Review: Time of the Lioness: Internet Apocalypse by S. B Redstone

 Genre: Post-Apocalyptic/Science Fiction/Thriller

Description:

“You’re at work, in school, at home, out shopping, trapped in an elevator, or sky-high on an amusement park ride when the power and lights suddenly go out. For a moment, you’re just annoyed, expecting only a momentary problem. Doesn’t happen! Along with the power outage, all means of communication have been severed. The Internet is down and a terrorist’s face gloats. Fear now creeps into your optimism. Hours later, with a world overly dependent on cyberspace, global economies begin to crumble from this irrevocable cyberattack. Totally freaked out, you’ve now become a prisoner of inertia—clueless about how to deal with anarchy, cruelty, and violence.

Just for you, S. B. Redstone, the Eclectic Author, researched a multitude of destructive computer viruses, thinking he would create one through science fiction for this novel. To his heart-throbbing amazement, his imagined lethal virus had already been developed by international hackers. He was now convinced, along with almost every security expert, an Internet Apocalypse is inevitable. Are you believing our government will save you?

Annie Oakley Frye is a Cyber Warfare Specialist accepted cyberspace had become a cesspool of evil based on the multitude of daily cyberattacks. Annie does not live in a dystopian, fantasy world like Katniss Everdeen, Beatrice Prior, and Lara Croft—she lives among us. Once she discovers this invisible menace is lurking in a million networks, and it can’t be stopped from obliterating world economies, she sheds her mild-mannered personality and becomes the lioness of her youth to survive. Out of kindness she warns her friends about this approaching cyber nightmare, but they scoff at her insider information and doomsday scenario, believing the government won't let it happen. Once the cyber nightmare launches a surprise arrives at her door!

Time Of The Lioness: Internet Apocalypse is Book 1 is an action-packed thriller, with its characters on an emotional rollercoaster. Each chapter will have you wondering how you would cope with this probable post-apocalyptic world as Annie must do.”

Author:

“S. B. Redstone views himself as the ‘Eclectic Author’. He does not write stories based on genre, but rather on wherever his imagination and passion take him. His genres so far have been Horror, Suspense Thrillers, Senior Romance, Fantasy, Comedy, Science Fiction, and Young Adult in a post-apocalyptic world. Between working days and most evenings as a School Psychologist and Licensed Clinical Social Worker in private practice, and living a full life on Long Island, always golf and tennis, he put his vivid imagination on paper.”

Appraisal:

Imagine a situation where all the world’s computers stop working. All the data the computers have stored disappears or is corrupted. (Any backup of that data turns out to be corrupted too.) Anything that requires computers to work stops working. No electricity. No internet. Can’t call anyone about anything because phones aren’t working. Driving anywhere is an issue because stoplights are no longer functioning. How long would this have to go on before you’d no longer have food to eat (food processors are dead in the water and even getting the food to your local grocery store is problematic in this environment). Paying for things is a problem with debit and credit cards not working, ATM machines down, and no way for a business to cash your check. Unless you’re more prepared than the average person, this situation wouldn’t be pretty and it wouldn’t be a picnic even for those who are ready for such an apocalypse.

I’m sure most reading this are thinking “but that’s never going to happen.” The author makes a good case for the possibility that it could. I won’t go into any details so as to not have a spoiler in my review, but the logic the author uses to imagine this happening isn’t that far out there and imagines just a couple tweaks to be made to things already happening on a regular basis in today’s world.

The premise of this story is that the protagonist, Annie, figures out what is going to happen in advance. She knows it is going to happen and when, but can do nothing to prevent it. So, she attempts to prepare as best as she can to be able to survive what she knows is coming as well as get some of her friends to join her. The difficulties she has, both in preparing and in convincing others makes for quite a story. Since this is a series, you can guess she must ultimately have some success and I’m now wondering what happens to her next.

Buy now from:            Amazon US        Amazon UK

FYI:

This is the first book in a series.

Format/Typo Issues:

A small number of formatting and typo issues.

