E-Finds: Books, Music, Video & Other On-Line Finds

Announcement: I am moving to Goodreads!

2012-01-02T15:57:00.000-08:00

Some of you may have noticed that this blog has been quiet for awhile. I have had a lot on my personal plate as I finished out 2011, and now that I am setting myself up for 2012, I have come to the decision to move my reading stats, reviews and chatting over to Goodreads. I have many friends there, and it just seems simpler to keep all my reading stuff in one place.

I also have found that the initial impetus for this blog---to review books and help readers separate out the good from the bad---is not so compelling to me anymore. I am simply drowning in content---between library books, classic finds from the fine folks to Project Gutenberg, freebies from the Kindle store and so on, I have a to-read over 1000 books long. What this means, from a reviewing standpoint, is that I simply have not got the time to read books which are only so-so. If it doesn't grab me, and fast, I am moving on. So the act of slogging through a mediocre book just to review it does not appeal to me---and since Amazon and Smashwords, my two main stores, both offer generous sampling, I feel that any ebook reader is well-equipped to try before they buy. They don't need me to filter out the chaff for them as much.

I won't stop reading, and I won't stop offering my thoughts on the books I do read, both indie and otherwise. I will just be doing it at Goodreads now instead. Here is my profile. I have started with a clean slate for 2012 and will be adding---and reviewing---books as I read. I welcome you to follow me there! I have already posted my first review of the year. Happy reading!

Admin Update

2011-10-12T05:41:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone

With regret, I am shutting down the Indie eBook Hall of Fame. Delicious has screwed up its UI in their new redesign to the point where I can't keep track of what I have there anymore, and the results of the blog experiment, both in feedback and in hits/subscriptions, seem to indicate a lack of interest. I just don't have the time to maintain such a project given the traffic it generates. I hope that taking it off my plate will give me more time to review books here!

Apologies to anyone who is disappointed. I hope you'll stay with me while I try to improve *this* blog and add many quality reviews of indie and DRM-free books.

Stay tuned for a new review tonight!

Review: We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver

2011-08-18T11:20:00.001-07:00

We Need to Talk About Kevin is a novel of literary fiction. The version I read was an ebook which was obtained at Amazon. The story itself was memorable, in spite of its inherent disagreeableness: Eva, the narrator, recites the novel as a series of letters to her estranged husband Franklin, wherein she deconstructs the unhappy life and eventual deadly rampage of their son Kevin. Kevin is disagreeable from birth, a classic 'bad seed' type. Eva is a cold and suspicious mother. I give Shriver props for the fairly deep and well-drawn characterizations. The battle of wills between Eva and Kevin, and her husband's stunning naivete, were clear and deep, and the stunning denouement inevitable.

However, the book loses some points on two fronts. Firstly, nearly every character in the book is massively unsympathetic. The 'nature vs nurture' debate Eva has with herself on whether she 'ruined' Kevin or not is hobbled by her descriptions of his life as a sociapathic-from-minute-one devil baby. And Eva, in spite of her tiger-mother love underneath it all, really is an egocentric, arrogant cold fish. There simply isn't anyone to root for here, and I think the book needed that.

The book is also filled with pretentious language, and I waffled between whether this was Shriver's choice as a means of characterization for Eva (who really would, I suppose, write that way) or whether it was simply that Shriver herself is the intellectual who just can't help showing off. There were times I groaned, and then had to admit that perhaps a smug mug like Eva really would use that word. And there were other times where I wanted to smack the author upside the head and remind her that real people don't talk that way.

Still, on the content side, it was a compelling read. I'm giving it 4/5, but it's a reluctant 4. It seems like it's worth more than a 3, but I'm not whole-hearted in singing its praises. It's memorable, and in parts very nicely done. But in other areas, it's trying too hard and I'm not sure what to make of it.

As for the book's formatting and presentation as an e-item, I am giving it a 3. The book did have some signs of poor e-proofing, mostly of the 'there should be a space between two words and there wasn't' sort. This is not the most deadly error in terms of the book's absolute readability, but it did occur often enough that I noticed it.

Review: Sex with Dead People by David Barker

2011-08-01T09:32:00.000-07:00

Sex with Dead People by David Barker is a short story collection featuring 28 very short stories with an urban feel. One story takes place on the subway; another involves a newspaper. They are slight, quick little diversions.

Barker is a decent craftsperson as far as language issues go. There were no obvious editing mistakes, and some of the descriptive prose was quite lovely. The stories, however, were a little uneven. Many of them quite ably set up a premise and then delivered a kicker ending, but a few of the stories just kind of stopped. I recognize that in stories of this length, there won't be the build-up you would get with a longer piece. But even so, there has to be a point somewhere, or why are we reading? Some of the stories were just a little too slight and never delivered the payoff they should have.

It's a free book, so try it out if you like short stories. But I can't rate this one more than a 3/5, and that's perhaps a little generous. Some of the stories were great, but some of them just didn't work at all for me.

Sample Review Roundup: Various Books

2011-07-24T17:29:00.000-07:00

I'll be back this week with a new Smashwords review, but in the meantime, a sample round-up! These are books that I started but, for whatever reason, did not finish. I read the sample and it did not inspire me to read further. Ready?

No Rest for the Wicca by Toni LoTiempo: Witch books are fun, but I am over the vampires. A few pages of clumsily introduced backstory and I realized this book wasn't for me.

Sweet Mysteries by Connie Shelton: I guess I am just not a 'cozy mystery' person, since I didn't like this much more than I did her previous series. I had to stretch my suspension of disbelief muscle a little too far in the sample I read. The sheriff leaves her, unsupervised, in an unchecked crime scene, she messes it up, and then he both deputizes her and asks her out on a date? Um...no.

Next Move, You're Dead by Linda Lavonne Barton: The author has a comma usage problem. As in, she doesn't use them. When I start getting my 'world's biggest slushpile' tingle, I bail. Sorry!

Web Secrets by Ronnie Dauber: I read one page of very overwrought description before deciding this was not the book for me.

Color Me Grey by J.C. Phelps: I am a sucker for 'first book in the series' things, but I read through about 10 screens of a whole lot of tell and not any show, and got bored. Next!

Tyger Lilly by Lisa Trusiani: It's YA fantasy. Why on earth did I download that one? Apologies to the author, but this is just not my genre.

Deadly Engagement by Lucinda Brant: I think I downloaded this one because it was free during Read an eBook Week, and I have spoken to the author online and she seems like a really nice person. But, as I said for the book above---this is just not my genre, and no amount of 'author being a nice person' is going to change that. I just don't enjoy this kind of book. Sorry!

Six Days to Midnight by Kat Duncan: See above. Political thrillers just aren't my thing.

The Scavenger's Daughter by Mike McIntyre: Another book where the blurb alone failed to alert me to a genre mismatch. As soon as I read the phrase “S&M plain slut” I bailed.

As a sidenote, I wanted to put in a plug for an indie book I enjoyed which is sadly not available at Smashwords, and hence ineligible for review here, but is a great $0.99 read for those with Amazon accounts. Twists and Turns is an anthology edited by the fine folks at Red Adept, who sponsored a contest of short stories with a 'twist' ending. The quality of stories varied somewhat, as they always do with multi-author anthologies (there was one pure fantasy story which I outright skipped) but enough really good stuff to make this well worth the buck.

Website for Authors and Readers

2011-07-03T18:57:00.000-07:00

I have consolidated some of my on-line projects into a single handy website: the e-Finds Book Pages! It's your central gathering place for the eBacklist Collection, the best of my Teleread Articles and more! The site comes in two flavours:

The Author Page has info, articles, books and web links of interest to indie ebook authors
The Reader Page has links to reviews, curated collections and blogs of interest to readers

Comments, suggestions and feedback is very welcome. And please, spread around the links to any message boards or blogs that you frequent!

Sample Review: Powerless: The Synthesis by Jason Letts

2011-06-15T18:29:00.000-07:00

Powerless: The Synthesis is a young adult novel from Jason Letts. It's the first of a five-part series, and has been reviewed positively elsewhere. The story involves a teenaged girl named Mira who lives on a world where everyone has a special power. Mira herself does not have a power, which makes her unusual, and potentially in danger.

I have very mixed feelings about this book. On the one hand, I love the concept, and I give Letts credit for creating an interesting world and an engaging storyline. It did keep me reading, and I felt that the book was fun and creative. I do think a young reader would enjoy it.

But here was my issue---it stopped me reading even though I enjoyed the story, and it prevents me from recommending it. It has some noticeable errors in grammar, punctuation and language usage. Absent a professional editor to do it for him, the author needs to do some work to clean it up. And to me, this was a fatal flaw.

In a novel intended for adults, I could excuse the occasional mistake and the slight diamond in the roughness of it. I would note it in my review and recommend the book on the strength of its story and interest. BUT---this novel is intended for younger readers, and to me, that means it has to hold itself to a higher standard. Young readers learn about language and writing and grammar from what they read. I simply could not in good conscience turn them loose on a story---no matter how fun---which had obvious errors that even a half-decent editor could fix. I would not want them learning, the wrong way, from a book like this when there are professionally edited alternatives.

I feel badly about this. I was really having mixed feelings about posting this review. I really did enjoy the story, until I reluctantly gave up because I knew what my recommendation would have to be. I do think this is one of those 'internet slushpile' finds that, were it 'discovered' by the big boys, has the potential to be a huge commercial hit. A professional publishing house could smooth out some of the grammar nitpicks, clean up some of the redundant usages (the few negative reviews on Amazon mark the story down for the same reasons I do and cite examples) and make this book really shine. But as it stands now, it's still more rough than diamond. And that's excusable when you're writing for grown-ups who can shrug and no better. But when you're writing for kids? Hell, no. You've got to do it properly.

Sorry, Mr. Letts. I did really enjoy your creative story and think it has huge potential. But I can't recommend it until you find someone to take that potential and really make it shine.

Review: Vampire General- Intern with the Vampire by Kit Iwasaki

2011-06-12T20:16:00.000-07:00

Vampire General- Intern with the Vampire by Kit Iwasaki was described to me as 'True Blood Meets Scrubs' and I have to admit, I was intrigued. I purchased the book myself without even contacting the author about a review copy!

The book pretty much lives up to its promise---well-written, brisk-paced, very readable. A human doctor finds herself swept up into the world of the supernatural when a mysterious patient costs her her job, and she accepts his offer to go work at his hospital, which services the 'transhuman' population. The two cases she follows involve a mermaid and a man with 'zombie genes' who needs help reanimating safely.

The story itself was overall great fun, but I have two complaints. Firstly, it's super-short. The word count listed at Smashwords is a respectable 30,000 and change, but the description fails to mention that a full 10% of this is a different story by another author. Had I known that the actual story I was paying for was so brief, I would probably not have shelled out $1.99 for it.

The other complaint was the characters themselves. Even our heroine admits that her new co-workers are mean and unappealing. It's such a fascinating premise the author has set up here, it's a shame to soil it with such nasty people. They hate the heroine for no apparent reason, dismiss her legitimate questions, tell her they don't really care when she raises a genuine medical issue and in short have no redeeming qualities whatsoever. I'm not quite sure why the author made this choice, either. There was plenty of danger, intrigue and romance just in the premise. Grey's Anatomy, but with vampires? Neato. So why did the author have to make all the characters so darned unlikeable?

I am giving this a 3.5/5 for clever concept and passable execution, but if it had been a little bit longer (or cheaper), and if the main characters had been in the slightest way appealing, this could have been an easy 5/5.

Review: Alien Murders by Stephen Goldin

2011-05-22T16:25:00.000-07:00

Alien Murders by Stephen Goldin is a well-written set of two mystery novellas with sci-fi trappings. Deborah Rabinowitz is a literary broker who negotiates rights for Earth literature to alien cultures. In the course of this job, she becomes involved in the two cases presented in this short book. In the first, she is mid-teleconference with an alien on another world, when he is murdered in front of her. Since she only inhabited his virtual world, she did not see what happened in his real one. But as the only 'witness' she cannot help but be involved.

In the second story, she assists a friend who was accused of murdering an alien she had been collaborating with on a cookbook. The twist is that this alien world has a major taboo about public eating, so both the friend and her unfortunate collaborator are branded as moral corrupts, and this complicates Deborah's defense of her friend.

The near-future world of Deborah was well-drawn. The technology and world-creation was subtly woven in and not oppressive and the traits of the aliens were interesting. One of my favourite little throwaways was the part where Deborah must virtually visit a world where status is represented by the height of your body. The 'body rental' agency has to ask numerous questions to determine Deborah's status so they can loan her the appropriate-sized form for her visit. A subplot involving Deborah's directing an amateur Shakespeare production was also nicely implemented.

A few small quibbles; a nicer cover design would not be remiss, and although the book itself was free of errors, there is a distracting typo in the Smashwords blurb that might turn away potential readers. And the first few pages were a little confusing; Goldin over-plays Deborah's 'attitude' just a little and I very nearly shut the book on him. I am glad I stuck with it, though. As a mystery fan who doesn't generally enjoy a ton of sci-fi, this book struck just the right balance for me. I wish there had been more stories. A sequel, especially a novel-length one with a single story, would very definitely interest me and I have added this to my Indie Favourites List.

I rate this book a 4/5 and definitely recommend it.

Review: Desert Places by Blake Crouch

2011-05-20T18:15:00.000-07:00

Desert Places is a gripping, well-paced quick read. It's been plugged---deservedly, I think---by The Almighty Konrath, among others and I read it straight through in one sitting.

The plot centers around thriller writer Andrew Thomas, who one day receives a shocking letter:

"Greetings. There is a body buried on your property, covered in your blood. The unfortunate young lady's name is Rita Jones. In her jeans pocket you'll find a slip of paper with a phone number on it. Call that number. If I have not heard from you by 8:00 p.m., the police will receive an anonymous call. I'll tell them where Rita Jones is buried on your property, how you killed her, and where the murder weapon can be found in your house (I do believe a paring knife is missing from your kitchen.) I strongly advise against going to the police, as I am always watching you."

Things progress from there to a battle of wits, among other battles, between Andrew and the murderer of the unfortunate lady, who has a connection to him I won't spoil. Suffice it to say that it certainly held my attention!

Parts of the book were very graphic, which might be an issue for some people. But if you like this sort of novel, I think this is an excellent specimen. The characterizations were nicely done (the killer's behaviour is 'explained' for those who seek such things, but the killer himself is ambivalent when this explanation is offered to him). I found that the main character was not as sympathetic to me by the end as he was when we started, and I think I was supposed to feel that way.

My one quibble? I had some formatting complaints. There were numerous sections of interior monologue which were not marked off by quotations or by italic formatting, as per standard. I found it distracting to have them inserted into bits of dialogue or distraction and not be marked off somehow. There were at least two other sections were italics were used, so the author clearly knows how to use them from a technical 'formatting of the book' standpoint. I have to assume that his decision not to use them elsewhere was a stylistic one, and it didn't work for me.

So, minus half a point for that. I am giving this a 3.5/5, but it would have been a solid 4 otherwise, and that's the highest mark I give a genre book. If you like cat-and-mouse suspense, and you have a tolerance for a little gore here and there, this is a book that'll keep you up to finish reading. Recommended.

Fun With Statistics

2011-05-19T19:37:00.000-07:00

Just for some pre-long-weekend fun, some stats to entertain you :)

I currently have 283 ebooks tagged in Delicious. This represents full-length books only; if I count magazines and other ephemera, my total 'ebooks read' are 348.

Of those 283 books, 51 of them have been tagged a 'favourite.'

11 of these are commercial DRM'd titles
17 of them are indie DRM-free titles from Smashwords and Fictionwise
19 of them are classics in the public domain

There are currently 57 ebooks listed in the Indie eBook Hall of Fame. These are books which are available DRM-free and have received at least three positive reviews from independent bloggers.

There are 124 books currently listed in the eBacklist Collection. These are books which were formerly published in print by a mainstream publisher and are being re-released independently by their own authors as the rights have reverted back to them. All of the listed books are DRM-free as well. And I know there are more out there! Authors with eligible listings are invited to check out the submission instructions here.

So, what do these statistics mean for you?

IF YOU ARE A READER

Good news! You can get a ton of content which is free of DRM (and hence can be converted easily for use on any of your devices) and in some cases free of cost as well. You could read for years off some of these links!

If you trust my judgment, you can start with my indie and public domain favourites. That's 36 books right there, and I have personally read and vetted every one of them.
If you'd rather a group blogger's consensus, the Indie eBook Hall of Fame awaits you.
If the stamp of approval from a mainstream, traditional publisher is important to you but you still want to avoid DRM, check out the Ebacklist Collection.
If you avail yourself of all three options, you'll have over 300 books to choose from which have all been vetted and reviewed by someone---yet are DRM-free!

