This book is a lovely bit of Fantasy, but it seems like the author isn’t quite sure what kind of a book he is writing. Let me explain. As the title indicates, this is basically a take-off of the standard Fantasy Quest. It contains references to pickleball and other modernisms. I particularly liked the celebration…
Month: December 2024
REVIEW
Short Story Six-Pack: A collection of high fantasy tales by David Carl
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This is a volume of six long short stories, each one taking a different slant on an old fairy tale formula. It’s dangerous ground to tread, because the Fractured Fairy Tale has been around a long time, and has been tried by some of the best. The first, Cinderayla, is perhaps the most slanted of…
REVIEW
“Altered Pathways” by T. R. Neff
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Yet another example of a novel where its greatest strength creates a serious weakness. This is a Noire Detective story in a Sci-Fi setting, but the multiple futuristic names and scientific and social jargon make it difficult to understand what, exactly, is happening. It falls just on the wrong side of the delicate balance between…
REVIEW
“Card Snake” by John Morey
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This is classic Action Fantasy involving a large cross section of people in a society struggling against civic corruption. Set in a world equivalent to our late 19th century, it still echoes problems we have today. Authors take note; this story has used the marvelous technique of having an important backstory which is revealed slowly…
REVIEW
“The Callista Alignment” by Steve Gay
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This is a serious Science Fiction story about social change, dealt with at all levels of society. The cast of characters includes members from the lowest feral human to the highest ruling alien, and we see fragments of the story from the points of view of all of them. This presents a problem in the…