Rating: **** Four Stars

Reviewed by: BigAl

Approximate word count: 85-90,000 words

Review: When It Rains by Mark Allan Gunnells

 Genre: Speculative Fiction/Political Satire

Description:

“When the rains started to fall, those who took shelter in the Friedkin University bookstore had no idea what awaited them. The mysterious, slimy rain fell on the entire world at once, and a fear quickly spread that it contained a toxin that would make those who touched it sick. Inside the bookstore, tensions arose between those who had been caught out in the rain and those who had not, finally culminating in a shocking ending that will surprise and disturb readers.”

Author:

“Mark Allan Gunnells loves to tell stories. He has since he was a kid, penning one-page tales that were Twilight Zone knockoffs. He likes to think he has gotten a little better since then. He loves reader feedback, and above all he loves telling stories. He lives in Greer, SC, with his husband Craig A. Metcalf.”

Appraisal:

This novella was an adventure in that I wasn’t sure where it was going, only that I wanted to go along to see what happened. The premise, that kicks it off, that a slimy rain starts falling and a bunch of people take refuge in the Friedkin University bookstore seems like science fiction. However, as we get into the story, we discover that this same thing happened before, specifically in Oakville, Washington on August 7, 1994. What caused it was never determined. Any side-effects, good or bad, were never identified from that event. Plus, there is one big difference here, the storm (or deluge as it becomes referred to), in this case starts in a few places, but quickly spreads all over the world. So, while fiction, it isn’t as out there as my first impression led me to believe.

However, ultimately the deluge is the cause for the real story here, how people react to being stuck in the bookstore, not knowing why the deluge is happening, when it might stop, and maybe most critical of all, are those who were exposed to it, getting “rained” on before they sought shelter, in danger. Or might those people cause danger to others, the theory that the slime might make those who contact it diseased or an equivalent as well as potentially contagious to those who were exposed.

It doesn’t take much imagination to compare what is going on here to what has happened during the Covid pandemic, with the story almost feeling like a bit of a mirror on society. Curiously, it felt like people that I’d perceive as taking certain stances based on my impression of them, as well as the stance I was instinctively taking myself on how people should react, was the opposite of what the Covid pandemic would have led me to expect. Probably needless to say, that got me thinking and evaluating why I was reacting that way. Ultimately, I think I figured it out for myself, but the self-searching was definitely a positive of reading the book, not to mention keeping me, at least figuratively on the edge of my seat the whole time. And then there was the ending, not what I’d have guessed at all. See if you agree.

Buy now from:            Amazon US        Amazon UK

Format/Typo Issues:

My review is based on a pre-publication ARC (advanced reader copy), so I can’t gauge the final product in this regard.

Rating: ***** Five Stars

Reviewed by: BigAl

Approximate word count: 30-35,000 words

Review: Homecoming by John Strother

 Genre: Satire/Humor, according to the author

Description:

Smoke, Ink, Cowboy, and Dusty step into the hallways of Trails End High School and are “accused of trampling time honored [sic] traditions like they were the four horsemen of the Apocalypse.”

Author:

John Strother “loves a good book, whether fact of [sic] fiction. Hemingway, Faulkner, Boorstin, Roth, Tolstoy, McCullough, Keillor, McCarthy, Wodehouse. Always an eye out for another great author to follow.” – Sure John, Osamu Dazai.

Appraisal:

Elmore Leonard said, readers don’t skip dialog. If that’s true, there’s precious little to skip in Homecoming. It’s about ninety percent dialog and much of that in the colorful patois of East Texas, which plays well into the humor-laced conversations.

While the dialog is fun, characters and relationships are thinly layered, and the plot could have been lifted from any B-movie raucous teen romp. A locally unwelcomed corporation opens a site in Texas piney woods. Four boys, whose parents relocate, start their school career as outcasts. Such de rigueur characters as a bullying coach, irreverent mentor, and an outlaw girl with a kind heart provide adversity or support. The boys get into assorted bits of trouble and come through fine. The coach gets his comeuppance, but it is so jarringly vile as to sour the book’s otherwise light-hearted flavor.

