2022: A Very Brief Summary

2022

© James Pyles

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

As you can see, compared to 2021 and before, my productivity this past year has waned considerably, at least of you count actual, published short stories and novelettes. Of course, I had two of those novelettes published in the same year by the same publisher for the 224-verse. Most of the other short stories, except for the one I have featured in “Shoot the Devil” were published the previous Spring.

So what have I been doing?

Continue reading →

Book Review of “The Ringworld Engineers” by Larry Niven

engineers

Cover art for “The Ringworld Engineers”

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

I decided to read The Ringworld Engineers (1979) mainly because I’d recently re-read my copy of Ringworld (1970) not long ago for the “jillionth” time. Well, maybe not that frequently, since I didn’t recall too much about the novel (I bought my paperback copy in 1976 and still have it. See the photo below).

It occurred to me after finishing Ringworld that I couldn’t recall reading any of the sequels. When I looked Engineers up, I didn’t recognize the plot. So I put in an order from my local public library and in due course, it became available for pick up.

Sure enough, the book was a stranger to me.

In Ringworld, Louis Wu is recruited by a Pierson’s Puppeteer named Nessus along with a twenty-year-old girl named Teela Brown and a Kzin ambassador to Earth called Speaker-to-Animals. They were to explore a then undisclosed space object in exchange for a ship that can travel far faster than anything humans or Kzin had.

Continue reading →

Get “The Haunting of the Ginger’s Regret” for FREE!

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

From today, December 8th through the 12th. these digital books from Starry Eyed Press are absolutely free for download onto your Kindle device:

SKIN TRADERS: https://books2read.com/SkinTraders

THE HAUNTING OF THE GINGER’S REGRET: https://books2read.com/TheHauntingoftheGingersRegret

PEOPLE OF THE SPIRE: https://books2read.com/Spire

They’re all set in the 224-verse including my novelette The Haunting of the Ginger’s Regret.

Continue reading →

Tomorrow! Free Books!

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

In time to be really cool Christmas gifts. From December 8th through the 12th. these digital books from Starry Eyed Press are absolutely free for download onto your Kindle device:

SKIN TRADERS: https://books2read.com/SkinTraders

THE HAUNTING OF THE GINGER’S REGRET: https://books2read.com/TheHauntingoftheGingersRegret

PEOPLE OF THE SPIRE: https://books2read.com/Spire

Continue reading →

Better Late Than Never: Interviewed by Tina Holland

tina

Tina Holland as shown on her blog.

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

This is kind of embarrassing. I’ve suffered another memory glitch. Some months ago, I was asked if I wanted to be interviewed by my writing. Of course, I said yes and proceeded to answer the interviewer’s questions.

She told me when to expect it to be published and sent me a link via email. I swear I meant to get to it, but I must have been distracted.

I was cleaning out some old emails and came across the one from Tina Holland just a little while ago. The interview went live over two months ago.

Sorry, Tina.

But as I said, better late than never:

Continue reading →

The Future of Quantum Leap and Other Stories

QL

Promotional image for the television show “Quantum Leap.”

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

If you’ve been reading this blog regularly, you know I’ve been watching and reviewing the 2022 continuation series Quantum Leap starring Raymond Lee, Caitlin Bassett, and Ernie Hudson. As far as I can tell, the series was originally green lit for eight episodes but was recently given an extension for a full 18. We know the description for the already shown episodes of course, but episodes 9-18 remain undefined at IMDb.

This is probably good since the show has introduced a collection of mysteries such as why Ben (Raymond Lee) leapt in the first place, what his relationship is to the mysterious Janice (or Janis) Calavicci (Georgina Reilly), and the secret around the leaper from the future Richard Martinez (Walter Perez). All that and, in the episode O Ye of Little Faith, Janice shows up as a hologram to warn Ben about something, but he leaps before she can tell him what…or who to be worried about. Eight episodes is just barely enough to get all that started.

Continue reading →

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 →