IF YOU ARE AN AUTHOR

Good news! I offer you some self-promo opportunities, even if you write outside the genres I review or write inside those genres but don't wish to submit your book to me.

If your book has received three reviews by independent bloggers (i.e. not Amazon reviews, paid-for reviews, Goodreads reviews or those appearing on PR or aggregation sites) then you can submit your information for inclusion in the Indie eBook Hall of Fame. Note that there may be a delay in getting your book posted, as I do all the work myself and have to verify and enter each book manually!
If you are an author whose book was published once upon a time by a real paper publisher, you can submit your book to the Ebacklist Collection. You don't need to wait for me to add the listing; you can do it yourself. I urge you to please read and follow the submission guidelines carefully, however. I do moderate the entries, and incomplete information (such as forgetting to indicate where it was once published) or excessive/incorrect tagging takes me more time than you'd imagine to correct, and leaves me less time for reviewing and other worthy pursuits!

Have fun browsing this growing index of great DRM-free books!

Review: The Redemption of Mr. Sturlubok by Rudolf Kerkhoven & Daniel Pitts

2011-05-09T05:32:00.000-07:00

The Redemption of Mr. Sturlubok is the second choose your own adventure ebook by Kerkhoven and Pitts; I previously reviewed their other title and found it fun, but a bit on the farcical side. This new entry is more of the same, but the farce is a little more credible this time. Mr. Sturlobok is a school principal, and his position of authority relative to the janitor of the previous book is more credible a comic hero-slash-villain. I also work in a school myself, so I found some of the school-related details resonating with me more than they might have otherwise.

A book like this is not read for its literary merit. The authors are witty and the book is a lot of fun, but this is definitely a book-toy, and if you understand that going in, you'll definitely enjoy it more. It's like those people who panned the live-action Scooby Do movies because they tried to evaluate them as serious films instead of the screen candy they were intended to be. If you want a serious film, don't watch Scooby Do. If you want a serious book, look elsewhere.

An interactive story like this must be a huge amount of work to put together. The authors were careful, and I caught no mistakes. To be careful and to make it fun to boot is no small feat. If you are in the mood for some light, comic book-play, this is the title for you. One complaint: I had to double-check the spelling on the title several times int he process of downloading, reviewing and bookmarking this title. A small complaint, but even so :) 4 out of 5 stars.

Sample Review: Hazel Wetherby and the Elixir of Love by Bill Defelis

2011-05-01T07:58:00.000-07:00

Hazel Wetherby and the Elixir of Love is a YA novel that was pitched to me as 'Nancy Drew meets Men in Black.' It sounded adorable. Hazel seemed like a spunky heroine, and the fairly straightforward mystery (parents go missing, bad guys are involved) seemed like we'd get a simple narrative with some good character moments.

The book was highly reviewed on both Amazon and Smashwords. All of those reviews said that it was a great story for kids. I have to agree with that assessment---it would be good for kids. For this adult reader, it missed the mark a little, I'm afraid.

Defelis writes well and the story seems polished and well-edited. But he jumps around a lot between several groups of characters, and I found that a little distracting at first. And my suspension of disbelief meter was working overtime here. Hazel manages to do such things as rent an office building and hire a housekeeper on her own, for instance. And she decides to be a detective to find her parents, then basically sits around waiting for a 'client' rather than going out and actually detecting. When she does get clues about her parents, they pretty much fall into her lap by dumb luck.

A younger reader might be less bothered by such details. As for myself, I probably could have finished this book and mildly enjoyed it. But I just have so much else on my to-read list right now. If a book is only okay, I just don't have the time.

Verdict: did the sample make me want to read more?
No, but it was a close one. If I didn't have so much else to read, I might have finished. This would be a better book for the younger reader for whom it is intended.

Announcement: Introducing the eBacklist Collection!

2011-04-25T10:32:00.001-07:00

I have launched a new'curated collection' site to allow readers to easily find ALL Smashwords titles which were once print books published by a paper publisher. ANY book which is a backlist title the author is re-releasing is eligible for inclusion, provided it is available on Smashwords OR through a DRM-free vendor.

The best part? I have set up the site so that I don't have to do any of the updating myself! Authors can add their books directly! Do you have an eligible book? Here's how to add it:

1) Launch Smashwords or your vendor site, find the book. Copy the URL.
2) Open a new window; launch Delicious
3) Log in as 'ebacklist' (password is coker2011)
4) Choose the 'save a new bookmark' link in the right margin
5) Paste in your URL and then fill in the title, author and description
6) Add some tags for easy browsing
7) As a thank you, please consider adding my blog to your RSS feed :)

I have added one book to start things off. I hope all self-promo-loving backlist repubbers will go in this week and take 5 minutes to add their stuff. Remember, if it was once published by a publisher, and you have now put out the ebook, and it is DRM-free and ready to read by discerning readers, it is eligible for inclusion, and you don't need to wait on me. Authors can add to this collection any time they want to.

I'll go through once a week and clean up anything that looks messy. If you have any problems, email me and I can help you out.

Review: The Demise of the Soccer Moms by Cathryn Grant

2011-04-09T18:53:00.000-07:00

The Demise of the Soccer Moms is a promising debut from Cathryn Grant, an apparently seasoned short fiction writer. It involves a close-knit group of suburban moms whose lives start unraveling when a quirky newcomer arrives.

It turns out that the unraveling isn't strictly free-spirit Charlotte's fault. Amy, the core mom of the little group, is battling some demons that are finally catching up with her. Somehow, she latches onto Charlotte as a fixation, and things escalate from there.

I had a few small nitpicks with the story---Grant doesn't seem to offer any explanation for Amy's immediate hatred of Charlotte other than 'she's crazy' for instance---but overall, it was a solid read. The story was well-paced and kept me turning the pages, and I thought that Rachel especially was well-written as a character. She struggles with balancing her well-meant loyalty to her friend Amy, and with trying to deal with her growing feelings of alarm as things escalate. Her snail-loving son Trent was one of the more fully realized child characters---the rest, save perhaps Charlotte's daughter Meadow, exist in the story as mere names.

Small quibbles aside, this was a readable and entertaining little drama, and well worth a read. Recommended!

Sample Review: Who Censored Roger Rabbit? by Gary K. Wolf

2011-03-27T17:05:00.000-07:00

Sample Reviews are a new feature I am starting as on now! For each review, I'll choose a book that's been languishing on my To-Read list, and read the sample. Then write a short review that answers this question: did the sample make me want to pull the trigger on the rest of the book? Why or why not?

For my first sample review, I checked out Who Censored Roger Rabbit? by Gary K. Wolf. This book was the basis for the very good Disney movie; I enjoyed that movie and was delighted to learn that the author of the book has joined the backlist re-publishing crowd on Smashwords. Both books in the series were free during Read an Ebook Week, so I got them then and was curious to read them.

The books initially suffered from some fatal formatting flaws. I contacted the author, who was very friendly and attentive; the books were re-formatted and uploaded again within a day. Unfortunately, they could still benefit from a good copy-edit. These books are old enough that I suspect the author had to OCR them, and there are a few misplaced line breaks and punctuation issues. Not fatal, as the other issues were, but somewhat irritating.

Onto the story though, things were pretty smooth. The premise involves a world where cartoons are sentient beings who live side by side among humans. Eddie Valiant is a human private eye in the grandest of noir traditions who is hired by Roger Rabbit to investigate a simple labour dispute, and winds up in over his human head in the seamy underside of Toontown.

I enjoy a good noir mystery, and I enjoy a little quirk, so this should have been a slam dunk for me. Ultimately, however, I found the book a little flat. It is such a visual, exciting world the author has created. It was a little TOO visual, though. I felt the way I have felt before when I tried to read steampunk novels. I was interested in the world they were creating, but too many times, the action would slow down for an explanation of a sight gag that would have been better in a more visual medium. I am sure I would enjoy a steampunk comic book, just as I enjoyed the movie version of this very imaginative story. But as a novel, it wasn't quite as interesting. I got a little tired of reading explanation for where the speech bubbles go when a toon finishes talking.

I do see this as a book with appeal for the mystery fan, especially the noir mystery fan. With all due respect to Mr. Wolf, he has created an extremely imaginative and well-thought-out world for his stories, and I give him credit for the deserved traffic the movie version will likely drive his book's way. But for me, it worked better as a movie, I'm afraid :) With so much else on my plate right now, I passed on reading the rest of the novel.

Verdict: did the sample make me want to read more?
With no disrespect to Mr. Wolf and his clever story, no it didn't.

Read an Ebook Week, Days 6 & 7

2011-03-12T07:30:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone! Time to wrap up Read an Ebook Week! Some last-minute todos...

1) Go to a Best Buy, Future Shop or other local chain and see what's on the offer. Maybe there is something on sale and you'll get lucky! Or maybe you are happy with the reader you have but it's just cool to play with a different gadget...

2) Last chance to take advantage of the Smashwords specials! This time, try a genre you don't normally read from and see if anything strikes your fancy.

3) Do you have a blog, or did you join a message board this week? Write a post about your RAEW adventures and submit it!

Happy reading, everyone!

Read an Ebook Week, Day 5

2011-03-10T09:37:00.000-08:00

Hello again!

How is Read an Ebook Week going? Are you finding any good books out there? Here are some todos for Day 5.

1. Set up a Google Alert with your favourite author's name so that you can find out news about their new releases, places they are being reviewed and talked about, and coupon codes to get deals on their books. If you are an author, set up a Google Alert on yourself!

2. Sign up for the e-newsletter at your favourite book vendor, like them on Facebook or follow their twitter account. Kobo and many other ebook stores often post coupon codes and special deals in these places.

3. Have a friend or family member who reads ebooks too? Some stores allow you to gift one of your books to someone else, or to purchase a gift card for them. Share the love and send someone in your life an ebook gift.

Happy reading!

Read an Ebook Week, Day 4

2011-03-09T18:08:00.000-08:00

Hi again everyone! Here are your todos for today:

1. Have a favourite author from the big pubs whose works you enjoy in ebook form? Google their official website address, then send them an email or leave them a comment letting them know you are an ebook buyer and that you appreciate their embracing of the digital age.

2. Do you only read Big Pub authors? If so, how about investigating an indie mecca today? Browse your favourite genre at a site like Smashwords or Feedbooks and pick up an indie read that strikes your interest. Not sure where to start? The Indie eBook Hall of Fame has genre listings of books which have at least three positive reviews from independent bloggers.

3. Remember the forum you joined yesterday? See if it has a poll section. Then look at some polls and cast your vote an an ebook-related topic which interests you. Have fun!

Read an Ebook Week, Days 2 and 3

2011-03-08T08:08:00.000-08:00

Oops! Forgot to post yesterday. Making up for it with a double post today. Here are your todos:

1. Sign up for a forum where you can learn about ebook deals and new releases. Mobile Read or Kindle Boards are both good ones.

2. Read an article at Teleread or another ebook-centric blog and leave a comment. Make your feelings known to those who lead the debate on ebook issues!

3. Still looking for some ebook freebies? How about a great classic from the public domain? Project Gutenberg is the uber-portal for public domain freebies. Feedbooks and Manybooks are also great places to bookmark, especially if you want to download other formats.

Read an Ebook Week, Day 1

2011-03-06T09:25:00.000-08:00

Welcome to Read an Ebook Week! I will be posting some special to-dos every day for the next week, to get you in the 'read an ebook' spirit. Here are your to-dos for day 1!

1. Smashwords has a special area of free and discounted books for this promotion. Check it out and download a few books.

2. Have you submitted reviews for the ebooks you have most recently enjoyed? If not, spend a few minutes adding some ratings and a review or two at the vendors you patronize.

3. Join a challenge or book club! Goodreads is full of them. Mobile Read is another good starting point. Or, just do it yourself. Read 100 ebooks this year. Read 50 classics. Whatever you want!

Check back tomorrow for more Read an Ebook Week todos. Happy reading!

Review: Jenny Pox by JL Bryan

2011-03-05T12:25:00.000-08:00

Jenny Pox came highly recommended to me, with numerous commendations by several indie bloggers. It's a well-written young adult fantasy novel about a girl whose touch can kill. Inevitably, she meets and falls in love with the one boy out there with the power opposite to hers, a healing touch. And just as inevitably, he is connected to the novel's villain, who may have powers of her own...

The story's simple, almost predictable structure actually works in its favour, ratcheting up the tension a little as Jenny and Seth move toward the Carrie-esque ending we all know is coming. Jenny is characterized very well; Seth a little less well, and Ashleigh, not much at all beyond
'she's evil.' As a non-young adult, I confess I would have been happy to spend less time at the Halloween parties, abstinence meetings and church groups these teen characters spent much of their time on, but I think that's my problem and not the fault of the author.

I did find, overall, that I didn't enjoy this book as much as I thought I would because it was a little too grim and gloomy for my taste. Jenny has a miserable, joy-less life and her burgeoning love for Seth just made it even more gloomy because I knew it couldn't end well. I can see why others rated this book so highly. It's original, creative, hits the right buttons for a teen audience etc. But it was just such a sad book to me. I have to mark it down for that.

3/5, but if you have more gothic and tween-age tastes, feel free to bump that up a little.

Review: The Chosen by John Hartness

2011-02-08T18:38:00.000-08:00

This book is described on Smashwords thusly: "A cross-country road trip with angels, demons, immortals, smart-aleck waitresses and a whole lot of whiskey. Great for fans of Christopher Moore and Kevin Smith." It pretty much lives up to this promise. An immortal Adam (yes, THAT Adam, the biblical one) tries to save the world with the help of Cain, Eve, the devil and a few other people. The book is at times super-funny (the 'voice' for Adam is great---snark, but measured, grown-up snark) and the interplay between some of the other characters is very well done.

The book did feel a little bit talky at times. There were a few Grand Speeches to explain Important Things, and a few contortions to make the 'canon' of the biblical narrative work with what the author was trying to do. In particular, I found Cain a little confusing. At times, he pontificates as if everything he's known for was all part of this grand, misunderstood sacrifice, yet at other times he jokes about it and comes across as a huge jackass. And the portrayal of Eve was a tiny bit sexist---Hartness sets up her 'fall' from the garden as part of the grander cosmic interplay which underpins the novel's central conceit, which is nice, but then she's a stripper and possibly an alcoholic too, and I'm not sure that agrees with me.

There were a few late-appearing typos were not deal-breakers for me. But overall, this was a fairly polished Smashwords word. This wasn't quite a 4 for me---almost, but not quite. A little more action and less mytharc, a little more consistency in some of the characterizations and a little less retconning to make the canon fit, and it would have pushed it up there. I'm going to say 3.5/5, but with that said, I definitely think that readers who enjoy this sort of story will enjoy this book a lot.

I have been Indie-viewed!

2011-02-05T19:18:00.000-08:00

I have been "indie-viewed" by Simon Royle! The interview is at his blog here. Enjoy!

Review: Travels in Ghana by Marie McCarthy

2011-01-15T11:55:00.001-08:00

Travels in Ghana is a simple but charming account of a woman's travels in Ghana in 2009. I found it via an announcement on another blog, and was sufficiently pulled in by the sample to want to read the full book. It took some effort locating the author's email address (note to authors: it helps to include this information in your Smashwords profile!) but I was able to track down her contact info via some Google-Fu and get a review copy.

The book is a quick, but interesting read full of interesting characters. The author's driver, Stanley, was especially well described and it was great fun following them across the countryside together. Each chapter dealt with a different phase of the trip and many of the chapters included photographs. Cultural details about life in Ghana were incorporated when necessary and did not detract from the narrative or overwhelm it in any way.

Ghana is a country many people would not think to visit on their own. I was interested to learn more about it and really felt like I was right there along with the author on her trip. The book ended with a short chapter on tips for travelers that was a helpful bonus.

Overall, a brisk, fun read and definitely recommended if you enjoy travel or are in the mood for a memoir-type selection. 5/5.

Interview with GraceKrispy

2011-01-10T15:05:00.000-08:00

GraceKrispy from the excellent review blog MotherLode has been interviewed by Simon Royle here. It's a great little write-up! GraceKrispy and I are somewhat kindred spirits on the indie book review game (although I read a lot of non-indie stuff too so she seems to get through more books than me!) I enjoyed reading her thoughts on indie writing and publishing.

Review: Scourge by David H. Burton

2010-12-07T18:13:00.000-08:00

Sorry I'm late with the review this week! The upcoming holiday concert at school has left me with some extra duties that needed attending. It's that time of year!

