A Coup' of Sorts by Howard Rosenzweig

The story takes place in 1979 South America in an unspecified country, where a successful rebellion against a Communist regime has proven to be the same, if not worse, than the last government. Father Lupe, a village priest, and his brother Dr. Aramos, decide to take matters into their own hands to save their people. Rather than lead a rebellion that would result in thousands of lost lives and dubious victory, the brothers turn to a rabbi, Avenidas, with a solid knowledge of Kabbalah mysticism to create a golem. However, the golem is not made from dirt and clay, but instead from Dr. Aramos himself because he has been rendered emotionally hollow from a great tragedy and loss from a few years ago. According to Rabbi Avenidas, the reasoning is that a human golem can make judgments based on how humans think instead of blindly finishing the task with a great deal of collateral damage. If the golem goes rogue, the rabbi can end its life; if the golem kills the rabbi who created it, the golem dies as well. With the help of an American mercenary named Les Cohen, Dr. Aramos embarks on a journey for personal revenge and public liberation at the expense of his own soul against The General, who rules the region, Colonel Sanchez Rodriguez, and the Muertemos who work for The General.

Rosenzweig's idea to combine the mysticism of Kabbalah with vampirism, which is what the human golem becomes, is ripe with possibility. The immense power with which Dr. Aramos is imbued is enormous, but the fact that he stays true to his course of revenge shows the restraint and control he has of himself. Learning what he has already endured in his life, it is gratifying to see him use the power properly instead of going on a murderous rampage. Having an inside man in The General's camp allows the reader to believe in the possibility of the coup going to plan. The brutality of The General, his right hand man Rodriguez, and the rest of the Muertemos lays the stage for why the coup must occur and why we, the reader, should support Dr. Aramos and Father Lupe.

The problem with the story is that it doesn't immerse the reader enough into the created world for us to connect with the characters, meaning that we are rooting for them because the other side is so odious that to cheer for The General's side would be cheering for evil incarnate. Instead, the story barrels headlong to the end. This fast train to the end of the story makes a quick read, but I was left with a feeling of being unsure why I had really supported the coup.

Character motivation is what is most lacking in the story. Dr. Aramos' motivations are clear, but the other characters' motivations are left to conjecture. Is Father Lupe doing this for the people as he says, or does he have his own political agenda? Does Les Cohen care about the region, or is this a way for him to grab at power while clearing his conscience in the meantime? Why is the General so brutal—are the people difficult or is he just a bastard who likes power? What is Colonel Rodriguez getting out of all this—is power and absolutely authority enough? I have more questions, but those were some of the main ones I had regarding character motivation.

There were some minor characters whose presence is not explained until a plan is executed later in the story. These characters work for Les Cohen, but there is no other offered explanation until the last quarter of the story. To me, this is too far. There is a flashback to Cohen's time in the Vietnam war where he is saving soldier from the Vietcong; names could have been dropped here to help connect the dots in the middle of the novella. Because this wasn't done, I chalked that vignette up to the author showing us that Les Cohen has a good moral character, even if his employment choices have not always been the most ethical. While I got to make Cohen a more rounded character in my mind, I lost the nuance of the kind of people he employed that would have rounded him out further and made me understand his motivations much more clearly.

Finally, the flashbacks to explain the Maya sacrificial temple and past golems who have failed would be best placed in chronological order. At the moment, these vignettes of the past are jagged and abrupt, which served to jar me from my engagement of the story. I felt like I had to start over again and again, trying to engage myself with the characters and immerse myself in the world the author created. They also needed a little more information to tie them back to the main story, allowing readers to connect the information to what will happen later and having to stretch less to connect the dots. Trust me, I wanted to be engaged with the story. It is an intriguing idea for a story.

I understand that short stories and novellas are brief on purpose, but that doesn't mean that the story should plow through so quickly that the reader doesn't have time to become invested in the characters. This story is ripe with possibility and contains a world that wants to be breathed to life. With editing, this story will be rich and engaging, sucking the reader into a world rife with moral questions. Do the ends justify the means? How far would you go for your own personal revenge? If your personal revenge would also benefit others, is it still worth giving up your soul?

