Tag Archives: novel

2025: A Year in Review

2025

© James Pyles

Looking back on 2025 and my publication history, here’s what has presented itself. Frankly, I expected two more anthologies featuring my short stories to have come out this year, but both have been delayed.

To start off with, I had four drabbles published in the Starry Eyed Press anthology Drabbles: First Contact, tales of exactly 100 words long, describing humanity’s first contact with aliens (the images above aren’t presented in publication order).

Then there is my first actual (short) novel Our Legacy, The Stars: A Tom Corbett Adventure. This was previously published in installments on the now defunct Amazon Vella but it was always intended to become its own novel. Old school space opera based on a 1950s TV show. A lot of fun. You should read it.

Continue reading →

Coming in March 2026: “A Wobblegong And His Boy”

boy and lizardOkay, I can finally talk about it.

I have a number of short stories published by Raconteur Press. They’re good people and seem to like my stories, even the ones they elect not to publish.

They also are in the process of publishing a series of Boys’ Adventure Books.

Generally, they’re short science fiction or fantasy adventure novels written specifically for young male readers between the ages of eight and eighteen in the tradition of Robert Heinlein’s juvenile books. While written for boys, they are intended to be equally enjoyable by girls as well as adults. But really, they’re mostly for boys.

The idea as I understand it, is that boys don’t read anymore in part because books aren’t really being written with boys in mind these days. With the surge in “updating the genre for modern audiences,” that “update” includes any audience except young boys. Boys (and often men) are thought to have been excessively marketed to in the past, and the current SFF gatekeepers thus decided to “move on” to other readerships.

I mean who is successfully publishing and marketing books in the tradition of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ “John Carter of Mars” or “Tarzan series? What about E.E. “Doc” Smith’s “Lensman” and “Skylark” books? Heck, if it were written today, Robert Louis Stephenson’s “Treasure Island” would probably never see the light of day.

Continue reading →

Review (and Commentary) of “Treasure Island” by Robert Louis Stevenson

treasure island

Cover art for the novel “Treasure Island” by Robert Louis Stevenson.

At the ripe old age of seventy (soon to be seventy-one), I don’t believe I’ve read Robert Louis Stevenson’s novel Treasure Island before. It first appeared in book form in 1883 and before that, was serialized in a children’s magazine from 1881 to 1882 under the title “Treasure Island or the Mutiny of the Hispaniola.”

“Children’s literature” indeed since it describes more than one murder in somewhat grisly detail as well as the threat of torture, hangings, alcoholism, and dismemberment.

Truth be told, I picked it up (figuratively speaking) because I’m interested in authoring a book for an open submission requesting adventure novels written specifically for boys. Not only that, but a boy (probably about age ten) must be an active participant in the story if not the main protagonist.

Stevenson’s classic novel was suggested as an inspiration. Since it is open domain, it’s a free download (available for purchase as well if you want all the bells and whistles) in a variety of formats.

Like other 19th century novels, it’s not written in a way that’s always easy for the modern reader. There are times when it rambles and winds its way toward its ultimate conclusion along several unlikely paths.

Continue reading →

Book Review of “To Sleep in a Sea of Stars” (2020)

to sleep

© James Pyles

I just finished reading To Sleep In A Sea Of Stars (2020) by Christopher Paolini and was really impressed. One of the biggest points for me is that the book is over 800 pages long and it didn’t drag at some point.

From the blurb on Amazon:

Kira Navárez dreamed of life on new worlds.

Now she’s awakened a nightmare.

During a routine survey mission on an uncolonized planet, Kira finds an alien relic. At first she’s delighted, but elation turns to terror when the ancient dust around her begins to move.

As war erupts among the stars, Kira is launched into a galaxy-spanning odyssey of discovery and transformation. First contact isn’t at all what she imagined, and events push her to the very limits of what it means to be human.

While Kira faces her own horrors, Earth and its colonies stand upon the brink of annihilation. Now, Kira might be humanity’s greatest and final hope . . .

Continue reading →

“Our Legacy, The Stars: A Tom Corbett Adventure” Now Available as a Digital and Paperback Book

tom corbett

Cover art for my book “Our Legacy, The Stars: A Tom Corbett Adventure.”

It’s here!

Once a 16-part serial adventure on Kindle Vella, Our Legacy, The Stars: A Tom Corbett Adventure is now available on Amazon in both Kindle and paperback formats (It might still take a couple of days for Amazon to actually link and stock the book in all markets).

Based on the 1950s television show Tom Corbett Space Cadet, the book is updated in terms of our modern understanding of science as well as more nuanced characterizations and plot.

Continue reading →

My New Stories in “Drabbles: First Contact” (2025)

promo

Promotional image for my stories in the anthology “Drabbles: First Contact.”

