Author Archives: James Pyles

Book Review of “Upright Women Wanted”

upright

Cover art for “Upright Women Wanted”

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Upright Women Wanted by Sarah Gailey isn’t the sort of book that I’d usually read. It’s not the sort of book I’d even be slightly interested in buying. But, like books I’ve read before, it was a free download (until Dec 17th) from Tor.com.

I thought I’d given up reading Tor books if, for no other reason, that all the ones I’ve taken a look at seem to have been written for other audiences, written by people who would hate my guts if they knew me, or both.

But the description was interesting enough:

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“The Fallen Shall Rise” To Appear in the 224-Verse

Andromeda Galaxy

Andromeda Galaxy captured with a Celestron cpc1100 from the Israeli Desert by Deddy Dayag 9 July 2019

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I now have permission to discuss a small novella that has recently been accepted by Starry Eyed Press for their 224-Verse series.

First, a little background from their 224-Verse page:

What is the 224-Verse?

The 224-Verse is an interconnected fictional universe set within the sprawling starscape of Galaxy NGC 224 – Andromeda.

In terms of sheer size, Andromeda is 220,000 lightyears across and is home to a trillion stars and roughly four-trillion planets.

So the “verse” is a shared set of stories set in the Andromeda galaxy, potentially over hundreds of thousands of years of time and 220,000 lightyears of space. But that’s not it.

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Interviewed by Superversive Livestream

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As I’m sure my regular readers know, I’ve been actively promoting some of my latest work, which includes my first self-published novella Ice as well as Time’s Abyss, a novella published by Black Hare Press.

To that end, I reached out to some folks I know and Ben and Anthony at Sunday Superversive Livestream agreed to interview me last night.

Here’s the direct link to the interview on YouTube.

Frankly, I have no idea what the image is, but I did have a lot of fun chatting with Ben and Anthony for about an hour. Of course, I mentioned my novellas, but also the Cloaked Press published anthology Meteor Fall: An Anthology of The Collective. I have two stories in that one. Oh, “Cloaked” also accepted my short story “That Which Burns” in their upcoming anthology Winter of Wonder.

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Still Good Award Winning SciFi in the World

hyperion

Cover art for Dan Simmons’ novel Hyperion.

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It’s been almost three years since I wrote Hugo Award Winning Novels I Have Read. I authored the blog post mainly in response to the idea that these awards have really changed over the years. At the time, I was reading for review N.K. Jemisin’s The Fifth Season in an attempt to understand how I remembered Hugo award winning novels being so outstanding in “the old days” vs. how I perceived the more modern tomes.

If you click the first link, you’ll see a list of the winning and nominated novels I’d consumed in my youth, their awards issued between 1953 and 1988. I read most of them.

I was posting something similar in a Facebook group earlier today and started wondering if, by now, I’d read any more recent Hugo recipients. I have:

  • 1990 Hyperon by Dan Simmons (winner).
  • 1993 Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson (nominated).
  • 2013 Redshirts by John Scalzi (winner).
  • 2021 Network Effect by Martha Wells (nominated).

I read and reviewed Hyperion mainly because it was a Hugo winner AND Simmons was being trashed on an online fanzine (which shall not be named) by modern SciFi fans because of his politics. I hear that after all these years, it’s going to become a movie. Simmons is still with us and I wish him success.

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Jeb’s Guests

houses

Photo Credit: One Big Photo

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Jeb Blackbird was walking next to the workhorse pulling the buffalo carcass laden wagon when he saw the stranger by his house. Only Sioux should be allowed on this land for 400 miles in every direction, but this man was obviously one of the hated colonizers. To his credit, the white haired (white skinned) colonizer was waiting respectfully some twenty feet from the front door of the big house. Although the Dakota plains in autumn got damn cold, and the intruder was only in a shirt and rough trousers, he didn’t seem to mind.

The sun was setting behind the three houses, the big house for his wife and three children, middle for meat curing, storage, and whatever else he could think of, and the small house for the sweat lodge. Jeb reached over to the horse (he never bothered to give it a name) and pulled his Winchester rifle from the long holster mounted on the bridle.

