When I am reviewing a book aimed specifically at a narrow genre, I ask myself two questions. First, does the book stick to the genre? Second, what is there about the book that lifts it above the other members of the group? The draw in this book is the main character. He is a sympathetic,…
Tag: series
REVIEW
“The Exiles” by Rae Lewis
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I am seeing a lot of this new genre lately: YA Space Operas. It’s a tempting area to work in for a beginning author, because of the looser writing standards of the original genre and a less sophisticated audience. However, writers should not take this as permission to be sloppy in style or execution. The…
REVIEW
“America: Dr. Wiley’s Construct – Episode 1” by Jackson Wilder
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This is a short book comprising 69 pages, a single episode in a longer serial, an old-style Steampunk story with echoes of modern social and political problems, deftly merged. While the publicity calls this book a novella, it really isn’t. It is the first episode of a series, and as such has a different structure…
REVIEW
“The Tech” by Mark Ravine
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“Bad News Bears” meets “The Dirty Dozen” on Netflix It’s interesting when a change happens to the format of something as tried-and-true as the novel. In the case of “The Tech,” we are talking about a book with the plotline, characters, and conflict arc of a NetFlix 8-episode series. In many cases, this kind of…
REVIEW
“The Spirit Mage,” The Blackwood Saga #2 by Layton Green
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The Book 2 story starts exactly where Book 1 ends, always an iffy proposition for the writer, because he then has to explain everything in detail so we can return to the situation in the other book. Which Mr. Green proceeds to do, in far more detail than we have hope of remembering. For example,…