Thank you, Dr. Howard Rosenzweig, for allowing me the privilege of reading your work. Should you consider editing this, please allow me to read it again. I honestly see so much potential in your writing that I want to see it go further.

A Coup' of Sorts is available from Amazon.

Flaming Dove by Daniel Arenson

Kudos, Mr. Arenson. You got my attention. I'm supposed to be on sabbatical.

Daniel Arenson's story takes place during the Armageddon as the armies of Heaven and Hell battle for supreme dominance over the Earth. There are few humans left, and those that survive eek an existence out of what they can find of the human world and what they can create from the devastation.

Heaven and Hell are at a standstill after twenty-seven years and battle for what foothold they can grab in Jerusalem, the holy city. The battle seems to hinge upon a young woman named Laila, purported to be of half-angel, half-demon blood due to Lucifer's rape of Archangel Gabriel's wife. She cannot live in Heaven—Godlight burns her demon blood; she cannot live in Hell—Hellfire boils her angel blood. Earth is her only haven and humans are the most accepting of her, which says very little. Only Laila's older half-sister, Bat El, loves her unconditionally and has earned Laila's loyalty, love, and trust.

Arenson takes the reader through storylines that embrace Laila, Bat El, Beelzebub, and the Archangel Michael in unexpected and compelling ways. What makes Arenson's story interesting is his departure from the expected. Angels are normally depicted as God's boy scouts who never doubt his rule, world, or law. Arenson depicts Angels who become humanized as they fight the war and stay on Earth. They drink, swear, gamble, and sleep with as many women as much as human male soldiers do; Arenson's humanization of angels is thought provoking and risky, which, to me, is the mark of a good author. They believe in their war, they love God, but many of them follow the mantra of "the end justifies the means." Humans lie, cheat, steal, and commit atrocities in the name of God and what is right; why can't angels?

In the same vein of humanizing, arch demons are given emotions such as love and being able to be emotionally hurt, along with the ability to be tender and apologetic. Again, this is risky and thought provoking because it is so easy to blanket hate demons; it is infinitely harder to get a reader to actually sympathize with the enemy. Arenson masterfully makes this believable.

The one and only thing that really, truly annoyed me was the constant—and I mean constant—over-dramatization of Laila being "of the night" or of her drive and need for a home. The reader needs some reminders of a main character's motivations, but it doesn't have to happen every time we return to her storyline. Many times, I could lay my finger over Laila's internal monologue and see exactly where Arenson should have stopped to maximize the impact of Laila's thoughts before her actions. That being said, this book is a great read that I highly recommend to anyone who loves a different kind of fantasy fiction.

The book is available through the author's website.

Sky Girl and the Superheroic Legacy (Volume 1) by Joe Sergi

The story of Sky Girl and the Superheroic Legacy covers the adventures of Dede Christopher, a high school freshman with the usual crush on the captain of the football team. She is a gymnast with an archrival who happens to be dating said captain of the football team and is one of the most beautiful and talented gymnasts in town. Dede's best friend, Jason, is a comic book fanatic who has indexed every power of every superhero he has ever read about, along with their fictional life histories. When Dede starts developing strange abilities, it's Jason who realizes that her new powers are none other than the powers of SkyBoy whom everyone believes is nothing but a comic book legend.

The beauty of the this book is that it never tries to be anything else but a good ol' time. It's text is fresh, never breaking characters out of themselves to be existential, symbolic, but rather characters to whom the characters can relate. The characters develop at a good pace, though sometimes the teenage angle is a touch too much, at times making the main character harder to sympathize with through her whining. The angle of approach is realistic, revealing that superheroes are human, too, and won't always say or do the right thing, but they sure try. Except for a couple mechanical errors here and there, plus a strange penchant for commas between simple, easy adjectives (that was an example) in the beginning of the book, Joe Sergi delivers a book that is professional the first time around. I read this book in two days because of how easy and absorbing it was. May you enjoy this book as much as I did.

For more information, visit: www.skygirlnovel.com

The Dempsey Gambit by Ben Lacy

Reviewed by S.B. Jung.

