Clockwork Legion - Jamie (J.G.) Sedgwick

 2016; 342 pages.  Book 4 (out of 5) in the series “Aboard the Great Iron Horse”.  New Author? : No.  Genre : Steampunk Fantasy.  Overall Rating : 7*/10.

 

    All aboard the Great Iron Horse!  Socrates and his crew have departed Dragonwall in order to continue their mission of searching for remnants of civilization in a post-apocalyptic wasteland.

 

    They are short a couple of crewmembers, but that can’t be helped.  Kale has remained at Dragonwall to take on the role of "First Knight" for Queen Aileen.  And Shayla has chosen to stay there with Kale as well.  Methinks some romantic possibilities may be a factor.

 

    Shayla’s staying behind quickly becomes a timely event.  Queen Aileen's city has been plagued by a series of poisonings lately.  She wants Kale to investigate.  But she’s also just received a letter from the mayor of Ravenwood, a town well to the south of Dragonwall, begging the queen to dispatch troops there immediately due to some unspecified threat.  Queen Aileen wants Kale to lead a squad of knights down there.

 

    Well, Kale can’t be in two places at once, so perhaps Shayla can look into the poisonings while he travels to see what’s endangering Ravenwood.  Best of luck to both of you, Kale and Shayla!

 

    You’re going to need it.

 

What’s To Like...

    Clockwork Legion is the fourth installment in the five-book “Aboard the Great Iron Horse” series, although see below for the recent reorganization of this.  There are three main plotlines to follow, involving Socrates, Shayla, and Kale, as briefly described above.  The common thread in all of them is a magical substance called starfall, which serves as a “super-fuel” for Socrates’s steampunk locomotive, but has a very unhealthy effect when inhaled or ingested by creatures, whether they be living or already dead.   

 

    As with any Jamie Sedgwick novel, there's plenty of action and intrigue.  If undead baddies are your shtick, you’ll like this book, and if dinosaurs make you tick, you’ll enjoy it too.  Even better, if undead dinosaurs appeal to your literary tastes, you’re going to love Clockwork Legion.

 

    Being a chemist by trade, I liked the bits of chemistry woven into the book.  Ozone from lightning lays a small role in the storyline, so does powdered iron.  I also thought the timepiece called a chronoforge was a nice detail.  The title reference comes at 84% Kindle, and it was great to see two main characters from a related series make cameo appearances in the Epilogue.  Here’s hoping they play a bigger part in next book.

 

    The story ends at a logical spot, but it needs to be said that zero plot threads are resolved.  Queen Aileen and Kale make some important plans, but will those come to pass?  Socrates and the Iron Horse are out in the boondocks, so how will they impact the impending invasion of the baddies?  Shayla’s life is undergoing some changes, but will this be for the better or for the worse?

 

    Presumably, all these plotlines will be tied up in the next, fifth, and final book in the series: Starfall.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.5/5 based on 206 ratings and 36 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.50/5 based on 109 ratings and 5 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    “How do I make them respect me?”

    “I can’t tell you that, but I can tell you how Dane did it.”

    “How?”

    “He threatened to kill ‘em, or worse.  And they knew he meant it.  But that only worked because they knew Dane had the guts to do what he said, and he knew they didn’t have the guts to stab him in his sleep.”

    “And you think that’s what I should do?”

    “Absolutely not!  These men wouldn’t hesitate to kill you in your sleep.”  (loc. 262)

 

    Shayla had a refined, elegant beauty about her that was a natural advantage.  She also had years of training to supplement that beauty.  As a child, Shayla had been trained in every manner of espionage and survival.  The soldiers knew they might not always be there to protect her, and she might need the ability to defend herself or to blend in with other people and cultures.  One of the most useful skills was one that had always come natural: flirtation.  (loc. 1497)

 

Kindle Details…

    Clockwork Legion is priced at $3.99 at Amazon right now.  The other four books in the series range in price from free to $4.99, with the cost increasing as the series progresses.  Jamie Sedgwick (aka: “J.G. Sedgwick”) has several other fantasy series for your reading enjoyment, and in the same price range.

 

“Great plan. (...) When the horde of undead warriors gets here, we’ll just ignore them to death.”  (loc. 1896)

    Incredibly, I didn’t note any cussing in Clockwork Legion.  Either I’m falling down on the job, or there was none.  I also don’t recall any “adult situations”.  When an author/can keep the story interesting without R-rated material who—and this book does that—I am deeply impressed.

