The Best of 2010

Yeah, I know. "Best of..." posts are supposed to come out either in December or January. Well, we've been a tad bit busy with stuff so we're just getting around to compiling our choices for best books that we've reviewed here on the blog.

Before, when it was just Podler, it was very easy to come up with one book to receive the Independent Novel Award. One reader, one judge. Getting three people with very different tastes, not to mention genre interests, to agree on one book out of twenty-three as being the very best would be impossible. Therefore, we agreed to each pick that book (or books) which we felt was the very best.

First up is S.B. Jung.

My pick for 2010 would have to be SkyGirl and the Superheroic Legacy by Joe Sergi. I read through that book in less than 48 hours!

Libby Cone's top two picks were: Arguing with Henry by Niall Hunter ZombieStop Parade by Richard Buzzell Both books were extremely refreshing in their authors' skill with prose style and nuance. Although one would not guess it of ZombieStop, both books were character-driven. What goes on inside someone's head can be just as riveting as fiery explosions and mass computer crashes; it just takes an author with talent to share it with us.

As for me, it was very difficult to select one book as I found examples of great stories over a few genres. Libby Cone's Flesh and Grass was not your run-of-the-mill historical fiction. To be able to tell the story of a blind Dutch boy, from his POV, deserves high praise. Libby's vivid descriptions of the scents and sounds of 17th Century Delaware were a treat.

Although I didn't review S.B. Jung's Lines of Neutrality, I read it and commented about how the reviewer missed the point of the story. Characterization, not action, was the star here. Alternating the narration from the two main characters, both assassins, was a superb way of presenting the story. Witnessing the evolution of their relationship from rivals to allies was thoroughly enjoyable.

And then there was Rob Steiner's The Last Key. I'd become a bit jaded with high fantasy after reading so many Tolkein clones. I couldn't tell you the last time I read anything in the genre. But when I read the sample chapters lying in the slush pile, I was hooked despite myself. Realistic action, characters with depth, a compelling story, Rob's story had it all. It was a pleasure to be able to read a high fantasy story and not feel like it was cardboard characters executing a formula.

These are three very different stories: historical fiction, contemporary thriller and medieval high fantasy. And all of them were written by my fellow reviewers. I wanted to praise them for their hard work, but to avoid cries of nepotism, I shall pick another story.

And it isn't a difficult choice. The Losing Role by Steve Anderson gets my vote as the best story I reviewed in 2010 here at this blog. This work of historical fiction, traces the story of Max Kaspar, an out-of-work German actor turned soldier, recruited to play a crucial role in Operation Greif during the Battle of the Bulge. Excellent dialogue, well-crafted characters, and enough dramatic tension to saw a Panzer in half, The Losing Role is an excellent blend of noir and espionage thriller.

Thank you for your patronage. We'll try to be a bit more timely with our "Best of 2011" post. :)

Pale Boundaries by Scott Cleveland

In Scott Cleveland's debut novel, Pale Boundaries, Terson Reilly and his wife, Virene, are out boating when they witness a spacecraft crash into the sea. They speed over to the crash site to affect a rescue of the crew. Normally, such heroic behavior would be praised or even rewarded, but neither the government nor the owners of the spacecraft are pleased with them.

First off, the spacecraft that crashed had cargo belonging to an interplanetary crime family. They fear that Terson and Virene may have discovered incriminating evidence about them in the wreckage and feel obligated to eliminate the couple.

Terson is an involuntary immigrant to Nivia, a world with strict environmental and population control laws. On his homeworld of Algran Asta, he was an ex-cop turned helicopter pilot. An accidental run in with the wrong crowd got him booted off the planet and nearly cost him his life.

Having come from a cloudy, high gravity world, Terson's short stature and intolerance to Nivia's ample sunlight make him stick out like a sore thumb. An immigrant with a criminal record isn't exactly welcome on Nivia. Population controls dictate that his presence means one less pregnancy license will be issued. It seems like every knucklehead with a grievance is compelled to take it out on Terson. Not one to walk away from a fight, each altercation lands him behind bars.

As the couple was outside of the sanctioned coastal boundary, the authorities immediately suspected them of being poachers. Considering Terson's criminal record, the authorities doubt the credibility of his story. The one person who believes Terson and Virene is their parole officer and police captain, Maalan Bragg. While he's not blind to the couple's checkered past, he suspects that they're innocent and in over their heads.

Cleveland could've kept to the "wrong place at the wrong time" plot and it would've been fine, but there's even more going on in this story. There are sub-plots involving the crime family's members and its dealings with the government and the natives that if I write any more than this I'll be spoiling it for you. There are so many factions involved, each with its own agenda, that Cleveland must be given credit for tying it all together. It would fall apart in the hands of a less talented writer.

Cleveland also deserves praise for his skill at crafting realistic characters. While Terson is a tough guy and a loner, Cleveland shows how he came to be that way and we don't blame him. When Virene penetrates his hardened exterior, we get to see just how emotionally vulnerable he is. It lends credibility to Terson's ability to survive the physical punishment he endures.

On the other side is Halsor Tennison. He's the local head of the crime family and could very well be a two-dimensional villain. However, Cleveland takes a lesson from David Chase, the creator of The Sopranos, and makes Tennsion a human being rather than some run of the mill TV bad guy. When Tennison isn't hunting down Terson, he's dealing with rival factions, both within and without, staying hidden from the part of the government his family doesn't control and his complicated love life. The latter reveals his vulnerabilities. If it weren't for the fact that he's after Terson, you'd be inclined to root for him.

