drews

Good book providing some insight and back story to the start of the Yuzaan Vongh invasion of the galaxy

Rogue sith/jedi clone hybrids going mad with the force.

Alien space stations hell bent on killing you and general mayhem. Overall a good read with lots of action.

Typical star wars book with the good vs. Evil dynamic. For a full review visit my YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkUMtTLktLQ9BrbI0LRJVdg

I dont normally read romance books but after the author sent me a copy to review I was happy to accept

I really did enjoy this book. The paranormal aspect of a demon sent to possess a innocent young blind woman is a concept that I just loved honestly.

The paranormal demonic theme along with Angel's vs demons with the girl being the central point this war surrounds was a lot of fun to read.

The characters were well written and the story and plotline well executed. I found that I could relate to the demon and the story was really about his desire to be more than just a demon.

Good book. Good read. It gets 4 stars only cause is did not care for the sex scene. Not that it was bad or poorly written so this is purely subjective

Overall good book

Dream riders.

Imagine being able to enter a persons mind while they dream? Then not just watching their dream but activley being able to manipulate and control what a person dreams?

That is the awesome power that Corey and Marci have and it attracts some unwanted attention. Not just from encentric unstable millionaires but from the very demons that haunt our worse nightmares.

I love the concept of this book and story and it has a lot of potential to be expanded into a multi book series. The dreamworld is a place where reality ceases to exist and our minds can delve into the impossible and non sensical. The possiblities are limitless and I think Taylor Kole has tapped into a very intriguing idea here.

One thing however that I think could have made the story better is spending more time establishing the Dream Riding business as our main characters Corey and Marci seem to get into their trouble after essentially 1 client. This seemed to be a bit too quick for me and establishing dream riding and how it works a bit more, at least for me, would have made the story better. But then I like getting into in depth details of how things work within a story. Thats just my personal preference and by no means a reflection on the writers style.

Now for the characters.
Corey tends to see things in a more spiritual supernatural view point believing the demons to be reality and apart from the minds of the dreamers. This makes him fearful and I think irrational in his desire to avoid dream riding with those who seem to have these demons.
This seems to stem from his background in philosphy dealing with the intangible ideas

Marci by contrast is the more scientfically minded and views these demons as nothing more than essentailly figments of the dreamers mind. She is more focused on the money and success that can come from dream riding which blinds her to the danger they are facing till its too late.

Walter. A maniacle rich lunatic. He discovers the power of dreamriding and wants to control it for himself. He is a man with a massive ego and takes rejection as a personal assault. His self interest motivated desire over rules his reason leading to his eventual demise.

Overall the characterization was Ok. They were not terrible but they also werent in depth, this in no way makes them bad or poorly written characters neccessarily. The behaved exactly as I would expect them to.

When their daughter was kidnapped they were naturally worried and angry but aside from the reading being told thats how they felt their was not alot within to book showing thats how they felt. Perhaps some emotional tear filled scenes between marci and corey, sleepless nights or a few scenes of their own nightmares about their daughter. Maybe with the demon from walts dreams present.

A few scenes from their daughters perspective and what she was going through, crying for her parents etc... would for me certainly enhance the story. Or maybe a scene where Corey and Marci get into their daughters dream from distance using the parental bond as some kind of bridge without physical cotnact etc..

I think this sort of thing would have gone a long way to improving the story and help the reader more effectively empathize with the characters and what they were going through.

But in the end I don't think the story needed extensive characterization and in depth backgrounds neccessarily. I feel like this book sets the stage for further dream riding stories and with that further character development. This is a good starting point. And I feel like there is a lot of potential behind this concept and this book as a launching point for a series.

If more Dreamriding books are written I look forward to seeing Marci and Corey develop as characters and how dream riding influences that developement.

Overall 3 stars. Great story. Excellent concept. Lots of potential.

Marvin, ex-hitman is forced to come out of retirement to protect his family

I really enjoyed this book overall and recommend it if you like high stakes, action adventure hitman style stories, and while I am more a sci-fi fantasy reader mostly I did enjoy this one over all

The characters are believable, and the writing keeps you interested to see how things will get resolved. And the ending sets up book 3 really well!

well worth the read

A hit man, a dancer, and a orphaned asian girl. You can't get more unconventional than that.

Marvin, aka azarael (the angel of death) is on a mission to avenge his family, meanwhile his on again, off again girlfriend Carmen, is ready to give up on their one sided relationship till Keiko , a orphaned asian girl joins them in a un-expected way.

Lots of action, high stakes and entertaining ready. Visit my youtube channel to see a full video review.

I really enjoyed this one. Good read all around.

I love quantum theory and Niels Bohr and Max Planck are giants in the field. These 2 essentially revolutionized physics and fundelmentally changed our understanding. Because of quantum theory we have modern tech and micro processors

While I love the subject matter and recognize the contribution of these 2 great minds of science this book was really not written for the layman and is geared towards the scientific community.

