Someone’s Read it Already

Ben and I (Stephanie) are getting married on Tuesday at noon; we left town Thursday evening, so no one’s available to approve comments. The reviewing will be on a hiatus, except for Wednesday, when DP so generously donated a guest review for us.

We’ll see you in November!

Cayla Kluver is a teenager; she completed this novel, as well as high school, at fifteen years of age. She intends to take this year off to finish the second half of the duology and to promote both works, and then she will go to college to study creative writing. Like most writers, she’s been writing as long as she can remember. She acknowledges the great amounts of help she got with this novel not only from her mother, who shares copyright and edited the work, but her English teacher, who helped her with a draft of this book for a large part of a semester. Ms. Kluver says that she was inspired by playing an epic fantasy video game, and wishing that it went the way she wanted it to go, rather than the authors. Subsequently, Forsooth Publishing was born, to promote Cayla’s work.

Alera is the Crown Princess of Hytanica; whoever she marries will become King and ruler of Hytanica, so therefore she has little choice in her mate. Steldor, her father’s favorite, inspires great loathing in Alera, and she will do nearly anything to avoid him. The rival for her affections is, of all things, a Hytanican boy named Narian who was kidnapped by a nearby country called Cokyria very soon after his birth; he returned to them at sixteen years of age and is an enigma to all involved. Why did Cokyria kidnap forty-nine baby boys that year, and only keep one of them (alive)? What are Cokyria’s plans for Hytanica, and why was he allowed to return? Most of all, is there any way that Alera can avoid marrying the arrogant Steldor? (more…)

Today’s novel inspired a publisher. Tracy Falbe found it difficult to sell her already-completed epic fantasy quartet, so she founded Falbe Publishing and, subsequently, the Brave Luck Books imprint to promote her own works. She is also reissuing classic novels in updated packages as various formats of ebooks; she states specifically that all of the ebooks she releases are ones that she has personally read and enjoyed herself, and I do, overall, agree with her tastes. She and her publishing company are based in northern California. She apparently spent some time in Las Vegas; enough that she could publish a book on how to play craps. Her website also hosts numerous subsites on different subjects, called FalbeNet, displaying a broad range of interests.

Dreiband Veta was a soldier in the Atrophane Horde; he deserted to explore the Wilderness, a land with no known human inhabitants. Before he gets there, he meets a woman named Miranda and her children; recently a slave, Miranda escaped poor treatment. While crossing the Wilderness together, Miranda’s daughter, Elendra, is kidnapped by a bizarre beast. The travelers follow it and end up in the land of the rys, blue-skinned, long-lived people with magical powers. The Queen of the rys, Onja, is worshipped as a goddess, but her powers are failing and there is a conflict between her and the next-most-powerful rys, Shan. Can Miranda get her child back without getting involved in too much politicking? (more…)

A few weeks months ago, for Free (Legal) Books on the Internet Week, I reviewed Darkside by S. K. S. Perry. At the time, I didn’t even know if he was male or female (turns out he’s a guy), but I did know that I liked James Decker, the wise-cracking narrator, and his crazy world and friends. Mr. Perry sent me the sequel, which he might do for anyone who asks him nicely enough (also, there’s a donation button on the page), and I promised him I’d review it, too — eventuallly. At first, I’d gotten taken over by Wedding Brain; then I was holding off until I could find enough books for Self-Published Week. Finally, Mr. Perry, I’ve read it, and here’s your review.

The usual Sequel Rules apply: select [NO PLOT] from REVIEW when book number>2 . . . (more…)

C. L. Talmadge has been a professional, published writer since 1976; she’s a columnist for the North Star Writers’ Group, and has been syndicated in many different major newspapers. She always knew she wanted to write a novel, and finally managed, producing three. She formed her own publishing company (or imprint), Healing Stone Press, to publish and market her books. As an added bonus, her website contains full versions of all the novels, available for browsing. They’re in Flash format, so one probably wouldn’t read the entire thing, but it’s a good way to get a taste of any of the currently-available volumes.

Lt. Helen Andros is a half-breed; her mother, who has since disappeared, was Turanian, which is the conquered class, and her father was Toltec, the ruling class. She doesn’t know who her father is, though; she’s been serving in the military as a doctor/medic as an anonymous sort for nearly half her life. One day, she is asked to help a prince who is a political prisoner, and due to those selfsame politics, is arrested and put to trial for sullying a pure Toltec city herself. Only one thing can save her — the identity of her father — and knowing that might get her into much more political danger than she ever dreamed . . . (more…)

L. Lee Lowe is self-published because she simply wanted to opt out of the publishing industry, full stop. She wants to be a writer — a person who writes and has people read what she writes — rather than a businessperson, and has arranged her writing career thusly. Her novel, Mortal Ghost, is available in a few different formats; one can read it for free on her website here, as blog entries. One can also go here for the book in podcast form, read by a young Welshman who is an acting student; here (direct link) for the whole thing in PDF format; here for various other formats, including HTML and various ereaders, and here for a POD via Lulu (not free).