As for the technicals, there are only a handful of typos, half of which occurred in the last fifty pages of the book. The dialogue is spot on and seamlessly blends with the exposition. Cleveland's writing style displays a maturity typically only seen in seasoned veterans. I can't help but wonder why this book wasn't picked up by a major publisher.

My one gripe with Pale Boundaries, and it's a small one, is that it ends unfinished. I realize a series requires individual books to leave the overall story open, but there are too many unresolved issues. While the story has a climax, I didn't recognize it until I started writing this review. It took place 60 pages before the end of the book! While Terson, Tennison and the other characters deal with important matters afterward, the dramatic tension has already abated so the end of the book comes as anti-climactic. Perhaps this extra material could've been saved for the sequel.

My one minor complaint aside, Scott Cleveland has crafted a wonderful, action-packed story with layers of sub-plots to keep readers engrossed from start to finish. His characters, whether good or bad, are all real human beings with the strengths and vulnerabilities that come with the territory. While it's evident that he did his research on the science underlying the story, the sci-fi element is downplayed enough to make Pale Boundaries accessible to readers outside of the genre. I look forward to the sequel.

Pale Boundaries is available from Amazon.

Pairs by D. W. Richards

This book is about two (predominantly straight) couples. The men are cousins with little in common save blood; the women are from very disparate backgrounds. They are all (except maybe Adam, who seems to have his life together already but is conveniently unattached) relatively nice people who have had setbacks in their pasts. They are ready to pick up and move on to better things. Both couples meet cute, take ages to have sex, then go at it with enthusiasm. There is a lot of humor here, especially the character Kayley's grandmother, whom we never meet, but whose deftly sprinkled stream-of-consciousness phone calls are expertly crafted, and reminded me of the razor-sharp prologues to both parts of Angels in America.

The ongoing story is quite entertaining. Occasionally one realizes that the author is trying to run a subplot underneath all the conversations, flirting, sex, personal growth, and confessions. This arises awkwardly; Chapter 16 concludes “A cathartic sorrow overwhelmed Kayley, and she wept quietly.” The very next chapter ends with “A cathartic sorrow overwhelmed Alexandra, and she wept softly.” Am I missing something? I mean, I get the part about renovating the house.

There is something else about Kayley's departed ex-boyfriend and a poem they wrote together, but it gets so little emphasis that its infrequent mentions, and a recovered letter from the deceased, read at the end of the book, are somewhat anticlimactic.

Mr. Richards' prose can be awfully good: “A weak grin slid onto Kayley's face and led into a quiet pop of breath that Adam interpreted to be a distant and shattered cousin of laughter.” Some same-sex attractions, mostly fleeting, flow easily with the narrative. Inexplicably, besides the slightly-more-than-tolerable number of typos are some other quirks. One character owns a “Berber umbrella.” I have searched Google, thinking that there may be more drizzle in North Africa than I have been led to believe. All I could come up with was “...unless one is prepared to disagree with the whole concept of closely related Afrasan 'languages' brought under the 'Berber' umbrella...” Does he mean Barbour? Burberry?

The author pays the bills by being an accountant but I would have guessed he is an architect. I counted the word “foyer” ten times in the text. If I weren't so cheap I could have bought the Kindle version and found a few more with the search function. I checked the poem that is so infrequently mentioned yet so fraught with a meaning that escapes me: no “foyer.” Is it a metaphor for the birth canal? A critique of urban Canadian residential architecture? Wait; do Berber dwellings have foyers? A friend suggested that perhaps Richards is very fond of the author Jonathan Safran Foer and betrays this unconsciously in his writing; it's a reasonable theory.

Quibbles aside, I enjoyed the story and recommend it to those who are looking for well-rounded characters and overall good writing.

Digger's Bones by Paul Mansfield Keefe

Newspaper reporter Angie Cooper has a past filled with regrets. She was once an up and coming archeologist, but it all came to an end when she rushed to publish findings that later turned out to be false. Not only did she lose her career, but she lost the respect of her close colleagues and her boyfriend at the time, Jack Reilly. Only her friend Terek “Digger” Rashid stuck by her side and defended her through the scientific firestorm.

So when Angie receives a frantic phone call from Digger pleading for her help with an explosive archeological find, she doesn't hesitate – she hops on the next flight to Washington DC to help her best friend. But then Digger is murdered before her eyes, forcing Angie to race from Washington DC to Israel to Germany trying to find an ancient set of bones that could overturn two thousand years of theology. Angie faces professional hit men, murderous religious zealots, and a powerful politician who will stop at nothing to ensure she does not bring the truth to light.

Paul Mansfield Keefe's Diggers Bones is professionally written and fast-paced, evoking the thrills and conspiracy theories of Dan Brown. Keefe does a good job spacing out the clues to the mystery of Digger's bones, keeping the reader guessing as to where the next clue will lead Angie. He also throws in several plot twists that turn the story in a completely different direction. I can't get into the twists here without giving them away, but the stakes exponentially rise with each new revelation.

Digger's Bones is a commendable effort, but it falls short in ways that keep it from rising above the other religious conspiracy thrillers on the market.

For example, an “every woman” like Angie Cooper manages to elude or fight off supposedly professional hit men way too often. There were so many scenes like this that I expected another attempt on her life – and escape – every time she walked out the door. The deus ex machina got very thick at times.