 

    There were only a couple of typos, such as: tired/tire, phased/fazed, and leech/leach.  The insertion of dashes somehow resulted in them all being off-center and incorrect spacing.  But I suspect this occurred during the reformatting-for-Kindle stage, and was therefore beyond the author's control.     

 

    My copy of Clockwork Legion had a big problem with the chapter tabs.  There were none.  After the usual opening sections there’s  a “Table of Contents heading, but all it links to is the cover image.  After that, there is nothing else in the Table.  UPDATE: in looking at the current Amazon “Read Sample” blurb, that seems to have been corrected in later versions.

 

    The main quibble is the fact that none of the storylines get tied up.  That means this is not a standalone novel.  Therefore, if you’re not reading this series in order, you’ll probably be really disappointed in the storytelling in Clockwork Legion.

 

    So take my advice and read the earlier books before this one.  In the proper order.  Then you’ll find Clockwork Legion to be a light, fast-paced, enjoyable read whose purpose appears to be to get all the major characters properly positioned for the final episode.  We shall see about that.

 

    7 Stars.  I’ve had Clockwork Legion on my Kindle for quite some time.  Meanwhile the author has altered his name for this series from Jamie Sedgwick to J.G. Sedgwick, both of which are actually pen names for Jeramy Gates.  To boot, the author’s 5-book Aboard the Great Iron Horse series and the 3-book Tinkerer’s Daughter series are now combined into an 8-book Age of Steam series.  The other books and series penned by this author remain credited to "Jamie Sedgwick".

    I’m sure this has to do with some sort of revised marketing strategy, but frankly I fail to see the logic of it.

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.

The Fall - David L. Dawson

   2012; 310 pages.  Book 1 (out of 3) in “The God Slayers Quartet” series.  New Author? : Yes.  Genres : Post-Apocalyptic Thriller; LGBTQ+ Fiction; YA Dystopian Adventure.  Overall Rating : 6*/10.

 

    Question: What should we mortals do when two gods are fighting each other?

 

    It’s a tricky conundrum.  The most logical thing is probably to reason with them and convince then to knock it off.  But gods have a habit of ignoring the advice of puny little humans, and besides, interrupting them by calling their attention to ourselves could seriously shorten our life expectancies.

 

    So maybe it’s better to just let them duke it out.  Except when a god gets knocked off his feet by a punch, he's likely to fall upon an entire village, flattening it and killing most, if not all, of the living things therein.

 

    There’s also a third, more radical option to consider: figuring out a way to kill both gods.  That seems counterintuitive though, because how does one go about killing beings who, by definition, are immortal?

 

    Even worse, what happens if they, or their followers, find out about your schemes?

 

What’s To Like...

    The Fall is the first book in a post-apocalyptic dystopian series by David L. Dawson called “The God Slayers Quartet”.  It takes place somewhere in the greater London area in the 27^th century, an its setting reminded me somewhat of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road: some sort of disaster has wiped out most of civilization, with only scant details given about it.

 

    The story is told in the first-person POV, the protagonist being teenaged Ben Casper, the son of the mayor of the local village and who's just returned from his rite-of-passage allowing him into adulthood.  The book is divided into two parts: Part One, “The Glass Palace”, introduces us to the village and its inhabitants just prior to the titular event of “The Fall”, and Part Two, “Underground”, which chronicles the aftermath.

 

    The dialogue is oftentimes witty, and I liked that, and the writing is a curious blend of both “English” and “American”.  So you have lifts instead of elevators, and centres instead of centers.  But you also have meters, not metres; and specters, not spectres.  Somehow it works; I didn’t find it distracting at all.

 

    There are a couple of new creatures to meet and be wary of.  The felums are half-panther/half human and dangerously sentient.  The horned bears are just dangerously dangerous.  I enjoyed the nod to Terry Pratchett’s Discworld, and was happy to see that, in among all the action and excitement, you may find some Pratchettian points to ponder about religion and blind faith (see second excerpt, below).  And should those cause you any worry, fear not: repurposing will erase any theological doubts you might have.

 

    The ending is okay.  The storyline stops at a logical point, although none of the major plot threads are resolved and there aren't any twists.  That’s okay though, we’re all set for the next phase in Ben's adventure, and there’s a catchy little teaser at the close to get you ready for Book Two.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  3.9/5 based on 146 ratings.

    Goodreads: 3.43/5 based on 303 ratings and 37 reviews

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Viridian (adj.) : Bluish-green in color.

 

 

Excerpts...