Scourge by David H. Burton is an interesting little YA novel that came to my attention through David's posts at Mobile Read, where he is a regular. It was described as a YA "Steampunk" adventure, and that sounded intriguing. I do enjoy a good YA read from time to time, and David had a very polished profile: the book is a second novel, so he has some experience, it is available both at Smashwords and on his website (and if you purchase it from him there, he'll personalize it by using your name for a certain minor character!) and there is even a YouTube trailer. I had to check it out.

The plot concerns a young boy named Grimwald "Grim" Doyle who lives in a strange house with two dads and a passel of siblings. One day, there is a skirmish involving some magic rocks, and all of a sudden some bad guys from another world are after them and they are transported to a fantastical parallel world where there is magic and gadgets and danger galore...

And my verdict? Well, I had to keep reminding myself that this was a book geared for children :) It was certainly well-written, well-edited and had a very creative storyline once it got going. But there were some very well-worn tropes in this book---the evil orphanage, for example, was straight out of Dickens, and like many fantasy novels I've read, there was this air of Sherwood Forest Meets Renaissance Fair underneath all the Steampunk trappings. Of course, children would be less versed in such things. For me, I felt like much of the first third was fairly skimmable and I would have liked to stop for the Explaining of How Things Work a few less times than we did.

Once the story got going, it was a decent enough adventure. And I do think the target audience will probably eat this sort of thing up, especially the boys out there in ebookland. Mr. Burton is the adoptive father of three boys himself, and this experience no doubt influenced Mr. Burton's writing. Ultimately, with no offense intended to the affable and extremely nice Mr. Burton, I am going to decline to rate this one. I like the overall package, I like the author's approach (personalizing the book with a character named after the purchaser is a great touch!) and I respect the obvious work he's put into crafting and carefully editing a solid story. As with the handful of other books I declined to rate, this turned out to be not my kind of story---but I do think it might very well be the kind of story for a different reader. So, as with those other unrated few, I'll say go for it, if this is your sort of thing.

Review: Soul Identity by Dennis Batchelder

2010-11-27T19:26:00.000-08:00

At last, a real Smashwords gem! After several weeks of promising--but-needing-a-good-edit indie reads, I was delighted to find Soul Identity. It's a fun, original and utterly entertaining adventure story. Scott Waverly is a security expert---the opening prologue has him cheekily confounding airport security in order to help them improve their weak spots---who finds himself mixed up with an unusual organization that claims to track souls into their subsequent lifetimes and allow people to transfer their wealth to their future incarnations. He at first writes them off as quacks, but a heartfelt plea from his lonely neighbour, who is an aspiring member, leads him to take them up on a temporary job offer. Once inside the lion's den, he finds a well-meaning majordomo in over his head, a gorgeous computer expert who steals his heart, and a nefarious conspiracy that's out to destroy them all...

The action moves briskly from India to Venice and beyond, and the more philosophical parts are handled deftly without slowing down the action. The characters, especially the two leads, are well-drawn and Scott especially, with that little bad-boy glint in his eye, were fun to read about. Perhaps the villain was a little too obvious and cartoon-ish---might have been nice to see more of him as a character before he was outed as the bad guy---but this is a small quibble. The book was excellent and I heartily recommend it.

I had trouble loading this onto my Kindle for some reason---I read it on the iPad and didn't even notice the Kindle troubles until later. But my sister says it loaded fine on hers. I see too that Mr. Batchelder has a sequel out on a 'pay what you want' price. I will definitely be picking it up and sending a tip the author's way.

Review: The Demon Queen and the Locksmith by Spencer Baum

2010-11-21T13:37:00.000-08:00

This engaging (and free!) YA novel was a treat! The story is about three teens in a mystery-plagued New Mexico town who stumble upon a supernatural-ish adventure involving a strange mountain, a missing radio announcer and mystery forces of evil, and something else entirely.

The first two thirds of the novel were excellent. It was a pleasure watching Jackie, Joseph and Kevin come to terms with the powers they were tapping into, and begin their little teen gumshoe routine. Toward the end, the story got a little too bogged down in the technical stuff, however. I started wanting to skip ahead a little.

That said, I did feel this was one of the better Smashwords books I've read---reasonably polished, entertaining and very original. Sort of across between early Dean Koontz and later Neil Gaiman. Very worth a read, if you like the horror genre. 3.5/5.

Review: Deadly Gamble by Connie Shelton

2010-11-07T15:13:00.000-08:00

Like many of the reviewers who posted at Smashwords about this book, I obtained it during Read an Ebook Week last year. It's a solid, well-edited little mystery and the ten others in the series promise more good reading for those who enjoy this sort of story.

Charlie is an accountant who works for her PI brother, and when he is out of town and an old friend drops by with a seemingly simple lost item retrieval case, Charlie goes off on her own to find Stacy's stolen necklace. But when the thief turns up dead, it's a full-on mystery that Charlie may not be ready for.

The book was of a high quality for a Smashwords title, free of amateur errors and well put together. I am avid mystery reader and this was exactly the type of book I normally like. But something was missing for me. I kept taking breaks from this one, forcing myself to read one more chapter in between rounds of Plants vs Zombies :) I can't quite put my finger on what it was, but I suppose it came down to not enough stakes for me. When I think back to the series I follow most devoutly, they usually involve protagonists with very interesting jobs (Kay Scarpetta is a coroner, Stephanie Plum is a bounty hunter) or with super-compelling backstories (Kinsey Millhone is an orphan with a murky past, Eve Dallas is a former foster child who doesn't even know her real name and is married to a zillionaire). Charlie Parker, in comparison, was kind of blah. It wasn't so much 'J.D. Robb' as ' Carol Higgins Clark' for me, and I hated *those* books!

That said, I do think this is a solid and very polished mystery series for those who read more in the cozy vein, and for some reason I am disinclined to mark it down too much just because I didn't love it. I do think this book (and the others in the series) have potentially wide appeal and are quality entrants in a genre that, let's face it, is under-represented in the indie world both in quantity and quality. If it had that extra zip that felt, to me, to be missing, it would have been a 4/5 for sure. As is, I am going to decline to rate this one. Not my favourite, but it may well be a favourite for others, so go ahead and enjoy if you are a mystery fan.

Review: Still Life with Murder by Patricia Ryan

2010-10-24T08:38:00.000-07:00

I am delighted to welcome a guest blogger for this week's review: my sister Tammy! Tammy is a paralegal, a published freelance writer with more than 300 newspaper and magazine credits to her name (including The Writer, Rangefinder, Paralegal Today, and others) and an as-yet unpublished mystery novelist. Tammy has been a fan of e-books since they first emerged on the PalmOS platform a decade or so ago and just got a Kindle 3 graphite for her birthday. She says she believes it is finally starting to realize the promise of e-books and she dearly loves it! Tammy also reads on a MacBook and a Droid, but neither of those is quite as satisfying as reading on the Kindle! You can find out more about Tammy and her work at her website and at Mobile Read.

Now, onto today's review! The book is Still Life with Murder by Patricia Ryan, and here are Tammy's comments:

***

I'll be honest: I wasn't expecting to love Still Life With Murder. I don't read a great deal of period fiction, and in much of that which I have read, the author's attempts to set the period overwhelmed the story. This book was different.

The story centers around Cornelia “Nell” Sweeney, who through an accident of circumstance becomes governess to the adopted daughter of a high-society Boston family. But Nell’s world explodes hen one of the Hewitt family’s sons, long believed killed in the Civil War, is found both alive and accused of murder. Viola Hewitt enlists Nell’s aid to clear her son, and Nell finds out that unburying secrets can have a heavy cost indeed.

The story's setting was clearly placed, in both location and time, without seeming heavy-handed. The author's writing had a pleasant, almost lyrical, feel that I really enjoyed, and was quite well-crafted. By the end of the book, I genuinely liked the characters and cared about what happened to them. And, best of all, the mystery ended with one of those surprise twists that, upon further reflection, makes the reader say “of course, it had to be that.”

Overall, I’d give this one a 4/5, but that’s just because I don’t read much in this genre. If you love period fiction, bump my rating up to a 5 and go buy this one. Whether you love period fiction or not, you’ll probably enjoy being swept away into Nell’s world. I know I did,

***

Thanks, Tammy, for the review! Tammy will be contributing other reviews to this project and I look forward to seeing what other gems she will bring our way!

Review: The Bad Seed by Maurilia Meehan

2010-10-17T13:44:00.000-07:00

The Bad Seed is a paranormal-themed small press title by a veteran Australian author. It is set in Australia, at a spooky run-down house in a 'spa' town which is purchased by a gardening columnist seeking an escape from a life in tatters after the disappearance of her daughter several years before.

The writing is top-quality and the atmosphere and mood of a small tourist town is captured very well. But I found the plot tended to wander a little. Agatha's job as a magazine columnist is very prominent as the novel begins, then fades away and comes back again several times. It was also not portrayed completely realistically. I doubt, for example, that an editor would be pestering her to run tours of a garden he himself has never seen. And the supernatural lore of the local village could have been woven in a bit more smoothly rather than just being dumped in all in a lump at a convenient juncture.

This is my third read from indie publisher BeWrite Books and I while I respect the kind of business they seem to be running, I have to confess that I have been a bit disappointed with the books I've actually finished. In addition to the above-mentioned issues with this one, there were some sub-plots that would have benefited from better pacing, and there was a glaringly obvious error in a Wizard of Oz reference that never should have made it through the first editing pass. It's disappointing because they seem to choose to choose interesting novels from authors who clearly have the chops, but then it never seems to come together so that the book realizes its full potential.

If this were a first draft, I would give it top marks and be eager to read the final version. But as a finished product, I rate this one a 3.5 at best. More subtlety on the supernatural aspects, a better-paced narrative and a clean-up of some of the obvious inaccuracies would up it to a 4 or higher. But it's not there yet.

Review: Capable of Murder by Brian Kavanagh

2010-10-10T19:23:00.000-07:00

I needed a short one this week; I am recovering (hopefully) from bronchitis and spent most of the weekend sleeping. Capable of Murder by Brian Kavanagh was just the thing---just barely novel-length, and a fairly inoffensive cozy that made for a quick and easy read.

The story involves a young woman who inherits an old cottage near Bath, England from her aunt and goes to live there. She meets several sinister characters who all seem to have an interest in the cottage and grounds, and as the body count climbs, she wonders what secrets her aunt---and the old cottage---contain...

The story was entertaining, and the setting well-realized---Mr. Kavanagh's author bio says that his day job has been work in the Australian film industry, so this is definitely evident in the writing. The characters, however, were less well-realized. We got little sense of the heroine as a person other than that she used to live in London and has inherited a cottage. And the villains were cartoon-ish and not terribly subtle. This was a plot-driven story, not a character-driven one. Unfortunately, I can't help but feel, as I have with other books from this publisher, that the story would have benefited from one more pass by an editor to flesh things out a little.

There appear to be two more novels in the series. My gut tells me they are better than this one, but they are a bit over-priced for an indie read so I probably won't get past the sample. That said, this was not a bad story and made for a reasonably entertaining Sunday read. I give this one a 3/5.

Review: Wake Up! You're Probably Never Going to Look Like That... by Michelle Pearl

2010-10-03T16:36:00.000-07:00

This Smashwords freebie is one of the few wellness titles I have found there that is not either an informercial ad, or priced like one. It's a full-length, content-rich and well-written motivation guide for anyone interested in health, fitness and wellness issues.

The focus of the book is attaining a healthy lifestyle---not necessarily a size zero lifestyle, but rather a realistic and maintainable one where you are at your personal fittest and best. Pearl, who is a personal trainer, outlines ten steps to 'transformation' which include eating regularly, controlling your cravings, reducing temptations and other common-sense but useful suggestions.

The book has many personal anecdotes from both Michelle and her clients (including a former contestant of the Biggest Loser show who has been making media rounds with an eating disorder and a scathing indictment of the show) and is written in a chatty, informal style which works well for the type of book it is. I would have liked to see a sample two-week plan with meals and workout suggestions spelled out in detail---that is standard for 'real' books of this type, and Pearl is at times vague on actual specifics---but that aside, I did find the book a good read, especially for a freebie.

My one big complaint is the formatting---it looks fine on the website and iPad, but this book looked absolutely abysmal on the Kindle. Someone needs to go through her code and clean it up a lot! Page breaks in odd places, weird spaces in between lines, images that just don't look laid out correctly and other glitches abound. I deleted it off the Kindle after less than a dozen pages.

I am going to say 3.5/5 for this one. She loses points for the occasional general idea which could have benefited from being a more specific idea instead, and she loses points too for the absymal formatting. So it's not a 4, but it's better than a 3...

Review: Space Junque by LK Rigel

2010-09-25T19:38:00.000-07:00

Space Junque is a novella-length space opera type of story set in a post-apocalyptic future where eco-terrorism is slowly eroding the planet. The protagonist escapes into space and finds herself stranded there with her missing twin sister's boyfriend, and a shuttle pilot she has a thing for. Things escalate from there...

I don't usually read in this genre, aside from Star Trek novels, but I was intrigued by the sample and took a chance on this one, to mixed results. I enjoyed the human side of the story---Rigel nicely plays such details as the interpersonal vibe between Char and Mike (her identical twin is his girlfriend and his feelings for her are therefore bittersweet) and Char's small efforts to make life go on were similarly deftly drawn. The writing was good, definitely publishable quality.

However, as the story developed, I did find myself getting bogged down a little with the world-building, and this reminded me why I tend to not enjoy such stories. It's hard to work in the backstory needed for a future setting without veering into tireless exposition territory. Something like Dragonverse, which I recently reviewed, erred a little too far on the side of patient explaining. This one was definitely on the side of 'in media res' and I am not sure I am experienced enough with this genre to catch on as quickly and really enjoy that. If you are the type of reader who needs everything spelled out for you very explicitly, you might find yourself struggling a little to piece together the geo-politick at play in this short little book.

I am going to hold off on assigning a rating to this one. If this book is your sort of thing, you'll probably enjoy it. I can definitely say that on a purely functional level, the book is readable, polished and well-paced. Ultimately, it did turn out to be not my kind of story, but I think that is more a reflection on my personal reading tastes than on any issues with the book itself.

The author is currently running a contest to promote the book. So if you enjoy this sort of story, it might be a good time to check it out!

Review: The Adventures of Whatley Tupper by Rudolf Kerkhoven & Daniel Pitts

2010-09-18T22:30:00.000-07:00

I found The Adventures of Whatley Tupper via a recommendation on another blog; it was described as a contemporary, adult 'choose your own adventure' kind of book where at various points in the story, you are presented with choices and taken in different story directions depending on what you choose. You can read the book multiple times and it will be like a different story each time. I was intrigued; I read these types of books (the original Choose Your Own Adventure series) as a child, and the hyperlink functions of a well-designed ebook system are a natural fit for this type of story.

The main character is a janitor at a small university who has various outlandish adventures. The story I read involved a missing person and a wile goose chase after them. It was a very fun little read---the style is kind of cartoon-ish and very much leaning toward farce. If you are a fan of pulp-era dialogue ("“Uhh, I don’t know,” replied the young Vince, adjusting the curly dark locks of his mullet.") this is the story for you.

I tested the book on both iPad and Kindle. On the iPad, it was easy as pie to touch my choice when it came up and go at once to the next 'page' in my custom story. On the Kindle, there was some scrolling needed; it worked, but I will probably keep this on the iPad if I want to do further playing.

This was a very slick and well-done little experiment, but ultimately, it never did progress beyond 'experiment' and into the realm of actual book for me. There was the gimmick of the choose your own adventure thing, and the gimmick of the pulp-speak, and the gimmick of the utterly outlandish storylines (the blurb promises such options as "Will he travel into a parallel universe? Will he tame the troglodyte murderer living in the tunnels?") It was just too much cutesy 'look at how clever.' Fun to play around with for an hour or so, but not really a proper 'book' when all is said and done.

4/5, and most of the points are coming from the fun factor. It does not deserve that on literary merits alone.

Review: The Seventh Compass Point of Death by Richard Sanders

2010-09-11T17:45:00.000-07:00

The Seventh Compass Point of Death is an engaging, quick-moving thriller from Richard Sanders. The main character is a journalist-cum-PI who gets involved in a group of wannabe terrorists at the behest of an old friend, who worries that her brother has become involved. I read through the book (it's a short one) in one sitting and overall enjoyed it.

However, on reflection, I found myself of two minds concerning this book. On the one had, the writing itself was excellent---a sort of noir-ish, brisk-paced style, but with some deft descriptive touches and lovely characterization (especially of love interest Shala and her conflicted, misguided brother Roozie). But treatment of several other key characters was less rich, less developed and overall, less realistic. The government flunky was downright cartoon-ish, and main character Quinn McShane was far more cardboard than he deserved to be. I questioned how realistic some of the events in the story would be.