Perhaps it is my own very basic understanding of quantum theory but I had a hard time following and understanding this book. That is the only reason I am giving it 2 stars.

This book was sent to me for a ARC review

Full video Review can be found here: https://youtu.be/yGUPDlyojuc

War of the Fallows is a world in which 3 kingdoms are launched into a war, with their Gods who walk among men controlling and manipulating the ruling monarchs of the world.

I honestly love the idea of a world in which gods are walking among men and influencing or controlling the affairs of the world and ruling over the Monarchs of men. That in and of itself is not unique, however what I did find unique in this world is that these Gods, who are ascended Monarchs at the age of 40 are men just like any others, but worshipped as Gods by the people of the land.

While most fantasy worlds have some kind of magic system this world does not, That is not a draw back but something I actually liked about it. It makes it different than other fantasy you might read which is a good thing.

One of my favorite Aspects of this story is how LGBTQIA+ issues are represented. One character is a Gay man with a husband. This relationship is treated no different than any other married coupled and written with such normalcy that you do not even stop to think about it. I love how this was handled, and we need more writers who handle these issues and normalized them in literature.

My draw backs, this world could really benefit from more world building and character building, I really wanted to spend more time in the world and with these characters. The world and character building was enough to keep me interested and wanting more, but was still, at least I felt, barley even begun.

overall it was a good read and I really enjoyed it.

I honestly feel this may be more of a 2.5 star book mainly because whilw its called money it only really starts out talking about the history of money about halfway through it digresses into discussion of a future AI world

While AI is a very interesting subject that is not what i expected this book to be about.

I received this book as a ARC for a review, for which I am truly grateful

This book follows the story of Charlie Brand, a young man who enlisted in the Navy after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor bringing America into WW2.

I will say that If you are a military or WW2 history buff you will probably enjoy this book. Much of the narrative follows Charlie and his experiences in the Navy. Charlie is a Radar operator which at the time was classified military Technology.

The Good
For me personally, I enjoy the what some might term info dumps, not being all that familiar with WW2 military technology, ships and planes I would not have known anything about the types of planes mentioned, their armament or capabilities so for me at least this was a good thing as it helped understand the context of the tech

I enjoyed learning about some of the battles that took place in the pacific during WW2, and the challenges that the U.S. Navy had their battles with the Japanese, this for me at least, provided a new perspective on the naval aspect of WW2 that while I am certainly aware that the navy was involved I never really thought about the war in terms of naval battles, I typically imagined things like dday and the bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima

Charlie as a Character was someone I was able to come to care, at least a bit about, within this story. His love interest and family connections certainly made me want to cheer for him to get home.

The bad

Other than charlie, none of the other characters really stood out to me, I just found I did not really care for them all that much. Overall this was a very plot drive story rather than character driven story.

During the battle scenes, much of these moments in the story was focused around Charlie and his operation of the Radar. This often was focused on just reporting Radar data and the back and forth communications between officers on the ships, With the occasional mention of what the fighter pilots were doing on both side.

I certainly understand telling the story from Charlies POV however I would have loved to have more action writing, from others POV during the battle. It just seemed to really lack the intensity and battle drama that would have been occurring at these moments.

I just would have loved to see more character POV, and more battle action from those directly involved in the fighting. It just felt more like reading a battle report than being in a battle itself.

It just would have been so much better to get into the minds, and show me what the soldiers were experience in the heat of battle, show me what is going on around them, on the ships, in the sky.

overall I would say its not a terrible book, I did enjoy it, but would have loved to see so much more that would have made this book so much better.

3 stars because I did enjoy learning more about the Navy role in ww2. I enjoyed Charlie's story, and really overall it is a good story. After reading this book I do want to learn more about WW2 but at the same time it could have been so much more

I got this book as a christmas gift in 2020 and have spent the past yr reading a few stories and poems each month.

And I Love it!! I have a new appreciation for Edgar Allen Poes writing and prose. His humor, and macabr story telling. Easily best book I have read all year!

Gods, monsters, kids, fantastical creatutes, adventure, prophecy, burning mazes this books has it all

A fun light hearted with just the right mix of adventure with comic relief. A good read all around

See my full video review here: https://youtu.be/EfXleyfeUHk

Of the schools of Dune books this I think is my fav, that being said its been a while since I read sisterhood of Dune

While this book does focus on the Mentats of dune, kind of there is alot of stuff going on around mentats in general. The spice trade, sisterhood and empire and the butlerian movement lead by halfmand torondo

If you are a Dune fan, then you already know how Gilbertus Albans the founder of the mentat school is. He is trying to balance by relgious fanatics on one side and anti relgious fanatatics on the other and how these 2 groups vying for power affect the mentat school

I have always been a fan of political games, treachory and fanatical extremisn in story telling and I felt that this book portrayed that well, not every aspect of the overall plot was needed in this book imho, paticularly around the freement recrutis of venkee enterprises, I feel like that could have been just something in the background rather than creating a narrative plot around the story

overall however a good read and decent edition to the dune universe

I would like to give 3.5 stars but that does not seem to be a option.