    “Every couple of years someone knocks at the door and it makes Father scared,” I explain hurriedly.  “Uncle Rooster and he go outside to meet whoever it is and then come back an hour later.  I want to know who it is they keep talking to, and why it makes him so nervous.”

    “It’s elder business.  We should not be … hmm, now you’ve made me curious.  Maybe they’re doing secret dealings with some shady trader?  Or what if they’re making plans to marry you off to some disease-ridden girl with three arms from another House?  That’s been known to happen.”  (loc. 903)

 

    “This is where the Order of Power comes in,” interrupts Harold.  “They’re the self-appointed church of the gods. The gods don’t care for them but they do their best to destroy any remaining information left in the world that pertains to the gods.  Any literature on the gods is burned and any person who knows anything about them is killed.  They want to gods to be revered in mystery, so the less we know about them the better."  (loc. 2219)

 

Kindle Details…

    You can get The Fall for free at Amazon, and I think that’s always true.  The other two books in the series go for $2.99 (The Sky is Falling) and $3.99 (Chasm).  David L. Dawson offers a couple of other series for your Kindle; the e-books in those range in price from free to $2.99.  He's also written several short stories and novellas, some of which tie in to The God Slayers Quartet setting, and you'll find them in the free-to-$0.99 price range .

 

“I don’t like books. (…) They smell funny and you can’t eat them.”  (loc. 178)

    There are some quibbles, including the usual spellchecker errors that spring up in most books penned and self-edited by indie authors.  Typos here include things such as lightening/lightning, its/it’s, principal/principle, topierce/to pierce, and my favorite: bowls/bowels.  Also, most of the plot twists seemed predictable to me; for instance, I figured out the talking bird enigma long before Ben did.

 

    Amazon labels this a “Teen and Young Adult Science Fiction” book, and I think that’s apt.  There’s almost no cussing (a couple of “damns” is all I noted), and teenage boys are most likely already familiar with a “morning phenomenon” cited a couple times.  The surreptitious note passed to Ben seemed like a WTF to me; I can’t believe he wouldn’t have been searched later when he fell into the hands of the baddies.

 

    You should be aware that the protagonist is gay.  If this makes you squeamish, you can take comfort in the fact that there is very little romance – gay, straight, or otherwise – in this tale, although I have no idea whether this remains true in the sequels.

 

    A number of Amazon and Goodreads reviewers gave the book demerits because the protagonist is kind of a jerk.  They have a point, but I suspect he will become less of one as the series progresses.

 

    ANAICT, The Fall was David L. Dawson’s first full-length novel, coming out in January, 2012.  Overall, I thought it was a decent first-effort, albeit with the usual room for improving the writing/polishing as his career progresses.  Looking at his list of Amazon e-books, however, it appears he hasn’t published anything new since 2014, which is a bit of a bummer.

 

    6 Stars.   I never did figure out what the “Quartet” in the book's subtitle refers to, although I suspect it means this was planned to be a 4-book series.  Several reviewers who have read the the whole series so far indicate that there is no closure at the end of Book Three.  That kind of confirms that the David L. Dawson has since retired from the indie author scene.  You should take this into consideration when deciding whether to read The Fall.

H2O - Irving Belateche

   2012; 191 pages.  New Author? : Yes.  Genres : Post-Apocalyptic; Dystopian; Sci-Fi; Coming-of-Age.  Overall Rating : 6½*/10.

    Decades ago, the world got zapped by something called the Passim Virus.  It killed almost everyone, and was especially deadly in densely-populated big cities.  Those places are all "lost" now, only the dead and the Virus are still there.

    Yet humanity still survives, mostly in rural areas and in small towns that have sprung up after the plague passed through.  And if you live in a town that still has “old technology” capable of producing gasoline or clean water, or it has surrounding farmland that can produce virus-free fresh food, well, then you have a something valuable to sell to other nearby towns.  Further, if you have someone among you who knows how to keep “The Line” up and running (in the old days, they called it the Internet), you can even keep communicate with those other towns.

    This is vital, because traveling outside your own little village is risky.  There are some who live out in the wilds, preying upon fools who venture into the wilderness between towns.  They’re called “marauders” and they’re just as deadly as the Passim Virus.

    Roy works for the Corolaqua water purification plant, and as low man on the totem pole, he has just been charged to go out to one of the company’s remote pumping stations to see why the pumping capacity there has suddenly fallen off, and of course fix the problem.  He’ll be alone, and running into the Virus and/or marauders is a distinct possibility.