I also found that, while Saunders' writing pedigree (he has worked for many years as a journalist) was apparent in his knowledge of New York City and the moments of witty description, his pedigree as the editor he claims to be in his author profile was less apparent. Even allowing for some of the characters not being native English speakers (and their dialogue justifiably reflecting this) there were errors in spelling and usage that jumped out at me. Off-hand, I can recall 'bit' where 'but' was clearly meant, 'al' where 'all' was obviously intended, and other such flaws creeping into an otherwise polished story. And the exciting opening sequence featuring a dead body in a car-jacked trunk turned out to have far less relevance---and prominence---than it should have considering the time devoted to it in that critical opening chapter. I do think it is details like this which make many readers feel that self-published books are inferior. It is a shame because I think a proper edit where these mistakes are fixed and some of the less credulous and/or less well-developed aspects of the book were fixed would make this a solid, commercial-quality adventure.

That said, there were some beautiful moments in the quieter scenes with some of the better-developed characters. The pacing, and overall writing was excellent. It is definitely a worthy read---more than a 3/5, certainly. It's Probably the number 2 book I have read so far from Smashwords. But---I can't give it a 4/5 either, given the careless mistakes (one of them in the very last line of the book!) and need for just a little more editing and more time spent on developing certain characters and scenes.

So...I don't know. I recommend it, certainly. But I can't help wishing it would get a tiny bit more polish before anybody takes me up on that recommendation.

Review: Dragonverse by Doug Farren

2010-09-03T12:00:00.000-07:00

I don't usually read fantasy novels, so I was surprised to find myself drawn to the sample for Dragonverse by Doug Farren. In spite of its epic adventure aspirations, it's a fairly simple, sweet little story about a man who is left a house by his absentee uncle and learns that the man is not dead as he thought, but rather has moved permanently to a parallel world in which humans are psychically bound with dragons who spend their lives searching for their intended human half.

The protagonist Terry of course follows his uncle over to this other world and meets his intended dragon. From here, it gets a tad predictable. There is an evil uber-dragon threatening the world, and a prophecy about an uber-good dragon/man pairing who will defeat him. Three guesses who that turns out to be!

On the good, I appreciated seeing a fantasy world that had aged with the times. I think one of the reasons I don't usually read fantasy is the sameness of many of the stories. All the elves and dragons seem stuck in a perpetual Renaissance Faire that makes such books hard for me to distinguish from the other. The fantasy world in this book has cities with electricity and modern conveniences. When Terry applies his Lord of the Rings preconception filter to the world, he is quickly set straight about how elves have modernized too!

On the less good, I did find the story a tad predictable as I said. Certainly, anyone who has widely read in this genre will find it extremely derivative. There was also a fair chunk of time spent on exploratory exposition as Terry learned the mores of dragon world. I would expect to see the apparently intended sequel to be brisker-paced; if I were the author, I would make the sequel as fantastic as I could and then offer this establishing novel as a freebie to promote it.

I would also consider downgrading the ages of the protagonists. With its fairly g-rated action and coming of age type feel as Terry learns to work with his dragon in a new world, this would be a great YA novel. The grown-ups it is geared for now are likely to be wider-read in this genre and might find the story a bit too by-the-numbers.

That said, there were some fun parts---and really sweet moments---that elevated the story a bit for me. So, I'm going to say 3.5/5 for this one. Clean up some late-appearing typos, give me a bang-up sequel and work on your marketing plan a little and you'll have me for part 2, Mr. Farren!

Review: Risen by Jan Strnad

2010-08-26T20:14:00.000-07:00

Risen is one of a growing genre of 'self-published' books which had previous life as a print release from a traditional publisher. This re-release by the author is under his real name (Pinnacle Books published it under the byline of 'J. Knight') and includes some bonus short stories.

'Risen' a fun, fast horror tale. In a small town called Anderson, a long-suffering woman kills her scumbag husband---quite definitively---and is shocked when he comes back to life again, seemingly fitter and happier than before. But he's not the only one...

A reporter and his local cub, a troubled lad named Tom who has own demons, pursue the truth in classic horror-tale fashion. The depiction of small-town life was excellent, but most of the characters proved a little too cardboard after a time. This is definitely a plot-and-action centered story. It reminded me a little of early Dean Koontz---not the depth of some of his classier stuff, necessarily, but good old adventure stories with evil forces and out-of-their-depth Everypeople trying to fight them. Not the sorts of books you remember for the ages, but fun reads for what they are.

I have been asked to comment on formatting---I generally don't notice it, but I did find the formatting a bit sloppy on this book. The chapter headings all had a larger font to distinguish them, but there was no extra spacing to indicate a break. It just ran together a little. An extra paragraph break at the end of the chapter would have made this book look a lot nicer.

I save my 5/5 for books with a little more staying power than this one. But for what it is---a good old-fashioned genre read---it was very good. I give it a 4/5 and my strong recommendation.

1001 Kids Books to Read Before You Grow Up

2010-08-26T11:07:00.000-07:00

I came across a book by this name at Indigo the other day, and had no trouble finding a list of the thousand books mentioned. Some of them were predictable. Some of them were titles I had never heard of. And almost 100 of them are in the public domain. I put together a clickable list of these below for your enjoyment. Happy reading!

Works of Beatrix Potter by Beatrix Potter

Grimms's Fairy Tales by the Grimm Brothers

A Visit from Saint Nicholas by Clement C. Moore

Fairy Tales by Hans Christian Andersen

Book of Nonsense by Edward Lear

Max and Maurice by Heinrich Busch

The Magic Fishbone by Charles Dickens

A Child's Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson

The Blue Fairy Book by Andrew Lang

The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling

Perez the Mouse by Luis Coloma

Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling

The Dutch Twins by Lucy Fitch Perkins

The Adventures of Maya the Bee by Waldemar Bonsels

The Magic Pudding by Norman Lindsey

The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams

My Father's Dragon by Ruth Stiles Gannett

Aesop's Fables by Aesop

Arabian Nights by Unknown

Tales from Shakespeare by Charles and Mary Lamb

The Swiss Family Robinson by Johann Wyss

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll

At the Back of the North Wind by George MacDonald

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain

Black Beauty by Anna Sewell

The Cuckoo Clock by Mrs. Molesworth

The Princess and the Goblin by George MacDonald

Nobody's Boy by Hector Malot

Uncle Remus Stories by Joel Harris

The Prince and the Pauper by Mark Twain

Pinocchio by Carlo Collidi

Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

Little Lord Fauntleroy by Frances Hodgson Burnett

The Canterville Ghost by Oscar Wilde

The Happy Prince by Oscar Wilde

Moonfleet by J. Meade Falkner

The Story of the Treasure Seekers by E. Nesbit

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum

Five children and It by E. Nesbit

Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm by Kate Douglas Wiggin

The Bobbsey Twins by Laura Lee Hope

A Little Princess by Francis Hodgson Burnett

Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens by J.M. Barrie

Cautionary Tales of Children by Hilarie Belloc

Arsene Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar by Maruice Leblanc

The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame

Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett

Pollyana by Eleanor H. Porter

The Young Visiters by Daisy Ashford

The Story of Doctor Dolittle by Hugh Lofting

Just William by Richmal Crompton

Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder

Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe

Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift

The Three Musketeers by Alexander Dumas

The Children of the New Forest by Frederick Marryat

The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

The Rose and the Ring by William Makepeace Thackeray

Tom Brown's Schooldays by Thomas Hughes

The Coral Island by Robert Ballantyne

Eric, or Little by Little by Frederic Farrar

Captain Fracasse by Theophile Gautier

Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne

What Katy Did by Susan Coolidge

Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne

The Fifth Form at St. Dominics by Talbot Reed

With Clive in India by George Henty

Kidnapped by Robert L. Stevenson

Heart by Edmondo de Amicis

Seven Little Australians by Ethel Turner

The Prisoner of Zenda by Anthony Hope

The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle

The Call of the Wild by Jack London

White Fang by Jack London

The Railway Children by E. Nesbit

The Fortunes of Philippa by Angela Brazil

Mystery of the Yellow Room by Gaston Leroux

A Girl of The Limberlost by Gene Stratton Porter

Emily Climbs by L. M. Montgomery

See also: 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4)

Review: Prestwick by David Hough

2010-08-20T20:19:00.000-07:00

Prestwick by David Hough is decently-written adventure novel. Two planes collide in mid-air---a passenger 747 with 400 people, and a military plane. Neither can land at Prestwick, the nearest airport, because a top-secret experimental vessel is having an emergency too...

Hough clearly knows his plane jargon, and he describes the technicalities well for the layperson reader. But the book---well-written though it is---was a tad long for me. I felt like we were witnessing the same conversations over and over again. If I saw one more chapter where the pilot radios his rescue plane, states that he must land at Prestwick and is told he may not (and in subsequent conversations, that he 'still' may not) I was ready to scream. We get it. We got it the last three times we read it too. The novel could have benefited from a tiny bit more editing.

And on another pacing note, a sub-plot about a murdered stewardess got off to an intriguing start and then fizzled. We know who had done it too early on. It would have been better, plot-wise, if Hough had allowed his investigator character to flesh out those events via mid-flight investigating, rather than through flashbacks, as he did. But again, that is a judgment call. Hough was clearly not aiming to write a detective novel---it may have been a better read, for me, if he had been, but that would have been a somewhat different story.

Some characters were very well-realized. And Hough had a deft hand with the technicalities of the mid-air emergency and with making the reader feel they were right up there with those pilots in that dramatic situation. For that reason, I give the book a 3/5 and put it above some of the other books I've read. Had I been the editor, I might have tightened things up a little and removed some of the redundant scenes. And I might have encouraged Hough to play up the mystery novel aspect a little more. But the book, as it is, is still a half-decent adventure.

The ebook drinking game

2010-08-19T09:56:00.000-07:00

This is too good not to share...

Review: Tied in by Lee Goldberg

2010-08-14T09:09:00.000-07:00

Happy weekend, everyone! Time for another Smashwords review. Tied in: The Business, History and Craft of Media Tie-in Writing edited by Lee Goldberg is a non-fiction title I found via a thread on Mobile Read. It's a collection of essays from authors who write media tie-in novels. As someone who has read such novels, mostly of the Star Trek and Buffy sort, some of the names of the contributors were already familiar to me, and I was curious to learn more about how these books get written.

As with most anthologies, some of the chapters were better than others. There were several standout essays. The first, by Max Allan Collins, dealt with a movie tie-in he wrote in which the movie was based on one of his own novels. It proved to be a frustrating experience for him because he had to show fidelity to the movie and his status as creator of the original property did not afford him any special privileges. He found it frustrating to try and flesh out the movie script based on his own insider knowledge only to have the producers of the movie reject some of his unscripted material.

Another standout chapter was a lengthy roundtable discussion that featured several of the many contributors answering questions as a group. They discussed all aspects of plotting and writing media tie-in novels. One observation I found interesting was a discussion on original characters. As a reader, I have sometimes found such characters boring; you buy the book to read about the Star Trek people, or the Buffy people or whomever. But since the tie-in authors are for obvious reasons constrained from killing off a major character or otherwise introducing a major change in them, an original character is often their only chance to spotlight any sort of character growth during a story. So for them, these original characters serve an important function in the book which, as a reader, I had not considered.

Other excellent chapters included Elizabeth Massie writing about her 'The Tudors' novels; Donald Bain on his 'Murder, She Wrote' series; Nancy Holder on her 'Buffy' experiences And Alina Adams on writing soap opera tie-ins, including in website form.

Overall, I give this book only four stars because some of the chapters were not quite up to par for me. This is the risk you run with any multi-author collection! If you have ever written fanfic or read Star Trek novels or been curious as to how this interesting sub-genre works, this is the book for you. It's a quick, light read with some food for thought for anyone who enjoys these types of books.

Why a blog? And an FAQ answer...

2010-08-09T20:12:00.000-07:00

A question came up at Mobile Read asking me why I am blogging these reviews instead of simply posting them at Smashwords. Here was my reply:

1) Smashwords is a huge site to browse and not all the books have reviews (in fact, most of them do not). I wanted to create a convenient aggregator of ONLY books with reviews to narrow the field and make people feel less like they are wading through the world's biggest slushpile. I am in essence creating a curated sub-collection of only reviewed books.

2) Many of the reviews on Smashwords that do exist are not detailed, objective or critical. I am aiming to write 'proper' reviews, not just one-liners, shills or only positive comments. I am doing this to help *customers* buy and choose books, so I am not interested on posting reviews just because I know an author or have any stake in the books myself.

3) Doing it as a blog allows people to immediately see if there is new content by subscribing to an RSS feed. Smashwords does not have an RSS feed for new reviews. And, as I said, a lot of the reviews on Smashwords, when they do exist, are not helpful. And a lot of readers feel frustrated with having to wade through the massive, massive slog that is Smashwords just to find a few books that do have reviews or are of acceptable quality.

4) Other efforts I have seen to 'promote' indie authors are pretty much vehicles for self-promotion. My blog is different because I do personally read and review every book (i.e. I don't just post press releases) and because I am not affiliated with any authors.

I appreciate that Smashwords does offer the capability to leave reviews, and I do plan to leave a rating and short comment for every book I read. But my goal is to separate out the books I review, not to just have them exist as part of this larger set. I am creating a curated collection of books I have personally reviewed.

Now, on to one other FAQ-ish matter, there have been a few authors who have left comments saying 'I appreciate you may not post this since you moderate the comments, but can I send you a code for my book?' Yes, you can, and I will happily read it if it interests me. But please do not be offended if I say 'no thanks' should the summary twig my radar that your book might not be my style, and please do not get impatient of the review takes some time appearing. I have a massive TBR pile and am just dipping in and choosing what strikes my mood. It may take some time before I get to everything!

And finally, if you are an author and you do want to comment on any of the posts here, please be respectful that this blog is not a venue for self-promotion. A sig line indicating that you have a book yourself is fine, but the content of your comment should be about the review in question (for example, if you too read the book and have something to say about it) and not about your own book. Comments such as 'great review, love your blog, and check out my book, here is the link' will not be posted :) I am trying to strike a fair balance here---I am all for promoting the indie cause, but the purpose behind the Smashwords pledge is to honestly review a sample of the Smashwords collection as one reader to another. It's for the readers, in other words. Have a sig line if you want to, but please show respect and do not engage in author promos here. If you want to send a press release or promo to me personally, you may do so, as I outlined above.

Review: Learn me Good by John Pearson

2010-08-09T18:43:00.000-07:00

Welcome to my second Smashwords review! Today's book is Learn me Good by John Person and unfortunately, it's not as glowing as my last one. The premise seemed promising enough: an engineer-turned-teacher recounts his exploits in the classroom to a former colleague in a series of 'humourous' emails. There is one positive review up on Smashwords already, from somebody who found the book hilarious, but adds that she does not work with kids and does not read in this genre.

Well, I do work with kids, and I do read in this genre. And while I can't fault Mr. Pearson for his grammar and overall polish, I have to admit that I just didn't find most of his stories very funny. A lot of what he recounts is fairly standard teacher stuff: a new kid joins the class mid-year and clashes with a child who is already there. A new kid joins the class who has a funny name. A kid does something wrong and lies to your face about it, or lies to their parent's face about it, or lies to your face about what they told their parent's face and so on. A kid gives a 'creative' answer when you ask them something.

Meh. I keep a blog about teaching, mostly as a means of sharing self-created lessons with other teachers using the same curriculum program as me, and most of my stories are the same, or better. And I found his relentless leanings to the cutesy tiresome---'clever' nicknames about, and there are puns everywhere. It was just too much. And it was especially too much when there was no plot to speak of and all you had to look forward to was an endless parade of sameness about kids with funny names giving you smart answers to the sorts of questions which populate a third-grade standardized test.

If you don't work with kids, this might not all sound so run of the mill to you. But as a teacher who sees all of this stuff on a routine basis, none of what he writes about here was terribly unique or interesting. This book needed a stronger narrative drive, a serious toning down of the cutesy, and just overall better content. I give this a 3/5, and in my opinion, that is generous. If you want to read two really excellent books on children and teaching, I recommend this one and this one instead.