And while Angie is a sympathetic character and heroic in many ways, her story motivations seemed confused. One moment she “swoons” over old boyfriend Jack Reilly and wants “nothing more” than to be his wife, but in the next she wants “nothing more” than to find Digger's bones, even though Jack threatens to break up with her over her dangerous quest. It's not made clear why she wants so badly to be with a man who won't support her in something she feels is so important. Or why she's willing to lose the man she loves to pursue this quest.

But these issues aside, Digger's Bones is a good first effort by Keefe. The quality of his writing and the scope of his story are at a professional level. If he keeps in mind the lessons he learned in this first book, I have no doubt his Angie Cooper Series will take off.

You can find Digger's Bones on Amazon, Smashwords, Barnes & Noble, and in the Apple iBook Store. Find out more about Paul Mansfield Keefe at his web site.

Submissions Update

Hi all,

We've received a lot of genre submissions of late so we're going to close the door to anything in the horror, fantasy, alternate history, thriller and science fiction categories. Rob, S.B. and I have enough to keep us busy for a while. Our two trainee reviewers are wading through the slush trying to get something together.

Fortunately, Libby, our literary reviewer, is still available to read your submissions. Just make sure that what you're submitting suits her tastes. If you're unsure, check her past reviews to get an idea.

Genre authors should check back sometime in January before submitting. Checking the "caught up through" date will give you an indication of our progress, though rejections will come sooner.

Reviews will continue. Rob Steiner will be posting one shortly. Libby, the trainees and I are reading submitted stories and will post our reviews when time permits. The holidays tend to get in the way. :)

\_/
DED

Hell and Gone by Henry Brown

<—Original cover on the left. New cover on the right. —> Just looking at the covers, which book would you rather buy? Presented as a lesson to indie authors on the importance of investing in one's book covers.

Veteran's Day was yesterday (Thank you to all who served). In light of that, Hell and Gone seemed like an appropriate book to review.

The plot is pretty straightforward: Muslim terrorists have a nuclear bomb. The CIA recruits a dirty baker's dozen of veterans and mercenaries to neutralize the threat. There are only a few questions: "Will they succeed?", "How high will the body count be?" and "Who's going home in a body bag?" Instead, Brown focuses his creative energy on the characters and the action scenes.

In an action thriller it would be very easy for the characters to resemble cardboard props waiting their turn to become cannon fodder, but Brown doesn't go that route. Each of his characters has a story and Brown gives each one the time to tell it, although with the sheer number present some get more time than others. And they're a diverse, fractious lot. Yes, they're all dark-skinned (Caucasians would be a dead giveaway in the Sudan, where the action takes place) ex-military or mercenaries loaded up with testosterone, but the similarities end there. They're distinct individuals with their own sets of skills and shortcomings. They're men, not superheroes. You'll hate Mai for his arrogance and bigotry, but you'll admire Scarred Wolf's ability to execute his bloody job with honor and integrity.

The villains in Hell and Gone are truly evil. I don't say that lightly. The manipulation that the Jihadist leader, Ali, and his Chinese consultant, Chin, put fifteen-year old Bassam through is nothing short of diabolical. The scary part is, none of it comes across as far-fetched.

Brown, a veteran himself, uses his characters to address a range of issues. He explores veteran alienation through several men. We get to see how each dealt with feeling disconnected from friends, family and country once they were “back in the World.” There's also the matter of American foreign policy. At his weakest point, Brown's characters sound like they're reading neocon talking points from the back of a cereal box. But at his best, he presents an intelligent examination of our relationship to Israel and the Middle East. You'll wish our leaders would have such a frank discussion with all the facts, rather than dishing out the rhetoric.

The battle scenes are meticulously detailed. It wouldn't surprise me if Brown built scale models of the locales in his basement so that he could properly choreograph each step and shot. He'll have vets and military aficionados nodding their heads as he relates the pros and cons of various weapons down to their milspecs. Meanwhile, civvies will run to Wikipedia to look up the old planes that have been out-of-service in the Western World for decades. But he doesn't do it to impress anyone, he does it to stay true to his characters and himself.

While the dialogue is great, I do have gripes. For a bunch of leathernecks, they never curse! "Shit" doesn't appear until three quarters of the way through the book. "Damned" has been replaced by "doomed." Every variation of profanity involving "dick" has been replaced by "Richard." For example, "limp Richard" and "Richard head." And there isn't a single F-bomb. This behavior is never explained and strikes me as disingenuous.

As for the technicals, a few homophones slipped through the cracks. There are a few point-of-view shifts that might violate some rule somewhere, but honestly they don't disorient the reader at all. Towards the end of the final battle, the writing breaks down into short, choppy sentences, which impart the feel of a grocery list of action rather than a flowing narrative.

Overall, Hell and Gone is a military thriller that delivers the goods on the action, has vivid, realistic characters who interact with great dialogue, and presents some food for thought. If enough people chew on it, maybe the all too plausible scenario presented here will remain fiction, assuming it hasn't happened already.

Hell and Gone is available in print from Amazon and in several eBook formats from Smashwords. Free samples are available through the author's website and at Smashwords.

Fixing Mr. Styx by Geoffrey Thorne

Looking for a quick read this Halloween? Say, about 30 pages? Then, might I suggest Fixing Mr. Styx by Geoffrey Thorne. It's a paranormal urban fantasy where demons and magic are real and a high priced gopher, I mean "procurement specialist," finally gets the one job that will make or break… the world as we know it.