I found this to be a typical stand alone star wars book. Jedi vs sith and all that.

It was good but not great. Seems to be a story of vengeance and hunter vs hunted.

Some aspects I felt could have been expanded on more and probably could have been taken out all together with no realy change in the overall story.

Wow. That was a wild ride. Thats all.

As usual Jim Butcher does disappoint when it comes to the Dresden files.

Fast paced and action packed supernatural forces vs the world and wizard for hire Harry Dresden .

I love Jim Butchers sense of humor with in his writing style and how he uses religious theology within jus story.

The knights of the cross with the nails of the crucifix along with 30 pieces of possessed silver just make for a more interesting read.

Anything Dresden Files is highly reccomended

Loved it!!! Video review coming soon

Snuff by Terry Pratchett

Commader Vimes needs to take a vacation but as usual its not that simple

This book at its heart is a murder myster focusing around issues of racism and slavery. Its hard not to see the parrallells of the slave trade within this book, Just in this case its the Goblins who are viewed as something less than human and worthy of our respect. A Goblin is murdered and others are rounded up aboard ships to be sent off as slaves and Commander Vimes is on the case

Terry Pratchett is once again at the top of his game as he deals with these issues in his usual witty style. Sometimes all it takes is one good person to take a stand and force the world to see things differnetly and Commander Vimes is that man great book!

See my Full video review here : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewHucmtbO4o

Have you ever wondered if there were multiple universes or alternate dimensions

In this book Brian Greene explores these ideas in a thought provoking entertaining way, He has knack for exploring complex scientific ideas and concept in a way that the layman can understand and comprehend.

I loved how he anticipating questions and objections to some of the ideas put forth and overall was just an amazing read from start to finish and I highly recommend this book if you are interested in the hidden reality of quantum realms and parallels universes

Ok first off Dresden Files books are by far the best urban fantasy I have ever read just awesome.

If you have read the first 12 books then you know that Harry was killed and the end of the last book changes, if you are reading this now and have not read this far, I marked it spoilers so no complaining lol

I knew going into the Dresden files after reading changes Harry was not really dead because with how changes ended and the next book being Ghost Story I knew that it had to do with Harry being a ghost so no surprise there. But in any case Harry is sent back as a ghost to the mortal realm to save his friends, or so he thinks anyway but finds himself unable to use his magical powers and he must re-learn how to use magic in his ghost form and spends his time running from the sun and haunting his friends.

Like so many Dresden books this is a non stop read that kept my interested constantly through the book. From demented insane wraiths, to canabalistic ghost, to soul eating our nemesis corpsetaker a demonic ghost that possesses wizards to gain power.

at one point the book did hint at Harry getting his body back so I expected that to happen but honestly not the way it actually did, I thought that he would somehow find his body, perhaps his friends retrieved it and he was put in cold storage or something and he basically repossesses his body and comes back to life, but that is not how it happened, after all he is the winter knight so it could not be that simple right?

anyway how it happens is awesome and I just loved this book all around, anything Dresden at this point is awesome! I look forward to the next one

Brian Greene is quick becoming one of my favorite non-fiction authors. I have followed his world science festival and read atleast one of his other books. He has a way of explaining complex and confusing ideas that make these concepts easier at least to understand on a more basic level.

The elegant universe goes over the history of string theory and its relationship to Einstein theory of relativity and how physicist have sought to overcome the apparent contradictory nature of classical physics with quantum physics.

I really liked his explanation of the speed of light for example being a constant and not limited by relative motion or apparent velocities of the observer.

In addition to that I now have a better understanding of how the sub-sub atomic world works with multidimensional cosmic strings of vibrating energy works

However I did give 3 stars for 2 reasons really and in the end maybe not related to Greene himself. Some of the concepts and ideas he was trying to express were difficult to understand and did come across a bit dry. However the reality is that the subject matter involved is not simple and even physicist have said they don't understand it lol.

