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.3*/5, based on 168 ratings and 87 reviews.

    Goodreads: 3.69*/5, based on 337 ratings and 45 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    As you might have guessed, I’m a private eye.  As a PI, one of my most common jobs is figuring out if a spouse or partner is cheating.  While, for most PIs, this doesn’t involve a heck of a lot of tree immolation, I’m a specialist.  The people I investigate almost exclusively have powers.  Power to fly, power to throw cars at me and, way too often I find, power to set the tree I’m sitting in on fire from a great distance.  (loc. 22)

 

    I stumbled through the door and collapsed in a well padded chair.

    She organized some papers as she spoke, “You know, I couldn’t be sure until someone who rode it regularly came through.”  She looked up and smiled again, “You just got lucky I guess.”

    “Funny, I don’t feel lucky.”

    “Scotch?”

    “A bit early for that.”

    “Coffee?”

    “I didn’t say no to the scotch.  I was just pointing out the time.”  (loc. 1201)

 

Kindle Details…

    Bob Moore: No Hero is *FREE* at Amazon right now.  The other two books in the series go for $3.99 apiece.  Tom Andry has only one more e-book available, Touch of Pain, which appears to be the start of a new series and which came out in March of 2022.

 

“People like their PIs like they like their accountants . . . just a little slimy.”  (loc. 1254)

    There very little cussing in the book; I counted just 7 instances in the first 25%, which impressed me greatly.

 

    The editing was good.  I noticed only a couple of typos, such as: any more/anymore; skin covered/skin-covered; and crumbing/crumbling.  The main grammar issue was the repeated lack of commas when addressing someone directly in dialogue.  That occurred at least eight times, and was rather distracting.  To be fair though, the word “gravelly” was correctly spelled (referring to a surface that resembles gravel), which most of the time gets irritatingly rendered as “gravely”, and is always fully endorsed by MS-Word's Spellchecker program.

 

    My main quibble is with the world-building.  What was done in that regard is great, but there just wasn’t enough of it.  The setting felt very shallow to me.  For that matter, the whole storyline seemed to lack a sufficient amount of complexity and twists.  But perhaps that’s what the sequels are for. 

 

    All in all, I thought Bob Moore: No Hero was an above-average debut effort by Tom Andry.  The premise was great, the storytelling kept my interest, and sequels would seem to promise more complex storylines because of their greater length.  It’s been more than year since the first book of the author’s new series came out.  I’m wondering if he’s working on the sequel or if he’s retired from the field.

 

    7 Stars.  There’s a Note from the Author section in the back of the book and I highly recommend taking the time to read it.  Tom Andry gives a revealing and heartwarming look at the highs and lows of penning and publishing a debut novel.  I found it utterly enlightening.

Under A Colder Sun - Greg James

   2014; 204 pages.  Full Title: Under A Colder Sun: A Grim Dark Fantasy Adventure.  Book 1 (out of 3) in the “Khale the Wanderer” series.  New Author? : No.  Genres: Grimdark Fantasy; Action-Adventure.  Overall Rating : 6½*/10.

 

    By all reports, Khale the Wanderer is a nasty guy.  A brigand.  A killer.  A rogue.  A sorcerer.  A mercenary.  And some say, an immortal.

 

    Leste, a member of the City Watch of Colm, is aware of all that.  But orders are orders, and King Alosse has sent her on a mission to locate Khale, establish contact with him, and arrange a meeting between the brigand and the King.  Alosse has an errand for Khale.

 

    The King understands mercenaries, of course.  He is willing to pay Khale for his time.  One thousand golden-eyes.  That should get Khale’s attention.

 

    It does.  Khale laughs at the offer.  He’ll accept nothing less than twenty thousand golden-eyes.  It is, after all, a royal errand.

 

What’s To Like...

    The subtitle says it all.  The tone of Under A Colder Sun is grim and dark, with plenty of bloodshed, a lot of which falls into the category of “senseless”.  Khale’s task seems like an easy one: deliver King Alosse’s daughter, Milanda, to the Autarch, the despotic ruler of a neighboring city, Neprokhadymh.  Yeah, try saying that six times real fast.

     Milanda is to be wedded to the Autarch.  To get there, she and Khale will have to cross dangerous territory.  It is filled with lawless men and creatures, and two other neighboring kingdoms, Barneth and Farness, might think it in their best interests to put a stop to the marriage.

 

    Greg James is a British author, which means the book is written in English, not American.  For American readers, this entails encountering strange spellings such as humour, centre, knick-knacks, draught, foetus, and haemorrhaged.  Personally, I think it adds a touch of classiness to the narrative.