Mr. Styx, an alias for our protagonist, Sherman, finds "things" for his clients. Typically they're magic items, but sometimes he solves missing persons cases. Unfortunately, these are people who would prefer to stay missing. While he won't get his hands bloody, his conscience looks the other way if his clients make a mess of the mark. When we meet Sherman, he's in his favorite diner (not so much for the food as it is for the plethora of exits) being offered a job he's not allowed to refuse by a couple of lineman-sized thugs who are far more sinister than they appear to be.

Despite all of Sherman's flaws, Thorne makes him out to be a likable character. He's aware of his moral shortcomings, but acknowledges they're necessary for survival in the line of work he's in. Thorne spends a good deal of time exploring Sherman's character and reveals how he came to be the man he is. While on the surface, he resembles a Gen X version of the hard-nosed detective of many a pulp fiction story, underneath there's a vulnerability that belies that exterior.

Thorne's writing style makes for an entertaining read. To add to the almost noir-like atmosphere, he pours on the similes and metaphors like syrup over a steaming fresh stack of blueberry pancakes. Mmmmmm. It fits in well with establishing Sherman's character, his clients and the grim city he lives in.

As for the technicals, there are several typos. They were easy enough to find and could easily have been eliminated if a second set of eyes had gone over the manuscript before publishing. However, none of them were bad enough to detract from the story. Small bumps in the road as it were.

I understand that this is the third story in Thorne's "Grim Arcana" series. I'm not sure what the other titles are but you don't need to have read them to enjoy this story, though I suspect you'll want to. With Fixing Mr. Styx, I feel like we've come in at the end of a story, and I'm left wanting to know how we got here. Only in Resident Evil can you have a sequel to "Apocalypse." Thorne throws us enough bones to want to read more about Sherman's past exploits that led up to this encounter. A novel, or a collection of novellas, highlighting his misadventures in expanded form is what I'd like to see.

All-in-all, Fixing Mr. Styx is a highly enjoyable excursion into a dangerous world that exists just outside the corner of our eyes.

Fixing Mr. Styx is available for FREE from Smashwords as part of a Halloween promotion. Once the Day of the Dead rolls in, all bets are off.

Update 11/1/10: Got word from Mr. Thorne's editor that the typos were his fault, not Mr. Thorne's, and that they've been corrected.

Lodestone Book One: The Sea of Storms by Mark Whiteway

Reviewed for the New Podler Review of Books by Rob Steiner

Lodestone Book One: The Sea of Storms by Mark Whiteway has a unique way of making a science fiction story feel like a fantasy.

The world of Kelanni is populated by a pastoral intelligent race that suffered a terrible cataclysm in the distant past, driving society into a dark age. Into this dark age comes an alien being known as the Prophet who enslaves the Kelanni with his powerful Keltar “priests.” The Keltar use “lodestones,” rocks with strange physical properties, to power their technology – from flying cloaks to communication rings to cannons and grenades. The Keltar force the Kelanni to mine the lodestones for the Prophet's own nefarious purposes.

Most Kelanni meekly accept the way things are. But a small group of patriots led by a former Keltar apprentice named Lyall and his best friend Alondo, fight back by using the Keltar's lodestone technology against them. They recruit a young, talented Kelanni named Shann into their rebellion and set out to free the Kelanni slaves.

Along the way they meet Keris, a Keltar with a crisis of faith who was persuaded by an intelligent caterpillar-like creature named Boxx that the Prophet is constructing a weapon to destroy the Kelanni people and take the Kelanni world as his own. They learn the Prophet is building this weapon on the other side of the Kelanni world, so Keris, Boxx, Lyall, Alondo, and Shann set out across the Kelanni frontier to find the weapon and destroy it before the Prophet can complete it.

The Sea of Storms does what the first book in any series is supposed to do – introduce us to the main characters and set up the world they inhabit. In most respects, the book does this very well.

We learn that Lyall is the moral voice of the small band of rebels, Alondo is the comic relief, Shann the cynical teenager, and Keris the brooding warrior with a haunted past. Boxx is a truly alien creature that keeps the other characters guessing with its endearingly cryptic speech.

And the world of Kelanni – with its three suns the people worship as gods – has the strange regions and creatures you'd expect to find in a fantasy novel. The Fire Pits. The Great Barrier of Storms. The Serpent of Karthrun. But that's where the fantasy ends. The science fiction comes in with the lodestones, which are supposed to be a form of technology that Whiteway based on Einstein's theories of “negative matter.”

The book is fun, but it does have its down sides.

For one, it can be very plot driven at times. Some of the characters abandon long-held beliefs at the drop of a hat in order to make choices the plot obviously demanded. For example, Keris the Keltar abandons her faith, her mentor, and the only life she has ever known after getting a dubious message regarding the Prophet's secret weapon. A message which someone in her position should at least have been skeptical. And Lyall, the leader of the rebellion, seems way too trusting of the strangers he meets on their quest. It makes one wonder how he survives in a society where the Keltar are all-powerful and betrayal is supposedly common.

The world-building was fine, but it did have some holes. Like the nomadic race that wanders the plains hunting herds of buffalo-type creatures...and “brews their own wine.” Now that's okay, but the author never explains where in their wagons they store their vineyards.