Review: Radium Halos by Shelley Stout

2010-08-07T22:05:00.000-07:00

"A whole person's life is something like a war. After you fight in a war, you can't help but be different in some way, but folks change just from living through hardships and sorrows and angers too. Also, like a war, nobody really wins, but life goes on anyway."
---Radium Halos by Shelley Stout

Welcome to my first Smashwords book of the week. Radium Halos by Shelley Stout is a historical fiction novel based on the true story of the Radium Girls---factory workers from the 1920s who were hired to paint the dials of clocks and watches with luminous radium paint to make them glow in the dark. The girls were coached to lick the brushes in order to get a finer point, and many became ill from the radium paint they ingested.

The narrator of this fictional novel is Helen, a sweet but slow woman who worked in the factory as a teenager with a friend and with her sister Violet. A terrible accident occurred during that fateful summer which swore the girls into a pact of silence about even the fact that they were there, a pact which persisted through the deaths of both Violet and her friend Clara over the intervening years. The now-widowed and childless Helen is 65 and lives a rootless life, moving back and forth between a mental hospital and the home of her sour niece Pearl, who has learned about the radium dial factory and is trying to uncover the 'truth' about her mother's death.

The novel is polished and well-written, and full of interesting characters. Pearl manages to be both disagreeable and ultimately sympathetic; Helen wavers between sweetly naive and trenchantly observant. Adrienne, on-again-off-again sweetheart to Pearl's disagreeable son Tony, offers a whiff of girl power to the struggling Helen at an opportune time. The feeble Benjamin, son to Clara, shows different sides of himself to all three of the central women. And driving the narrative are Helen's memories of that summer at the factory. Minor characters such as Pearl's fiance and son, are less developed; I think Stout does better with the women.

Helen narrates in a sort of simple person's dialect that might be wearying for those who don't enjoy such things, but the voice is consistently maintained and definitely not gratuitous. The author appears to have done her research on the historical details and thankfully glosses over aspects of the story that would have bogged the narrative down (for example, the court cases the women fought to get their medical treatment paid for is mentioned but not covered in great detail). I felt that the real star of the story was Helen though. She as a character will stick with me more than the over-riding story of the Radium Girls.

High marks for a Smashwords novel! I definitely recommend this one, without hesitation. A great start to my year of Smashwords reading!

Review: The End of Science Fiction by Sam Smith

2010-03-24T05:32:00.000-07:00

I got The End of Science Fiction for free during the Read an Ebook Week promotion; it's now $6.99 and in my opinion that's a little much. But if this book were available under a 'pay what you want' system like some of the other books I got during Read an Ebook Week, I might have sent the author $5. The novel is based on an intriguing premise: the world is going to end in six days and there is nothing to be done about it. What happens?

We learn what happens by following the character of Herbie Watkins, a police inspector who has chosen to spend his last few days solving his final case. As he interviews various citizens in connection with the murder of one Katherine Helen Soames, he finds people coping with the impending end of days in a myriad of ways. And he draws closer to solving the mystery of how one girl met her untimely end mere days before the rest of them...

I liked the central premise of the novel, and found the mystery reasonably interesting. But there were three things which bogged down this novel a little for me. The opening chapter is written in an unnecessarily gimmicky format which turned me off, and itwas only at the urging of others (and reassurance that the rest of the novel was written in the usual way) that I continued. Additionally, there were lengthy quotes at the beginning of each chapter that I began skipping fairly early on. They did turn out to have a minor relevance to the plot, but they were tedious and uninteresting and not particularly necessary. Finally, I felt that the novel, by virtue of its premise, grew a bit repetitive. Herbie would go to question someone, and the first words out of the person's mouth would be 'but the world is ending in X days, so what's the point?' I, the reader, understood what the 'point' was as far as this character was concerned, of course. But I grew tired of hearing him explain it umpteen times, over and over again, to everyone he met.

I appreciate that this novel came from a by all accounts reputable e-publisher; I have come to grow weary of 100% publisher-free self-published stuff which makes me feel like I am vetting the world's biggest slush-pile. This was a decent story, well-written and definitely worthy of reading. However, I am not sure it's worth the fairly high (for an indie book) price that's on the table now that the promotion under which I obtained it has ended. Comparable e-only publishers tend to offer their stories for less. $3.99 and I would heartily recommend this. At mass market paperback price, I would say sample it first and then decide.

Review: Fear of Fighting by Stacy May Fowles and Marlena Zuber

2010-03-07T20:45:00.000-08:00

I got Fear of Fighting as a freebie on Kobo, and I was not quite sure what to expect from it. The description: "Combining Stacey May Fowles’s sharp prose with Marlena Zuber’s whimsical illustrations, Fear of Fighting revolves around Marnie, a broken-hearted young woman fighting for something more in Toronto’s lonely, urban landscape."

Illustrations in an ebook can be an iffy thing sometimes, but given the price (free) and the setting (I am always interested in books which take place in my hometown) I figured why not? So I downloaded away and finished this short little volume in a day.

And...meh. Sorry! But here is the thing, the illustrations don't really add that much and the prose is a little bit flowery and overdone. There is a frame narrative with a minor character that never really goes anywhere, and the main character is not especially likable. The plot revolves around her breakup with a boy called Ben, and at one point she wonders what he saw in her. I kind of wonder too.

If you are looking for a good post-breakup story, you're better off with this one, which is also free, and DRM-free (in multiple formats) to boot.

It's Read an Ebook Week!

2010-03-07T14:14:00.000-08:00

March 7-13 is Read an Ebook Week. There are tons of freebies listed on their website. My plan is to download everything from Smashwords that looks even remotely interesting, then go back and tip the authors later if the book is any good. BeWrite Books has about 25 titles available under a 'pay what you want' promotion, and there are other Smashwords goodies---free, and heavily discounted---at their Read an Ebook Week home. Enjoy!

Misc: Fanfiction Favourites, Part 2

2010-01-27T21:05:00.000-08:00

Some fanfiction favourites by others, along with a belated New Year's Resolution to post much more often. I am reading a TON of stuff this year and trying to re-dedicate myself to more quality stuff, so I have bookmarked a ton of great public domain finds and off-the-beaten path indie goodies. I'll share, I promise! Anyway, onto the stories...

And Sarah Laughed (TSCC). Sarah Connor prepares for the borth of her foretold son.

The Secret Diary of Cameron Baum (TSCC) When Terminators self-examine...

Phoenix Burning (BtVS). Buffy is resurrected to the future---the very far future---and into a situation...

Close to Home, So Far Away (Angel). A novel-length 'Doyle comes back' epic, with some unexpected twists...

Misc: Fanfiction Favourites, Part 1

2009-12-26T10:42:00.001-08:00

Fanfiction is an often-overlooked source of reading material easily obtained on-line. A lot of it is pure trash, but some of it is excellent, and can fill in the missing pieces and offer some interesting interpretations of what's gone on in a favorite show. I have saved about two dozen favourites into HTML files to read on the go on my Sony; Calibre converts them easily. Over the next two posts, I'll share my favourites with you. In this post, I'll list the best of the stuff I myself have written. In a subsequent post, I will list favourite stories from others. I welcome comments, once you've seen my style and preferences, for other stories you think I might enjoy...

THE BEST OF 'MASKED-SPANGLER' AT FANFICTION.NET

Since I Found Serenity. BtVS/Firefly cross-over. Buffy and Giles do a little dimension-hopping in search of a missing relic.

Little Ladybug. BtVS. A short one, but one I found very fun. A future Giles tells his daughter the story of how he met her mother.

Littlest Voyagers. Farscape/ST Voyager cross-over. An injured Aeryn and her son get stranded by a wormhole accident, and it's Voyager to the rescue...

All That We Let In. Grey's Anatomy. The epic friendship of Bailey, Addison and Callie is put to the test when a difficult case affects a post-divorce Addison...

Love Wins Every Time. Grey's Anatomy. A vulnerable post-Alex Addison forges a surprising friendship with Preston Burke...

Terminator: The Savannah Chronicles. TSCC. Follows Sarah, Savannah and Ellison post-series. There is an in-progress sequel underway due to popular demand when this one ended :)

Review: U is for Undertow by Sue Grafton

2009-12-25T14:51:00.000-08:00

U is for Undertow is my second library e-book, and is the latest installment in a long-running series (beginning with 'Al is for Alibi' and proceeding through the alphabet). I started reading these books around the same time I started reading the adventures of Cornewell's Kay Scarpetta and Kellerman's Alex Delaware, and of the three I think Grafton is the only who has maintained my interest and whose books have not declined in quality. Cornwell tried to go 'literary' to somewhat disastrous results, and Delaware's protagonist became too middle-class and complacent.

Grafton, in contrast, chose to age her character slowly---Kinsey Millhone had steadily been adventuring through the late 1980's as the series has progressed. Part of the charm in these stories is watching Kinsey, from our technological age, do some good old-fashioned gumshoe-ing. I began another novel yesterday also involving a female PI, whose office consisted of a desk, with a computer, and several electronic database subscriptions. So watching Kinsey drive to the library and cross-reference a phone number through three different indexes bound by year in physical books was surprisingly refreshing. A subplot involving the glacial, but steady pace of Kinsey's relationship with her newly found relatives added further human interest to the story.

The plot involves a client who comes to her with a long-repressed memory of a time he witnessed two men digging a large hole in the woods, at around the time a young girl disappeared. As she plugs away at what clues his story offers her, she becomes enmeshed in the long-ago disappearance of the girl, and becomes involved in the stories of several others from that period.

Grafton uses the inter-woven stories of several characters to keep the suspense going. More than once, I raced through three or so chapters waiting to hear the rest of a yet-complete story I hoped we would come back to. The eventual fitting of everything together was neatly done, as from the perspective of decades later, one character would casually mention another and tie up a key loose end. Kellerman attempted a cold case in one of his previous books and never to make it work for me. Grafton handles this material with much, much greater finesse and skill.

My one complaint was the ending---sudden, not especially suspenseful or satisfying, and leaving one character's fate in the hands of their own monumental stupidity. And, I feel, as I did in my recent review of another book from a long-running by an author I generally enjoy, that the book could have been another hundred pages shorter and not suffered for it.

Overall though, high marks. Grafton changed the genre with 'A is for Alibi' and has kept up steam all the way to the near-end here. When she gets to Z, she'll leave us an excellent series to look back on.

Review: Black Silk by Jan Gordon

2009-12-09T06:56:00.000-08:00

Black Silk by Jan Gordon is one of the top free downloads at Feedbooks right now and has been downloaded about 15,000 times. So, does it prove the theory that internet self-publishing is a wonderful innovation and we don't need publishing industry gatekeepers to give us quality reading?

With apologies to Ms. Gordon, who posts at Mobile Read and seems very nice, not entirely. I do think it shows potential, and Ms. Gordon may have it in her to be a hit novelist someday. But it reads very much like a first novel to me, and a draft one at that.

The problem: it's too short, and there is no real connection among the main characters. The male lead just shows up at the beginning of the story and immediately falls in love with the female lead. Were the novel a little bit longer, there might have been time for some lead-up.

If you look at some of the romance best-sellers, the male lead very seldom just happens to instantly fall in love with the total stranger. Let's take another recent read of mine, Black Hills by Nora Roberts as an example. Granted, Ms. Roberts has written a zillion novels already, so perhaps it's unfair to compare her to a total novice. But structure is structure, and Black Hills is a fairly straightforward story. Boy meets girl (roughly a third of a novel's worth of past---talk about lead-up!) Boy and Girl are Separated by Fate. Boy comes back, still loves girl. Girl requires convincing. There is a past connection between the characters which explains their growing bond. Here's another one, from the more novice Elizabeth Dearl. Girl is new in town. Boy is not. Boy shows her the ropes. Peril brings boy and girl together.

My point is, there is a progression, a reason for them to get together beyond 'boy shows up at opportune moment, sees girl and falls instantly in love with her.' This, I felt, was missing in Black Silk.

Deepen the characters a little, stretch things, relax into the story and do another draft? Maybe we'd have something commercial-quality here. Maybe in the next book :) But for now, it;s right that this book is a free release.

Bookshelf feature at Project Gutenberg

2009-11-11T06:45:00.000-08:00

Project Gutenberg is in my opinion one of the best sites to ever come to the internet. Committed to getting as much of the world's available public domain literature on-line for free, easy access in formats even the dumbest computer can manage? I'm there! But with a project as vast as this one comes the issue: how to find the good stuff? Easy enough if you're looking for something in particular and can use the search feature. But what about if you just want to browse?

Enter the Bookshelf, a new-ish browsing tool I hadn't much used until my sudden interest in periodicals had me scouring the depths of PG once again. I find I get cleaner files if I run the conversion myself on HTML files, especially where graphics are concerned as with the periodicals, so I was returning to PG again to dig up some source files.

I was in luck! There was a special bookshelf for periodicals that listed every title available. I didn't need to wade through every issue of every title. I could just see what there was, then click on any entry for a list of issues available. The ones published in volumes as opposed to issues were even grouped by volume so you could see at once which were the complete sets!

Other bookshelf lists are grouped thematically. Canada has a list of books about Canada, grouped into categories like history and biography. Other countries are available too. Detectives has a range of detective fiction, grouped by author and sorted by author's year of birth. Archaeology is sorted by the continent each work is discussing.

There are probably not 100% comprehensive lists. Are there detective stories in PG's vast archives which are not listed, yet or at all, in the bookshelf. Undoubtedly. Are there groups of works which lend themselves to the Bookshelf treatment but haven't had it yet? Probably. But if you just want to browse, the Bookshelf is certainly a better bet than browsing through every title in PG, one by one. And you are sure to find some suitable content, no matter what you're looking for.

Here are some bookshelf categories which intrigue me particularly:

Magazines at Project Gutenberg

2009-11-10T11:05:00.000-08:00

As I was pondering whether or not to renew my subscription to Asimov's at Fictionwise next year, I wandered over to my Yahoo RSS feed and saw a new upload of Strand Magazine at Project Gutenberg. The Strand, among its other achievements, was the publisher of Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories, and it occured to me that those who like such things would very likely find other gems in these old periodicals. Magazines tend to publish fiction thematically; if you like one of their staples, the others are likely to be in a similar style and feel. So it can be a great way to discover new authors and great new stories.

I'm thinking of picking a year and seeing how I do with a Gutenberg 'subscription.' Perhaps I could do it as a book club with my readers here. Every month, I'll post the issue corresponding to the year in question, and we can read the magazine together and discuss it collectively, perhaps in a Yahoo Group or smaller such venue. So, faithful readers, anyone interested? I am thinking of starting with Atlantic Monthly magazine, as there are several consecutive complete years available beginning in 1859. Comment or message me if you think this might be a fun year-long venture. I can set up a Yahoo Group if there is interest.

Review: Taylor Madison series by Elizabeth Dearl

2009-10-19T18:13:00.000-07:00

This is a mystery series, available at Fictionwise in multiformat. The main character is a suspense novelist who, in Book 1, returns to her late mother's country hometown to uncover the mystery of her paternity. As is wont to happen in books like these, she stays.

Taylor is an appealing character and the books were well-written. I liked the romance between her and the male lead, and the small country hometown was well-drawn and engaging. Book 1 and Book 3 were the best of the bunch. Book 2 had too many characters who seemed to be basing their grudges and behaviours on misinformation they could have clarified with one conversation. It was just too depressing for me---there were decade-long grudges based on 'I thought you said/did such and such!' 'But I didn't!' 'Oh, okay then, problem solved.' Ugh.

Book 2 was entirely forgettable, but I liked the other ones. If I were doing it again though, I'd stick with book 1 as a stand-alone. The mystery in Book 3 was short and easily solvable, and Book 2 was, as I said, depressing. Still, not bad for an indie read.

Review: The Royal Pains Series by Roberta Olsen Major

2009-10-03T14:42:00.000-07:00

This intriguing YA series was one of my recent Fictionwise finds. There are eight short nevels set in the same imaginary universe; occasionally, places or personalities from a previous story find their way into one of the sequels, but the eight stories pretty much stand alone. These are billed as 'fairy tales with attitude' and for the most part, this is true. The women, most of whom are princesses, have snark and attitude. Olsen writes this sort of character well. The off-note for me was that the series seems to alternate between kick-ass princess stories and somewhat gloomy quest epics, the latter of which are less fun and less successfully pulled off. The stories are:

Book 1: The Prince in the Flower Bed. An entertaining start to a promising series. This is one that made a lot more sense after I had read the other ones and had a better sense of the mythology (and geography) of the world this series is set within.

Book 2: The Seventh Dwarf. Dwarves play a huge role in the underlying mythos that runs this world. Also, many characters from this story reappear elsewhere, so don't miss this one if you plan to read any of the others. As for the story itself, it was a better one, so go for it!

Book 3: The Good Knight Kiss. A somewhat frothy love story with a spunky princess and several archetypal foils to set her up against. Not much else going on, though. This one was about as straight-forward as they come.

