Author Archives: James Pyles

Book Review of “Fire Time” (1974)

fire time

Cover for Poul Anderson’s 1974 novel “Fire Time”

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I wish I could say I liked Poul Anderson’s 1974 novel Fire Time. It was being offered from Amazon at a pretty low price and wasn’t available at my local public library. I’d read and liked other books by Anderson. I figured what the heck?

The novel begins with several prisoners being transported to a judge’s private residence on Earth. They had been charged with what seemed to be war crimes, and the judge, who was elderly and infirm, was the only one willing to hear their side of the story. The book proceeds from this point as testimony which could either be really good or really bad.

I couldn’t get past the sort of “muddiness” of the narrative. I tried, but as much as I wanted, the story didn’t pull me in. I never lost myself in this world. It’s a world describing a difficult orbit around three different starts sometimes resulting in “Fire Time,” a catastrophic heating up of the planet’s northern hemisphere that collapses civilization.

You’d think that would be enough.

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“Shoot the Devil II: Dark Matter” Coming Soon!

shoot the devil 2If you like my work, buy me a virtual cup of coffee at Ko-Fi.

Some of my regular readers may remember that a short story of mine “Wolf in the Wind” was included in the 2022 Crucifixion Press anthology Shoot the Devil: Ten Tales of Humans Defeating the Demonic. It’s a collection of science fiction, fantasy, and horror stories generally from a Christian perspective that depicts people combatting and defeating literal evil. My own story was less religious, but nonetheless, a battle in the supernatural realm involving a female occult detective in the 1880s west.

Apparently, it did pretty well, so well in fact that the publisher decided to print a sequel. It should go on pre-sale on October 15, 2023 and is called “Shoot the Devil 2: Dark Matter.”

Basically, it’s the same theme only in space.

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If I Could Turn Back Time

desk

PHOTO PROMPT © Jennifer Pendergast

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“No! This is not what I meant!”

Eight-year-old Erin pounded her fists on the back of the chair and then recoiled when it hurt so much. She squealed in her too squeaky, little girl voice.

She wanted to go back and fix the past. The experiment held that promise. The forty-two-year-old physicist stepped into the acceleration chamber and vanished.

It was thirty-four years ago. Her old bedroom. She thought she’d arrive as herself; as an adult. Instead, she was projected into her younger body.

The door opened and she cringed.

“Daddy’s here, Erin.”

The horror was starting all over again.

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Book Review of “Hacking Galileo” by Fenton Wood

hack

© James Pyles

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I became aware of Fenton Wood (a pseudonym) when he reviewed my SciFi/Fantasy novelette Ice on twitter (but alas not on Amazon or goodreads).

Curious, I took a look at his twitter/X account, which led me to his e-book Hacking Galileo.

It had fabulous reviews, an interesting premise, and was reasonably priced, so I downloaded it onto my Kindle Fire.

The first words you read in the book after the usual preamble stuff is “This is a work of fiction.” Wood then goes on to explain the inspirations and influences for various parts of his story, the background of some of the technical details, when he “cheated,” making certain events happen at a slightly different point in history for the sake of the plot, and how security at Cray Research and Bell Telephone Company weren’t quite as lame as he depicted.

That’s really important because the rest of the book is written from the point of view of a man who, in the 1980s, was part of a teenage hacker group, really just a bunch of high school friends in Palmdale, California, who performed acts of hacking from the interesting to the fantastic.

The main character Roger O. Miller (ROM, see what he did there?) is writing and recounting events that happened thirty years ago where he and his three friends actually saved the world from destruction by an alien space probe. There’s a lot of build up to get to that point, but almost all of it is fascinating.

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The Exploding Candy Store

candy

PHOTO PROMPT © Roger Bultot

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“Annoying,” Phil complained.

One of the tiny cameras he had hidden throughout the candy shop showed him the place wasn’t empty. The clerk was out front having a smoke, but the customer with the backpack was still shopping inside.

“Come on,” he whispered in the basement darkness, fingers poised on the toggle while his eyes scanned the monitors.

Pesky finally selected an ancient pack of Cherry Humps and headed for the register. The clerk was taking his final drag when Backpack went to get him.

