Author News - April

March 28th: Scott Semegran, author of the Simon Birchwood series, released "The Great and Powerful, Brave Raideen", a short story.

April 10th: Helen Smith's novel, Beyond Belief, has been nominated for three awards at this year's CrimeFest.

May 14th: Jeremy Robert Johnson will be at Powell's Hawthorne branch on Thursday, May 14th at 7:30pm to promote his latest novel, Skullcrack City, which was published on February 1st.

May 19th: Steve Anderson took a break from historical fiction to write the contemporary novel, The Other Oregon: A Thriller. The book drops on this day.

The Miracle Inspector by Helen Smith

England experienced a civil war and a Revolution, both in the seventeenth century. Each profoundly affected the English way of life: the civil war through violence, and the Revolution through a change in the power of the monarchy and modification of its succession formula to keep it out of Catholic hands, a change that was in effect until 2011. We do not like to think about it, but most of us with a knowledge of 20^th century and early 21^st century history have an understanding of the fragility of democracy and the strange, cultish, and often violent movements that threaten to replace it. In Helen Smith's dark book, parliamentary democracy has been replaced by an ideology of victimization that has turned strangely upon itself. A rise in global terrorism has resulted in the borders being sealed, and secret police lurking everywhere. Children are kept from unrelated adults (such as teachers) out of fear of pedophilia, and, in a bizarre sort of Stockholm syndrome, women are veiled and similarly restricted out of fear of rape. It seems to be the nationwide implementation of the signs you see outside of theatres: "Strobe lights, haze, cigarette smoke (herbal or tobacco) will be used during this performance,” and then some. Perhaps to tell themselves that they are indeed enlightened, people avoid meat (the author takes pains to mention that this includes human flesh) and stick to fish and vegetables. I did wonder why home schooling wasn't a big cottage industry, and how men were educated without using books. Anyway, lucky are the folks who can make it into their thirties or forties before getting whisked off by “the authorities,” never to be seen again.

A large bureaucracy includes various ministries and Inspectors, including Inspector of Cats, Inspector of Hedgerows & Grass Verges, and Inspector of Miracles. Lucas, a man in his twenties, is said Miracle Inspector. He keeps busy driving around London in his government car examining pieces of toast that are alleged to bear the likeness of Jesus, etc. His wife Angela is stuck in the house with just a few scrounged encyclopedia volumes to peruse. They share a lot of unspoken frustrations, but actually give voice to the idea of escaping to Cornwall, outside of the borders that have been set up. They befriend a woman, Maureen, who used to be a newscaster, and her special-needs child, Christina, whose miraculousness is hidden behind an enigmatic smile. After a friend of the family, Jesmond, is murdered by Nihilists following a poetry performance and Lucas is taken into custody when someone gets wind of a trip to Cornwall, Angela, Maureen, and Christina are left to hoof it out of authoritarian England. To their horror, all the places they seek refuge are just as bad: in the town of Clough they are expected to become sex workers, and at a back-to-the-land feminist commune of sorts they are exposed to magical thinking and a bloody ritual that does nothing to protect them from marauding men and escaped zoo animals. They learn to avoid the big trucks full of UN and other NGO personnel who make a big show of doing nothing. When Maureen disappears, Angela learns to assume the worst about everybody, and is left crossing the moors with Christina.

Could England, or America, become like Syria? England, while having no written Constitution, does have the Magna Carta and a Bill of Rights. The US obviously has both. The book seems to oscillate between blaming the heightened fear of terrorism and its usual anodyne, the attenuation of individual liberties, and blaming the victimhood felt by those who see every bright light, every peanut, every hug by a friend as a threat. The writing is beautiful, as Smith has shown in Alison Wonderland and Being Light. Other reviewers have characterized this book as a comedy, but I see no way out of its pessimism. Fear is our worst enemy. How do we wage war upon it without waging war upon ourselves?

Author's Website.

The Best of 2011

Like last year, each reviewer here at the New Podler Review of Books picks the book (or books) which he/she feels are the very best independently published (or small press) work. 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 four people with very different tastes, not to mention genre interests, to agree on one book out of thirty-three as being the very best would be impossible.

First up is S.B. Jung.

"My pick for 2011 is Flaming Dove by Daniel Arenson. This book is a great read that I highly recommend to anyone who loves a different kind of fantasy fiction."

Libby Cone had two picks.

"I nominate Helen Smith's Being Light—a tale well-told, with interesting characters of real depth—and Gunshot Stigmata by Scott C. Rogers. It takes a great deal of talent to employ a highly unreliable narrator, explore his delusions, and keep the narrative from flying apart altogether. A very sensitive treatment of the world of a very damaged soul."

Rob Steiner picked Oathbreaker Book 1: The Knight's Tale by Colin McComb.

"Vivid language, unique characters, and a compelling story combined to put it far above the other books I reviewed last year. It's the first of a planned series, so I hope to read more of McComb's work in 2012."


For me, the 2011 winner, hands down, was Mirror Shards. This anthology, about the impact of augmented reality upon society, featured a diverse array of authors. Indie author, Thomas Carpenter, assembled the stories from both traditionally published and indie writers and published it under his Black Moon Books imprint. The end result was a highly entertaining and thought provoking read.

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We reviewed 33 books last year. Over 150 submissions were rejected due to various reasons. Time is a big factor. We rejected some well-written stories because we didn't have the time to stick with a book that didn't grab us right away. When we were open to submissions, we received 20-30 submissions each month. It's just too much for us to handle. We need more reviewers to handle the flood. Until then, we'll finish up the remaining submissions from 2011 before we open the submissions window for a new batch.

Thanks for reading!

Being Light by Helen Smith

This is a very entertaining book. Readers familiar with Smith's prior work, “Alison Wonderland,” will become reacquainted with several chracters, including Mrs. Fitzgerald, a private eye; Alison and her daughter Phoebe, who assist Mrs. Fitzgerald; and Alison's friend Taron. It is not necessary to have read “Alison Wonderland,” nor is it necessary to keep notes on the myriad characters, because Smith is able to make them memorable with very deft description, so that when they pop up unexpectedly in the narrative, we recognize each individual's Leitmotif immediately.

The book begins with Roy, an affable middle-class man, and his more edgy friend Brian, inflating a “bouncy castle” for children attending a charity fair. Roy's whole relationship with gravity, tenuous at best, is completely transmogrified by a gust of wind that lifts him up with the castle and deposits him in what he thinks is (and there is no reason to think otherwise) Paradise, complete with an adoring angel named Sylvia, plus chickens, ducks, a cow, a dog, and an elephant. Roy's disappearance is a complete disaster to his devoted wife Sheila. When the police are no help and Mrs. Fitzgerald can find no leads at the outset, Sheila casts her lot in with a clairvoyant and other mediums, eventually going all over England with little aluminum foil earlaps to try to tune in Roy.

More twists and turns evolve as we meet Jeremy, a cross-dressing eco-activist; Venetia, Sylvia's former boss (she wants the elephant back); and Jane, a trendspotter-cum-journalist, who has to find a story in everything.

The characters all sound “light,” but some have agendas that are very weighty. There is a hint of criminal activity afoot, and one character buys too heavily into the idea of lightness and meets a ghastly end. Some don't “get” it, and are simply barmy or shallow, but interesting nevertheless.

This book, besides being very entertaining, is a good book for self-publishing authors to look to as an example. It is free of typos, avoids the two-adjective-noun, two-adjective-noun death march to boredom, and manages to tell a lot of story without a lot of words.