My first publications for 2025 are now available in the Starry Eyed Press anthology Drabbles: First Contact (Amazon US). Click the following for the global link.

For those of you who don’t know, a “drabble” is a complete story that is exactly 100 words long, no more, no less.

“First Contact” is a reference to humanity’s first encounter with an extraterrestrial species. These contacts can be friendly or terrifying or a lot of other things.

Twenty-six authors contributed a total of over thirty drabbles to this anthology. It is currently available for Kindle but will also be coming out soon in paperback.

Four of my stories made the cut:

Continue reading →

Book Review of “House of Suns” (2008)

house of suns

Cover art for the Alastair Reynolds novel “House of Suns.”

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

I just finished Alastair Reynolds’ 2008 science fiction novel House of Suns. The book’s scope in time and space is vast, so it’s difficult to summarize let alone absorb.

Warning: Spoiler Alert!

Hundreds of thousands of years ago, a few individuals including one Abigail, decide the only practical way to explore the galaxy is to replicate themselves (almost) into a vast number of copies or “shatterlings.” Eventually, these shatterlings organize into Houses (such as the House of Moths and the House of Flowers) and inside the Houses family lines, such as the Gentian Line. This Line has emanated from Abigail, a person who was kept in childhood medically for decades before being allowed to become an adult and lead her family.

We get glimpses into Abigail’s early life up to her decision to create the shatterlings and to become one herself. These events parallel what occurs much, much later involving the shatterlings Campion and Purslane.

These two travel with each other albeit in their own spacecraft. Shatterlings, through a combination of relativistic speeds and stasis chambers, travel throughout the Milky Way and only have reunions with the other members of their Line once every “circuit” of the galaxy.

Continue reading →

Book Review of “Replay” (1986)

replay

© James Pyles

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

I forget where I saw Ken Grimwood’s 1986 novel Replay promoted, but it sounded like an interesting story, so I picked up a copy at my local public library. It’s a highly unusual and compelling time travel story.

Jeff Winston is a radio news producer in this late 40s. His job is lackluster as is his childless marriage. He’s at work and gets a phone call from his wife. As she starts speaking, he has a sudden heart attack and dies.

Jeff wakes up in his dorm room, an eighteen-year-old college freshman in the early 1960s. He has all of the memories of his life up to the moment he died twenty-five years in the future. Except that none of that has happened yet. Does it have to happen at all?

The first quarter of the book follows Jeff as he reconstructs his life based on what he knows of the future. In this case, he makes himself fabulously wealthy. Of course he drops out of college. Still feeling like a middle-aged man, the prospect of going through another four-year drudge as an undergraduate looks so depressing. But he does know a lot about major sporting events and which companies are going to be successful in the 1960s and beyond.

Continue reading →

Review of “The Olympian Affair: Book Two in the Cinder Spires Series” (2023)

olympian

© James Pyles

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

Yesterday, I finished reading Jim Butcher’s 2023 novel The Olympian Affair. It’s the second in his Cinder Spires series and the sequel to The Aeronaut’s Windlass which I read and reviewed.

Butcher doesn’t disappoint. This is another terrific adventure novel set (supposedly) in the far-future where our own civilization has long-since fallen. People live in floating cities called “Spires” ruled by various presidents, kings, and such. Trade is conducted by skyships powered by fantastic crystals. Those, and many other things, including meat, are grown in vats ruled over by powerful (and not-so-powerful) family houses.

The central character in these tales is Captain Francis Grimm, commander of the light-trader “Predator.” He was once in the Albion Navy but sacrificed his career and his honor for a close friend.

Continue reading →

Book Review of “The Pride of Chanur” (1982)

chanur

Cover art for C.J. Cherryh’s “The Pride of Chanur.”

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

I finished C.J. Cherryh’s The Pride of Chanur a few days ago but am just now getting the time to write the review.

I remembered reading this back in the 1980s but didn’t recall the details (forty years is a long time). When I saw it on Bookbub, I was curious. There wasn’t a copy in my public library system so I bit the bullet and bought a digital copy from Amazon.

The story is set in a universe involving a species called the Hani. They’re cat-like, their space traveling freighters are captained and crewed by females, as the males aren’t suited to space travel, and their particular region of space is dominated by them and other races who trade with each other via a system of space stations in an alliance called “The Compact.”

The chief “baddy” in this tale are the Kif which are tall, thin, and hairless. They are also predatory, cunning, and devious.

While the ship “Pride of Chanur” is at Meetpoint station, a strange alien is seen to be skulking on the docks. It finally manages to slip by the Captain, Pyanfur Chanur, into her ship, but is wounded in the attempt.

Communication is a chore since the creature doesn’t speak a civilized language. It’s eventually discovered that this is an intelligent creature which had been a captive on a Kif ship and was trying to escape.

Continue reading →