Jesse Wright is homeless; however, one day, during a ridiculously hot summer in an unidentified part of England, he meets Sarah, who definitely isn’t homeless, and decides to take him on as a reclamation project of sorts. Jesse has issues of all kinds — intimacy, trust, whatnot — and while Sarah’s parents definitely help, it’s not easy. His nightmares — of a burning house and dying people — have always been there, but they’re becoming different. Perhaps it is one of his gifts — an amazing memory, an amazing ability to learn things very quickly, and something that may or may not have to do with fire — that is the key to the mystery that is Jesse? (more…)

I don’t know all the reasons that people choose to self-publish, and I won’t pretend to. Some people do because New York won’t pay attention to them; some people do because they’re writing something that’s got a limited audience; some people do because they don’t like the publishing industry. I don’t even know that I’ve got a good example of each.

What I do know is that somehow I managed to collect enough self-published books to make an entire week’s worth of reviews (actually, more than that), and I’m doing that this week.

If you have anything to mention about self-published books regarding motivation or a great one you read recently, please feel free to comment.

James Patrick Kelly has written in many different formats, including the usual (novels, essays, novellas, etc.) and the not-so-usual (a planetarium show). He’s won the Hugo Award twice for novelettes (I don’t exactly know what the difference is between a short story, a novelette, and a novella, but rest assured that there is one), in 1996 and 2000. He’s also edited several collections and has two weekly podcasts; he’s currently the vice-chair of the Clarion Writer’s Workshop. Burn won the Nebula in 2007 for Best Novella (it’s 81 pages in the PDF format on the author’s page; 52 parts on Daily Lit); subsequently Mr. Kelly released it as both a Creative Commons PDF and also a podcast in four parts; the podcast is still available on his website.

Spur (Prosper Gregory Leung) lives on a world called Walden; it was founded by a wealthy entrepreneur who wanted to recreate a world of small farmers and simplicity that he thought was the absolute height of human civilization. Spur’s family raises apples and other fruit trees. There’s a conflict between those who think that the partial terraformation of the planet with forests overtaking is an awful idea, versus those who love the simplicity of Walden, though. So the pukpuks (against the forest) have been setting the trees on fire. Spur has been a firefighter on the planet for a few months, and when we meet him he’s rehabbing in a hospital. While in the hospital, he realizes that he can contact offworlders, and he ends up contacting a boy genius who supposedly produces luck on another planet. Then that boy wants to visit. Even if he doesn’t produce luck, the presence of an offworlder will change things — but how? (more…)

Prior to Googling him, I didn’t know anything about Eric Flint, but forced to guess, I would have said that he has a working-class background/family but perhaps a degree in history at some point. I was right; apparently he has a master’s degree in West African History, worked as a machinist among other things, and has been involved in union and other left-wing politics for a very long time. He’s written a lot of books, which Wikipedia describes as alternate history, fantasy, and humorous fantasy; he’s also a frequent collaborator, editor, and co-editor for various things for Baen; on top of that, the Baen Free Library was his idea. 1632 is one of the free books available on that site; it’s also available through Daily Lit, complete in 222 parts. Since we all know I’m a fan of Free (Legal) Books on the Internet, I approve.

1632 answers the age-old question: what if a late-20th-century West Virginia mining town got transported through time and dumped back to the seventeenth century during the Thirty Years’ War? (Hey, I was wondering. Weren’t you?) The event, referred to as the “Ring of Fire”, dumps Grantville, West Virginia, on a Sunday (right after Rita Stearns’ and Tom Simpson’s wedding) into the southwestern corner of Thuringia (currently a province of Germany); apparently the nearest standard town is Jena. Mike Stearns, Rita’s brother and the highest-ranked union worker in the mine (as well as a generally popular guy), somehow gets elected head of the whole mess, and then they have to determine what to do — isolation? How long will their electricity and other industries work? Will they have enough food to last the winter? And what about Count Tilly and the war that’s threatening to destroy most of Germany? (more…)

Lloyd Alexander is one of the grandmasters of children’s fantasy; he started publishing back around the time of the early Madeleine L’Engle and Susan Cooper books, and continued right up until his death last year. I’ve read several of his books prior to starting this blog — the Prydain chronicles and the Westmark trilogy, arguably his most famous works — and reviewed one before (The Rope Trick) and I still haven’t actually made a dent in his output. Generally his books are for middle-grade readers; he’s even got a habit of featuring strong female characters among the lot. The second of the Prydain chronicles, The Black Cauldron, was made into an animated Disney movie back in the early 1980s; it’s mostly been forgotten now (although I own it on an all-but-useless VHS tape).

Gypsy Rizka lives outside of a town called Greater Dunitsa, but barely — she spends most of her days inside that town. Ostensibly she’s waiting for her father, a fiddler, to return for her, but most days she amuses herself by meddling in the affairs of the townspeople. Often it’s for good, such as helping her friend Sofiya acquire and be allowed to keep a kitten or five, but when someone in the city — Chief Councilor Sharpnack — decides that she’s an eyesore and a blot upon the town’s sterling reputation, she doesn’t pull any punches. (Ask him about the incident with the chicken.) Will she be allowed to stay? For that matter, will she want to stay? (more…)