Author Archives: James Pyles

Book Review of Redux: the Lost Patrol, A SciFi Time Travel Novel

reduxIf you like my work, buy me a virtual cup of coffee at Ko-Fi.

Some weeks ago, author Gregg Cunningham asked if I’d mind reading and reviewing his novel Redux: the Lost Patrol, A SciFi Time Travel Novel. To that end, he sent me a PDF formatted ARC copy.

I started to read Part One of the novel “War Pig.” I’ve read War Pig at least twice and so burned through it a third time. Then I hit Part Two “The Lost Patrol.” I was most of the way through Chapter 1 “Time” all the while feeling like I’d read this before. Then I checked Amazon and saw I had bought the book last May. Yikes.

I checked my reviews and I hadn’t published one, but when I checked the digital book on my Kindle Fire, I found my notes. I feel really dumb. I’d read Gregg’s book months ago, but never wrote the review.

Sorry about that, Gregg.

Well, it’s never too late so here we go.

Continue reading →

Book Review of “Network Effect,” The Fifth Novel in the Murderbot Diaries

network

Cover art for Martha Wells’ novel “Network Effect”

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

I finished Network Effect: A Murderbot Novel yesterday morning. It’s the fifth entry in the Murderbot Diaries series by Martha Wells. It’s also the first novel-length book in the series, with one through four being novellas or novelettes  (my reviews on the rest of the series can be found here).

It won the 2021 Nebula award and a bunch of other accolades and in this case, they were well deserved (In my experience, that’s not always the case). We continue to see Murderbot evolve becoming, in their/her own way, more “human” though I’m sure she would deny that.

Oh, even though technically Murderbot has no gender, I always hear her voice in my head as female, so I’m going to go with that. Probably has something to do with my knowing the author is also female.

Given the novel-length of the story, we’re able to go back and forth in Murderbot’s experiences. We start out seeing her as a fully autonomous SecUnit providing security for an archeological team, which definitely needs it. The story begins with a bang because we are then thrown into more back story on Murderbot and the supporting characters. This includes her close relationship (I hesitate to say “friendship,” although I think it is) with Dr. Mensah and interestingly enough with her teenage daughter Amena (relationships are confusing because this is some sort of “group marriage” where Mensah is Amena’s “second mother”).

Continue reading →

Spring Into SciFi : 2022 in the Top 27 SciFi Kindle Anthologies at Amazon

scifi

Cover art for the Cloaked Press anthology “Spring Into SciFi 2022”

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

As I write this, the Cloaked Press anthology Spring into SciFi 2022 edition ranks #27 in Amazon’s Science Fiction Anthologies (Kindle Store) and #94 in Science Fiction Anthologies (Books). That’s pretty impressive.

The accompanying graphic (see below) I received from the publisher gives a slightly different figure, but they tend to float. It also says that this humble, indie SciFi anthology is in very good company.

My short story “Tiamet Descending” is among the tales nestled between the covers.

My blurb for the story goes like this:

What is the mystery of the Tiamat and what happened to her passengers and crew? Marine Captain Elisha Rush and five mission experts aboard the military spacecraft Belisama have been sent to rendezvous with Tiamat just inside the orbit of Mars. What they find on board will lead to either a miracle for humanity or our extinction.

Continue reading →

Review of Quantum Leap Ep8 “Stand by Ben”

ql8

Scene from the Quantum Leap episode “Stand by Ben”

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

I just finished watching the new Quantum Leap season 1, episode 8 Stand by Ben. I suppose that’s a play on the title of the 1986 film Stand by Me starring Wil Wheaton and River Phoenix. This episode certainly milked  a lot of teenage angst films from the 1980s.

Except Ben leaps into July 10, 1996 into a 16-year-old kid named Ben “Klepto” Winters as he and three other teens steal a car and escape a juvenile detention boot camp. The kids are happily planning what they’re going to do with their futures when there’s a blowout and the car tumbles down a ravine. Miraculously, they’re all okay, but this is just the beginning.

Oh, Spoiler Alert!

Addison shows up and explains that in the original timeline, the kids are reported missing on a school nature hike and die of heat exhaustion. The real story in the timeline is the kids walk away from the car wreck, split up to go their separate ways and die of the same death. The school covers it up, and the head of the school Sullivan (Eric Lee Huffman) files an insurance claim for his wrecked vehicle. So much for the kids.

What? After the kids boosted the car in front of everyone, the school couldn’t have called the cops and have the car pulled over? That’s the first thing I’d do, especially since each of these kids is identified as a juvenile criminal. Of course there could have been other reasons as outlined below.

Continue reading →

Review of Quantum Leap Ep7 “O Ye of Little Faith”

faith

QUANTUM LEAP — “O Ye of Little Faith” Episode 107 — Pictured: Raymond Lee as Dr. Ben Song — (Photo by: Ron Batzdorff/NBC)

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

I just finished watching (Tuesday night, Nov 1) Quantum Leap’s season 1 episode 7 O Ye of Little Faith, which is an interesting title since faith is mentioned and yet largely discounted, particularly by Ben.

This is the Halloween episode (the original series had several supernaturally themed episodes) since it was first aired yesterday (as I write this) on October 31st. It also heavily draws from The Exorcist (1973). So much so, that I was surprised that at some point during the episode, Ben didn’t mention it (although if he were born in the mid-1980s and generally pursued a career in science, he may not have gotten a taste for horror films).

Ben has leapt into a Catholic Priest, Father James Davenport, a specialist in exorcism from Baltimore. The city he’s visiting isn’t mentioned, but the year is 1934, during the great depression.

He’s met at the door by the victim’s mother Lola Gray (Elyse Levesque) and the household maid Magda Pardo (Colleen Foy). Lola says she’s gotten much worse and bids the Priest enter.

