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STAR TREK WEEK  This. Is. Brilliant. In the tradition of the 'Choose your Own Adventure' books comes this riotously funny, often irreverent,  Star Trek: Lower Decks , choose your path, graphic novel. Yeah, that's a lot. Mariner just wants to have a quiet, normal day, but no matter what she does, the universe is on the verge of ending. At least for her and the ship she rode in on. It's Groundhog Day with death and destruction at the end of the wrong paths. But are they all wrong? I can't remember the last time I had so much fun and laughed so much while reading a book. Author Ryan North understands these characters - this really is like watching an episode of Star Trek: Lower Decks ! There are a LOT of little moments that really make this shine.  My favorite is probably the talking Spock clock which, like a modern day Alexa, offers to provide useless, random facts: "Once, on Stardate 5341, I survived without a brain for almost 24 hours." "Spock clock,...

STAR TREK WEEK  Why? Why do we need this?  Some might ask why I read this book and that question I can answer.  Aside from being a Star Trek junkie, willing to read anything with the words "Star Trek" on it, I was a little envious of someone getting to watch Star Trek for the first time, and I thought it might be fun to get those reactions. Author Tom Salinsky sets us up with the fact that he's a huge Dr. Who fan but, for various reasons (including the fact that British television didn't always show Star Trek or didn't show all of Star Trek through the years) hadn't watched Star Trek and decided to venture forth on the Trek journey and document it along the way. Great idea, but here's the thing ... if you're new to something, an admit it right out, it's okay to not like it or even pan it, but you really can't be acting like you're one of the 'in' crowd and commenting and making jokes the way long-time fans have.  Reading Redd...

CLASSIC SCI-FI WEEK Richard Ayrault is a major player (a stockholder) with Terrestrial Axis Straightening Company. The company has begun the process of tilting the Earth's axis so that it might be more useful to the most people on the planet. With this already well underway, the adventurous men decide they should travel to some of the other planets in the solar system and see what they might be able to accomplish there. Space travel isn't too difficult with "apergy" - an opposite force to gravity. But first the spaceship needs to be designed and built. Ayrault takes bids - making sure it will have all the essentials ... you know, carpeting and drapes.  And rain gutters on the exterior to capture the rain on Jupiter. Although they will pass Mars, they use the opportunity to take plenty of pictures, rather than making a stop. Once they get to Jupiter they need to make sure there's a breathable atmosphere, and of course the best way to do that is to crack the window....

CLASSIC SCI-FI WEEK  In the course of interstellar colonization, humans discover the L'Vrai - another race rapidly expanding their own presence in the galaxy. It's important to make contact and hopefully prevent a costly war or even genocide. There are 'tamers' - the front line soldiers sent to meet the L'Vrai head on; but it seems that the best way to reach the other race is via telepathy.  However, the telepathic worm that is used, kills the host.  Except for Jacque Lefavre, who is now the only person able to communicate with the enemy, creating the bridge between minds. I remember reading this, age 15, when it was first released through the Science Fiction Book Club (I may even still have that copy somewhere, signed by the author at a convention). I read it in one sitting and was blown away. My how times have changed. Reading it now, I was mostly bored.  It felt as though we would have the teams try something. Something dangerous happens. Try again. Repeat. What ...

CLASSIC SCI-FI WEEK Nevia is a planet many light years away from Earth. The planet is running out of iron - an essential source of energy for the aquatic inhabitants. The Nevians have developed technology that can pull the iron out of just about anything ... including human blood. The Nevians attack an unsuspecting Earth - a planet rich with their needed resource - destroying the city and surrounding area of Pittsburgh, and then head back to their planet with a load of ore and three human captives. Among the prisoners is Conway Costigan, an undercover agent with the Triplanetary Patrol. His difficult job is to assess any Nevian weaknesses and get information back to Earth and the Patrol. But simply staying alive will be his biggest challenge. I've been reading science fiction for nearly 50 years and while I've heard about and been casually familiar with E. E. "Doc" Smith and the Lensman series, I'd never read anything by Smith prior to this.  Something about the a...

CLASSIC SCI-FI WEEK Kim Stanley Robinson is one of my favorite, working authors, and has been since I started reading his work in the late 1980's. It's nice to see that his older work is being reissued to be found by new audiences or re-discovered and re-enjoyed by those of us who've read it before. The book Icehenge is a collection of three novellas, from three different points of view. The first takes place in 2248 with Emma Weil narrating. Currently on board an asteroid mining ship, she becomes hostage to the ship's crew who want her to help them to convert three stolen ships from the Mars Starship Association. They'd like the ships to be capable of ferrying passengers on centuries-long voyages. Born on Mars, Emma isn't keen on doing favors for dissidents or revolutionaries stealing Mars property.  But the longer she spends time with the dedicated crew, the more she sympathizes with them despite returning to her home. The second story then takes place in 254...

