C. J. Daley

Thanks to the author for the e-ARC! This short story collection was a lot of fun.

Investation is the story of a man that invested his inheritance into purchasing a solar system. One way out of the way, but with the hopes of wealth sometime in the future. That sometime happens to come up much faster for them than expected, and with wealth comes problems. This felt kind of like Childhood’s End, just somewhat flipped, and taken to its extreme.

Rememory is a futuristic story, taking place in what felt like a Blade Runner-esque Japan, where memory has become the only form of currency. And just like with dollars and cents, where there’s profit, there’s always someone wanting more. The rich covet, investing in people who are referred to as Hard-Drivers, aka those kept safe like a piggy bank of others memories. This has some thriller notes that were reminiscent of the film In Time, and some of the more scifi notes involving memory recall/replay that are hit upon in the movie of the same name, Rememory.

The Hunter Remains reminded me of The Land Before Time or the book Hunted, in that the author here has personified dinosaurs. Their is still a hierarchy of hunters and pray, but they have thought throughout. Unlike the two examples though, this is kind of an adult, violent, dinosaur-fueled Noah’s Ark.

Good As Gold features the city, New Yesterday, which is also the name of one of the author’s novels. So I can only assume this is related, which is exciting, as this was an awesome concept. A city where anything can be ‘retrograded’, any past can be rewritten. This is a bank robbery gone wrong in a shifting personal perspective that felt very a la Inception.

Dragonpiercer is an interesting one. A man and his helping lover create, at long last, a potion with the power to change him into dragon. It’s a dream he’s been chasing since birth. It’s somehow both super scifi and fantasy as one. Both castle Dracula vibes and monster Frankenstein.

The Forgotten Melody is a real quick one. A musician and a beautician seek to awaken statues with a partially stolen song.

Postcards From Another World was one of my favorites! It reminded me of my friend’s release, I Tried Calling, in that it features a story entirely told through transcriptions. This was a quick scifi read, but it dealt with parenthood, loss, grief, and finding peace again.

Hear No Evil is a fantastic supernatural/superpower story that meshes with detective crime! An officer that can collect evidence through unusual means is caught in the web of the wrong person. All I can say is that I want a full novel of this asap.

The Caretaker is the story of a silicon based copy of military persons given to their families to help with the distance. The story has the war taking place off world, so assumably quite far. Very reminiscent of The Black Mirror episode, Be Right Back, with notes of Detroit Become Human and A Sorrow Named Joy by Sarah Chorn. With an ending that made me wish it was only the beginning.

Skybound is another story that’s more than likely novelette length. It is an eco-scifi/horror that’s a little too near-future for me. The destruction of the planet is worse than ever, and by 2030, weather is uncontrollable. Kind of like the scientists of today, they look to space as the answer. Reminiscent of statements made by Elon Musk, and the film Interstellar.

A Stitch Between Worlds isn’t exactly a sequel story to Rememory, but it is kind of an adjacent one. An agent is pulled off of investigating Felix and Jock to work a new case. This case involves a man that can seemingly create dreamscapes that appear to be real. The only problem is, they just might me. This was a really awesome way to wrap up the entire collection, interlocking each.

All in all, I absolutely loved every single story included in this collection. Strong writing, well thought out concepts, and super fast paces. This might be one of my favorite collections I’ve ever read.

I was contacted by a publicist and offered a physical ARC. I’m glad I said yes! I believe this release is a reissue from Hellbound Books.

The novel focuses in part on Ted. Ted’s mother was a real piece of work, and although his time in the military most likely exasperated things, she was the crux to his unhinging. Now, Ted has an insatiable hunger, the drive to kill. These are what Ted calls his score. One couple, a particularly important score for Ted, is one of the town’s greatest unsolved mysteries. One that the local police took into their retirement even. And I loved that the marketing used the ‘newspaper’ clipping of it as the book wrapping. Ted’s got quite the long list of kills, making him one hell of a serial killer.

The other focus, is on the Benton family. Especially the daughter Jules and her boyfriend David. I originally thought this was a kind of unique way to set up a final girl, but this isn’t your typical slasher. Jules and David have been talking about when and how to do it for the very first time, and when David’s parents go away for a week, the timing seems perfect. The chaos that ensues after is almost endless. Deceit, cheating, lies, and sneaking around lead them on a path of their own destruction. A path that may lead right to an elderly Ted.

Now one thing that I can’t really tell if I liked or not, was the incredible amount of sex in the story. The author does pretty well with having it present, while not making the reading all that X rated, which for me is a plus. My issue is that it’s so constantly present that it bleeds into everything. Ted’s disgusting perversion, teenagers (Jules and David especially, and even the Benton parents. And while that’s certainly fitting for those old school slashers, it just made it feel like there was no destination between anyone or the different arcs. But I’m not saying I dislike it, because part of me wonders if it was in itself a commentary of that.

There were a few moments, like with Ted and his mother and then again later in the novel where I felt like we were getting into something that felt almost like it could be Dexter: New Blood-ish. Not to mention Ted’s drive certainly has a ‘dark passenger’ feel to it from the very beginning. And while I wished that this truly did come to pass, I enjoyed the ending the way it was. No one is safe. And no one can ever truly know the depths that they’re willing to go until they get there. Three different incidents, and three differently viewed types of evil.