The premise of The Dempsey Gambit is human cloning and the ethics behind successfully cloning another human being. The story adds dimension to this question with the ability to clone anyone from history with a full memory provided scientists can find their residual energy signature in a particular place. Lacy does not go for the cliché idea of cloning someone like Albert Einstein, Adolf Hitler, or any other prominent figure in history. Rather, the story revolves around the cloning of former heavyweight champion Jack Dempsey, all for the sake of a desperate boxing manager bouncing on financial thin ice. The scientists involved did it for the funding only to discover that duplicating a human being is not as simple as it seems on paper.

The beauty of the story comes from watching as the cloned Jack Dempsey adapts to a new world and society almost a century after his own. He has the memories of the original Dempsey as well as the skill, prowess, and strength of the original, but once he understands his new surroundings, he starts to see if he can make his own life without just following in the original's footsteps. The story also follows the female scientist, Rebecca, involved in his cloning and the ethical questions she cannot escape.

The story is a complicated twist of drama, enemies become close friends, and moral questioning that is just lovely. Lacy rarely gets overly cliché and does an excellent job of making Dempsey both a fish out of water and a person who is light years ahead of society with his simplistic angles of thinking. Lacy begs the question of whether cloning is something to really pursue in this society, or if perhaps science should leave well enough alone. This book is more of a dive into moral waters than pure science fiction, so keep that in mind before picking it up.

A few things that keep this book from being perfect is a need for a thorough line editor. There are enough mistakes with spelling, verb tense, possessives, and punctuation that threaten the integrity of the story. Also, there is a transition problem in the first half of the book when narration switches between Jack's and Rebecca's perspectives. A full sentence or perhaps simply providing the dates and times at the beginning of chapters would allow an easier transition without the need to think of news ways to introduce time overlap. Finally, there is almost too much on boxing that a layman, like myself, starts to feel burdened with knowledge. There is a fine line between showing the audience that you did your homework and giving so much information that the audience becomes disinterested. Those sections need to be culled in order to fit with the rest of the book.

Overall, I recommend this book as long as you keep those minor errors mentioned in mind. Kudos, Mr. Lacy.

The book is available for the Kindle.

Fashion Police By: Sibel Hodge

Review For the New Podler Review of Books by S.B. Jung

Hodge created a lovely chick-lit/thriller storyline that reminds me of Charlaine Harris’ Lily Bard mysteries that I love to eat up. The main character, Amber Fox, is a jilted ex-cop out for revenge against her incompetent superior officer, Janice Skipper, whose goal in life is to look beautiful, destroy others more competent that herself, and snag Amber’s Latin Lover for herself. Her dismissal from the Hertfordshire police force forces her to work for her ex-fiance in order to make ends meet. The storyline follows the disappearance of a famous fashion designer and his latest collection. The story has a lot of promise, and some simple clean-up would help the story flow better and reach a more diverse audience. The characters are mostly fun and the story is a nice read. The love triangle Amber Fox finds herself in is a nice touch of humanity and vulnerability, though her indecision gets to be much after awhile. We don’t want a heroine with a penchant for whining, do we?

Issues: First, the book takes place in England, so some of the slang and references are lost on a Yankee like myself. I understood references such as “flat” (apartment) and “boot” (trunk of the car), but others lost on me. If the book had been meant as a regional book, it wouldn’t make a difference, but since this review site caters to an American audience, better care needs to be given in order to market to an international audience.

As for the storyline, it was polished enough but for a few problems. First, Amber is forced to field too many assignments at once. All of them tie together to the overall picture, but time needs to be taken so the reader can absorb what’s happening and digest. Also, the part where Amber has a dream sequence and magically finds a program the Hacker can use for facial recognition is just too convenient. More development is needed her to make this wholly believable.

Also, the author seemed a little too stereotypical in her portrayal of one particular character which almost had me stop reading. Her decision to make “the Hacker” a black male would have been normal, but she decides to have him be a Haitian versed in Voodoo (voudon or Vodun are more proper), dress in over-sized hip-hop clothing, and eat only natural foods. Hodge points out his eccentricities over and over again, saying things like, “He had to be the least techy-looking guy I’d ever seen: black, over six and half feet tall with two plaits sticking out the top of his head, a hoodie three sizes too big, jeans that were so baggy they defied the laws of gravity, and a goatee beard. He looked more like a gangster rapper than a computer expert” (Hodge 2). It is this stereotyping of minorities that can be insulting and offensive to both the targeted race as well as those who do not tolerate discrimination of any sort. Stereotyping like this alienates more sensitive readers. She could have treated this in a much better manner than this and other references to the Hacker as Snoop Dogg. This is a personal opinion of mine, for the record, and some may not see into it as much as I do, so if you read it please bear that in mind.