But with that said, Lodestone Book One: The Sea of Storms is a fast-paced adventure that doesn't spend a lot of time with character navel gazing, or devote pages to technology or magic description like many sci-fi/fantasy door stoppers today. All those things are there, but they come out at appropriate times through the action in the story, and they do not slow down the narrative. Give The Sea of Storms a try if you're looking for a short, action-packed read.

You can find Lodestone Book One: Sea of Storms on Amazon, along with its sequel, Lodestone Book Two: The World of Ice and Stars. It is also available in ebook form from Smashwords.

Rob Steiner is the author of The Last Key.

Lulu Makes A Big Mistake

I received the following email over the weekend from Lulu:

Get your book on the iBookstore with our eBook Conversion Service

Get your book on the iPad (TM) and other eReaders

eBook Conversion Services

Lulu now offers eBook conversion services to take your book into the future. Get your book ready for the iBookstore*, the iPad and other eReaders with our ePub conversion service. Based on your page size, please select the appropriate service.

ePub Conversion Services
250 pages or less: $99
251-500 pages: $199
501-750 pages: $299

This is a service that Amazon and Smashwords provide for FREE.

Why is Lulu doing this? Are they trying to recoup the investment made to create or license the software? Are they completely ignorant of what Smashwords is doing here? Or even Amazon? Or are they hoping that authors are?

When I first looked to self-publish my novel, Armistice Day, the only option I had was to go with a vanity press. Not wishing to spend thousands of dollars on printing costs (I'd already spent plenty on editing), I chose to wait. Then along came Lulu with its zero start up costs. They made their money as copies of each book were printed and sold. All in all, I was happy with them.

A year later, I'm not so happy. While I've been fortunate not to have any quality issues, I've discovered that their book production costs make it difficult for a nobody like myself to sell copies at a competitive price. My research has determined that $15 is too high. I've had success with a $10 price point as it is only slightly higher than mass market paperbacks. Unfortunately, my per unit cost with shipping is around $11/book.

Now Lulu wants to up their presence in the hot ebook market. But they're forgetting that the reason why ebooks are hot is that they're cheap. Charging a hundred dollars and up for the service when most indie ebooks sell for $2.99 means that an author will need to sell a lot of copies just to break even. But since Smashwords and Amazon don't charge a thing, I think that this is a serious mistake. For me, it's further evidence that a formerly good company for independent authors has failed to adjust to the changing publishing climate.

Erasing the Stigma of Self-Publishing

If you read this blog, you know all about the stigma of self-publishing. I won't waste your time rehashing the debate. We know that there are gems in the indie publishing world and we like to dig them up. Every so often, one of the traditional publishing companies realizes that they're out there too and snatches them up.

Really. It happens.

For instance, Kristen Tsetsi had two books picked up by an undisclosed publisher. Kristen's novel, Homefront was one of those two books and it was reviewed here by Podler three years ago.

Good things come to those who persevere. Congratulations, Kristen!

ZombieStop Parade by Richard Buzzell (aka ZombieStopperUno)

This book is entertaining, not so much for its plot as for its style. There are truckloads of books telling tales of young progressives working to enlighten the masses about corrupt systems, but few told in such a fresh and economical way.

The whole story unfolds in the form of a diary kept by the unnamed best friend of a late-teens/early-twenties college dropout named Corky. Both guys are unhappy with the way large corporations seem to break the rules and expect the population to buy their twisted rationalizations as expressed by the corporate-owned mainstream media. There is much mention of a recent "financial fiasco," which everyone is dealing with, and which is being spun as usual to make the corporations look blameless. Corky and his friend run a progressive blog called ZombieStop, which they founded when twelve years of age. It includes a forum and, as the book progresses, a satirical comic strip. Corky is also a DJ at an invitation-only club. The two guys are very good at what they do, and very careful about letting things go to their heads. They just want people to stop being zombies.

The plot has a few twists and turns, but what held me from beginning to end was the spare and elegant prose style. This is the diary of a young man with a close friend whom he admires. They share a common goal, and are willing to put in hours, years, really, in front of computer screens to achieve it. His trust of Corky is tested from time to time by others; he doesn't go crazy or confront Corky at knife-point or anything; he just reflects upon his feelings in the diary. It is a real treat to read someone's thoughts about friendship, loyalty, truth, and doubt when they are presented so honestly, and in a very clever deadpan style.

The book reads like a Jane Austen novel; any really intense action occurs offstage (in this case, a house and a yacht are blown up after some embarrassing personal finance information is uploaded to the blog by someone calling himself the Jackal; this brings the blog under suspicion but also boosts its following). What the reader is treated to is the inner thoughts of the number two guy as he handles the blog's newfound fame, the rekindling of a relationship he has had with a lover who criticizes him constantly, and the intrusive and leading questions of an FBI agent assigned to sniff out conspiracies. The friend discusses at length Corky's common-sense progressive ideology and his quietly subversive style without ever sounding didactic or fawning; he is able to show doubt, modesty, and humor in a way that is rare in literature of this type.

Downside? The prose, while very good, could do with a comma-ectomy. Buzzell also needs to decide upon English (“neighbourhood”) vs American (“labor”) spelling. But these are easily fixed, and do not detract from this little gem of a novel.

Author's Blog

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.

The Smashwords Conveyor Belt

It has been a while since I have sampled the treasures of Smashwords as they arrive hot off the server. Once again, I am looking at the book-length literary fiction offerings available today, September 15. I mainly read the samples, which are often generous, but if I really love a book, I buy it. I am skipping thrillers and any other genres I feel would be better judged by another member of the staff.