Buy now from:            Amazon US        Amazon UK

FYI:

In addition to humor/satire, I would put the novel in the YA genre.

Format/Typo Issues:

Multitude of errors, as evidenced in both the book and author descriptions on Amazon as of this writing.

Rating: *** Three Stars

Reviewed by: Sam Waite

Approximate word count: 50-55,000 words

Review: The Cotillion Brigade by Glen Craney

 

Genre: Historical fiction

Description:

The novel’s subtitle is “A Novel of the Civil War and the Most Famous Female Militia in American History”. That sums it up very well. It has the same kind of historical sweep as War and Peace but is, mercifully, half the length.

Author:

Glen Craney has been a lawyer, a journalist, and a screenwriter before turning his hand to fiction. He claims to have given up the law. His fictional preference is historical (sometimes with a history-and-mystery element) and he ranges widely through the centuries focusing on particular episodes, as here: the book runs from 1856 to a day or so after Grant surrendered to Lee at Appomattox Court House in 1865. Craney has also written novels set during the Great Depression, the Albigensian Crusade of 1209-1229, the reign of Robert the Bruce in Scotland (14^th century), World War I, and the Age of Discovery in Portugal in the 15^th century. He lives in Malibu, lucky man. His website is at www.glencraney.com

Appraisal:

This is a very interesting book. Craney is obviously fond of research. I cannot think but that a LOT of background work went into this book, yet the author wears that learning very lightly. One tiny detail will, perhaps, serve to illustrate the whole: in a couple of places Craney refers to a ‘campaign hat’ – this is obviously not a Stetson, but a hat specifically worn by military men, usually in the cavalry. The point is not laboured, but I appreciated the nuanced information and acknowledged it as I went by. There is a lot of this kind of thing, reflected also in Craney’s vocabulary (which is of the period and not glossed, but completely comprehensible). Not only does this reassure the reader that the author knows what he is about, but the colour it brings to the book makes it jump off the page. I salute him for it. I defy you not to learn from this book. Yet it is emphatically not a history book: it is great entertainment.

All the hardships, battles and sieges are here, all the personalities, on both sides. The main characters are real people. Heaven knows how Craney found them. He has done a great job of imagining the undocumented parts of their lives. (And if you are interested in what happened to them next, there is an Afterword containing what he was able to find out about that.) Craney has stitched together a cohesive work of fiction from the primary and secondary sources he has mined, and made a book which gallops along like charging cavalry.

Not only is this book informative about the Civil War, it has much to say about the human heart, then and now. Craney observes the widening chasm between Abolitionists and Secessionists, the way each side begins to demonise the other, how this quickly hardens, carries forward into the war and, of course, lives on after it. It reminded me very much of Trump and his fake news. As it was published in 2021 this may have been intentional. It demonstrates how the human ability to create and transmit rumour has been a powerful force for mischief long before our age of soshul meeja.

The book examines events in the North and in the South through a primary protagonist on each side: Hugh La Grange in the North and Nancy Brown Morgan in the South. The insults, misunderstandings, and umbrages taken multiply until you can clearly hear the artillery firing. Craney is at pains not to sugarcoat the misery and anguish of war, and there are parts of it you will not want to read on a full stomach.

As well as being a really great adventure story, the book has much to say about why we should never go to war. All the more poignant now that Putin has invaded Ukraine. In the American Civil War brothers and cousins fought on opposite sides. We’ve had two wars like that in Britain. Now there is one in Ukraine where soi-disant ‘brothers’ are being fired upon. When will it stop?

I should just add that in the early part of the book I found it difficult to warm to the characters. Both Northern and Southern characters kept sneering, sniggering, scowling, snarling (not the women), smirking, taunting, snarking, and snickering at each other and putting each other down. They all drank in secret (including the women), many of them to serious excess. As the hardships of the war increase this unloveable behaviour reduces. I think now this may have been a deliberate ploy, to allow the characters to grow as the war touches them more nearly.

One final point: I read a soft copy of this book. There are quite a lot of illustrations of the characters and places in it – an enriching experience in themselves. Kindle still doesn’t handle this sort of thing well, so I urge you to fettle a paperback copy if you can, when the quality of the book will be best enjoyed.

