Category Archives: Science Fiction

Rise of the River-Man: Mutter’s Story by L.S. O’Dea – Review

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Title – Rise of the River-Man: Mutter’s Story (Conguise Chronicles #1)
Author – L.S. O’Dea
Genre – Young Adult/Fantasy/Science Fiction
Length –  126 Pages
Publication – Oct 2015
My Rating – 4/5 Stars

Synopsis

In a world where the Almightys rule with absolute power over the other classes, being an unwanted Guard is a death sentence.

A Guard’s life is never easy, but Mutter’s has been particularly hard. An orphan at five, he had to fight for his survival on the streets and then he fought in a ring for an Almighty. Until, he lost. His master didn’t give second chances, so Mutter sits in the Guards’ shelter awaiting execution. His only chance is to be adopted but no one wants a Guard like him: big, strong and ugly.

Then his luck changes when an Almighty arrives at the shelter and gives him a choice: kill or be killed. Mutter chooses to live.

Things are looking up until he’s taken to a laboratory and stuck in a cage but that’s not the worst part. He’s not alone in the lab. There are…things in the other cages. Things that don’t move or smell like anything he’s ever known.

Now, the Almightys are giving him some kind of serum and he feels good, but does he feel too good? Is he changing into something else? Something like the creatures in the other cages? Can he escape before it’s too late?

Review

I was kindly gifted a copy of this book for review and I was presently surprised at the story considering the book is only 100+ pages.

The story was written well with a clear plot which developed at a fast pace. The characters were interesting; I particularly liked Mutter and Ableson. The interaction between these two was fascinating to read.

So the story is based in a time after a great death has hit the planet, lots of people died and those who survived now live under a new social structure.

The language used is perfect for young and old alike with enough detail to develop the characters nicely enough, especially Mutter.

I enjoyed the book, read it one day. It’s a perfect quick read but I have to admit I would have liked to have had more information on this “great death” and why only humans and large humans were affected and how these new social classes were then formed.

I’m not one for spoilers but the main reason for the 4* rating is because of the character Sweet… I’ll try not to give too much away but feel free to skip the next paragraph to avoid any spoilers.

Sweet for me was a great love interest for Mutter but I would have liked to see more development with her. When Mutter starts to change it would have made more sense to me that Sweet would struggle at first with this change.. then love would win out and she would love him no matter what he looked like.

Overall this was a nice book to read, perfect quick read. The book contains a scene which I would class as mild gruesomeness; this gave it some shock factor. The storyline developed quickly and since this appears to be a prequel to the authors Lake of Sins series I’m interested enough to add them to my TBR pile.

I’d definitely say this book is more suited to the younger reader but I’m 30 and I still enjoyed reading it.

To find out more head to Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.com or Goodreads.

The Warlords of Antares (First Contact) by Brian K. Larson – Review

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Title – The Warlords of Antares (First Contact)
Author – Brian K. Larson
Genre –  Fantasy/Science Fiction
Length –  298 Pages
Publication – 10th April 2015
My Rating – 4/5 Stars

Synopsis

Betelgeuse star went supernova 640 years ago. The explosion opened an unstable wormhole to Earth. It took all those years for the corridor to stabilized. The Warlord’s Emperor sent a scout to investigate the newly discovered life forms, and to bring back specimens for their arena games. Their Antarian blood lust must be quenched…and the Antarian Boreshog beast they must face, has never been defeated.

The benevolent Eridonians’ mission is to prepare the people of Earth for the coming onslaught. Join Navy Captain Jedediah Fitz and USMC Major Race Jennings on their quest to fight Earth’s newest enemy.

Prepare yourselves, the Warlords are coming.

Review

I must admit combining genres like Science Fiction and Fantasy work well for me.

The story is pretty straight forward, good guys & bad guys with added aliens, wormholes, nukes and blood. Pretty good mix if you ask me.

So to start with we learn about two races of aliens the warlord Antarians and the Eridonians. The Eridonians don’t like what the warlords do and want to stop Earth from being invaded.

A wormhole the Eridonians have been monitoring is now stable enough for the warlords to traverse and it leads straight to Earth!