Greene also states there is no smaller fundamental element of matter than these strings but the same thing was said about atoms and particles at one point as well so I don't know how he can say that with surety

Overall however another great read by Brian Greene who has proven himself to be an effective science educator with unique effective and relatable wa of explaining complicated and difficult to understand concepts. I look forward to reading more from him

This is the second book in Dan Simmons Hyperion Cantos

First lets talk about the world Dan Simmons has build with Hyperion Cantos. This book series is set about 700 yrs in the future when the galaxy has been colonized by humanity. Old earth has been destroyed or is missing and the galaxy is organized into a galactic Hegemony with a technocratic government ruled by a CEO

At some point in this history of this civilization there was a split between artificial intelligence and humanity. This core intelligence formed their own society after rebelling against the idea or reality of being conceived to be in slavery to humanity. AI got too smart for our own good essentially The AI Technocore now rules via the Hegemon but has also split into 3 main factions of AI (Though humanity likes to think otherwise)

The stables wish to maintain symbiosis with humanity
The Volatiles wish for the utter and complete destruction of humanity
The Ultimates defer any all all choice in the matter until the next level of awareness, or supreme ultimate intelligence is realized

Picking up right where Hyperion left off we are introduced to a Character of Joseph Severn who is having dreams of the pilgrims we met in the first book. These dreams are of the real life events going on at the Time Tombs of Hyperion and the dealings or encounters with the shrike and the Shrikes purpose and why it was created in the first place

In the mean time the the WorldWeb, linked together by a network of Farcasters, essentially portals in space time appears to be under attack by the Ousters, a mysterious group of people from the depths of space but all is not as it seems.

These books play off some interesting themes that I love seeing within the writings of the books and something that I find good science fiction does.

For one, The idea that humanity is by its nature destructive and will destroy all life that does not suit its own purposes. The book discusses the idea of terraform planets that already have an abundance of life but not the kind of life that humanity needs to live and human settlers has destroyed it without care for the life and natural species destroyed in the process, including any and all sentient intelligent species that may serve as competition for humanity. This is certainly a very grim and dark perspective on the nature of man whether it is true or not I guess depends on the reader but this idea is explored, not just in naturally occurring life but also in terms of AI life and its blend with human life, the Cybrids are a good example of this, resurrected personas merged with AI within the techno core and are generally seen as outsiders by humans who had sought to destroy them and so those that still live must keep their identity as a CYBRID secret.

The other main theme of this book, and the series so far anyway, is focused on religion and its role in human society. The book does a decent job of contrasting the diminishing ancient old earth religions, primarily with Catholicism as a central church used a focus for this particular theme and the newer what would be modern religion of the Shrike church, or as I think of it the Shrike death cult. There is the Catholic priests and the questioning of his own religion and the interplay of his god vs the Shrike and what it all means.

Part of this religious discussion you could say revolves around the Cruciform parasite that essentially resurrects its host over and over again. it In beds itself in the body in the form of a cross in the chest.

Then we have the shrike the the Idea of a sacrifice being needed to be made to what has become a death god or lord of pain. Its victims are impaled on a shrike tree almost in a way representing this tree of life, while impaled the victims do not die but suffer in eternal agony wishing, praying for death.

Sol Weintraub's story of his daughter aging backwards in time and having regular dreams of Abraham and God's command to sacrifice his son. He feels that God is calling him to sacrifice his daughter but fights against this as he struggles with the idea of God being truly God making such demands. Desperate to find a cure for his daughters backwards aging sickness and exploring his own religious convictions leads him on a pilgrimage to the shrike where he must choose if he will obey gods commands while facing the shrike

The AI intelligence in the mean time are seeking to create god in the form of a ultimate intelligence and these 3 explorations of religion intersect in a fascinating read while the book at times reads almost as a allegory of a twisted, dark alternate version of religiosity and god and overall was just a fascinating read from start to finish.

Easily 5 stars for me loved it!

5 stars because this series is just awesome

So this is going to be more of a review of the series as a whole than a single book.

Issac Asimov's Foundation series is a epic scifi series based in the far future galactic empire more than 20,000 yrs in the future. A time when Earth has long faded into myth and legend

LIke most good scifi, its not so much about the scifi as it is about the story of the rise and fall of civilization. This series is written in a way that is generally easy to follow without alot of complication and each book is set up in parts from 4-5 parts each and each part launches you 10 + yrs into the future.

Not so much a character as narrative driven story it focuses on the ideas of large crowds behavior can be predicted via laws of mathematics based on the main character Hari Seldon ficitonal science pyshochistory.

In alot of ways the books are quite dated in references to both technology, and social norms and ideas such as gender roles can come across as biased or stereotypes so it may not be good for everyone but for me I love the big ideas of this scifi, the epic scope and ideas that what is fact can fade to legend and myth over time.

Overall Foundation is in this reviewers opinion an awesome read as a whole series, only loses some points due to the dated nature of some of the references.

Its been a long time since I had read any Piers Anthony and I have to say I was pleasantly surprised by this book. I was expecting just a meh ok scifi read but it turned out better than expected

I found the personification of death in this book was one of the best I have read, as our Primary character is forced to confront death as a person and himself

The way this story approached the questions of what is death, what makes a soul good or evil, the ideas of being born in sin, euthanasia etc.. was so enjoyable and well done

4/5 stars for me.