This book is available from Amazon.

S.B. Jung has been an English Teacher since 2002. She has been writing plays, poems, and novels since 1997; Lines of Neutrality is her first published work. You can find the book at Amazon or other online retailers.

Book Review: Dead Forever: Awakening By William Campbell

William Campbell tackles the subject of reincarnation in his novel Dead Forever: Awakening. In this story, we find a group of rebels fighting for the right to live as they wish and conform to their own whims rather than someone else’s. The enemy is the Association, bent on making every sentient species they encounter conform to their idea of perfection in order to stamp out chaos and elements of violent dissent. The reincarnation comes into play in this book because the rebel society is fully aware of the soul’s ability to be reborn. In fact, one of the ingenious parts of the book that Campbell does well is that, if someone dies in a war, they have alternate vessels waiting for the soul to occupy and re-enter battle.

Another smart idea Campbell has is full memory and the Association’s hatred of this soul memory from lifetime to lifetime. How do you kill something that will just rise again to fight you? The Association’s answer is to brainwash people using pain as a deterrent to free thought and to teach the soul that there is only one lifetime and that God will decide where you will spend eternity—Heaven or Hell. Then, the body is disposed of with the soul following it blindly to the far ends of the known galaxy, unaware of the power of reincarnation.

As brilliant as the concept is, this is one of the things that was poorly done in the book. It philosophizes too much and too soon to be natural; information is given too quickly in the beginning. The main character, one who was rescued from the brainwashing, is subjected by excited compatriots spilling the ideas of why reincarnation makes so much more sense than the idea of God, Heaven, and Hell. The aggressive approach to anti-Christian life-after-death mentality is introduced too early and can serve to put people off who, given better lead in and less obvious comparison may actually have given readers more to think about. It also has these odd lucid dreaming sequences that are a bit too existential to fuse well with the rest of the book’s content.

Characterization suffered as well, mostly with the believability of the main character. The main character shifts from being a hardened soldier, to a crude mouthed drunk, to a philosophizing spiritual, to a man who literally can use thought to heal himself and fix anything in sight, all in one book. People are multi-faceted, but this is just too much for one book to cover in the amount written. More time and development of the plot and characters would probably have made a longer, but so much more smooth plot line to follow.

Lastly, grammar was sometimes left at the roadside and made it difficult to understand what the author was trying to convey. I choose one problematic paragraph from the beginning of the book because it was the one I remember the most. Others I had to skip over because my mind refused to try and wade through it all.

“Even though I’ve seen it all before, every visit I have to gawk at the odd knock-knacks mounted to the walls. A car’s grill, banged up road signs, on the other wall an antique something, looks like an egg-beater, next to a transistor radio, and ancient photos behind cracked glass in broken frames, of people from some other century. Dusty junk hangs from the ceiling, worn tools with splintery handles, a pogo-stick, that might be fun, next to a rusty saber, all sorts of crap”.

The combination of sentence fragments, commas instead of semi-colons, and random thoughts mixed in without warning to the reader, jolted me out of my reader chair and into my teacher’s chair as I strove to make sense of what I was reading. Though this did not happen throughout the book, it happened enough that I settled more comfortably into the mindset of having to switch between being a reader and being a teacher in order to safely navigate through the all the book’s grammatical bends. It is understandable that an author does not need to be completely perfect at grammar, and that a misplaced comma or two won’t kill anybody, but there are basic rules to follow so that ideas are not lost on the audience.

All in all, the book was enjoyable enough, but the plot and main character need more development and better ways to naturally incorporate the author’s ideas without making the story feel as though it is going through a sci-fi vs. spiritual guidance personality crisis.

Dead Forever: Awakening is available through Amazon Kindle.