There is something off about Val the crossing guard. Eric has taken notice, and he feels certain. She’s doing something funky to the water bottles she offers out to the school kids. But when she catches him trying to destroy them, he quickly blames another passing kid. Safe for the moment, but no less culpable.

This was quick and enjoyable. It read like a Goosebumps short, like something from Tales to Give You Goosebumps or even the newer series Stinetinglers. It even has the kind of classic cliffhanger ending you’d expect.

This is available in the full collection Nightmares From a Desk, but for $0.99 this is a great sample of the author’s work if you’re on the fence.

The audio done by Thom Rivera is well performed and I think he’s a good voice for Peter and Spidey.

Personally I love Spider-Man, but I didn’t grow up in a comic book household. So for me, my first Segway into it was the 90s animated series. And then I became a mega fan when Tobey took on the role.

This collection starts with a pretty awesome novella that covers the origin story. Peter is bitten by an irradiated spider that has been causing some problems inside Dr. Otto’s mechanical arms. While not so different from many of the other versions, I like the idea of one of his greatest enemies having a direct connection to creating his alter ego. The accident that ensues also inadvertently creates Doc Ock. Then in a very similar sequence to the Sam Raimi movie, Peter creates this alter ego in hopes of stopping the burglar that killed his uncle Ben. I’ve always like the idea of finding new strength and immediately wanting revenge, but then becoming this superhero that’s arguably the most genuinely ‘good’ out of all of them. This “good guy” version is kind of what they seem to be doing with Tom Holland’s portrayal.

The other stories are collected like an anthology. I liked and disliked some of them, but nothing stuck out as particularly bad. Mostly they felt like they belonged to a bigger piece, which made them kind of seem like they were always missing something. I did enjoy a story where Mary Jane asks simply for five more minutes, just for Peter to be told by a police officer that he was five minutes too late to save someone. A really good short on the idea of time and how particularly hard it would be to be a hero and also try to have personal life.

Absolutely love this cover, and when I came across it on Twitter, I was stoked to find that I already owned it. So I decided to give it a read.

The Cradle of the Sky is humanity’s last hope. Thousands of years ago, humans set sail to the great beyond in the far flung hopes that they could one day reach a new home. A planet that could sustain them the way that earth had. The earth they had destroyed. 4000 years into the 6000 year journey, and things are maybeee not going so great?

Due to the need of everyone having a specified role on the cradle, life has fallen back into work related castes. Jett Dresden, part of the hull repair crew, makes a shocking discovery that leads her to find out a secret that the navigation caste wants hidden. A little chaos ensues…

I enjoyed that while this is a dystopian twist to the utopia chasing tale, there was still goodness within the story. Jett’s father and sister are still with her. Their food allotment includes fresh produce, as well as a great scene talking about garlic. Jett even has her own room. And even though the cradle is hurdling towards something they didn’t expect, Jett doesn’t despair and tries to envision solutions. She ended up being a very powerful personality for a main character in such a short number of pages.

I also enjoyed the author’s decision to include different kinds of Christianity. With the tagline of ‘God Does Not Want Us here,’ I’m glad he didn’t just give us a straight forward force-feeding of the Bible. This is 4000 years into their travels, and there are new sects that you’ve never imagined. I thoroughly enjoyed this. It’s not always about the destination, it’s about the survival.

Knew I wanted to get to this while it was still new. After reading The Devil Takes You Home and getting a feel for the author, that desire only went up. Also nicely fit as a Hispanic Heritage Month read!

This is a revenge story like no other. A group of friends seek revenge after one of their mothers is murdered. These childhood friends stick together no matter how dark and dangerous things become. No matter how many twists or lies become uncovered. As I am coming to gather is the author’s signature, this book is anything but just a revenge story. Multilayered and devastating, their devotion to each other will have you recalling childhood friendships that seemed so unbreakable, and have you thankful things never came to this.

One thing that seems a constant, is that no matter where the author takes us—in this case Puerto Rico—his writing has this razor sharp edge to it, that is both poetic and devastating. As with his other novel I’ve read, this book has huge dialogue sections mixed with Spanish and no translation. This unerring stance is his stamp of authenticity that will keep me coming back for years to come. I do not speak Spanish, and as I was listening to the audio while working, I am not in the camp of people translating for themselves as they read. Especially as I do not have any text. I just love this idea that there’s three experiences out there for every book he writes. No translations, translations while reading, and Spanish speaking. The fact that I can find so much to enjoy while not knowing chunks of dialogue is such a success to me, and makes me want to experience it in other ways.

And as these friends get deeper and deeper into this revenge plot, the further they’re forced to go is also getting deeper. Iglesias does so much with violence that I never knew was even possible. These bouts of hyper-violence are so dark and shocking, but still so layered into how everyone processes them, that they further the plot too. Each friend feels differently, will do something differently. But they’re together til the end, right? The author uses this shock value to further hammer home his themes.

As a hurricane blows in, the author uses it as the perfect curtain to draw over everything and add in a bit of mysticism and supernatural. And while metaphoric in itself, it’s also a shockingly creepy twist all on its own.

“All stories are ghost stories, and some stories turn us into ghosts.”

How far would you go for revenge? Would you up the violence, the depravity, to reach your goal? Would you let it whittle you away until there was nothing left?