First up is G. K. Ingersoll's The Atheist Vignettes. This is a mostly well-written pastiche of pieces about people, mostly former members of a group called Chris†eens, who are confronting their doubts about faith as they enter middle age. We are treated to sections of a play interspersed with vignettes (naturally) of characters in various states of dogmatic compliance/anxiety interacting with one another. The dialog seems very sharp and realistic; the only problem is with the play excerpt at the beginning, featuring a dialog between God and Satan. The name of the speaker does not begin every line, so the reader is constantly referring back to the top of the page and counting downward “God, Satan, God, Satan...” to the line in question. There are also a few syntactical errors, but overall it looks like an interesting read.

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Next, we have three offerings from the mysterious “Dorian Taylor.” Is he real? Is he alive? Is he dead? The preface of each work only hints.

I will start with Modern Problems. We are told of an author using the pseudonym “Dorian Taylor,” an artist plagued by anomie who just cannot get it together to find a market for his writing. The book is a pastiche of narratives, beginning with a poem. I think Taylor has a story to tell, but first he has to fix the errors and the derivative style. I'm sure he can come up with a more interesting description of a dancer than comparing her to Terpsichore:

“From all that he could conger up in his mind in later years, all that really presented itself to his memory were Jamie's legs…”

“Standing still she was a homely little girl from Nebraska, in motion she was Terpsichore, the Goddess of the dance, and she came from Mount Olympus.

“There is or maybe was, a bar off of Washington Square, situated in the basement. It had chess boards painted on it's tables, and the chief reason for going there was to discuss philosophy, or literature, or maybe play a game of chess, while sipping the French liquid fire called Pernod” (italics mine)…

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Top 40 is a book that uses old (and I mean OLD) pop tunes as chapter headings in stories about the author as a “man out of time.” Being old myself, I can relate. I didn't get through enough of the sample to see if he actually used Joni Mitchell's “Urge for Going,” but it's what comes to mind. The image of the rambling man who “marches to a different drummer” or “hears the call of the road,” or (if I ever write my own song) “is too narcissistic to commit to anyone” is very prominent. I'm hoping it was a satirical treatment, but when he misspelled “Iliad” I couldn't go on.

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Billed as “Georgette Heyer meets the Marquis De Sade,” Taylor's Volatile Elements makes for more interesting reading. It is about a very wealthy man who owns vineyards and other revenue-producing ventures, a man who came by his money in a very unfortunate way that I wish Taylor had elaborated much more upon. He meets up with a long-lost girlfriend, and we are treated to multiple points of view, as well as lots of steamy sex. I think Taylor's characters become much more interesting when they are making love rather than soliloquizing. This seems to be the most mature of the works.

UPDATE: We think this has been republished as The Gaze of the Abyss.

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Elder Wonder Comes of Age is a book about horny Mormons. It's very funny. It's Mormon practice to send their young eighteen-year-old men to do two years of missionary work. They can have only limited contact with family and friends while on a mission. The protagonist, Jerry Wonder, already has one strike against him: he's a vegetarian. Also, as most eighteen-year-old humans, he's constantly thinking about sex. He is sent to New Zealand, where, under the very watchful eye of a senior elder, he goes out proselytizing with other horny teens. It is the early 1960's, and everybody is worried about what direction the Cold War will take. They get a mixed reception in New Zealand; their hard-sell tactics anger many people. As a Jew (Jews don't seek converts), I found it unnerving to read about Jerry's partner lying to an elderly Jewish woman, telling her they were sent by her Rabbi to visit her. Jerry refuses to back up the other missionary's faith statements. Meanwhile, his girlfriend has taken a job as a stewardess so she can see him in New Zealand. I may have to buy this one…

The Last Key by Rob Steiner

In Rob Steiner's, The Last Key, Raven Labrend is a Novice Dahkshari, an Order of Faith on the continent of Andea. He and his mentor, Jalen Drummond, are tasked with escorting Seala Mesalek, a Duke's daughter and heir, to a peace treaty signing between the kingdoms of Andea and Loquath. The ceremony is to be held at her uncle's castle. It should come as no surprise that the journey is fraught with perilous adventure.

The modern fantasy genre evolved out of fairy tales, legends and mythology. It peaked with Tolkien and his success spawned many imitators, good and bad. As such, we've all been exposed to these stories and are familiar with the elements that go into a high fantasy story: swords and magic, mythical creatures, kings and queens, valiant heroes and fair maidens, and the titanic struggle between good and evil. It would be all too easy for Steiner's story to simply follow that well-worn path and for his characters to fall into two-dimensional stereotypes, but they don't.

Steiner's characters have a measure of depth to them. Raven, is the valiant hero who wants nothing more than to emulate his mentor, Jalen, and to do that he must respect the strict rules of the Dahkshari. But he struggles with a painful childhood memory that drives him to seek justice even if it means bending the rules. Seala is the fair maiden, but she's an educated idealist among the nobility who's unafraid to engage Raven in a debate over the freedom to practice one's Faith. Furthermore, she takes pains to demonstrate to Raven that she's no fragile flower and won't be swayed by a handsome face.

Seala's uncle, Duke Thallan Brael, is cast as evil but he's not a cartoon villain. He was a decorated war hero during the war with Loquath. Sadly, Loquathi soldiers murdered the Duke's wife and children right before his eyes. For him, signing the peace treaty is a big mistake as his heart burns with revenge.