Continue reading →

Review of Quantum Leap Ep6 “What a Disaster!”

quantum leap

Scene from the Quantum Leap episode “What a Disaster”

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

I just finished watching Quantum Leap Season 1, Episode 6 What a Disaster!. Ben leaps into John Harvey in San Francisco just seconds before the October 17,1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. But that’s not where the episode starts.

Oh, spoiler alert!

It starts at the end of Ben’s last leap in the old west when he is confronted by another leaper who knows who Ben is and threatens Ben if he doesn’t stop following him. Then Ben leaps into John. He is at a bar and his wife Naomi (Jewel Staite) asks “John” for a divorce. Ben sees the World Series on TV, sees the clock, and realizes what’s going to happen. He warns everyone to get outside just as the initial quake hits.

Continue reading →

Review of Quantum Leap Ep5: “Salvation or Bust”

ql5

QUANTUM LEAP — “Salvation or Bust” Episode 105 — Pictured: (l-r) Yaani King Mondschein as Frankie, Raymond Lee as Dr. Ben Song, Nicole Alvarez as Valentina — (Photo by: Ron Batzdorff/NBC)

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

This week, Ben Song takes his biggest leap ever, back to 1879 in the old west. specifically to a town called Salvation. He finds himself as an old Mexican gunslinger named Diego De La Cruz (Alberto Manquero) whose granddaughter Valentina (Natalia del Riego) has called him out of his retirement in San Francisco to come back and defend their town.

Diego had left Salvation after his wife and son (who was the first mayor of Salvation) were killed. Salvation is a unique town in the west relative to the 21st century because it’s more progressive and inclusive than most cities in the first world are today. But, in this case, true to many western TV and film tropes, the evil railroad company wants to drive the population out and take their land. Actually, the episode is loaded with old western tropes. Oddly though, although the bad guys are all white, they don’t hurl even a single racist or sexist insult to the townspeople, which is pretty strange.

The railroad has hired wanted gunman Josiah McDonough (William Mark McCullough) and his gang of violent miscreants to “convince” the inhabitants to clear out. Ben has leapt into the body of the aging and alcoholic Diego his granddaughter believes can defend the town. The only problem is that Ben is a total pacifist and hates guns and violence (which didn’t seem to bother him in the episode Somebody Up There Likes Ben when he had to beat a boxer to unconsciousness, but never mind that…character traits and personal histories appear out of nowhere in this episode).

Continue reading →

Book Review of Martha Wells’ “Exit Strategy” (2018), Book 4 in the Murderbot Series

exit

Cover art for Martha Wells’ book “Exit Strategy”

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

I’m still enjoying Martha Wells’ Murderbot Diaries having just finished the fourth installment, Exit Strategy. I’ve already read and reviewed the first three, novellas rather than novels, really.

Side Note: I’ve mentioned this before in one of the previous reviews, but even though the security unit/murderbot has no gender, even though partially organic, I can’t help but hear her voice as a “her.” Maybe it’s because I’m aware that the author is a woman, or maybe it’s because Wells projected a “female” personality into her voice during the writing, but that’s how I think of “her.” I know some people are going to object to this (for gender identity reasons), but for this and other reviews, the SecUnit is a “she” to me. That’s what I’m going to call her.

Picking up right where the previous installment left off, Murderbot has decided to give her evidence against the CrayCris corporation directly to Dr. Mensah. However when she checks on Mensah’s whereabouts, she’s not in her home system of Preservation and figures out she has been kidnapped by GreyCris which is looking for the evidence Murderbot acquired at Milu.

Continue reading →

Review of Quantum Leap Ep4: “A Decent Proposal”

proposal

From the Quantum Leap episode “A Decent Proposal.”

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

Alert! Here be spoilers!

Last night I watched Quantum Leap season 1, episode 4 A Decent Proposal guest starring Justin Hartley and Sofia Pernas. Since I knew Ben would be leaping into a bounty hunter, in preparation I watched the original series episode A Hunting We Will Go in which Sam (Scott Bakula) leaps into a bounty hunter. Turns out the two episodes have little in common. I was looking for a connection.

I should have watched The Leap Home Part 2 (Vietnam) April 7, 1970 but I’ll explain that in a bit.

It was fun to see Hartley again. He played Oliver Queen/Green Arrow in the Smallville TV show. In this episode, he plays Jake, fellow bounty hunter and would-be fiancé to the woman Ben leapt into Eva Sandoval (Anastasia Antonia). Yes, this is Ben’s first leap into a woman which didn’t seem terribly awkward for him. Incidentally, Sofia Pernas who plays Tammy Jean in the episode is Hartley’s real-life wife.

Continue reading →

Review of Doctor Strange In The Multiverse of Madness (2022)

multiverse

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

Last night I watched Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022).

I got the Blu-Ray from my local public library so it didn’t cost me a cent. I was concerned because the film has mixed reviews and I didn’t necessarily want to waste my time on a turkey (like just about every Marvel TV show on Disney+ to which I thankfully do not subscribe).

It was…okay. Actually not bad at all, although somewhat flawed.

Spoiler Alert: If you haven’t seen the movie and you hate spoilers, stop reading now.

Doctor Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) has a strange (no pun intended) multi-dimensional dream (part and parcel for Dr. Strange in the 1960s and 70 comic books) where he is trying to reach some sort of goal with a young girl (America Chavez played by Xochitl Gomez). Some dark force is trying to take her powers and he becomes too injured to help her. Chavez comes nearer to the goal but is then stopped by the creature. Strange believes the only way to stop the creature from stealing her powers is to steal them himself. Then he wakes up. It was a dream.

Or was it?

Continue reading →