Book 4: The Bottle of Djinn. A gloomy 'quest epic' involving the daughter of a royal concubine. She gets a good ending, as most princesses do. But not before she suffers and suffers and suffers some more...

Book 5: The Ice Cream Crone. I liked the men in this one. The princess, I could take or leave. Good use of setting, though, and an interesting mood that offered something different from the other stories.

Book 6: The Knave of Diamonds. I liked this one a lot. The girl had moxie, the prince wasn't boring, and I found myself rooting much harder than I ought to be for twue wuv to prevail...

Book 7: The 24-Karat King. Another 'gloomy quest epic' story, and one with an abrupt, inconclusive ending to boot. Nice as it was to have some closure on bit player from a previous story, this was not my favourite.

Book 8: The Bad Heir Day. This was a great conclusion (for now?) to the series. A lot is revealed about the central mythos this little universe runs on, and it brings several plot arcs from previous volumes together in an intriguing way. It's definitely more fun if you;ve read all the other ones, though...

Overall, I found the series an entertaining read and liked the way the different stories interconnected. I do feel there was some wandering, though. Most of the stories were playful and fun, but a few were really harsh and gloomy, and I don't think they fit together as well with the other ones. Book 4, Book 5 and Book 7 could easily be done without.

I would say they are a good read if you like this kind of story, and if you can pick up the whole series at a good price, go for it. I bought book 1 only at first, then when I had a chance to 'complete the series' in a Fictionwise sale, I did so. I would not have paid full price for them, though.

Review: Handle with Care by Jodi Picoult

2009-04-16T17:53:00.000-07:00

This book is about a family whose child suffers from the illness osteogenesis imperfecta, which means her bones break easily. The whole family has been changed by caring for young Willow, and when an opportunity arises to set up a fund for her future---via a controversial 'wrongful birth' lawsuit against the doctor-slash-best-friend of the main character---the family sells their souls to do it. There are consequences, or course, and the typical alternating chapters and courtroom dramas that typify Picoult's work.

It's all fine. I was reasonably entertained and got caught up in the story. But there is little respite from the bleakness here. It's grim, grim stuff. And the ending was a real disappointment. Picoult seems to be splitting her oeuvre among the 'sick child courtroom drama' and 'chicklit with issues' genres, and I must admit, I do prefer the books in that category.

Were it not on sale, this would definitely be a library read for me.

Review: And Then the Town Took Off by Richard Wilson

2009-04-10T11:27:00.000-07:00

And Then the Town Took Off is an e-book reprint of on out of print pulp novel from the 1960s. The small town of Superior just 'takes off' one day, and nobody is sure if it's aliens, a conspiracy by a local crackpot faux-scientist, or something to do with the bubblegum factory. Among those stranded on the flying city are a Pentagon employee, the secretary to a cartoonish senator, and the daughter of the crackpot scientist. There are some truly funny moments here (the brief reign of a local monarch being one of the highlights) and some dated 'product of its time' bits too (silly females, Russian submarines, cold war shenanigans etc.) But on the whole, it's an entertaining read. I wouldn't say it's a 'must-buy rush otu and do it now' story, but it's definitely worth adding to your wish list for the next time it goes on sale. I picked up up for 30% off during a sci-fi promo and at that price, did not regret my purchase.

Review: Master Your Metabolism by Jillian Michaels (Scoop!!!!)

2009-04-05T14:35:00.000-07:00

I managed to get my hands on the new Jillian Michaels book two days early thanks to a hole-in-the-wall store who does not always pay attention to release dates, and I am just too excited. I adore Jillian Michaels, respect her work and methods, see her as a role model and just in general think she is kick-ass fabulous, so being the first out there in book-blogger land to get this book, I had to write about it.

This is an interesting 'diet' book with a fresh approach and a lot of good information. Jillian's pet topic in this volume is hormones, and her food plan is all about re-balancing yours to boost your metabolism and boost your health. Due to my food allergies, I am already avoiding some of the 'toxic' foods Jillian rails against in this book, so if you are a HFCS addict (or someone who never paid much attention to it before) the program in this book may be a harder adjustment for you than it will be for me. And if you are vegetarian, or reluctant to spend the money on organic foods, you won't find much sympathy (I have heard that Jillian has recently become pescatarian, so I am surprised there was nothing in this book about vegetarianism).

The crux of the book is a three-stage plan where you 1) reduce or eliminate the the bad things 2) add in some good things and 3) tweak, assess, and adjust your environment. While the 'menu' portion of the book offers nothing different from other 'diet' books out there, the sections leading up to it are packed with great information about hormones in the body and which foods enhance/support them, how to reduce toxins/pesticides/chemicals in both your food and your home, special suggestions for people with PCOS, thyroid issues and other hormone imbalances, and suggestions for ways to boost vitamins in your diet using power foods.

I appreciated that Jillian at every point offered *food* suggestions---no hormone therapy, no vitamin pills, just plain old food. And I thought it was really unique (and useful) to see suggestions on how to improve your non-food environment (go green! wahoo!) I guess my one disappointment---and I have had this same disappointment with every 'diet' book I have ever read---was that Jillian did not address at all the topic of food allergies. Nobody does, so Jillian is certainly not unique in dietbookland for failing to. But this is a growing problem, and as someone who has several medically verified sensitivities, it is an issue that has affected my diet. I find healthy fats an especially difficult problem because I can't have tree nuts, flax or raw seeds related to the birch family (e.g. pumpkin seed). I would have liked to see some suggestions for snacks beyond the 'string cheese and fruit' or 'almonds and an apple' that fill every diet book out there.

Overall---an impressive 'first diet book' from Jillian, with an entertaining, conversational tone and solid info, with page upon page of references to back it up, and sensible info on a myriad of ways to rebalance your body and eat sensibly, healthfully, and in ways that support weight loss and optimize fitness. Here's hoping for an equally well-done sequel addressing the needs of vegetarians and perhaps including more menu ideas and suggestions for substitutions for people with food allergies or other sensitivities.

Review: Wicked by Gregory Maguire

2009-03-30T03:45:00.000-07:00

This book probably needs little introduction for most avid readers. based on L. Frank Baum's classic Wizard of Oz series, it re-tells the story of Oz from the point of view of Elphaba, the little green girl who grows up to be the Wicked Witch of the West. Maguire draws on Baum's entire Oz series in his world creation, not just the first volume most of us are familiar with from the movie, and he creates a vividly drawn world as riven by race and class issues as ours. Highlights of the story include Nanny, a childhood nurse who appears later in the novel and offers tantalizing glimpses of Elphaba's later childhood; her university friendship with the high-born Galinda who becomes the good witch, and her heartbreak in the Emerald City, which casts her once and for all into the fringes.

Maguire shows a logical progression to Elphaba's actions, and she never stops being a sympathetic character. I did find the novel fell apart a little for me toward the end, when events in the book start to mirror events in the movie. Maguire's Dorothy comes across as a bit of a Mary Sue, and the reactions to her from several characters rang false. But the book was, on the whole, a thoroughly enjoyabke one and I plowed throug it at record speed. I have the two sequels on my reading list next; I hope they are just as satisfying.

Fictionwise is advertising the ebook version as being 'packed with extras' including a reading group guide which I believe is in the print version too, and the original Wizard of Oz story on which this was based (and which is in the public domain and hence available at many internet freebie sites already). I like the concept of ebook extras and hope this evolves over time to offer ereaders actual incentive to pay the unreasonably high prices publishers seem to be demanding.

Review: Calling by Jack Brokenshire

2009-03-17T07:32:00.000-07:00

Calling is a book came recommended on the Mobile Read forums and had good ratings at Fictionwise. I found it a little disappointing. The concept was clever enough: a man discovers his old cell phone can call heaven, and drama ensues. But it was written in an odd narrative style: all telling, no showing. The man just narrates what happens. The result for me was a sort of distance from the story. I never quite bought into the characters as real people with real lives. The tiny details that make characters come alive for me---routines, descriptions, dialogue, names----just weren't there. And toward the end, it got a little preachy.

I did find it an interesting little read. But I don't know that I would shell out for it again, in hindsight.

Review: Witchy Woman by Karen Leabo

2009-03-08T11:35:00.000-07:00

Witchy Woman is a fun little story about a woman who grew up as a witch and as an adult, has turned away from her 'mysterious' past---until a handsome reporter and an ancient cursed cat force her back into action to deal with her 'magic' once and for all.

The romance between Tess and Nate is deftly played. He is decently chivalrous in spite of his professional interest in her story, and Leabo gets that plot point out in the open fairly quickly, which is nice. Her response to Nate's intentions, romantic and otherwise, are heartfelt and realistic.

The book felt like it could have been a bit longer. But for what it is, it was an entertaining read and a fun story. Recommended.

Review: Cycler by Lauren Mclaughlin

2009-02-26T11:09:00.000-08:00

This charming story was recommended all throughout Blogland, so I picked it up during a sale, as I always do with such things. The novel revolves around every-teen Jill, whose perfectly average life is marred by the secret that every month for four days, she transforms into Jack, a boy version of herself who is locked away for the duration. Jill's half of the story is fairly standard Girl-Boy-Prom type of material, but the wrinkle of Jack gives this book its clever saving grace as Jack tries to have a life and develop an identity despite his four-day existence locked away in Jill's body, bedroom and family.

It's not the type of novel I usually go for, and it's certainly outrageous that even months down the line, it remains priced at above its print counterpart, but that is of course the story of my e-life, and I can't blame the book for it. I'm going to stop commenting on the price issue from here on out. Buy on sale, like the smart person that you are, and you'll be fine.

Review: Graverobbers Wanted by Jeff Strand

2009-02-17T03:42:00.000-08:00

Graverobbers Wanted (No Experience Necessary) by Jeff Strand is a fun little suspense story concerns Andrew Mayhem, a completely inept 'private eye' who gets involved in a cat and mouse game with a bad guy type after accepting a proposition in a bar to help a lady dig up her husband's body and retrieve a key from it. The body leads him to a shady snuff film operation (or is it?) full of suspicious characters and a killer who's having too good a time messing wit Our Hero. Strand keeps the snark on ful blast, and this is a deeply fun read. I'm in for the sequels! Recommended.

Review: Murder in a Nice Neighborood by Lora Roberts

2009-02-13T07:18:00.000-08:00

Murder in a Nice Neighborhood by Lora Roberts is the first novel in an apparently complete six-book series, and after reading it, I am definitely interested in buying the others. Roberts has a unique detective character, an aspiring freelance writer who is homeless and lives in a bus. When a street person is murdered and left under said bus, Liz becomes involved in the investigation.

Roberts paints Liz's vagabond life with precision and care, and offers a satisfying resolution that opens things up for the sequel. I will definitely keep reading. And hey, it's multiformat (non-DRM'd) to boot. Recommended.

Review: Damage Control by J.A. Jance

2009-02-10T03:42:00.000-08:00

This novel is part of Jance's Joanna Brady series. I've read the whole series and enjoyed it, so I was happy to see a new-ish one!And how was this series after such a long delay? Not bad. The mystery held my interest, and Joanna's personal life saw some progression, with some major changes in her world set up by the novel's end. I would have loved to see minor characters like her daughter Jenny or her friend Marianne take more prominent roles than they did. Marianne is a new mom too, and they could have gone somewhere with that. And there was scope for Jenny to be more involved than she was. Joanna is at her most human when the mom button gets pushed, and saddling her with a cranky newborn for most of the novel didn't do it for me. I'm glad I read it, but it certainly wasn't worth $17. If it weren't for these micropay sales, where I basically get the book for near free because I spend the credit on other things, I'd be getting books like this from the library.

Review: Tornado Bait by Amy Eastlake

2009-02-04T20:02:00.000-08:00

Tornado Bait by Amy Eastlake is probably one of the most fun little mysteries I have read in awhile. I got it as part of my 'titles available in multiformat' binge at Fictionwise recently, and enjoyed it immensely when I read it this week. Tina Anderson is the manager at a trailer park, and gets pulled into a mystery when a tenant finds body parts floating in his toilet. A colourful cast of secondary characters including a sexy ex-husband, a frosty ex-mother-in-law and a hooker best friend aid our hapless heroine in her thoroughly clumsy sleuthing, and throughout, Eastlake maintains a light tough and frothy, chikk-lit tone. There is a sequel. I am definitely in!

Review: Love is Blond by Marie Dees

2009-01-23T03:46:00.000-08:00

When I reviewed the previous title in this series, I said that this series, while not quite what I expected after reading the description, was a cute little read and did the job as a diverting and capable mystery. I am pleased to say that the sequel, Love is Blond, is much improved---I still have some issues with the focus the author seems to be taking on the 'politics' of her imaginary world, but the story itself is much, much better and the quality of the writing is higher.

This book focuses primarily on Rafe and Patrick, two characters from the earlier story whose relationship---and lives---are put in jeopardy when an old mentor of Patrick arrives in town to host a conference. Things escalate from there, and I won't give it away except to say that the focus on building these characters is a welcome one. I think Dees worked a little too hard at the world-building in the last outing, and now that that's done, we can move on to more interesting things. Dees also weaves in Lynn's struggle to establish herself and find meaningful occupation in Cassadega, where she is not sure she belongs, and to establish her relationship with Alex. There is still dept to plumb with him; as Lynn is one of the more appealing characters in the series, I wonder if a third novel is being planned which explores her and Alex with the same depth in which Patrick and Rafe get treated this time around.

I recommend this one, and preferred it to the first book. But they do go together, and I am not sure you'll be able to follow this one unless you read the other one first.

Review: Tea & Witchery by Marie Dees

2009-01-16T03:50:00.000-08:00

I had never heard of Marie Dees until her books came up during a multiformat search at Fictionwise, so I was surprised to find she had a mainstream 'print' presence on Amazon---at double the price, to boot! I am not sure this book is worth what Amazon is charging, but it is not a bad read at bargain e-price.

Tea and Witchery is about a woman named Lynn who goes to visit her aunt in a Florida town that is known for its paranormal society. There are the standard 'and then someone gets murdered' events, and Lynn must play detective while fighting off the amorous interests if her college buddy George, and the mysterious Alex.

The action moved fairly briskly, and Lynn evolved nicely as a character. My two quibbles were that most of the supporting cast were somewhat annoying and not terribly sympathetic (I would not have shed a tear if one in particular got killed, nor would the other characters) and secondly, the same complaint I had with Kelley Armstrong's latest---the author delves a little too much into the 'politics' of her special society, and I would have rather seen the world in action a little more carefully.

For a novel that purports to be about a group of 'real' psychics, she also fails to convince me that any of them really do have special powers. The 'signs' they use to get themselves into the society are vague and not terribly compelling. And the local cops seem to be view them as a bunch of kooks. When you have 'outsider' characters like Lynn and Alex being your dramatic leads in a story like this, it's that much harder. Perhaps less focus on politics and more focus on giving credence to whether these people actually had 'powers' or not would have served the novel better.

I got this on sale for less than $3 and it was a good read at that price, but I am not sure how much more I would suggest paying for it. Not much more :)

Review: Sister Gypsy Moon by Karen Leabo

2009-01-02T22:28:00.000-08:00

I'm ripping through the spoils of my recent Fictionwise multiformat titles binge! Rob from Books for a Buck was kind enough to send me a review copy of Sister Gypsy Moon. I had trouble formatting it for my iPod Touch, so when it went on sale at Fictionwise for 50% off in a special for members, I paid the $1.50 or so and bought it myself. I'm glad I did. It was an engaging, funny little mystery and well worth its reasonable price.

Gypsy, the title character, is a child of hippies (yes, Gypsy is her real name) who is going through a transition in her life. At loose ends and on the run from her almost comically irritating stalker, Darryl, her lawyer sister Petal finds her a job house-sitting an odd purple house. Its owner has vanished, the mortgage gone into collections, and the bank wants the place cleaned up so they can sell it. Gypsy only just gets going on that when her sister gets a crisis or two of her own and comes to stay with her. The two of them get caught up in the mystery of what happened to the home's former owner Ruby, and along the way dodge Ruby's religious fanatic neighbour, her nephew and his motorcycle gang, and Petal's repentent, adulterous husband Cullen, a cop who is Gypsy's former flame.

Gypsy has a great sense of humour as a narrator, and is a fun, hip character. I would love to see a sequel of this story detailing her further adventures in that purple house. I'll be keeping an eye on this author and seeing what else she has available, both now and down the road. This was a brisk, enjoyable read. Recommended.