    Roy expects to die.  It’s just a matter of whether it’s before or after he fixes the pump.

What’s To Like...

    H2O is set in the US Pacific Northwest, with humanity trying to recover from a devastating pandemic.  It reminds me of S.M. Stirling’s “Emberverse” series, but Stirling posits a world with a complete electronic and fuel power outages but relatively few deaths to begin with.  Here, Irving Belateche goes the opposite direction – lots of deaths, but cars and trucks and even a very-limited internet are still functional.

    I liked the world-building.  Our protagonist hails from Clearview, a small town located on the Oregon coast.  Subsequent events take him southward, even down through coastal California.  But traveling eastward any great distance is dicey.  Outside this strip of settlements along the Pacific, no other survivors are known to exist.

    Being a scientist by trade, I loved the emphasis on Chemistry and Chemical Processing.  In a post-apocalyptic era, it’s a godsend to live next to an endless water supply like the Pacific Ocean, but only if you have a way to remove the salt from it.  And while the chemistry to do this won't ever change, things like transfer pumps will wear out, so you better know how to fix all things mechanical.

    I also liked the “hive mentality” hypothesized here: when the colony is threatened, you live and die for it (just like a worker ant or a drone bee), and you do it without question.  This is the second book I’ve read recently that examines this mankind-saving strategy, the other one is reviewed here.

    There are a bunch of plot threads, but they’re easy to keep track of, including: a.) why did the pump fail, b.) why are some people (including Roy’s deceased dad) fixated on shooting stars, c.) where’s all the extra water (the titular “H2O”) going; and d.) who drew the salamander?  You also get hit with a major plot twist in Chapter 22, and another one in Chapter 32.

    Everything builds to a suitably exciting ending.  All of the plot threads in the previous paragraph are addressed, although a couple of them are answered a bit hazily.  The book stops at a logical point.  There’s only about a half-dozen instances of cussing, and I think it says something about an author’s writing skills when he doesn’t have to overuse cusswords to amp up the intensity.

Excerpts...

    “What about food?” I asked.

    “We steal a little of the trucker’s food when he’s sleeping,” Lily said.  “He’ll think it’s a marauder.”

    “Sounds like you know the drill.”

    “Yeah.  And sometimes it even works.”

    “And what happens when it doesn’t?”

    “You go hungry.”  (loc. 1204)

    “I didn’t want this job,” he said.  “Who wants to be light years away from home and alone?  But I couldn’t complain too much.  I got a mining colony that was easy to manipulate.  None of you wants to know anything.  You like being stupid.”  His gray skin was turning white.  “We’ll set it up again.”

    “But this time we’ll know,” I said.  “It won’t be so easy.”

    “It’ll always be easy,” he said.  “You can’t change what you are.”  (loc. 2769)

Kindle Details…

    H2O goes for $3.99 right now at Amazon.  Irving Belateche has four other novels to offer, each priced either $3.99 or $4.99; plus two short stories at $0.99 apiece.

  

Everyone in the Territory did their jobs and nothing more.  That was the key to order, and order was the key to survival.  (loc. 962 )

    There are a couple quibbles, most of them minor.  I liked the use of flashbacks to develop the backstory, but they seemed to come at the cost of a pause in the action.  The writing style is what I call “storytelling”, which means there’s not much emphasis on character development and waxing philosophical, the story itself is all that matters.  These are personal tastes, however; you might find the flashbacks enlightening and be thrilled that telling the story is of paramount importance.

    The editing is above-average, but as a chemist, I winced at a key chemical, “Isopropanol”, being misspelled, 4 out of 5 times, as “Isoproponal”.  You’d think it would be all one way or the other.  The same thing happens with “Preserve” and “Perserve”: one time, each way.  But other than these, the typos were few and far between.

    My biggest issue is that, ANAICT there is no sequel.  The book may end at a logical spot, but it screams for a follow-up.  A spark of rebellion has at long last been lit.  Roy and Lily have a future to experience.  A push-back by the bad guys is sure to occur, quickly and in full force.  There are a couple characters who seem to be dead, but I’m not so certain of that.  And how many other places in the world is mankind clinging tenaciously to life?

    In summary, if you don’t tie up all the major plot threads by the end of a novel, aren’t you kinda obligated to write a “Book Two”?