Ferahtu could be considered for the cartoon villain role, but he's more complex than that. His malevolence possesses a dark logic. He helps Brael to see that the end justifies the means. Sacrifices need to be made for the greater good and Ferahtu is all to eager to execute those hard decisions for him. Brael is in possession of one third of the Reaping Key, a powerful source of magic that a millennium ago nearly destroyed the world when one man possessed all three pieces. With Ferahtu's help, he seeks to reclaim the other two pieces and use its power to completely destroy Loquath.

The Last Key is more complicated than a simple quest journey. One of the sub-plots involves the practice of Faith. In Steiner's world, Faith is a form of magical energy; the life essence granted to all living things by the Patrons. It can be used to heal, protect and even destroy. There are various schools of Faith in which people may enlist to learn how to properly harness it. However, there's always someone who doesn't like school. These people are considered heretics and are hunted as criminals. Steiner puts Raven in an awkward situation, as the Novice must decide whether or not he should accept the help of a band of heretics or turn them over to the authorities.

There's plenty of action and at least one fight scene was so vividly choreographed that I had no trouble visualizing it blow by blow. But at no point did I feel like it was overdone. However, the body count is high. Many a character, both major and minor, meets an untimely end. While it makes for a grim story, under the circumstances, it's realistic.

Mythical beasts are used sparingly and to great effect. The Gryphons are noble, yet prideful creatures. The Renders are terrible monsters and Steiner doesn't spare us any details to their grotesque creation or their eating habits.

The Last Key is a great fantasy story. Steiner has crafted a world where politics muddy the boundary between good and evil and forces the characters to find a clear path to solve a world-shattering crisis. His characters rise above stereotypes and engage each other with realistic dialogue that comes naturally to them. And they evolve. Although it is only his first novel, The Last Key clearly exemplifies Steiner's mastery of writing high fantasy. He is one to watch.

Fantasy fans should go buy his book now from Amazon or Smashwords. Read more about Rob and The Last Key at his website.

New Service: Editorial Referral

We'd like to announce a change in leadership at The New Podler Review of Books. Since Podler (the founder) has stepped down, the four of us have decided to carry on with the blog. Nature abhors a vacuum, and without Podler around to make decisions, we've discussed adding new features and practices to our reviews.

The first change is editorial referral. Sometimes we get submissions that look very much like rough drafts. Instead of giving them a poor review, we will respectfully decline them from now on and recommend an editor. We're building that pool of qualified editors, starting with our contributor, Sarah Cypher. To clear up any perception of potential impropriety, let it be known that none of the reviewers will receive a commission or referral fee of any kind. We do this with the intent of improving the quality of self-published books in the marketplace.

We welcome your comments and suggestions, and as always, look forward to providing the indie publishing community of writers and readers with helpful book reviews.

Update 9/3/10: We've now added Linda Chiara, Amberly Finarell and Den Fischer to our Editors' Pool.

Review of "Misanthropy's Ever-Expanding Wings" Web site by Libby Cone

Michael Chivulescu's site fills a niche: it will attract fans of post-modernist writing and graphics who are also conservative/libertarian. Bursting with interesting illustrations (unfortunately I was unable to play any of the embedded audio), the site asks “QUO VADIS, AMERICA?” and purports to answer the question with the channelings of one “Goddess Roxanna” (replete with pre-Raphaelite paintings), the imprecations of “Spartacus Metastasis,” and a story having something to do with immigrant Russian loan sharks. The site claims to be partially censored due to a “US District Court (SACU)” order. I don't know what SACU stands for in this instance. South African Customs Union? San Antonio Credit Union?
Most of the prose rails against organizations such as Amnesty International, Moveon.org, ACLU, etc., “relentlessly projecting from this wretched station all over the world their odious, blood-thirsty and de-basing (sic) secular humanistic tentacles!” My libertarian husband would probably enjoy the polemics, but he wouldn't appreciate the graphics. He would love the Morse code, though, so I think I'll show it to him.

Flesh and Grass by Libby Cone

Flesh and Grass is the fictional memoir of Cornelis Plockhoy, the son of Pieter Plockhoy, the founder of the ill-fated Dutch settlement of Zwaanendael in what is now Delaware. As if a novel about a Dutch colony in North America weren't rare enough, Cone's protagonist is blind. As such, Cornelis recalls his life's experiences through his other senses, particularly scent. Nearly all of his memories have some olfactory attribute, whether pleasant or foul, associated with them. Cinnamon recalls his ever supportive mother while the odor of cooked meat is a horrific reminder of his father's death.

Like the Puritans in Plymouth, the Dutch in Zwaanendael are there for religious freedom. Much like his father, Cornelis is a pious man. But unlike his father, Cornelis is faced with one test of faith after another. Although he never questions his blindness, life in the New World brings enough calamity that he wouldn't be blamed for thinking himself a descendant of Job. The colony is caught in the crossfire between the British and Dutch Empires. Each round of battle between the two nations brings some form of tragedy to the settlement and Cornelis' life. While he prays for deliverance from the avaricious struggles of nations, part of him wonders why he and his brethren must suffer so.

Cone has painstakingly researched her novel. While she admits to taking liberties with a few of the characters, the historical events that transpired are factual. The dialogue, while obviously written in English, is peppered with enough Dutch and Old English to grant an air of authenticity to the story. While this should be considered an asset, it might turn off some readers uncomfortable with the vernacular of the time (mid to late 1600's).