 

    The world-building is great, albeit mostly limited to the two cities, Colm and Neprokhadymh, plus the wilderness in between.  I liked the otherworldly creatures that beset Khale and Milanda, including the blood-banshees and the ultra-deadly mirror-beasts.  It was fun trying to figure out the character-alignment for Khale.  It’s quickly apparent he has both good and evil traits, but is he mostly "dark" or mostly "light"?

 

    The saga stops at a logical point, more like a pause than an ending.  It included a couple of neat plot twists, and the main plotline was wrapped up, albeit not happily.  I got the feeling the main purpose of Under A Colder Sun was to introduce the reader to the main characters in the series and set the stage for the main storyline in the sequels.  That might sound negative, but hey, it’s also the way I felt about Book One in The Lord of The Rings.

 

    My Kindle version came with two bonus short stories at the end, Timestone and Each Dawn, I Die.  They are both worth your reading time, and Timestone in particular gives you some background to the foreboding world the story is set in, although the main story also gives some hints about earlier kingdoms.

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Ordure (n.) : something regarded as vile or abhorrent.

Others: Canopic (adj.).

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 3.9*/5, based on 63 ratings and 50 reviews.

    Goodreads: 3.25*/5, based on 146 ratings and 22 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    “Hospitality?  Is that what you call it when your men ride down my own, run them through, and toss their bodies in the marshes to rot?”

    Leste spoke before she could check herself.  “They are brigands.  They steal and kill.  They get what they deserve.”

    Khale turned on her and his face was tight with rugged lines.  “You seem very sure of dealing in life and death, girl.”

    “Those who kill without honour deserve the same fate.”

    “Ah, deserve.  There’s another word you don’t understand.”  (loc. 250)

 

    “Aye, we rode together before things in the world got this rotten.  We hunted, we pillaged, and we stole.  Don’t believe your father, the good King Alosse, could be a thief, do you?  Well, he was.  All kings are thieves; it’s how they get to where they are.  People, land, ideals: you’ve got to steal these things yourself before you can convince someone else to believe in them and fight for them on your behalf.”  (loc. 852)

 

Kindle Details…

    Under A Colder Sun sells for $0.99 at Amazon right now.  The other two books in the series, Lost is the Night, and Hordes of Chaos, cost $2.99 apiece.  Greg James has two other series and several standalone books available on Amazon, ranging in price from free to $2.99.

 

Yes, she thought, for an idiot I’m very lucky.  (loc. 1018)

    As shown above, Under A Colder Sun has garnered some less-than-stellar ratings, particularly at Goodreads.

 

    Several Goodreads reviewers were turned off by the dark tone of the storyline.  Lots of characters die, including some I didn’t expect to, and there are references to rape and sexual assault.  I wouldn’t recommend this book to a 5-year-old, but for adults, well, the subtitle does warn you to expect a story grim and dark.  OTOH, the cussing is surprisingly sparse.  I counted just 11 instances in the whole book, although that included a pair of f-bombs.

 

    Other reviewers mentioned the frequency of typos, although I only noted one, a breath/breathe miscue.  Either the book has undergone another round of editing subsequent to its initial release, or else some readers might have been mistaking British grammar and spelling for outright errors.

 

    For me, the biggest drawback was the storytelling, which I (and others) found to be a bit weak.  Our protagonists go on a quest—to deliver Milanda to the Autarch—things go awry, and that’s about it.  The plotline as a whole is rather “un-epical”.

 

    Still, the story held my interest enough to continue reading this series.  I'm anticipating Khale's character undergoing some significant changes before this story runs its course.

 

    It will be fun to see.

 

    6½ Stars.  There really is a literary subgenre called Grimdark.  Wikipedia has a page about it.  You can read about it here.

The Lost Adventures of Captain Hawklin, Volume 1 - published by Charles F. Millhouse

   2022; 308 pages.  New Authors? : No.  Genres: Anthology; Pulp Fiction; Action & Adventure; Short Stories.  Overall Rating : 8½*/10.

 

    Captain Steven Hawklin!

    His daring feats, which  have saved the world from an assortment of bad guys, are chronicled in Charles F. Millhouse’s New Pulp series titled “The Captain Hawklin Adventures”.  The series has reached ten full-length novels now, and it’s taken just ten years to do so, which is no small feat.  This calls for a celebration.  What shall we do?