    6½ Stars.  Don’t let my quibbling dissuade you from reading H2O.  The plot twists kept me on my toes, and I didn’t feel like I was reading yet another cookie-cutter "find true love in a post-apocalyptic global-disaster" tale.  Indeed, as our world today struggles to cope with the Coronavirus, it’s a bit eerie to read something penned in 2012 about vast numbers of people dying in a plague.

The Future, Imperfect - Ruth Nestvold

    2012; 189 pages.  New Author? : Yes. Full Title: The Future, Imperfect: Six Dystopian Short Stories.   Genre : Short Stories; Anthology; Post-Apocalyptic Science Fiction.  Overall Rating : 6*/10.

    I have seen the future, and the future is bleak.  Epidemics and pandemics have decimated the world populations.  Governments, both local and national, have collapsed, allowing plagues and pollution to spread unchecked, further diminishing the number of humans, plants, and animals, around the globe.

    Yet all is not lost.  Money talks, and private corporations have assumed the role of government.  For those who are rich enough, havens are available in “corporate zones”: walled communities with powerful mercenary security forces to keep the riffraff out.  For the poor, the only option is the “burbs”, where disease, radiation, crime, and the lack of clean food and water significantly combine to shorten one’s lifespan.

     The only good news is that there are a number of corporations out there, each vying with the others for more power and profits.  The more corporate zones a company has, the more power, people, and money it commands.  That means they are willing to buy up some of the burbs, make improvements by cleaning up contaminants and providing security, as long as they can recoup their investment.

    There is one additional asset that every corporation covets: Technology.  Particularly in virtual and electronic forms, and particularly technology that other corporations have developed.  Any means of acquiring it is okay.   Including industrial espionage, stealing, and kidnapping.

    Even murder.

What’s To Like...

    The Future, Imperfect is comprised of six short stories, five of which were published previously in various Sci-Fi/Fantasy magazines.  All but one of them is set along the US west coast, where, according to Wikipedia, the author was born and raised, although she now lives in Germany.  The six stories are:

01.  A Handful of Dust  (@ 01%)

    Published in “Forgotten Worlds” in 2006.

02.  Latency Time  (@ 19%)

    Published in “Asimov’s Science Fiction” in 2001.

03.  Shadow Memory  (@ 32%)

    Published in “Marsdust” in 2004.

04.  Exit Without Saving  (@ 50%)

    Published in “Futurismic” in 2006.

05.  Killfile  (@ 60%)

    ANAICT, not previously published.

06.  The Other Side of Silence  (@ 78%)

    Published in “Futurismic” in 2006.

    All of them appear to be set in the post-apocalyptic world described above, with some minor tweaks.  My favorites were 02 and 06; yours will most likely be different.

    I was impressed with the world-building despite the fact that Ruth Nestvold is constrained by the shortness of each story.  Corporations replacing governments is an innovative-yet-plausible twist to a post-apocalyptic world.  I chuckled at newspapers and used-book stores being viewed as old-fashioned, then sadly realized that’s already come true.

    The technological advances that really drew me in.  You can “become” someone else via morphing into a sim (aka “morph units”) and genetic modifications have been taken to a whole new level (aka “genmods”).  These leaps in technology can be used both for entertainment (for example: find out how you’d like being the opposite gender), or for espionage, where descriptions of suspects is pretty much irrelevant, since they can morph their appearance at will.

    The Future, Imperfect is an incredibly short read.  Amazon says it’s 189 pages long, but that seems to be a stretch (pun intended).  If you have a book report due tomorrow, and you haven’t even started reading anything, this may be the answer to your procrastination.

    I enjoyed the literary nod to Fahrenheit 451 and The Scarlet Pimpernel (Story 5).  The “Purists” (Story 1) can easily arise in the future, but so can the “holo-porn” (Story 6).  I can’t think of any other story set in Montenegro (where?), as in Story 2.   There’s a bit of cussing, some references to adult situations, and the hint of sexual molestation.  Little Timmy and Susie should probably not read this book.  Stories by Ruth Nestvold have been short-listed for the Tiptree Award (best sci-fi or fantasy novel, 2004), and nominated for the Nebula Award (2008), but neither of these are included in this anthology.  Both are available at Amazon, though.

Kindle Details...

    The Future, Imperfect presently sells for $0.99 at Amazon.  Ruth Nestvold has another dozen-plus e-books available for the Kindle, ranging in price from Free to $6.99, and in length from short stories, to novellas, to full-length novels.

Excerpts...

    He led her into the town center of Pljevlja, halting in front of an astonishingly beautiful house, deserted now.  Despite the destruction of the roof and the corner of one wall, it was an impressive sight, the front wall covered in calligraphic inscriptions, still discernable.