“Speak your piece.” He made his voice as gruff as he could, though when he sang, his wife Ella said he sounded like the sweetest spirits. He pointed the barrel at the ground. This man’s kind had been a terrible trouble before they’d been stopped. His closest neighbor, Stewart Bluefeather said he had friends among them, and that not all white people were cruel, but for Jeb, trust was hard earned.

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“Ice” by James Pyles is Now Available

ice
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Admittedly, I’ve tried to sell this story in various forms for quite some time without any luck. I even asked a friend for help, thinking maybe he could suggest the proper venue. However, it didn’t take.

So I thought of self-publishing it. Here it is: Ice by James Pyles. No anthologies, no indie publishers, this one is all mine.

Good thing, too. When I went over my submitted story, I found horrible errors I never saw before. I took weeks just reading and re-reading “Ice” until I finally got it to the point where I thought it was ready (I’ll write a separate blog post about my first experience with Kindle Digital Publishing (KDP) by the by).

Here’s the synopsis I wrote for Amazon:

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Two of My Short Stories Published in “Meteor Fall: An Anthology of The Collective”

meteor
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The Collective has long kept secret the strange things that happen after a meteor shower. While the world Oohs and Aahs over the pretty streaks of light, field agents quietly gather up the people and objects changed by this cosmic phenomenon.

With a global event unlike anything the world has ever seen on the horizon, the Collective knows it’s only a matter of time before the world discovers what really happens when objects fall from the sky.

Can they continue to maintain their secrecy and protect humanity from the dangers of Meteor Fall?

This one is really interesting. I have two short stories published in Meteor Fall: An Anthology of The Collective.

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Review of “Tiamat’s Wrath,” Book Eight in The Expanse Series

tia
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Tiamat’s Wrath is the eighth novel in the Hugo Award winning “The Expanse” book series by James S.A. Corey (Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck). This book ramps things up quite a bit from its predecessors. While we’ve seen Earth all but destroyed by asteroids, now an artificial neutron star found through one of the rings, throws out an intense gamma radiation burst, destroying everything in the “slow zone” including Medina Station, plus “disappearing” two of the rings.

Holden is being held prisoner on Laconia, Amos has plain disappeared, Bobbie Draper is leading the rebellion in the Sol system with Alex and other dissidents on the stolen Laconian warship Storm, and Naomi is hiding out on various space craft coordinating the over all fight as the underground’s de facto leader.

This novel is just as enjoyable as the others, and sees the return of Elvi and her husband Fayez (last seen in Cibola Burn). The Laconian dictator Duarte and his various henchmen come back, and Duarte’s fourteen-year-old daughter and heir apparent to the empire Teresa is introduced.

The sweep of the novel is no less than epic and the writing remains consistently strong (I admit to a bit of envy). I won’t try to encapsulate the entire drama, but there were a few points.

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Book Review of “End of Men” by Suzanne Strobel

end

Cover art for the book “End of Men”

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First of all, after writing The “End of Men” Challenge, I owe Suzanne Strobel an apology. I was expecting a very different book than the one she wrote (click HERE to find it on Amazon).

Part of what gave me that particular expectation was the blog post of hers describing her novel and, quite frankly, her fears of violent men. I can only believe that the book’s protagonist Charley Tennyson is her alter-ego, at least in terms of the depth of her anxiety over “mass shootings.”

However, Tennyson never gives in to the “anti-male” sentiment that many of the other characters embrace and even manages to find love with a man.

Oh, there were flaws to be sure. This is set in a dystopian near future, but the technology is all so perfect and for the most part free. Money is only mentioned once when discussing the activation fees for what is essentially a personal force bubble. Other than that, living in luxurious “havens,” riding around in iCars which carry over your personal settings from your home, and having wrist Surges (think a way amped up smartphone with holographic filming and projecting capacities), seem to be cost free.

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