Buy now from:            Amazon US        Amazon UK

Format/Typo Issues:

There are a few typos and errors of continuity. They are but momentary lapses, ride by them.

Rating: **** Four Stares.

Reviewed by: Judi Moore

Approximate word count: 155-160,000 words

Reprise Review: The Second-Best Ranger in Texas by Kathleen Rice Adams

 Genre: Western/Romance/Historical

Description:

“His partner’s grisly death destroyed Texas Ranger Quinn Barclay. Cashiered for drunkenness and refusal to follow orders, he sets out to fulfill his partner’s dying request, armed only with a saloon girl’s name.

Sister María Tomás thought she wanted to become a nun, but five years as a postulant have convinced her childhood dreams aren’t always meant to be. At last ready to relinquish the temporary vows she never should have made, she begs the only man she trusts to collect her from a mission in the middle of nowhere.

When the ex-Ranger’s quest collides with the ex-nun’s plea in a burned-out border town, unexpected love blooms among shared memories of the dead man who was a brother to them both.

Too bad he was also the only man who could have warned them about the carnage to come.”

Author:

Kathleen Rice Adams: “Descended from a long line of Texas ranchers, preachers, and teachers on one side and Kentucky horse thieves and moonshiners on the other, award-winning author Kathleen Rice Adams had no choice but to become an outlaw. Maybe that's why in her stories, even the good guys wear black hats.

For the past thirty years, she's stayed two steps ahead of a lynch mob as an award-winning journalist. She also has ghost-written or edited several nonfiction books.

A Texan to the bone, when Kathleen's not being a nuisance she bows to the whims of the Hole in the Web Gang -- a herd of tiny but enthusiastic outlaws with four legs.”

For more please visit Ms. Adams’ website.

Appraisal:

I enjoy a little cowboy action occasionally. The Second-Best Ranger in Texas filled the bill nicely. The characters are well developed and realistic. Quinn is trying to deal with his best friend’s death through whisky. After losing his position as a Texas Ranger, Quinn is now on a mission to carry out the promise to his dying friend. The message is cryptic; all he has is the first name of a woman and the name of the town to find her.

Upon arriving in San Miguel all Quinn finds is a burned up town with only two buildings remaining: the saloon, thank God, and a mission at the edge of town. The mission houses a few nuns, orphans, and injured survivors. Quinn figures if Dulce had ever been in San Miguel it is likely she disappeared with everyone else when the town burned to the ground.

The story unfolds at a nice pace as Quinn does all he can to assist the nuns by burying their dead and helping them relocate to another mission. Ms. Adams does an excellent job capturing the flavor of the town and the essence of her characters with her excellent prose. The characters practically walk off the page and into your heart. This includes Quinn’s horse, Bulls-eye. I can highly recommend this novelette for a quick pick-me-up read.

Buy now from:            Amazon US        Amazon UK

FYI:

The Second-Best Ranger in Texas was the winner of the 2015 Western Fictioneers Peacemaker best short fiction award.

Original review posted August 31, 2016

Format/Typo Issues:

No significant issues.

Rating: ***** Five Stars

Reviewed by: ?wazithinkin

Approximate word count: 9-10,000 words

Review: Penance by James M. Clifton

 

Genre: Crime Fiction

Description:

“Carlos Ramirez is an Ivy League educated lawyer and the son of an infamous drug lord. He spent most of his life sheltered from the seedier side of his father’s business dealings, devoting his time to running his family’s legal business ventures. All that changes, however, when his father is murdered by his partner, the head of the northeast Irish mob. Consumed by hatred, he and his sister Lena exact their revenge.

Seemingly oblivious to the collateral damage he is causing, Carlos’s actions result in the death of a number of innocent people. The deepest of regret follows. Given the perspective of time, he comes to grieve his actions, leading him to the brink of suicide.

Carlos’s sister, Lena, is a very different person. While Carlos avoids his father’s legacy, Lena embraces it, maturing to become a major crime boss. As the story unfolds, Carlos devises a desperate plan to soothe his stricken conscience. What Carlos does not realize, though, is that Lena and her professional killer are watching over him, protecting him from danger.”