    “Turkish,” Mihailo said.

    “What a shame that it hasn’t been repaired,” Alis murmured.  The wonders Mihailo found for her no longer surprised her.  He was selling his country, after all – trying to persuade the representative of a big corporation that it was worth saving.  While she understood his motives, she wondered how he would like it once Montenegro was turned into a Disneyland attraction.  (loc. 547)

    Mercedes stepped behind the counter, slipping out of the fitted wool jacket she’d bought at a local thrift shop.  Bonnie turned a page of the newspaper.  A color photo in the top left-hand corner caught Mercedes’s eye.  (…)

    “You want a section?” Bonnie asked.

    She wished she could snatch the paper out of her boss’s hands, but she played nonchalant.  “I prefer a screen and some action rather than just words,” Mercedes said, bringing up the monitor on the right end of the tabletop.  “Not as boring.”  (loc. 1721)

Suddenly, a fluorescent rabbit didn’t seem quite as horrible as it had minutes before.  (loc. 2149)

    Some of the stories have unfinished endings, and others have unfinished romances.  There are also repeating themes of having second thoughts about the ethics of the corporations and some “Big Brother is watching” angst, but such repetition is probably inherent to a bundle of short stories written by a single author and within a single genre.

    Overall, The Future, Imperfect has a feel of being the author’s collection of short stories thrown together for an e-book offering.  Which, of course, is exactly what this is.

    My least favorite story was the first one, and I almost stopped reading after finishing it.  Fortunately, I changed my mind, and enjoyed all of the other stories, to the point of where I became fascinated by Ruth Nestvold’s futuristic world.  Maybe I was just slow in getting acclimated.

    But I pick at nits.  I’d love to see these six tales woven into, or used as a basis for, a full-length novel.  Better yet, develop it into a series.  I don’t think any of the author’s other e-books use this setting; instead she seems to have switched over to writing fantasy novels with strong female protagonists.  I can’t argue with that choice, but being proficient in two genres might reach an even wider audience.

    6 Stars.  I’m not a big fan of anthologies and short stories; so add 1 star if you are.  OTOH, I am a big fan of post-apocalyptic sci-fi, so subtract 1 star if you’re not.

Snowfall On Mars - Branden Frankel

    2015; 360 pages.  New Author? : Yes.  Genre : Hard Science Fiction; Murder-Mystery; Post-Apocalyptic Sci-Fi; Dystopian Fiction.  Overall Rating : 9*/10.

    Imagine how thrilling it must’ve been to be one of the first settlers to land on Mars!  It’s now the 22^nd century, and that first voyage happened sixty years ago!

    At the time, the planet had no atmosphere, little water, and absolutely no food sources: plant, animal, or otherwise.  But this of course was anticipated, and there were plans to overcome that, via something the technological gurus call “terraforming”.

    After that, colonies can be built.  Equipment such as land rovers can be brought from Earth.  The Martian clouds can be seeded with chemicals to make it rain.  Or, more accurately, make it snow, since Mars is rather frigid most of the time.  Food can be imported from Earth, at least until Mars can become self-sustaining by the development of indoor greenhouse farms.  Or even outside farms, once the Martian atmosphere evolves to duplicate Earthlike conditions.  A few decades at the most.

    Sure, there will be some snags along the way, but what’s the worst that can happen?  A late shipment of supplies from Earth?  Bland-tasting artificial food from the Martian greenhouses?  Snowdrifts?

    How about a terraforming project that fails miserably, making acid rain and snow.  Plus Mother Earth wiping itself out in a nuclear holocaust.

What’s To Like...

    Snowfall On Mars is kind of a mash-up of Andy Weir’s The Martian and Hugh Howey’s Wool, and a clever combination of several genres.  I liked the ‘Hard’ Science Fiction aspect; it’s not quite as rigidly scientific as in The Martian, but you won’t find any phasers or transporters here either.  The Murder-Mystery storyline kept my interest and had a couple neat twists to it.  But first and foremost, this is a Dystopian Fiction novel, with Branden Frankel examining the mindsets of a dwindling group of marooned colonists, without any hope of rescue.   

    The book is written in the first-person POV, that of our protagonist, David Adler.  He’s somewhat of an anti-hero: fatalistic, but determined to survive as long as he can.  He’s a good guy at heart, but more curious than heroic; he’s not a particularly formidable fighter, but he plans ahead well.  I found him to be a fascinating character study.