 I am fascinated by the American West. I'm not sure when this started - quite possibly it began with the Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid movie of 1968, followed by my reading of The Wild Bunch by James D. Horan in the mid-1970's. But it's not just the history that attracts me, but the landscape as well. Add to this my appreciation for non-fiction literature, and you have a book that seems tailor made for me in Bandit Heaven by Tom Clavin. I recognized Clavin's name from other books I've read, including the well-researched Tombstone . Bandit Heaven picks up on the same theme (the rugged Old West) but focuses on the lawlessness of the era. Rather than making this yet another book about Butch Cassidy and/or the Sundance Kid, Clavin cleverly provides us a look at a larger circle of (in)famous, as well as a few lesser-known (whoever heard of Isom Dart?), criminals who took advantage of the slow-moving progress in the West. Butch and Sundance do get a lot of attent...

 Leo Parker is a driving instructor at his parents' driving school in Settlesham. Many years ago, to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the Second World War, Leo and the students in his school were tasked with corresponding with students at a school in Alphafen, Germany. Both cities were bombed during the war, though neither seemed to have any significance. Leo's Alphafen pen-pal has been Hannah Weber. Leo has stayed in touched with Hannah through the years, though they've never met in person. When Hannah invites Leo to visit, he gladly accepts. But what he thought was an idyllic setting in Alphafen turns out to be not quite so welcoming.  When Leo returns home he can't shake the feeling that he may have brought some of the darkness of Alphfen with him. Friends and acquaintances with whom he's been friendly seem to have it in for him, and the harder he works to 'fix' whatever is wrong, the worse it gets. And once he realizes what has made the journey with...

Oh, boy, do I love this series! Nadya is a girl we have met in this world/series before.  In Beneath the Sugar Sky she was introduced as The Drowned Girl who was one of Eleanor West’s Home for Wayward Children's 'long-timers.' Now we get Nadya's story. In Beneath the Sugar Sky we learned that Nadya, abandoned by her Russian mother who didn't want a child, was adopted by and American couple. Nadya was born with only one arm. Her adoptive parents insist that she's less than complete and MUST wear a prosthetic arm. Nadya doesn't understand this as she's always felt perfectly whole, but she wears the prosthetic arm to please her adoptive parents. The arm, though, is uncomfortable and burdensome.  One day Nadya feels extremely frustrated, though she can't exactly explain why, and she wanders off. This is when she falls through the magical door that opens for the wayward children. She finds herself in Belyrreka, the Land Beneath the Lake. It is a water-f...

Todd Kingston and Yrsa Helgerson meet when Todd rescues Yrsa from a mugging one night in London. They quickly develop a strong friendship and romance.   When Yrsa's gets word that her mother has died, she has some angst about going back to her Nordic home. Todd encourages her to be there for family and offers to travel with her, providing love and support. Once they arrive on the remote Nordic island, Yrsa's home, they are met with a very icy reception. The locals believe that Yrsa is actually a member of the race of beings called Jötnar - based on an incident when Yrsa was a child. It's nothing but superstitious nonsense as far as Yrsa is concerned, to which Todd agrees. Until ....  Strange things begin to happen on the remote island and Todd, who once fought to protect Yrsa, now fights for his life and possibly all of humankind. Other than my recently review book, Elemental Forces , which was edited by Mark Morris, I've never read anything by this author. I'm alw...

From waaaay back in my ARC queue... Sabrina, Jackie, and Mandy are your typical, modern women who love to get together and catch up on what's happening in their lives. Right now they are talking about Callum and Jacob, two men who've caught their eyes - not just for their looks, but because something seems 'off' about them. After much debate and discussion, the women are convinced that Callum and Jacob are vampires. Once finally confronted, though, the men admit that they aren't 'normal' men, but they are not vampires.  They are aliens. They have been sent to watch over the Earth (just as other operatives have been sent to other developing planets) and its intelligent life and to report back to their planet when the life is capable of interstellar travel. It happens that in a lab at a university in Australia, the phenomenon known as wormholes has now been artificially created.  Tests are still underway, but the creative team behind the wormholes has made gre...

It's not too far into the future and humans have decided it's time to get back to the moon. There is an ulterior motive, of course ... this is where the alien race wants to meet. Man has not been to the moon since 1972 (Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmidt), and there has never been a woman on the moon. Conn Garrow has dreamed of going to the moon since she was a child, but her dreams were dashed when NASA disqualified her for the astronaut program when she was diagnosed as bipolar. She then switched her focus to engineering hoping she could at the very least make it possible for others. When the aliens invite humans to meet near the Apollo 15 lunar lander, the Chinese ready a craft and crew quickly. Not wanting to be outdone, NASA readies their own team. NASA is stretched thin due to a mission already underway (a four year, manned trip to Saturn), and Conn, knowing the engineering of the craft better than anyone, is selected to be a part of the team. Not bad for a 20 year old. Con...