While Flesh and Grass offers a window into 17th Century colonial America, it is the tests of Cornelis' faith that make up the crux of the story. Each newfound joy and sorrow over four decades of life spent in the settlement work at the foundation of that faith. In the end, we learn whether or not that foundation is on solid ground or sand.

Flesh and Grass is available in different eBook formats through the author's website.

Update 6/24/11: Now available in paperback.

Broken Birds: The Story of My Momila

This book has been getting a lot of attention online, so I was eager to read it. It is the story of a dysfunctional family, the sons and daughters of Holocaust survivors. Although it purports to be the story of the matriarch, information about her is relatively sparse and leaves the reader with many questions.

The mother, Channa, and her brother, Isaac, grew up in a small town in Poland. When the German army took over, they suffered the depredations visited upon the resident Jews and soon wound up in a ghetto. When Channa was twelve, shortly after the death of their aunt and Isaac's wife and children in a pogrom, Isaac took Channa with him into the forest, where they joined the partisans, remaining with them until the end of the war. They snipped telephone and telegraph lines, blew up bridges, killed solitary German soldiers, lived off the land and off food they demanded from farmers. When the Red Army liberated Poland two years later, they returned to their hometown to find the rest of their family had perished and their home was occupied by strangers, who reluctantly let them move in and then relinquished the house.

That is the first ten percent of the book. The reader is then treated to a rather rushed narrative of Katzir's father, who grew up in a town in Czechoslovakia that later became part of Hungary. Only a few pages are devoted to the difficult years of 1939-1944; then he and his family were deported to Auschwitz. Nathan managed to survive the selections for the gas chambers, and wound up later on a hellish work detail cleaning up the rubble of the Warsaw Ghetto (which she calls “only a shell of its former self”). As the Allies drew closer, he was deported to the German camp, Dachau. The reader encounters the tired phrases of concentration-camp existence: “packed like sardines,” “living skeletons,” etc. Then, astonishingly, only after he gets to Dachau, Nathan gets lice! Now, Dachau was a disgusting camp; they all were. But Auschwitz was the worst of the worst, with its gas chambers and crematoria going day and night (there is still controversy as to whether the gas chambers at Dachau were ever used to exterminate Jews, while there is no question about the ones at Auschwitz). I don't ever recall reading that Auschwitz had a lot of hand sanitizer stations. You couldn't spend more than five minutes there without getting lice.

Here is where the narrator misses rich opportunities to delve into the experiences of Channa and Nathan, and how their later behaviors were shaped. Channa was in the partisans for two years; why do we get so few pages? Is Nathan's memory of events skewed so that he remembers the lice at Dachau and forgets the lice at Auschwitz? Was Auschwitz too horrible to remember? Or is this just sloppy editing?

At one point, as Nathan was trying to outwit the Germans (always referred to as “Nazis” in this book, although many of the most brutal soldiers never joined the Nazi Party), he and some friends jumped into a ditch. The author takes great pains to point out that “The ditch still held water mixed with sludge and dead bugs, but they did not care.” Eww! Dead bugs! These were people who would often wake to find their bedmate a corpse, who were often forced to spend days in railroad cattle cars shitting on the floor!

Nathan and Channa eventually made their way to America separately, met, and married. Five children were born, and their story takes up most of the book. We really never understand fully how Channa's and Nathan's backgrounds molded their parenting style, and how (or if) it turned the kids into such quarrelsome, greedy bastards. There is one scene where Nathan dances too much, in Channa's estimation, with a niece at a party, and Katzir seems to see this as a seminal event in her mother's behavioral slide. Much more narrative energy is lavished upon all the times one sibling signed a contract with another and then reneged, or one sibling borrowed money and never returned it, than on the behavior of, say, the other partisans or the camp guards. We are treated to a long description of the author's love of horseback riding, and of how an unscrupulous dealer sold her her first horse, a bad match. She feels entitled to use a sister's address to allow her kids to go to school in a town they don't reside in, and goes ballistic when the sister abruptly puts a stop to it. The quarreling over the mother's will after her death is too much to take. All the siblings are scandalized by their father's quick remarriage, though one could hardly blame him, since his wife wrote him out of the will! There is really very little more about Channa until her death, just some quotes showing that she wasn't June Cleaver.

After the Holocaust, the victims (and the perpetrators who avoided arrest) mostly worked hard to establish some kind of normal life. The everyday problems of fighting siblings, financial strain, obnoxious neighbors, etc. don't go away because you were part of one of the most tragic and momentous events in history. Your way of dealing with those issues may be greatly affected, though, but we are not given much information about this in the story, most of which is devoted to the five children of Channa and Nathan (Channa called them “My five fingers”).

When do people whose parents went through hell stop blaming those parents for all the behaviors of their siblings? This is another interesting question that goes unaddressed. Perhaps their parents really DID screw them up; what difference does it make? When do you start taking responsibility for your own problems, since blaming does nothing to solve them?

Broken Birds is like a sandwich: a long list of familial acrimonies between two slices of narrative. With some editing of the filling, and enrichment of the bread, it would be a much more interesting read.

We Have All Had This Conversation

I saw this over at the POD People blog this morning and I just had to share.



Hats off to Zoe Winters for perfectly encapsulating the debate.

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DED