    The only setting is the last inhabited spaceport on 22^nd-century Mars twenty years after Earth blew itself up, although we do get to travel to a couple other deserted ones.  Branden Frankel includes a number of bits of obscure trivia, including one Albert Goring, who is real and is Hermann Goring’s lesser-known brother.  Wiki him; he’s worth reading about.

     I thought the title was catchy, ditto for the cover art, which, ANAICT, is a depiction of a mansion called “Shiloh” that David encounters at 45%.  Geeky engineers play an important part in the story; that resonates with me since I’m a chemist by trade.  I chuckled at the products made to keep the colonists alive, and their order of importance, which was: cigarettes first, rotgut booze second, and tasteless pseudo power-bars euphemistically dubbed “sustainability rations” dead last.  I also appreciated that even the bad guys were not “totally black”.  Proctor, the leader of the religious zealots called “the ghosts” may be manipulative, but his rationale for what he does has a certain logic.  And even his torturer, “Muck”, has a modicum of charm.

    The ending is good, and despite all odds, manages to end on a hopeful note.  All the main threads are tied up, including the murder-mystery, and there’s a window left open for a sequel, although I don’t sense that Branden Frankel is even thinking about writing one.  Finally, a nod should be made to whoever did the editing; I was impressed by how few typos and grammar errors were here.

Kewlest New Word...

Brobdingnagian (adj.) : gigantic (not new to me, but definitely way-kewl)

Excerpts...

    The red dust has always been here.  God knows if there was snow before, but the snow I’m watching fall now is the result of a failed project undertaken by a failed people.  The first colonists came to Mars sixty years ago.  Forty years later, they tried to terraform the planet by pumping chemicals into the air.  The intent was to create a breathable atmosphere.  All they created was acidic rain and snow that served to break their impressive machines down into the same rust red dust that is the beginning, middle, and end of this place.   (loc. 29)

    I try to pull my cuffed hands under me, but I’m cuffed to a steam pipe or something behind me.  I’m not going anywhere.

    “Where are your friends?” he asks, his gaze unwavering.  I don’t know if he’s bluffing, but there’s no reason for me to play along.

    “What are you talking about?  I came alone.”

    “You aren’t that stupid,” he responds.

    “Oh, I’m pretty stupid,” I say.  “My current predicament is proof positive.”  (loc. 3380)

Kindle Details...

    Snowfall on Mars sells for $0.99 at Amazon.  This seems to be Branden Frankel’s only book offered at Amazon, although he also is one of the authors for a Dystopian Fiction anthology titled Trumpland: An Alternative History of the Future, and which costs $2.99.  There are eight authors total for the 174-page Trumpland book, so I presume these fall into the short stories category.

In hindsight, it seems like the Boy Scouts is an end-times preparation service.  (loc. 1606)

    The quibbles are minor.  There’s an awful lot of cussing going on which admittedly fits the character of our narrator.  But I found it a bit distracting after a while.  There are also a couple of sex references and/or scenes, which weren’t distracting, but which do mean that little Timmy probably shouldn’t be reading this.

    Then there’s the innovative twist concerning the Martian snow late in the story, but it doesn’t fit well with the “hard science” tone of the book.

    That’s pretty much it, and pretty nitpicky.  For me, Snowfall On Mars was a fast-paced, easy read, and a pleasant surprise since it came from an author I’d never heard of before.  I recommend it highly for anyone who likes Dystopian and/or Science Fiction.

    9 Stars.  The failed terra-forming project kindled some old memories for me.  Back when I was a kid (when woolly mammoths and dinosaurs roamed the world), cloud-seeding was touted as the next big thing in weather-manipulation.  IIRC, they were going to seed clouds with iodine crystals to induce rainstorms in drought-stricken areas.  I haven’t heard anything else about this in decades.  Sometimes, apparently, science doesn’t have all the answers to our problems.

Wool - Hugh Howey

   2012; 510 pages.  Full Title : Wool Omnibus Edition (Wool 1-5)  New Author? : Yes.  Books #1-#5 (out of 9) in the Silo series.  Genre : Post-Apocalyptic Science Fiction; Dystopian Fiction.  Overall Rating : 7*/10.

    In a post-apocalyptic world, evidently as a result of a nuclear holocaust, the descendants of the few who survived now live underground.  More specifically, their habitat is a huge silo (think “farm” silo, not “missile” silo), with more than 130 levels in it.