 

    Hey, how about having five veteran writers from Stormgate Press (the publishing house that’s responsible for bringing Captain Hawklin’s exploits to life) each write a short story as tie-ins to the series?  It would be neat to see how other authors portray our hero.  All we need is a catchy title for the endeavor.  How about: The Lost Adventures of Captain Hawklin?

 

    That sounds good, but let’s add Volume One to the title as a hint that it would be neat to see more short story collaborations by the talents at Stormpress Press spring up about our intrepid  Captain. 

 

What’s To Like...

    The titles of the five stories (and authors) in The Lost Adventures of Captain Hawklin, Volume 1 are:

  1.) The Skyhook Remnant – Brian K. Morris

  2.) The Banshee Barnstormer – Clyde Hall

  3.) Smuggler’s Run – Bobby Nash

  4.) The World Asunder – Charles F. Millhouse

  5.) The Night Raiders – Marlin Williams

 

    The tales vary in length from just under 40 pages to just under 100 pages.  All of them are set in the 1930s, but there’s a nice range of settings, some real, some fictional, one over the Atlantic coast, another in the middle of the Pacific.

 

    Captain Hawklin does a lot of flying, sometimes in conventional aircraft for that time period, sometimes via his trademark jetpack strapped to his back (see the cover image above),  Our hero often gains the element of surprise advantage with that jetpack, but it doesn’t make him invincible.  Enemy planes can ram him or shoot him down, and some of the baddies are developing their own version of the rocket-propelled gizmo.  It adds a touch of realism to the adventures, and I like that.

 

    The writing is professional in all five tales, which came as no surprise since I’ve read short stories by all these authors in Pulp Reality 2, another anthology published by Stormgate Press.  A couple of the stories set up sequels, and one is a sequel of an earlier Captain Hawklin installment.  I read the fifth story, The Night Raiders, as an e-book single late last year and thoroughly enjoyed it.  Its review is here.

 

    Here’s a “non-spoiler” teaser for each tale:

The Skyhook Remnant:  not all Pulp Fiction adventures close with a “happily ever after” ending.

The Banshee Barnstormer: is Hawklin fighting a natural or a paranormal foe?

Smuggler’s Run: when you’re outgunned, try stealth.

The World Asunder: when you don’t have your jetpack, use your wits.

The Night Raiders: when’s the last time you saw Eva Braun cast as a feminist?

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  *.*/5 based on 0 ratings and 0 reviews.

    Goodreads: *.**/5 based on 0 ratings and 0 reviews

 

Excerpts...

    “So, what do you guys do for fun on these long, slow rides?” he asked.

    “Funny you should mention that, Steven,” Cannonball said.  “Mr. Brick and a couple of the boys are getting a poker game together.  Thought you might like to sit in.  It’s been too long since we had that big pilot money in the game.”

    Hawklin harumped again.  “What makes you think I’m going to lose?”

    “Because you don’t want to swim home,” Cannonball joked as they headed back inside.  (pg. 154)

 

    The second man snorted and spoke as if he had a cold in the back of his throat.  “He sounds like a dandy,” he said.

   “I took a wrong turn,” Hardy said backing up the way he came.

    “We’re on a train,” the boxer said.  “There aren’t no turns.”

    “That’s a metaphor,” Hardy explained.

    “What did you call us?” the second man said., as he snorted and spat on the floor.

    “Why is it, when a bad guy wants to hire thugs, they are always dimwitted?” Hardy asked.  (pg. 174)

 

“Did you call me in to hunt down a ghost plane?”  (pg. 59)

    Anthologies with different authors are usually up-and-down reads, but here the writing is consistently good.  The years within the 1930s and the plotlines are varied, but each author’s “take” on the Captain Hawklin character was remarkably consistent.  There’s plenty of thrills-&-spills in all five stories, and the secondary characters were surprisingly well-developed. 

 

    The cussing was sparse, which is the norm for Pulp Fiction: thirty-five instances in the whole book. Some authors employed it more than others, but there were no f-bombs and I don’t recall any “adult situations”.

 

    The biggest issue is the editing.  Some of the stories had very few typos; others were in dire need of another round of proofreading.  I’m not sure if each author was responsible for the editing of his manuscript or not.

 

    Enough of the quibbles.  This was my introduction to Captain Hawklin, and I enjoyed getting introduced to a new pulp hero.  Here’s hoping The Lost Adventures of Captain Hawklin, Volume 1 spawns annual sequels.  I had fun tagging along with him, especially when I was hanging on for dear life as he was soaring through the skies via his jetpack.

 

    8½ Stars.