Author:

“Dr. James Clifton is retired from the U.S. military and also retired from a career as an engineer. He currently spends his time fishing the lakes of Northern Alabama, golfing, hiking, and, when he has time, writing stories.”

Appraisal:

In my review of Change of Heart, the first book in the Legacy of Loyalty series of which this is book two, I said the protagonist of that book, John Cooper, isn’t your typical crime fiction protagonist. Carlos Ramirez, who we met in that first book and is the main protagonist of this one, also breaks the mold. Although he certainly is far from perfect, his past has mostly been working in the more legitimate parts of his crime-lord father’s business empire, but since his father’s death events are pulling him more and more into the seedier side of things. He doesn’t exactly like that.

The main story of Penance is Carlos trying to maneuver things in such a way as to get his business interests back to a legitimate place while protecting his crime boss sister from repercussions. If other crime bosses feel backlash, that’s a good thing though. Almost a form of penance, a way for Carlos to try to atone for those questionable things he hasn’t been able to avoid. This was an engaging read. It kept me guessing most of the way and doesn’t read like a typical crime novel in many ways, yet still feels credible.

Buy now from:            Amazon US        Amazon UK

FYI:

This is the second book in what is currently a three-book series.

Format/Typo Issues:

No significant issues.

Rating: **** Four Stars

Reviewed by: BigAl

Approximate word count: 90-95,000 words

Righteous Assassin by Kevin G. Chapman

 

Genre: Thriller/Police Procedural

Description:

“A MOB BOSS IS EATEN ALIVE BY TIGERS AT THE BRONX ZOO. . . .That was the fourth unsolved murder in four months - each on the last Saturday. The other three were even more unusual . . .  Could they be related? The victims share no similar traits and have no connections. Why would a single killer choose such strange and disparate methods? Why spread your victims across all of New York?

Each new murder adds a piece to the killer's jigsaw puzzle, but unraveling the clues and finding the killer's pattern may not be enough to catch him. NYPD homicide Detectives Mike Stoneman and Jason Dickson have to stop the elusive killer before he completes his decathlon of death. Mike must also avoid being distracted by Medical Examiner Michelle McNeill, who seems to be on his mind a lot lately. She's an asset to the investigation, but is this any time to be starting a romance?  The task force is racing against the calendar. Only one thing is certain - on the last Saturday of the month, there will be blood.”

Author:

A lawyer specializing in labor and employment law by day, Kevin Chapman describes his real passions as playing tournament poker, rooting for the New York Mets, and writing fiction. For more, visit Mr Chapman’s website.

Appraisal:

Although this is the first book in this series featuring Detective Mike Stoneman it is the third book I’ve read and it’s my favorite in some ways, but also gives me one mild regret.

I loved the plot. We, as the reader, are given some insight into the thinking of the serial killer who has run amuck in New York that Mike Stoneman, his partner, and the eventual team they put together is trying to catch in this book. What we knew wasn’t enough to figure out where the story was going, but helped the reader gauge how well the team of detectives were doing in figuring things out which added to the tension. I liked all the characters although I got frustrated with some of them at times, which leads to the regret.

Although the mystery or case in each of the books I’ve read are stand alone, so there is no critical reason why the books in the series should be read in order, I found that some of the characters in this book that I’d already met in future books, specifically Mike Stoneman, his detective partner Jason Dickson, and Michelle McNeil, the medical examiner that autopsies the victims in this case, relate to each other in much different ways in future books, so I know how some of the subsidiary story threads in this book are going to turn out. It didn’t ruin the mystery, but it did change how I reacted to some events this time around. If you’ve read one of the later books in the series, I’d advise you to come back and read this one, it’s definitely a good one. But if you haven’t read the others, start with this one and you won’t regret knowing where things are headed with these characters.

Buy now from:            Amazon US        Amazon UK

FYI:

This is the first book in a series of five (or five thus far) books. If you haven’t read any of them, I’d advise reading them in order, but they can be read out of order without ruining the plot of the mystery or thriller aspect.

