Tag Archives: review

Book Review of Lois McMaster Bujold’s “Cyroburn”

cryoburn

© James Pyles

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I feel like this book review requires a bit of an explanation. I thought “Women in SciFi Month” was in March, but according to this, it’s in April, so I’m not late.

Actually, thanks to Cora Buhlert (she and I are very different people but she’s one of the few folks who doesn’t take it personally) and the twitter hashtag #FiveSFFWritersWhoArentBlokes, I compiled a list of female SFF writers I want to read (a lot more than five). I’m usually against “you have to read these authors or you’re racist, sexist, misanthropic, whatever…” but I am also aware there are tons of science fiction writers I simply don’t know about. After all, if not for twitter, I’d have no idea Adrian Tchaikovsky even existed, let alone have read and reviewed his novel Children of Time (it has issues but overall, a great book).

Because my list is alphabetical, I started with Lois McMaster Bujold. I found out that a bunch of her books were at my local public library just a few miles from where I live. I shot on over but hadn’t looked any of them up first. I set aside anything that looked like fantasy and drilled into her science fiction works. I settled on Cryoburn because the blurb was interesting:

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Book Review of E.E. “Doc” Smith’s “Gray Lensman”

gray lensman

Mass market paperback cover for “Gray Lensman”

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Gray Lensman by E.E. “Doc” Smith (I bought the cheap kindle version) is the fourth book in the Lensman series following Triplanetary, First Lensman, and Galactic Patrol.

After my binge read of James S.A. Corey’s nine-book The Expanse saga, I realized I hadn’t read a Lensman book in over a year. Part of the reason was that they’re hard for me to read. They’re really old fashioned, to the point of being almost farcical.

But they are also an important part of science fiction history and the development of the classic space opera.

This particular book was originally published in serial form in Astounding (later Analog) magazine in 1939. It made it to book form in 1951 and to the paperbacks I became familiar with in the 1960s.

As I’ve mentioned before, in the mid to late 1960s, while all the other guys were reading the Tarzan and Lensman books, I was absorbed in the Barsoom and Skylark books, by Edgar Rice Burroughs and E.E. “Doc” Smith respectively.

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Book Review: “Swirling Darkness” by Sam M. Phillips

swirling

Promotional art for Sam M. Phillips’ “Swirling Darkness”

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Sam Phillips is an author, poet, and a co-founder of Zombie Pirate Publishing with Adam Bennett. They published some of my very first short stories and have been a lot of fun to work with.

Sam is branching out as an individual author and I recently read two of his books, Infinity and I, published by the aforementioned Zombie Pirate, and Swirling Darkness published as part of the Underground series by Black Hare Press

The description for his anthology is:

INFINITY AND I is a collection of seventy brand new science fiction stories from Sam M. Phillips, the co-founder of Zombie Pirate Publishing. Inside you’ll find surreal space journeys, bizarre aliens, futuristic technology, rogue AIs, and a girl who just wants to be loved. Follow a huge array of exotic characters across the galaxy as they use inter-dimensional drugs and fight battles on faraway worlds. Action, drama, and science combine with the complexity of the human soul in the year’s most exciting new sci fi release. Open up a portal and step into the depths of a unique mind with INFINITY AND I: Seventy Science Fiction Stories!

As an aside, I should note that my novella Time’s Abyss is also part of the Underground series.

Sam publishes his poetry on his blog Big Confusing Words. That’s important to know for my review as you’ll soon see.

The blurb for “Darkness” states:

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Book Review of “Leviathan Falls”

falls

Cover of the novel “Leviathan Falls”

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This is it. I just finished the ninth and final book in the Expanse novel series Leviathan Falls by James S.A. Corey (really Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck). I checked it out of my local public library like all the others. It’s a new book, so I put a hold on it December 1st and finally got my hands on it February 9th. I have to give it back after two weeks, so I’m pushing things a little.

The quality of the series held up, which is important. I’ve read a lot of book series that started out great and then fizzled at the end. That’s usually because the author (or publisher) decides that they’ll make more money on more books people like, but don’t have a clear vision of the end from the beginning.

