Renaissance Writer: Gordon A. Long

REVIEW

“The Men of the Mountain” by Drew Harrison

by renaissanceadmin • 2026-02-02 • 0 Comments

“The Men of the Mountain” by Drew Harrison Reading this novel is rather like putting together a complicated jigsaw puzzle made from colourful pieces. Similar fragments fit together, and each section grows slowly as new pieces are revealed. The development of the main character is of course the central block. Cade starts out as a…

“Robot Asteroid” by Paul May

by renaissanceadmin • 2026-01-25 • 0 Comments

This novel is a hodgepodge of styles and standard plotlines, trying to do too much with too little organization. The promo material sets it up pretty well: “Robot Asteroid follows three researchers racing against both a bizarre plague and a crumbling, Orwellian society to decode an ancient riddle foretelling the current collapse of the Earth’s…

“The Sentient Odyssey” by Ken Craggs

by renaissanceadmin • 2026-01-17 • 0 Comments

If you haven’t watched a YouTube video where an AI predicts the next thousand years, you ought to, at least to prepare you for the first half of this novel. This is an adventure in scientific prediction, a treatise on every moral quandary predicted by Science Fiction in the last hundred years. It starts with…

“Li-Ming the Sand Witch” by Steven Allen

by renaissanceadmin • 2026-01-11 • 0 Comments

A word to the author. Fiction should never need an introduction. It is a sign that the author is intruding into the story, trying to affect our reaction to it because he doesn’t believe the story can stand on its own. In the case of this introduction, it seems meant to draw us in, attract…

Jagged Worlds: Avoid Your Senseless Death” by Cliff Galbraith

by renaissanceadmin • 2026-01-04 • 0 Comments

Science Fiction isn’t a genre. It’s a setting. Of necessity, the story line must deal with a specific conflict of some type. So we have Sci-Fi Romance, Sci-Fi Military, Sci-Fi Action, Sci-Fi Detective and the list goes on. This novel should probably be labeled a Sci-Fi Business Procedural. The story provides an in-depth look at…

“Beyond the Crystal Sky” by Glen C. Strathy

by renaissanceadmin • 2025-12-28 • 0 Comments

This novel is a version of the “Generation Ship Gone Haywire” variety, but with an interesting format. Most of the narrative involves the main character, Perdit, describing the events of the story to the AI that runs the Ship. In most novels this would devolve into a mind-numbing info dump, but this author is above…

“Secrets of the Sky Gods” by Ryan McBride

by renaissanceadmin • 2025-12-20 • 0 Comments

This novel is Epic Fantasy in the most sweeping scope and style, but the book’s true appeal comes from the portrayal of the main character, Runa. Much of the conflict is internal. There are four ways to show personality: what the author tells us directly, what the character says, what the character does, and what…

“AI Risen” by Endoc Evans

by renaissanceadmin • 2025-12-13 • 0 Comments

This book has all the elements of a good Sci-Fi story. It discusses the rise of Artificial Intelligence, which is topical these days. It has a detailed future setting with a realistic social order. It has a reasonable amount of hi-tech gadgetry. It has sympathetic and admirable characters we can empathize with. It has a…

“Armstrong’s War” by Colleen Murphy

by renaissanceadmin • 2025-12-06 • 0 Comments

Victoria Theatre I took an afternoon off today for a bit of entertainment in Victoria’s local theatre scene: “Armstrong’s War,” by Colleen Murphy, presented to a sold-out crowd of 60 at the Theatre Inconnu, directed by Morgan Gadd. I can see why my friend wanted to direct this play. It is simple in composition, straightforward…

“Dappled Leaves and Dust” by Isabella Wu

by renaissanceadmin • 2025-12-02 • 0 Comments

Poetry is hard to review, because different types of poets have different objectives in their writing. With my theatre background, I come to poetry from a performance point of view. I gather Ms. Wu comes from a more academic background. There are bound to be disagreements. For example, there is a cute bit of visual…

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