Review of “Mara’s Awakening”

mara

Promotional image for Leo Flynn’s novelette, “Mara’s Awakening”.

Disclosure, I was asked by the author via email to review his short novelette Mara’s Awakening. Interestingly enough, when I tried to post a review on Amazon, I received a notice that it wasn’t eligible to be reviewed. I have no idea why.

I did manage to post a review on Goodreads.

I had a tough time understanding this very short book. I imagine the author was trying to inject some mystery into who Mara is and why she’s been in prison for six years when she used to be some sort of popular fighter, but she was too “mysterious.”

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Where Are the Families in Science Fiction?

lost in spaceNot long ago, I read a blog post by Caroline Furlong called Why Science Fiction Lacks Mothers and Fathers – and Why This Trend Needs to Change. At the time, I didn’t notice it was first published in July of 2018, but that doesn’t really matter.

Caroline lamented the abysmal lack of supportive parental characters, Moms in particular, in modern works of science fiction. She narrowed down the reason for this from her perspective here:

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Book Review of “On Basilisk Station”

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Cover art for David Weber’s “On Basilisk Station”.

In my continued effort to review Baen Publications, I’ve just finished reading the first novel in David Weber‘s “Honor Harrington” series On Basilisk Station.

It was kind of hard to get into. Weber has a tendency to lapse into long pages of dense exposition, which tends to put the reader into one person’s head (more often than not, Honor’s) than into the action.

However, if you can power through that, you finally get to a space opera laced with political intrigue, the dynamics of provincial planetary plotting, and then the climax of classic space battle.

Weber seems to have a background in military strategy, which shows in how he depicts martial activities, both in space and on the planet. However, there were times when life aboard Honor’s ship “Fearless” felt a little like “Star Trek.”

The one thing that would have made his book better would be to cut back on each character seemingly talking too much about themselves. Also, antagonists like Lord Pavel Young and the ultra-wealthy Klaus Hauptman weren’t as prominent or as formidable as I expected them to be based on how they were initially presented.

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Comic Books, Television, and Who Are Our Heroes?

falcon

Promotional image for the tv show “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier”

So I happened to read Cora Buhlert’s review of the first episode of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier called Marvel’s “New World Order” – Some Thoughts on The Falcon and the Winter Soldier (spoilers) expecting something light and entertaining. Not exactly what happened.

First of all, let me say that I haven’t seen any of the WandaVision mini-series and don’t anticipate watching this new show either. It’s not that I think they’ll be bad or I won’t enjoy them. I just don’t subscribe to streaming services. Well, besides that, I don’t have the time to dedicate myself to television shows anymore.

I used to watch all of the WB produced superhero shows, popularly known as the Arrowverse, but they were consuming so much of my free time, I didn’t have any left for things like writing and a life.

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My Interview About “The Haunted Detective”

Cover image for the anthology “The Trench Coat Chronicles”

Once upon a time, I wrote a story about a private detective named Margie Potter. She lived and worked in San Francisco in the year 1947. The original story was really “adult oriented” and “gritty” but the people who wanted to publish it wanted something more “Young Adult” themed. That, plus the word count restriction, made me cut the story in half. Fortunately, it still worked.

Then the publishers Ann and Ruth wanted to interview me. No, not just me, but all of the authors featured in the anthology The Trench Coat Chronicles. So here we are at last.

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Standing Up Against the Bullies

A couple of days ago, I posted a commentary about COVID and vaccines and I took great pains to shield the source of my conversation.

But when I woke up this morning and checked in on twitter, I found that the “haters” had discovered my commentary and decided to call me a bunch of names. No, it had nothing to do with “science” or “evidence.” It had everything to do with them being bullies.

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Preview of my Interview for my short story “The Haunted Detective”

Cover image for the anthology “The Trench Coat Chronicles”

Last Fall, my short story “The Haunted Detective” was published in Ruth Littner’s and Ann Stolinsky’s mystery anthology The Trench Coat Chronicles.

Just a few days ago on Facebook, their interview of me was published. In a few more days, it will appear on the Gemini Wordsmiths webpage.

Until then, here’s a small sample:

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Are the COVID “Unvacciated” Deniers and Morally Inferior?

I just had an interesting “debate” on twitter. Someone I follow (and who doesn’t follow me) said something about the vaxx-denier at work being on again about the person in question getting vaccinated.

I’ve heard the word “denier” used more or less in the same context as “racist” or “child molester,” as if someone does not have the right to hold a different opinion on the topic, and doesn’t have the right to choose NOT to receive the COVID vaccine.

I didn’t respond to this person directly, but I did retweet his message as a quote and added one of my own. He responded and, as I said, because I like him (although I’m sure he thinks I’m the Son of Satan for being such a difficult human being) and generally think he’s a good person, I am paraphrasing him in the following image as he responds to me.

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“The Art and Craft of Writing” by L. Jagi Lamplighter

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Cover image for L. Jagi Lamplighter’s book “The Art and Craft of Writing”

A little over two years ago, a small group of aspiring authors accepted an invitation from L. Jagi Lamplighter to take an online writing class she was developing. Since it was in its nascent phase, she called it her “Guinea Pig” class. Guess who the lab rats were?

I took the class for three reasons. The first was I had the time, fortunately. The second was because, being “experimental,” Jagi offered a terrific discount, and third (and most important), I knew I had to “up my game” as a writer.

Up until that point, I was fueled on classes I’d taken in the very distant past, those books on writing that I’d managed to lay my hands on, and a lot of imagination.

That wasn’t going to be enough if I really wanted to become at least semi-skilled at writing interesting stories.

So I took her class and, in the process, not only began to improve my craft, but I met a group of really great people at the same time.

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“Homeward” Featured in the Deep Space Vol 2 Anthology

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Promotional image for my short story “Homeward” to be featured in Deep Space volume 2

I finally got the “go ahead” to announce that my nearly 10,000 word count science fiction story “Homeward” is being featured in the Black Hare Press anthology Deep Space Volume 2.

Here’s a wee sample:

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