 I was a long-time reader of DAW's The Year's Best Horror Stories series and I've been randomly looking for something similar, with more current writers and stories. I came across this collection and decided to give it a try. There are definitely some names I recognize, which is good (Christina Henry is one of my favorites!) but it also includes a lot of names that i am not familiar with and I really like finding new (to me) authors that I might want to follow. Overall, I was slightly disappointed with this collection. Most of these stories were not at all memorable. And more than a few didn't even feel like horror. Twice, while reading in the collection, I had to go back to my main Kindle page to make sure I was really reading from this book. There were, however, a few standouts. Jim Horlock's "They Eat the Rest" was wonderfully creepy and so very, very unique. This is exactly the kind of story I'm looking for when I read a collection like this.  When...

 1920's and 30's, New York. A truly exciting era in an exciting city. The jazz age and Prohibition, gangsters and molls. But where there's gangsters and mobsters and speakeasies and prostitution and the heavy flow of illegal booze, there's the danger of murder.  On February 26, 1931, Vivian Gordon, a Broadway Butterfly (a name given to the many young women who were lured to New York by the bright lights of Broadway but who had little to no success on the stage) as well as a high-end escort, blackmailer, and con artist, was found beaten and garroted in a park in the Bronx. Born in Indiana, Vivian made her way to New York City in 1920, hoping to find fame and fortune on Broadway. It's a competitive industry and even those with lots of talent don't always make it and a beautiful girl (especially in a city like New York) had limited opportunities for an income. Vivian took full advantage of her looks and shrewdly kept a detailed diary of all the names of the men she...

Penguin Classics has put together three Oz books under one cover: The Wizard of Oz ; The Emerald City of Oz ; and Glinda of Oz . These are NOT the first three books in the Oz series. They are the first, the 7th, and the 14th (the last written by Baum). I'm not entirely sure why we get these specific three books - I thought I had read an explanation, but if I did, I can't seem to find it.  Editor and folklore specialist Jack Zipes provides a really great Introduction, giving us a snapshot of L. Frank Baum and how and why he came to writing the fourteen books in the Oz series between 1900 and 1920. This brief biography is worth the price of the book. I've read and reviewed the first book years ago, but I've copied (and edited/updated) it here. THE WONDERFUL WIZARD OF OZ - L. Frank Baum So many people think they know this book because they are so familiar with the classic MGM movie. Of course there really is so much more in the book that it might surprise people. I have a ...

 Red Sonja, the She-Devil of Hyrkania has spent most of her life doing whatever pleases her. Whether it be fighting or taking a bed partner, Sonja has never spent much time thinking beyond the moment. But when she meets some travelers who insist that her home territory needs her help. Sonja's homeland, once ravaged by a merciless band of marauders, has been quarantined for nearly as long as she can remember - she can't imagine there's anyone there who could need her help.  The travelers convince her it's true and that, because of the previous devastation, they've led people to believe it's off limits. When Sonja arrives, she finds that her abilities are indeed needed, but she's going to have to confront some of her past demons in order to move forward. It makes a lot of sense to have author Gail Simone pen this as she should be familiar with Red Sonja, having scripted some of the comic books for the same character. Other than a few of her comics, I don't...

Ashe is a teenage girl wandering a dystopian landscape all alone. Before she was even born, an alien race appeared from another dimension and wiped out nearly the entire planet. To combat the alien Kraal, the military corps chose to 'cleanse' the planet with a blanket of nuclear bombs. After her family was exiled from the underground shelters and her parents suffered a horrific tragedy, Ashe has chosen to wander, alone, because she doesn't want to put her fate in anyone else's hands. But, starting with a child whom she saves and who now insists on following her everywhere, Ashe slowly begins to connect with others who are rediscovering the planet.  But the Kraal may not be the only danger, especially for a teenage girl and her ward. Not all survivors are willing to be as open and welcoming as Ashe. Dystopian worlds with teenagers (particularly teenage girls) are certainly nothing new and author Brandon Gillespie's biggest challenge is to provide the reader with diff...

Will and Sara Trent are a newly married couple off to a cabin resort in the wilderness for their honeymoon.  With all intentions of leaving their work behind (Will is an agent for the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and Sara is a medical examiner), they arrive at the resort with assumed histories. The resort is not a Fodor's 5 star resort, but a family-run business with plenty of family drama. The resort is jointly owned although most of the work is done my Mercy, who controls two shares of the business - hers and her teenage son's (until he turns 21). Mercy finds satisfaction in the work, loves the resort, and sees it as something valuable to leave her son. The rest of the family wants to sell it to an investor from the city who wants to modernize the whole thing. That investor is visiting the same weekend as Will and Sara. Family squabbles reach a fevered pitch, with many skeletons in the family closet being threatened to be released by Mercy if she doesn't get her way an...