“Boom.” Phil threw the switch. One more hated icon of his childhood blown to bits.

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Book Review of “A Call to Duty”

call to duty

Cover for the Weber and Zahn novel “A Call to Duty”

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After I returned my previous book to the library, I was wandering the stacks trying to decide if anything looked interesting. I eventually came across A Call to Duty (2016) by David Weber and Timothy Zahn. It’s the first book in the four-part Manticore Ascendant series which, in turn, is part of the much larger Honorverse published by Baen Books.

I should say that I’m particularly fond of Baen, not just because of the quality of titles they publish, but because they are a truly egalitarian science fiction/fantasy publisher. They don’t hold your politics or social views against you if you happen to be a tad bit conservative (as opposed to many other publishing houses and official SciFi organizations).

That said, I haven’t specifically targeted a disproportionate number of novels from Baen for my reading list. I tend to read whatever gets my attention at the moment.

A few years back, I did read and review Weber’s flagship Honorverse novel On Basilisk Station. I had the same issues with Basilisk as with Call to Duty, they tend to drag.

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Dinner for Two

dinner

PHOTO PROMPT © Sandra Crook

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Larry sat at his usual table by the window, always dinner for one. His wife had died when their daughter Chrissie was four. He tried to be a good Dad, but that ended with the drunken car accident. Chrissie was ten when she died and it was his fault.

A few weeks ago, he found he could go back, but only to that one day. He relived it all, terror making him tremble as he got her into the car. He returned to the present not sure if he had changed enough.

“Hi, Daddy.” Now it was dinner for two.

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My Fantasy Adventure Novelette “Ice” has been Reviewed on twitter/X

ice

Cover art for my fantasy novelette “Ice”

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I have exactly one book that is self-published on Amazon; Ice. My short description blurb says:

At the end of time, the world is hot and men travel the vast oceans in merchant sailing ships. Captain Ki-Moon Yong of the Star of Jindo has discovered a new horror at the bottom of the Earth. Can he and the Star escape disaster long enough to warn a disbelieving world?

Ice is set at the end of time when supposedly runaway climate change has melted all or the vast majority of Earth’s ice. Most of the land masses continue to exist (contrary to popular myth) but coastlines are very different and the actual continent of Antarctica is exposed, including it’s terrifying secrets.

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Neglect

fleur

PHOTO PROMPT © Fleur Lind

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“Screw it.” Sam’s aging body sat heavily onto the wrought iron chair. Long legs were stuffed underneath the matching table. The garden she had lovingly created looked like crap. He’d neglected everything over the summer. Now the morning air had the familiar chill of autumn.

No one had died. They just left him. He finally thought he’d gotten his life together, but they just left him. The divorce was quick and clean. Danny moved his family, Sam’s beloved grandchildren, to the middle-east for his dream job. The other two kids were too busy. Her garden was his life in shambles.

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Book Review of “Pushing Ice” (2005)

pushing ice

Photo Credit: James Pyles

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It’s been over five years since I read and reviewed one of Alastair Reynolds’ books so I guess reviewing Pushing Ice is long overdue.

I actually keep a list of books I want to read. Which books I read and when depends somewhat on whether or not I can find them in my local public library system. I mean chances are, I’ll only read the book once (so many books, so little time), so I can hardly afford to buy them all (one wonders how people afford to buy all of the brand new SciFi books being put out just to be able to vote on them for the Hugos, Nebulas, or other much vaunted awards?).

This book started off slowly. I didn’t expect that. After all, in the beginning of the tale, humanity has moved out into the solar system, so much so, that they’re mining comets for ice (water). Then, to everyone’s shock, one of Saturn’s moons Janus breaks orbit and starts accelerating toward interstellar space. Turns out it wasn’t a moon at all but some sort of alien scout or observation post.

The people with all the money, the United Economic Entities (UEE) offers the closest ice mining ship, the Rockhopper, commanded by Bella Lind, a lot of money if it will chase, catch up to, and study Janus for the few days they can before the moon outruns them. After much angst and voting, they agree to. But that’s not the beginning of the story.

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