Format/Typo Issues:

No significant issues.

Rating: ***** Five Stars

Reviewed by: BigAl

Approximate word count: 120-125,000 words

Review: The Cool and Warmth of Hearts by J.A. Santana

 

Genre: Poetry Collection

Description:

A compilation of love poems.

Author:

“Jose is an IT professional by day, author by night; he’s usually humble, insatiably curious about the world; believes in creating a better world, so he delights people with words. He craves experiences, whether it’s traveling, adventurous activities, reading, writing, or having philosophical discussions about the various nuances of life. On the side, he ran a web design business only to find creative writing was his calling and resulted in his first publication, The Cool and Warmth of Hearts, and since has inspired future books in the genres he has a passion in: poetry, supernatural/horror, fantasy, and science fiction. He lives in Massachusetts and when he’s not reading or writing; he kicks back on a weekend night watching a movie or TV show or with loved ones.”

Appraisal:

It takes heart to write poetry; it takes discipline to write passably good poetry.

The Cool and Warmth of Hearts displays ample heart from adolescent passion in “A New Form of Being” to the ecstasy of love at first sight in “Lover’s Lane.”

Those two items are from the section “Pining,” containing poems of unrequited love, unfaithful lovers, and insecure lamentation. The book has seven sections including a prologue and an epilogue.

Discipline, however, can be found in none of those sections.

“A Renewed Feeling” has 10 lines of aa, bb rhyme scheme followed by four lines of ab, ab then back to aa, bb followed by no rhyme scheme and ending in four lines of aaaa.

“Love I” is broken into stanzas with lines numbering 6, 8, 11, 5, 6, 5, 7, 3, 3, 3, 6, 6.

A reader of a poet who uses rhyme schemes and stanzas has a rightful expectation of consistent structure rather than a mishmash.

The writer is not incapable of structured verse as seen in “Maiden’s Myth” with four-line stanzas and ab, ab rhyme. Unfortunately, the same poem displays a disregard of diction that is seen throughout this book. “Dawn” is used as a transitive verb, while “gnaw” is rendered a noun.

In “Doesn’t Hurt to Try,” we have “Neither fawn nor fauna could produce the familiar melody from its lot.” Besides the line being incompressible, the logical equivalent of “Neither fawn nor fauna” is “Neither flounder nor fish.”

Free verse provides an escape from the binds of structure, but it still requires rhythm, and reverence for diction. Neither of which can be found here.

A line from “Doesn’t Hurt to Try” might best describe the author’s work:

“I am a poet who still has much to learn.”

Buy now from:            Amazon US        Amazon UK

Format/Typo Issues:

None

Rating: *** Three Stars

Reviewed by: Sam Waite

Approximate word count: 16-17,000 words

Review: When It’s Winter by Karen A. Wyle

Genre: Children’s Picture Book

Description:

“What makes winter special? This picture book celebrates the many fun activities and sensory experiences of the season. Follow a girl and her dog through the play and discoveries of a snowy day, and on toward bedtime.”

Author:

“Karen A. Wyle was born a Connecticut Yankee, but eventually settled in Bloomington, Indiana, home of Indiana University. She now considers herself a Hoosier. Wyle's childhood ambition was to be the youngest ever published novelist. While writing her first novel at age 10, she was mortified to learn that some British upstart had beaten her to the goal at age 9.

Wyle is an appellate attorney, photographer, political junkie, and mother of two daughters.”

Appraisal:

I read this with my eight-year-old granddaughter who I’ll refer to as the LBG. She’s at the top end of the target age group for this book, but ate it right up. We had a fun time reading it, laughing and vicariously having fun along with the girl and her dog as they explored the winter wonderland, playing and making fun discoveries. When we finished, I asked LBG what she though of the book and she gave a big thumbs up. I agreed.

Buy now from:            Amazon US        Amazon UK

Format/Typo Issues:

No issues.

Rating: ***** Five Stars

Reviewed by: BigAl

Approximate word count: 37 Pages