Review: Deadly Rx & Rx Alibi by Renee Horowitz

2008-12-28T20:21:00.000-08:00

I previously reviewed the first book in this little series, and gave it my highest recommendation. I am slightly less enthused about these later two in the RX Murder series by Renee Horowitz. The main character's happenstance involvement in the first book was clever and original. But with two more murders, it's straining credibility a little---like that famed television cozy, Murder She Wrote, where sleepy Cabot Cove was rife with murderers, one wonders how a middle-aged pharmacist manages to find herself in trouble so often. And Horowitz has other characters frequently bring this up and comment on Ruthie's unsuitability as an amateur detective.

And she's not very good at it either---there are no clues which would allow a reader following along to solve the crime before the characters do, and the finales both rely a little too strongly on coincidence and stupidity on the part of both the sleuth and the killer. By book 3, I was skimming to get to the end, and I only got that far because I wanted to see if Ruthie and Michael wound up together (although I should have guessed in this regard---it's a fairly formula story and we know how these things tend to go...)

So, my high praise for book 1 notwithstanding, I give my thumbs down to the latter books. Okay reads at the bargain-basement sale price I paid, but not ones I would necessarily recommend to others.

Update (6/15/2001) Both books are now available at Smashwords: Deadly RX and RX Alibi.

Review: Rx for Murder by Renee Horowitz

2008-12-21T19:56:00.000-08:00

I got all three novels in this series during a recent sale at Fictionwise on multiformat (aka DRM-free) titles, most from smaller or internet-only publishers. I am trying to read more of this 'indie' stuff, and it's easier on the pocketbook too---I got nearly two dozen books for about thirty bucks, and if this first read is any indication, I am in for some fun reading. Rx for Murder is definitely a commercial-calibre book, and it's proof that there are some good bargains to be had in e-land if one is willing to do some exploring and stray from the best-seller list.

Ruthie Kantor Morris is a middle-aged pharmacist who turns detective when one of her customers dies under mysterious circumstances. A former flame comes back into her life when his daughter, the wife of the dead guy, falls under suspicion, and Ruthie gets recruited into some pharmacological sleuthing to help ferret out what happened to the old guy.

The author's note seems to indicate that Ms. Horowitz herself is a pharmacist, and she vividly (and accurately) paints that world for the reader. The pharmacist as a detective is a clever twist on a genre well-worn with policemen and lawyers and private eyes. It was also nice to see a well-rounded Jewish character in mainstream fiction; that's rare, and while Horowitz certainly does not belabour it by any stretch, Ruthie's faith is explored a little in the romance subplot, and adds some much-needed depth in what would otherwise be a fairly plot-driven book.

Update (6/15/2011) The book is now available at Smashwords too!

Review: Living with the Dead by Kelley Armstrong

2008-12-15T18:58:00.000-08:00

This book is number 9 in a series about various women with supernatural powers. Some characters get at minimum brief mentions in books revolving around others, but each story is pretty much stand-alone and can be read independently. This book differs from others in the series in that its protagonist is a regular person with no super-powers---and I'm not sure that character choice was the wisest one to make.

Robyn Peltier is a recently widowed publicist who is drowning her grief by working for a Paris Hilton type starlet named Portia Kane. When Portia gets murdered while out on the town with Robyn, Robyn gets caught up in a power struggle between a supernatural commune and a bunch of other people. Fortunately, her best friend happens to be a half-demon with a werewolf boyfriend.

The problem for me was that much of the appeal in the other books was watching a woman with super-powers dealing with the super-powers directly: Elena in 'Bitten' learns to control her werewolf powers and deal with the special challenges of being the only female werewolf in her 'pack.' Savannah in Dime Store Magic is only a teenager and her powers are still emerging. And Robyn? She's human. She has a brief moment of shock when she learns that demons are real, then seems to decide she'd rather not know and leaves Hope to deal with the demon stuff in the few chapters not involving her. It doesn't quite work for me.

I also found that this story dealt much more with supernatural 'politics' than the other books did. The main villain, Adele, is trying to leave the cult-like 'kumpania' who employs her and helps her manage her powers. And then there is the 'cabal' with whom she negotiates, and the 'council' to which Hope and Karl belong to. It started to bog the story down, and frankly, I didn't care that much. Armstrong is better when she focuses on the characters, then on the story---not so much on the world-building.

I'll keep an eye out for others in the series, but I am not sure this particular installment did it for me, and I regret that I paid for it, especially at such an inflated hard-back price. Armstrong is going on my 'get it from the library' list. We'll see if subsequent installments get her off of it.

Review: Devil May Ride by Wendy Roberts

2008-12-11T19:54:00.000-08:00

I previously reviewed the prior title in Wendy Roberts' intriguing series about a woman who is a professional crime scene cleaner. I enjoyed the characters and the premise, but felt that its central mystery did not have high enough stakes.

Well, crime scene cleaner/ghost whisperer Sadie Novack is back, and this book is so much better than the first one. The central 'ghost mystery' involves a meth-head biker and his satanist girlfriend, and Roberts manages to weave in various threads including Sadie's impending aunt-hood and the death of her brother six years ago, introduced in the prior title. There is also a reporter causing trouble, and Sadie also much juggle a new employee, and a budding romance with her old one.

All in all, I found this mystery to be a well-written page-turner, and I would heartily recommend it.

Review: Salvation in Death by J.D. Robb (Nora Roberts)

2008-11-29T19:10:00.000-08:00

This book is the latest in a prolific series revolving around a near-future New York and its top cop, Eve Dallas, who is married to a billionaire tycoon with his fingers in all sorts of pies. I admire the consistently high quality of this series---Roarke is so rich and powerful, and so besotted with Eve, that as they settle into want-for-nothing domestic bliss, it's harder to up the stakes and make things matter. It's a little too easy, given Roarke's connections and access to pretty much whatever he wants, to use him as a crutch, and while this sort of thing has happened more as the series progresses, Roberts does still find ways to mix it up.

In this volume, the dead guy is a con man posing as a priest, and this stirs up all sorts of philosophical issues for the non-religious Eve. She is fascinated by the faith exhibited by numerous characters as the investigation progresses, and is equally fascinated by the ways they use this faith to justify and/or excuse their behaviour. She also finds herself (and her partner) dealing with the emotional ramifications of a murder victim who was not such an innocent himself. Both she and Roarke are more introspective in this adventure than in others, pondering, given their own backgrounds, why some people Overcome and some do not.

This was not the most action-packed and adventure-filled outing, and we barely saw some minor characters that I know readers enjoy (Mavis, for example, is due for a big part soon!) But I find this series to be consistently excellent and was looking forward to reading the latest story. I wouldn't pay hard-cover prices, though. My library routinely offers such books in non-reservable three-day 'fast read' loans, so for me, this was a race between 'happen to spot it at library' and 'e-book goes on sale.' Lucky for those who are profiting from this title, the e-book happened to go on sale first, but it could have just as easily gone the other way!

Review: A Really Bad Hair Day: The Return of Magic Plague by Rob Preece

2008-11-23T14:50:00.000-08:00

I became aware of both A Really Bad Hair Day and its author (who runs a website called Books for a Buck) through his posts on Teleread, and I like what he's doing---getting full-length, affordable (usually under $4) novels by new authors out there in DRM-free formats for everyone to enjoy. Most of his website's catalogue is available at Fictonwise, and it was there that I picked up this book by the head honcho himself.

The novel is about a spunky young lawyer named Erin who discovers one morning that snakes are growing out of her hair. That turns out to be the tip of the iceberg in an epidemic of people who seem to be picking up supernatural traits for no apparent reason. As struggles mount between the transformed and non-transformed, she picks up a sexy professor boyfriend who is studying the goings-on, and a case involving a magically-altered type which might make or break her legal career.

This is a fun, light read---nothing too heavy or profound, but a very enjoyable little story. Erin maintains a sense of humour throughout the story, and the characters are well-drawn and interesting. The romance is nicely played---Erin's doubt as to whether the professor is getting off more on scientific curiosity than on her specifically was realistic and very humanizing.

I'm going to stop harping on typos and formatting errors in my reviews, as I have found those in every e-book I've read so far, even those from major publishers. So with that aside, I give my recommendation for this one. Great value, fun story, enjoyable characters and that small hint of quirky spark that I always enjoy in an otherwise genre story. Enjoy!

Review: The Remains of the Dead by Wendy Roberts

2008-11-18T21:32:00.000-08:00

This book, attracted my by its subtitle: the first of the 'ghost dusters' mysteries. I am a sucker for puns and clever concepts, and this novel's gimmick is the profession of protagonist Sadie Novack: she's a professional cleaner who specializes in cleaning up after crimes. Also, she sees dead people.

The tale begins with Our Intrepid Heroine and her crusty-but-softie-underneath partner cleaning a house following a murder-suicide which appears cut and dry. However, the dead wife appears to Sadie and implies her husband Did Not Do It, so Sadie starts poking around. From this point onward, it was a fairly straightforward 'poke around for clues, get into trouble, get out of trouble, poke around for more clues' kind of story, and there is nothing wrong with that, I guess. It kept me for the most part interested. It kept me reading. Sadie's backstory was nicely done, and her Big Issue gets just resolved enough to not be a central plot point forever, but it remains a little open-ended to allow for future exploration too. But Wendy Roberts is no Nora Roberts, and at times the book did feel a tiny bit formulaic. And there was a revelation in the epilogue that was just beyond ridiculous.

Still, it's a fairly solid read. She may get me for the sequel if the price is right, but I am expecting a little more next time.

Review: The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

2008-11-15T07:16:00.000-08:00

The book is about a boy called Bod, who is orphaned as an infant and left to grow up in a graveyard, where he is raised by his mysterious guardian, Silas, and a revolving series of ghosts. That's pretty much it---the book is decently written, but this is its one flaw, that at times it favours 'developing atmosphere' at the expense of 'developing plot.' The suspense factor of its one major plot point could have been strengthened had Gaiman thought to develop it substantially before the last third of the book! It is to Gaiman's credit that the atmosphere (i.e. the depiction of life in the graveyard) was reasonably interesting. But a little more 'plot' would have not have been amiss.

This small quibble aside, the book was a fun, quick read. I don't know that I would recommend it as its current exorbitant price, but if Gaiman interests you and you catch it at another sale (or a permanently lowered price once the paperback hits the market) than by all means, grab this. It's a decent read.

Misc: My E-Book Starter Kit

2008-11-11T20:47:00.000-08:00

A game came up on a message board I frequent, where the following question was posed: let's say that you were some famous celebrity promoting the cause of literacy, and as a prize in a charity fund-raiser, you were asked to donate a library of up to 25 beloved books, hand-picked by you. What would you choose? I thought I would take this into the e-realm and see what sort of starter kit I could come up with for an e-book newcomer if I were putting together for them a little package of great reads. And I am even including links to all the titles on my list (and to freebies, where one exists!) so if anyone wants to take me up on this, they can download at will. My list is a mix of classics, contemporary literature and light sci-fi/mystery usually with a somewhat quirky or fun, but decidedly mainstream leaning. Ready? In no particular order...

Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte (free)
The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell
Darkly Dreaming Dexter by Jeff Lindsay
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (free)
The Great Santini by Pat Conroy
The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood
The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley
Wicked by Gregory MaGuire
Three Plums in One by Janet Evanovich
The Chrysalids by John Wyndham (free)
1984 by George Orwell (free)
Overclocked by Corey Doctorow (free)
Naked in Death by J.D. Robb aka Nora Roberts
City at World's End by Edmond Hamilton (free)
Story of my Life by Helen Keller (free)
Alice in Wonderland/Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll (free)
Agent to the Stars by John Scalzi (free)
The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories by Mark Twain (free)
The Golden Treasury edited by Francis Turner Palgrave (free)
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum (free)
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery (free)
The Stand by Stephen King
The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayam by Edward Fitzgerald (free)

Review: 3rd World Products, Book 1 by Ed Howdershelt

2008-11-10T09:59:00.000-08:00

3rd World Products, Book 1 is a book by one of those indie-internet authors, and in spite of some somewhat pompous internet message board posts, one of the better ones. A multi-pack of all his books, at substantial discount, is available from the author's website, but if you are like me and you prefer the eReader format, you'll have to wait for a sale at Fictionwise if you want the whole kit.

I'm currently on the second one. The first one impressed me enough to seek out his other titles, even if it has to be one at a time and without the bundle discount. The plot concerns a man (also named Ed, like the author) who is a former 'intelligence agent.' He gets drawn back into his old life when a spaceship shows up.

From this basic premise, Howdershelt spins an entertaining yarn full of space aliens who are sexy, amusing and entrepreneurial. I coveted the Amaran spaceship gadget which has every movie or television show ever made, and while I am not sure I am in the market for a hovercraft, the talking on-board computer (who appears as a major character in at least one of the sequels) would be a handy thing indeed. Spy Ed is pretty unflappable, and his low-key reactions to what he sees keep the at times outlandish subject matter grounded for the reader. This is not 'eternal literature for the ages' but it *is* a light and entertaining read.

Review: Plain Truth by Jodi Picoult

2008-11-07T10:55:00.000-08:00

I purchased this novel by Jodi Picoult during a recent 50% off sale at Fictionwise. I enjoyed it immensely. I have read other books by Picoult, and this was definitely on par with her other works in terms of quality and readability.

The story concerns Ellie Hathaway, a high-powered lawyer who escapes to her childhood vacation spot following a devastating trial and some issues on the homefront. While staying with her aunt, she becomes unwittingly involved in a trial involving an Amish girl who may or may not have murdered her newborn baby.

Katie, the Amish girl, is not initially the most sympathetic character, but there are some twists that make her more relateable. The Amish world is nicely drawn and clearly well-researched, and Picoult tries to make this family seem like real people and not just cliches. In some cases, this does not quite succeed---the father, for example, never develops much of a character beyond 'the strict Amish father.' But Picoult gives the family an intriguing backstory, and the theme of lost children (and what that means to various characters) is nicely woven in throughout the book.

Ellie's own issues about love and babies and family also factor into the story. The ex-boyfriend makes few appearances, but is not developed as fully as he could have been. A few flashbacks of their life together would not have been amiss. Of course, as is typical in this type of chick-lit, Ellie does develop a romance during the story, and it's nicely done. Everyone pretty much gets the ending they deserve, and it was certainly a page-turner! I was eager to find out how it ended.

There was a few formatting mistakes in the e-book I purchased from Fictionwise, and this bothered me a little considering that the book goes for pretty much the full retail price. If they are going to charge 'real book' prices, then they need to make sure the e-edition is properly edited. I don't think such mistakes are unique to this title, but I do think it's something Fictionwise needs to perhaps address at some point. Some examples included random hyphenations of some words, and the appearance of the author's name in the text at a few random points. The book was definitely still read-able though! It just rankled some to buy a 'real' book from an established non-amateur author and have such issues cropping up in a presumably well-edited text.

Overall, I would definitely recommend this book to someone who enjoys this genre or this author. I enjoyed it immensely and found it a satisfying and well-told story.

Review: Dearly Devoted Dexter by Jeff Lindsay

2008-11-02T13:06:00.000-08:00

I got this during Fictionwise's recent big sale, after enjoying the first book in this series. I liked this one too, but it didn't quite have the same magic for me as that first one did. Dexter's 'shtick'---referring to himself in the third person using clever alliterative phrases, constantly referencing his lack of humanity etc.---wore a little thin after the first fifty pages, and there were some pacing issues that detracted a little from an otherwise solid work.

The plot revolves around a former army crony of Sergeant Doakes, who went bad, did time, and is now seeking vengeance on those he feels have wronged him. Dexter is delighted to learn of the Doakes connection, because the good sarge never liked him and has been following him around trying to learn what he's up to. So when he senses an opportunity to get some leverage, he gets himself involved in the case.

The intrepid crime-solving team of Dexter, Deborah et al know almost at once who the criminal is, which detracts from the suspense a little. Deborah's budding relationship with the federal agent brought in to nail this guy is less suspenseful than it should be because, as first person narrator, Dexter does not witness most of it, so for the reader, it happens 'off-screen.' And an interesting side plot involving the girlfriend Rita's children sets up an intriguing future plotline, but is not played out to much effect in this outing.

The book is okay, but certainly okay enough to justify its fairly high cost for an e-book. I'd library this one.

Review: Compulsion by Jonathan Kellerman

2008-10-25T19:54:00.000-07:00

This is #22 in an ongoing series of which I am a long-time reader. I have to say, the series is showing its age. Alex Delaware, the psychologist who helps the LAPD solve crimes, has scaled back the clinical work which in past novels was the connection which drew him into the cases. So all he's dealing with in this story is a random killing of a not very sympathetic party girl, and a decades-old cold case which might have been more interesting as a present-day procedural than as a fait-accompli from long ago.