I’m not sure Abraham and Franck did either when they wrote the first in the series. Some things got a little repetitive in some of the stories. It seemed for a while that going from an earlier book to a later book meant the disasters got bigger and worse. That didn’t happen this time around, but there’s definitely a resolution. There’s not a lot of room for the characters to reappear in the long haul except Amos and maybe Jim. No, no spoilers but I’m not above dolling out a few hints.

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Third 5-Star Review of “Ice” on Amazon

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Hooray! Frankly, I’ll take just about any sort of review on “Ice” just so it’s noticed, but I love how all three (so far) are five-stars on Amazon.

Click on the link to find the review and read it. If you’ve read “Ice” and haven’t reviewed it on Amazon and Goodreads, please, please, please do so. Even if the review is less than complementary, I’ll learn more about how to improve my writing.

Here’s my “blurb:”

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Review of Zack Snyder’s “Justice League” (2021)

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It took two days for me to work my way through the two-disc set of Zack Snyder’s Justice League (2021). I saw the 2017 version and wasn’t incredibly impressed. I was hoping for more in the “Snyder Cut.”

Given the breadth of this film, I’m commenting on things in no particular order and this review will not be comprehensive.

At slightly over four hours of run time, there’s plenty of room for character development, origin stories, and “mood,” but I think it could have been a shorter, tighter movie.

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My Review of Star Trek: Picard Season 1

picard

DVD case for season 1 of Star Trek: Picard

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I saw the DVD set for season 1 of Star Trek: Picard at my local public library and worked up the nerve to actually watch it. Fortunately, since I got it at the library, it was free, and also it was only ten episodes, so not an enormous investment of time.

Keep in mind, I fully expected to hate it based on what I’ve read so far, so that’s why it took this long to get around to it.

The show wasn’t horrible horrible, but it wasn’t over the top great either. Fans are quick to point out that the first few seasons of Star Trek: The Next Generation were poor as well, and they’re right. This was different.

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Review of Spider Robinson’s “Callahan’s Crosstime Saloon”

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So I was having a discussion with my grandson, actually playing a game with him over the phone, and realized I needed a bar. That is, I needed a bar as one of the scenes for our game. Author Spider Robinson (apparently his given first name is a jealously guarded secret) wrote a collection of short stories in the late 1970s called Callahan’s Crosstime Saloon. I remembered reading it when it was first published and I remembered liking it, but that’s all. I had long since gotten rid of my original copy, so I bought the digital version.

After reading the first couple of short stories, I not only realized I had remembered this collection wrong, but found it was totally unsuitable for what I had in mind for the game with my grandson. I immediately set to work at creating my own “fantastical” saloon which, as of today, I also decided to incorporate in a short story I’ve just plotted out.

But that’s neither here nor there for this review.

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Film Review of “Black Widow” (2021)

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I found the 2021 film Black Widow as a DVD at my local public library yesterday. Naturally I checked it out so I could watch and review it. I’ve heard various unflattering things about the movie, and I wanted to see for myself.

Oh, tons of spoilers follow, so if you haven’t seen the movie and want to, don’t read any further.

In no particular order:

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Book Review of Wilbur Smith’s “The Seventh Scroll”

7th scroll

Cover art for the mass paperback edition of the novel “The Seventh Scroll”

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Wilbur Smith’s 1995 novel The Seventh Scroll isn’t the sort of book I’d read today, although action, adventure, and archeological mysteries are something I’d have considered back in the day.

But on Facebook, I read that it’s author died last November. Smith was highly regarded as a writer on the FB writers page where I saw the announcement. I figured I should read something of his for the sake of his passing.

He was one of those highly regarded and well-reviewed authors you hear about. Just to give you a few examples:

“The plot twists and turns with constant surprises. This old-fashioned adventure novel keeps the reader enthralled all the way to its very exciting conclusion.”
– The Washington Post Book World

“Life-threatening dangers loom around every turn, leaving the reader breathless….An incredibly exciting and satisfying read.”
– Chattanooga News-Free Press

“An entertaining yarn.”
– Fort Worth Star-Telegram

I looked through his books and decided on “The Seventh Scroll” because it is the very type of story I’d have consumed when “Scroll” was first published. It’s actually part of a series, some of which is set in ancient Egypt. I prefer a more modern adventure.

I’d characterize this tome into three parts:

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