    There is a rigid caste system in place detailing who lives in which section of levels, but anyone can walk to the topmost level and gaze out onto the bleak landscape via a huge viewing-bubble window.  Of course, if you happen to live 130 levels underground and want to see what’s outside, you better have good legs, since there are no elevators in the silo, only stairs.

    The scene from the window is haunting – a ruined city in the distance, and dust-covered hills nearer to the silo.  Unfortunately, the dust gradually builds up and collects on the bubble, obscuring the view.  Someone needs to periodically go out and clean off the outside of the bubble with wool.  But it is a one-way mission, since the air is toxic outside and the suits the cleaners wear last only a couple minutes before the fatal leaks occur.  It’s long enough to clean the window, but no one ever makes it back inside afterwards.

    So the question is – how to determine who gets to do the suicide cleaning?

What’s To Like...

    Wool is divided into 5 parts, each of which gets progressively longer.  The first part, titled “Holston”, is actually a standalone short story, but is a compelling read despite only comprising 7% of the e-book.  The other 4 parts develop the story further and were reportedly written after a large number of readers clamored for sequels.

    Part 2 is another standalone, featuring a sheriff and a mayor traipsing from top to bottom of the silo, and back up again.  I got the feeling its main purpose was to give the reader a feel for how the silo was structured.  The main protagonist, Juliette, appears starting in Part 3, and her story continues through Parts 4 and 5.

    The characters are all unique and well developed.  Even the bad guys have at least one or two redeeming qualities.  The world-building is impressive in its detail, and the concept of living in silos after an apocalyptic event is original.  Although Hugh Howey doesn’t explain exactly what happened to destroy civilization (I blame Cormac McCarthy for popularizing that habit),  I gather that's dealt with in the next book, where the sequel is a prequel.

    The book is 500+ pages long, but has 81 chapters and an epilogue, so there’s always a good place to stop.  It ends at a logical spot, and leaves the reader thirsting to know what happens next.  If you liked George Lucas’s early film, “THX 1138”; and or Shirley Jackson’s short story, “The Lottery”, you will likely enjoy Wool.

Kewlest New Word …

Wicking (v.) : absorbing or drawing off (a liquid) by capillary action

Others : Gyred (v.)

Kindle Details...

    Wool sells for $4.99 at Amazon, which is an excellent price to introduce you to this series.  The other books in the series all sell for $5.99 apiece, and that's still a great price.

Excerpts...

    But then, the lowering of the body and the plucking of ripe fruit just above the graves was meant to hammer this home: the cycle of life is here; it is inescapable; it is to be embraced, cherished, appreciated.  One departs and leaves behind the gift of sustenance, of life.  They make room for the next generation.  We are born, we are shadows, we cast shadows of our own, and then we are gone.  All anyone can hope for is to be remembered two shadows deep.  (loc. 2210 )

    He leaned back and peered under the table at the dog, who was half sitting on one of his boots and looking up at him with its foolish tongue hanging out, tail wagging.  All Knox saw in the animal was a machine that ate food and left shit behind.  A furry ball of meat he wasn’t allowed to eat.  He nudged the filthy thing off his boot.  “Scram,” he said.

    “Jackson, get over here.”  McLain snapped her fingers.

    “I don’t know why you keep those things around, much less breed more of ‘em.”

    “You wouldn’t,” McLain snapped back.  “They’re good for the soul, for those of us who have them.”  (loc. 4005)

 “We get no credit for being sane, do we?”  (loc. 4354)

    I’ve been eager to read Wool for quite some time, particularly since it is almost always checked out at my local library, both as an e-book and in hardcover.  And while it was a worthwhile read, there were some disappointments.

    First and foremost, in most post-apocalyptic tales, the reader looks forward to seeing what kind of life –human, critters, mutants, or otherwise – somehow survived and now inhabit the ravaged planet.  And while there is a bit of a “life beyond the silo” encounter here, it is rather limited in scope.

    Secondly, this cannot be described as an action-packed story.  Yes, there is eventually a rebellion, but let’s face it, there’s always a revolt in a dystopian novel, and here it is late in arriving on the scene.  Also, a lot of what action there is happens off-screen.  The undoing of the bad guy?  We’re told about it later.  The heroic climax of the rebellion?  Yep, off-screen.

    Overall, I wouldn’t say Wool is a bad story or a waste of time.  But it didn’t live up to my admittedly high expectations.

    7 Stars.  Add 1½ stars if your favorite machine at the gym is the stairmaster and you just love the idea of trudging up and down steps.  You'll be walking on air here.