The Detective Sturgis character has gotten more interesting, which is nice, but even he is getting a bit stale. Success in a previous novel has elevated him to untouchable 'do whatever I want and work on whatever cases I want' status within the LAPD. Couple that with the only potentially compelling plot in the book being a cold case, and there is no immediacy, nothing to lose, nothing really at stake here.

I miss seeing Alex do therapy. I miss the work with children which was his specialty. Kellerman's writing was good enough to keep me reading for the most part, but by the last third of the book, I was just waiting for it to be over.

I give this one a C- and I am not particularly motivated to buy future installments, even int he relatively cheaper e-form. He's going on my library list. Only time will tell if he stays there or gets demoted further.

Review: Modem Operandi by T.K. Sheils

2008-10-23T19:53:00.000-07:00

Modem Operandi by Terry (T.K). Sheils is book my sister recommended to me at Fictionwise. It is a mutliformat title, meaning you can download it in a variety of file types, unencumbered by DRM, and the author seems to be very e-book friendly. The plot at first glance sounded interesting: a guy gets killed in a weird way, and his uncle, a 'paranormal investigator' with limited psychic abilities, gets called in by the dead guy's girlfriend to help investigate. I like mysteries, and what sci-fi tastes I ave tend toward the 'people with superpowers' type of story as opposed to aliens or elves, so this was a perfect e-read for me.

The mystery was reasonably engaging. The mystery leads the intrepid duo (who, in typical genre fashion, fall into bed together almost immediately) on a merry chase through Mayan mythology on the ancient side, and the mechanics of email on the modern side. There are plenty of doses of comedic humour (an over-the-top police liaison, a cabbie who draws his own conclusions) and some decent, if somewhat sudden light romance. It was fun, but it wasn't spectacular.

Still, there is a place in my reading life for this sort of harmless and fairly disposable light mystery, and I enjoyed the time I spent with this book. I remember getting it for a dollar or two cheaper than the price I'm seeing now. If you like this sort of thing and there is a sale going on, you could do worse.

Review: Darkly Dreaming Dexter by Jeff Lindsay

2008-10-18T21:38:00.000-07:00

I was all set to review a 'not available at amazon.com' indie title when I went looking for the link on Fictionwise only to find it no longer for sale! The one peril of e, I suppose: you snooze, you lose! So you're getting this review instead, of a very commercial book available far and wide at bricks-and-mortar book stores everywhere. Still, there IS a lesson in this purchase for those interested in the politics of e-reading and what motivates buyer decisions. This is a bit above the price range I normally prefer for e-books, but I was hearing buzz, feeling interested, and there was a sale so they snagged me on the instant gratification impulse buy!

I should mention as well that there is a TV show associated with this book series. My understanding is that the books came first, and among fans of the actual story, there are the inevitable factions of 'those who prefer the books' and 'those who prefer the television.' A message board friend of mine who has experience with both said that the show is making some interesting choices with the storyline of which she approves, and that the format of a weekly tv show offers scope for a different kind of story-telling. I'm sure this is true. I rented the first disk of season 1 after I finished the book, and didn't care for it much. I guess I already had pictures of the characters in my head, and not all of the ones on-screen were the way I imagined them. I thought one character in particular came off much stupider on tv, and I think, as far as this story goes, I'll be in the 'prefer the books' camp.

The story revolves around Dexter Morgan, a blood spatter analyst for the Miami police department. He is extremely up-front with the reader that he is a sociopath and that, while he is skilled at pretending to care, he doesn't actually. He became skilled, in fact, because his foster father (himself a cop) recognized Dexter for what he was and taught him to channel his predilection for violence thusly: to remember, whenever he feels certain urges, that there are plenty of people out there who actually deserve to die.

Dexter's well-organized life is upturned when a serial killer turns up who has remarkably similar methods to those of our sociopathic 'hero.' Further complicating the pursuit is his foster sister Deborah---the only person who 'loves' Dexter. She's a low-level cop trying to win her way into a posting to homicide, and sees this case as her maybe big break. She asks Dexter to help her, and he must juggle his desire to stay on the fringes with the problem of what to do about Deborah because, while he claims he does not 'love' her, he would not like anything bad to happen to her either!

I was surprised at how winsome a character Dexter turned out to be. His attempts to justify his badassness when actual emotion came his way (for example, his 'methinks the man doth protest too much' circumlocutions about his feelings for Deborah) were amusing. And Lindsay is skilled at making you care for him. The flashback scene where his foster father first introduces the 'code of Harry' by which he lives his life was downright chilling. And I thought the central conceit---he can't help what he is, so if he must kill anyway, to only kill bad guys---was extremely clever. It's rare to find an original idea in genre fiction these days!

This was an extremely entertaining book and Dexter's 'voice' as a narrator was both witty and consistent. The supporting characters were all equally well turned out, and I am definitely curious to see what happens in Book 2! I am definitely planning to stay on the lookout for further work by this author! If you are a mystery fan, this is a great read.

Admin: Some FAQ's Answered

2008-10-17T05:23:00.000-07:00

I am gratified and blown away by the huge response to this blog so far! It's motivated me to post my first review already. I've had some questions I want to answer. Then you can expect another review this weekend!

Q: Will you still be posting links to free books?

A: Yes, absolutely! I do have a backlog right now of books I have paid for, though. I'll want to read through some of those first, before I go trolling for more freebies. But yes, I do enjoy the classics and am always on the lookout for more Creative Commons licensed titles.

Q: I am an author/publisher. Can I send you a review copy of my book? Will you review it?

Yes, you can send it (preferably in eReader or Word/Text format) and I will happily review it. I will, however, disclose in the review that I obtained the book for free. And I can't promise that the review will be to your liking. I'm honest about both the good and the bad when I review. If something didn't work for me, I'll say so.

Alternatively, if you are a vendor/publisher and you are interested in being reviewed here, let me know if you have a policy on review copies, and I'll keep it in mind when I am looking for new material.

Q: Will you post an ad for my book?

No. If you send me a generic email that says 'hey, my book just came out and it is on sale here' I will probably ignore it. My intent with this blog is to provide real critique and information for customers, not to advertise. If you want me to genuinely review your book, see above.

Q: I run an ebook website. Will you promote it for me?

Again, I don't 'promote' but I 'review.' If you think your site might interest me, you are welcome to send it my way, but I make no promises that I'll post about it, or that you'll like what I say if I do. Sites that involve 'registering' or 'creating an account' in order to use them are less likely to catch my interest, but I do enjoy hearing about other blogs and boards.

Q: I wonder if I have any books I can recommend to you. What sorts of genres do you read?

I'm all over the place. Most often, I read mystery/suspense type of things, with a smattering of non-fiction and mainstream novels. I don't generally read formula romance sci-fi---I don't have a rule against them, per se, and do at times enjoy certain novels. But those are not generally my 'thing' and the ones I do enjoy tend to be more mainstream in their presentation. I do enjoy the paranormal stuff, though---psychics, ghosts, aliens, people with magical powers etc. Those can be great fun. Mainstream, but quirky often works well for me. Or, sci-fi based in a world that is almost (but not quite) like ours.

Q: Who are some authors you enjoy?

Nora Roberts/J.D. Robb, Margaret Atwood, Douglas Coupland, Connie Willis, Mary Doria Russell, John Scalzi, Neil Gaiman, Charlaine Harris, Sue Grafton, older Patricia Cornwell, Kelley Armstrong, Janet Evanovich, Stephen White, JK Rowling, Jonathan Kellerman, Michael Ondaatje. Alexander McCall Smith, J.A. Jance, M.C. Beaton, Jodi Picoult, Gail Bowen...

Q: What's on your to-read list?

My recent as-yet-unread Fictionwise purchases include:

Thee Plums in One by Janet Evanovich
I'm a Stranger Here Myself by Bill Bryson
Dirty Blonde by Lisa Scottoline
Death Perception by Victoria Laurie
The Stolen Child by Keith Donohue
The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
Dearly Devoted Dexter by Jeff Lindsay
Eragon by Christopher Paolini
Compulsion by Jonathan Kellerman
Disappearing Nightly by Laura Resnick
The Remains of the Dead by Wendy Roberts
Blind Faith by Colin Harvey
A Strange Valley by Darrell Bain

I'll try to prioritize my reviews on books which are not for sale at Amazon and do not have reviews available elsewhere.

Q: Who do you work for?

Although I am a former journalist who has written for a variety of major and minor markets, I left that field two years ago and work as an elementary school French teacher. I love my job! But if you're asking 'are you a shill for Fictionwise/Amazon/X Author/X Website?' then NO! I do some occasional volunteer contributions for the Teleread blog, but that is the extent of my 'journalism' right now. I buy my e-books, same as you. When I don't---either because the book is free in general, or because I obtain a review copy (which has already happened with one title) I will tell you so. But as I said above, I can't be bought. If you send me a review copy of a book and I don't like it, I'll say so in my review!

That's it for now! Other questions? Leave me a comment and I will save them up for the next post.

Review: Interworld by Neil Gaiman

2008-10-16T13:03:00.000-07:00

This is one of Neil Gaiman's earlier works, a YA novel written in collaboration with Michael Reaves. I first discovered Neil Gaiman through his other big collaboration, Good Omens, co-written with Terry Pratchett. I had not particularly cared for either of these authors singly prior to reading that book. Together, I enjoyed them immensely. My history with Gaiman since then has been hit or miss: some of them I liked (Neverwhere) and some I did not (American Gods). Seeing as how I enjoyed his last collaboration, I thought I might enjoy this one.

The story is about a boy named Joey Harker who discovers that he has the ability to travel between parallel worlds. He winds up boot-camping in this sort of bootcamp world populated by other versions of himself, all of whom are affiliated with one of two factions warring for control of the galaxy.

I found the concept of 'multiple versions of himself' really interesting when I read the story summary, but I am not sure the authors quite pull it off. We get a few glimpses---not every 'Joey Harker' is human, for instance. But I would have liked to see more about the interpersonal aspects of this type of situation. If one accepts the premise set out in the story that each world is a result of the divergent decisions an individual might make at critical junctures, it would have been cool to compare two Joeys at the point where they verge off---for example, the Joey who decides to join the cause, meeting up with a Joey who is otherwise the same as he is, but decided *not* to and then gets pulled back in anyway. That would have been more interesting to me than 'variants on the name Joey with slight rearrangements of distinguishing physical characteristics.'

I liked the way the authors portrayed their hero as a fallible kid who tries, makes mistakes and tries to learn from them. The character growth leading up to the inevitable 'big showdown' was nicely played. But I found most of the other characters a little hackneyed and under-developed. We never did find out just where one of them found the big stick up his you know what! It felt to me like perhaps parts of this book were setting up for a sequel which never materialized.

I give them points for the concept, which was creative. But this is one of Gaiman's earliest works, and it shows. There are some nice action sequences, and a likable hero. But there was also a lot of hack, a lot of over-explaining (page after page about the mechanics of how a certain spacesuit works, for example) and in the end, a not entirely clear motivation for how we got ourselves into this in the first place.

Ultimately, I would perhaps recommend this as a library read if you are already a Gaiman fan. But he's done better, and I'm not sure this is purchase-worthy.

Misc: Review of E-Book Websites

2008-10-15T21:04:00.000-07:00

This post will provide you with a quick round-up of the book sites I visit on a regular basis. Do you have a favourite I didn't mention? Leave me a comment!

Manybooks: This is by far my favourite website for acquiring new e-book content. It allows you to download every title in your choice of formats, and has content guides such as thematic reading lists, reader reviews, RSS feeds for new additions in your favourite categories, and special collections where related titles are all compiled together. It originally was primarily a prettier way to browse the Project Gutenberg collection, but it recently has been expanding its offerings to Creative Commons-licensed texts and a growing collectio of pulp fiction. It also has an iTouch/iPhone-friendly browsing mode, which will allow you to very quickly and easily search for and download new titles from within the free eReader app, available at the iTunes App Store.

Project Gutenberg: This is the largest internet collection, and their very noble goal is to digitize, in plain text readable by any platform, basically every single work they can find which has lapsed into the public domain. As the United States has become increasingly, and in my opinion, unreasonably stupid about the length of copyright terms, they have also set up satellite websites in Australia, Canada, and Europe, where they post works of specific interest in those regions, as well as general works which are not yet 'available' in the US but are fair game in these other, more sensible (for now) regions. I've found the Gutenberg family of sites to be unparalleled in the sheer quantity of their offerings. You could read for decades off these, and you would be surprised at what's in the public domain these days---it's not just Shakespeare and the Bible! But I've also found that these sites can be hard to browse and are not as fun to use unless you know exactly what you're looking for. Even a one-sentence summary for some of this stuff would be helpful, especially for more obscure titles which the volunteers at Gutenberg have rescued from total oblivion. There are some real treasures in here, but you've got to know where to look and have some idea of *what* to look for.

Fictionwise: This is the site I use when I want to purchase a new, current book. They have a weekly newsletter that goes out with special deals. My favourite is the '100% Micropay' deal---you buy a title at full price and they refund the lot of it to you in store credit. If you planned to purchase other stuff anyway, it's a great way to get a free book out of it. What I like to do is buy a big, flashy best-seller, then use the credit to buy some of the indie stuff, which tends to be fairly inexpensive. My one flashy purchase can get me five or six great novels from some of these up and coming types. The indie titles tend to be available in 'multiformat' where one has a choice of download formats and can download purchases in any (or all) of these file types. The more best-sellery types tend to be available only in 'secure' formats. I usually purchase these in secure eReader as it can be read on most (but not all) of my devices and is the least obtrusive DRM scheme there is---no restrictions on how many times or to how many devices one may download their book, but it requires input of your credit card number in order to unlock the book the first time you open it. So, while you *can* share your books, you won't want to, as you would be sharing your credit card number too! But if you do buy a new device down the road, you can download your books again, and the eReader format has been around for awhile, so I feel secure that these purchases will be readable for a good, long time. The site also has a wish list feature, which is handy, and a somewhat weak 'user rating' for each book. They do not have a reader reviews feature though, for reasons which I understand (although I disagree wit them). But that was one of my reasons for starting this blog!

eReader: eReader was recently acquired by Fictionwise, and while I have not, nor do I plan to, buy from their on-line store (I am already attached to Fictionwise) they do make the eReader software, which I use (with great enjoyment) on my iPod Touch. The program is fast, elegant and a joy to use. I can download directly within the program from sites like Manybooks, or from my Fictionwise bookshelf. The software is free, too!

Mobile Read: This is a very active e-book forum where people discuss all things hardware, software and what to read. Many of the users also post whatever free books they have which they have pre-formatted for their various devices. So you can download free books from one part of the forum, then go to another part to talk about them! It's also a good place to look out for news about the latest gizmos and gadgets.

Teleread: I am a regular contributor to this blog, which covers the technical aspects of e-reading as well as the political and social ones. The quality of analysis at this blog can be very high, and there are some high-profile people who actually work in publishing who post there regularly. I'm very proud of my affiliation with them, and will continue to post analysis and opinion articles there on a regular basis. As a wrap-up to this review, I will post some links below to the best of the articles I've written for them:

My iPod Touch Review
My EEE PC Review
My eBookwise Review
My Alphasmart Dana Review
My Last Five Reads (Article 1, Article 2)
E-Books are A Bargain for Canadian Readers
On Getting E-Books from the Public Library
E-Books Could Revitalize the Short Story as a Literary Form

Admin: Welcome!

2008-10-15T20:27:00.000-07:00

After several years blogging about free music and ebooks on-line, I am expanding! I have been bitten by the e-book bug in a big way, and wanted to create a forum for writing reviews. But I'm trying to streamline my on-line life a little, so it didn't make sense to create another bog just for that! My decision? I'm combining the works into one new uber-blog where I can post about ALL things digital media: ebooks, music, videos, web sites, blogs and anything else I find, both free and otherwise. I hope you'll add me to your daily stops. As you get to know my tastes, I hope you'll also start suggesting things!

In case you missed some of the goodies at my former blog, here are some links to the best of the free content I've unearthed on-line so far.

Music (50 songs and counting...)
E-books (48 and counting...)

I'll be using tags to mark my posts (e.g. music, e-book, video, website etc.) so if you are coming from one of my other internet haunts, you'll know how to find the posts which interest you. As far as stuff I haven't blogged about before, I am especially interested in reviewing some of the multiformat titles at Fictionwise, which are generally from smaller presses and don't have much information about them available elsewhere (Fictionwise does not have a reader reviews mechanism). So I hope you'll join me! This'll be fun.