Now the Eridonians have been watching us for some time and now they show themselves to us and enlist the help of the Earths forces to defend the planet from invasion

Things never go to plan and our heroes end up traveling through the wormhole to rescue some crew members who’ve been taken hostage.

We learn a lot more about the alien races at this point and learn about the bloodlust of the Antarians and the games they hold in their arena.

I don’t want to give the whole plot away but there’s an interesting tale being told with the bloodlust and the challenges our heroes face.

I’m a fan of Brian’s work anyway. His books suit adults and young adults as well. I think this is mainly due to his writing style as all his books flow well with a decent chapter length and you don’t get bogged down in too much detail.

The author manages to give the main characters some depth throughout the story and you may find out you like someone you initially thought you wouldn’t.

Now if you want me to be picky I felt the jump sequence used to travel space was a bit long. You hear it used throughout the book so i would have probably shortened it but that’s just me.

I guess my only complaint about the book which really isn’t a complaint is that it left me wondering what happened next.. I felt the ending of the book was good but i wanted more. Am i being greedy??

Overall i really enjoyed the book and i hope you do as well. Do i think the book is worth the money? yes definitely. Keep em coming Brian and i’ll keep buying!

Meteor Storm by David Capps – Review

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Title – Meteor Storm
Author – David Capps
Genre – Science Fiction
Length – 305 Pages (Kindle)
Publication – January 2015
My Rating – 3/5 Stars

Synopsis

63,000 years ago, an ancient civilization existed far advanced over our own, but it was destroyed by a natural cataclysm. Now that same cataclysm is about to strike our modern world…

When Carl stumbles upon an unknown robot’s head, he manages with some effort to get it working. From the robot, Carl learns that it was created by an ancient civilization 63,000 years ago in northern India. The robot reports though, that the culture was destroyed by a meteor storm that killed all, but a thousand people planet wide.

When Carl learns that Earth is entering the same place in the galaxy where the meteor field exists, he warns people on TV, but finds himself ridiculed and ignored. To protect the world, Carl works to find out more about the ancient civilization and how to prevent a repeat of history.

To do this, Carl travels to a secret cave where the ancient technology is stored and here Carl meets a fully functioning robot from the ancient civilization. Now Carl must do everything in his power to preserve as many lives and as much of the current civilization as possible to avoid full scale destruction…


Review

Full disclosure I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review

Please note this review does involve spoilers, head over to Goodreads to view this review spoiler free!

This book revolves around Karl/Carl who discovers there is going to be a meteor storm that will kill everyone if he doesn’t do something. He gets this knowledge from  a robots head which has been kept locked away by the government

I must say the story line was very intriguing and I was excited to read the book. The whole idea of such an event happing is fascinating.

The story is quite fast paced and I especially liked seeing them plan for the future and then them dealing with the aftermath of the meteor storm. The ideas the author used clearly show they put a lot of thought into it. It really made me think what would actually happen if such an event happened to the world now. As a reader this was a very good subject to keep me interested.

My only issue with this book is that on a few occasions it left me thinking I had missed something. The character development is definitely there just to me it didn’t flow right at times.

For example you learn straight away that Carl has had argument with his boss over something they were keeping secret which Carl didn’t agree with… but you don’t find out until later what exactly this was.

You learn Carl went to prison but again you didn’t find out why until much later on in the book.

I can see why the author wrote the book the way they did but as a reader it confused me slightly as I felt maybe I had missed something and backtracked only to find out the information comes to light much later on.

Lastly the love interest.. Now this was the big thing I didn’t understand. At first Tia is scared of him after his surgery, next they share a moment when she’s helping set up his new identity… then suddenly you are told they have grown close while working on the robots head. I would have much preferred to have more scenes which showed them growing close rather than just being told.

As you go on with the book you do see a relationship growing between the pair I just felt the comment about them growing close should have been left to much later in the book where it would have fitted in better.

Overall I did enjoy the book, the character development just confused me a little at times. I’ll be honest though it didn’t make me enjoy the book any less and if you are a fan of the genre I would say it’s worth a read but be warned it’s not as dark as some of the apocalyptic science fiction books out there. If you’ve not read an apocalyptic book before this might be a nice book to start with.

I’ll be watching to see what David comes up with next