Sharon Amber is your average sixteen year old, with her stern and emotionally unavailable father, her doofus brother, and her secret elfish boyfriend. When said boyfriend, Gerald, asks her to sneak away and meet him in the forest at midnight, she figures there would be a little talking, a bit of cuddling, maybe some lovemaking. […]

Many people who read and write science fiction believe that through the last few decades science fiction has actually prepared society for future technological advances. The idea, some say, is that in science fiction all the pitfalls, moral uncertainties, and roads best not traveled can be discovered and worked out in the pages of entertaining fiction, rather than bitter experience.

So why won't this generation learn? If science fiction has taught us one thing, it's that if you have the ability to go into the past in order to change events and make the world a better place... don't do it! You're just gonna fuck it up.

The Boys Are Back In Town, by Christopher Golden

Will James hates magic so much that he has made his column at the Boston Tribune his pulpit against the mystics, psychics, faith healers and other frauds that bilk the public. At the coaxing of his childhood friend, Ashleigh, he decides to take a break from his little crusade to go back home for his ten-year high school reunion.

But things don't go like he planned at the reunion. Well, that is, they do and they don't. At the same time. Mike Lebo died ten years ago? But I just talked to him last week! How can Ashleigh be barren? I'm her children's godfather!

Will is treated to a disorienting and nausea inducing sensation of his memories fading and new memories crowding in to replace them. Two versions of the past fight for prominence in Will's mind. Until at last, the spell is broken, and the veil is lifted from his eyes.

Back in high school, Will dabbled in black magic and did some terrible things. Now it's come back to bite him in the ass, and he has to go back into the past to change the world back to the way it was.

Son of a bitch!

The Good: If you're a die-hard Buffy fan, you probably know who Christopher Golden is. He writes many Buffy and X-Men tie-in novels and comics, along with writing fiction in his own worlds. He's a very busy man.

Christopher has a great knack for clever ideas. The idea of the potential slayers being killed off one by one in the seventh season of Buffy? Christopher did it first in his Spike & Dru novel. Spike on a submarine on the last season of Angel? Christopher's all "been there, done that."

His vivid imagination doesn't fail him here. In this novel, Christopher may have come up with the first time travel story I have read or seen that doesn't have inconsistencies caused by people changing the past. That's not an easy trick.

He also writes good teenagers, probably because he has so much practice doing it. Best friends one minute, conniving the next, remorseful the next. Needing to borrow the car keys from Mom to go out and do things Mom wouldn't approve of, while still making it home for curfew. He writes them as real people, and not the idealized figures of the WB.

The Bad: The prose is a bit dry, and it's a little too easy to figure out who is behind it all. But not a bad read, nonetheless.

The Ugly: Nothing ugly, really.

Just an interesting side note: Mr. Golden writes extensively in a world with a teen aged witch named Willow who practices black magic at one point. In this novel, he writes about a teen aged witch named William who practices black magic at one point. Coincidence?

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

The Boys Are Back in Town by Christopher Golden
Published by: Bantam; February 3, 2004
ISBN: 0553382071
Genre: Dark Fantasy
Author's Webpage: www.christophergolden.com   [Read more...]

This book was originally posted on the Dragon's Den forum, oh, months ago. Then some dickless hacker crashed the site, and the review was lost forever, or so I thought. Amazing what will turn up when you clean your apartment.

The review is posted nearly as-is, with a few spelling corrections, and the addition of rating the book on the one to five scale.

After listening to the interview with Piers Anthony, I decided to try one of the books in his Incarnations of Immortality series. The first book in the series is titled On a Pale Horse.

The book is about a down on his luck photographer named Zane. In his desperation, he allows himself to be swindled out of the love of his life by an unscrupulous magic dealer. Afterwards, alone in his apartment, he decides to end it all, and puts a gun to his head. As he is pulling the trigger, the Grim Reaper enters his apartment to oversee the death. And Zane, instead of shooting himself, shoots death right between the eye sockets.

Zane has killed death. And there's a catch. Now he has to take his place.

It's kind of like The Santa Clause, only cool.

What else happens? Are you kidding? Fencing, fighting, monsters, chases, escapes, torture, revenge, true love, miracles, talking horses.

You know, like The Princess Bride meets Mr. Ed, with a big fight - Death vs. Satan to cap it all off.

So much for what the book is about, is it worth the $7.99 plus tax?

As I was reading the book, two thoughts kept coming back to me. One: Piers Anthony comes up with fantastic stories. Two: Unfortunately, he doesn't tell them that well.

And that's the rub. As much as I want to like Piers Anthony, I can't stand his writing. Several years ago I tried reading his novel Firefly, and couldn't make it past twenty pages. I think the fact that I enjoyed his first Xanth novel many years ago must be a fluke.

First of all, Anthony writes bad dialogue. Worse than bad. Worse than worse. It was actually physically painful to read at times. I almost put the book down at one point when a common thug actually used the word "Hark!" I realize that written dialogue is different from spoken language, and that nobody speaks like a book. But good written dialogue, though not actually like spoken language, should seem like spoken language. Anthony's characters speak b-movie dialogue.

And as for description, Mr. Anthony must never have met an adverb he didn't like. If you removed all the "Tom Swifty's" from the book, it would be five pages shorter. I mean, come on - "She grimaced prettily"? Bleh.

And finally, there is nothing, and I mean nothing, more annoying than knowing what's going on, and waiting for the protagonist to catch up.

On a Pale Horse is the first in a series. Other incarnations have books dedicated to them, i.e. Nature, Time, Fate, etc. But I think this is my last Piers Anthony novel. Not enough Rolaids in the world to go through that again.

Rating: 2 out of 5

On A Pale Horse by Piers Anthony
Published by: Del Rey; September 12, 1986
ISBN: 0345338588
Genre: Fantasy
Author's Webpage: www.hipiers.com   [Read more...]

I found myself smiling when I finished the last page of Dragon's New Home, by Theresa Chaze. I've read a pretty good number of books in my life, but none have given me quite the mix of emotions that this books has. Let me explain.

The Dragon Page reviews science fiction and fantasy from large publishing houses, small houses, and self-published authors. With few exceptions, a wide gulf separates the large houses' books from the others in terms of the quality of prose. Even when large publishers send me books I don't like, from a purely technical standpoint those books tend to be far better written than the small press stuff. Even the small press books that I like.

Now, Dragon's New Home isn't a well-crafted book. But the book has something that most small press books don't even have a sliver of. Potential. Dragon's New Home feels like a diamond in the rough. I think that given a few hundred thousand more words, Ms. Chaze will become one damn fine author. She's just not quite there yet with this book.

The Gist: Kevin Mitchellson's mother murdered his grandmother. His guilt for letting her get away with the crime is eating him alive, but he will not break his word to his father to protect her secret. So, one night, under the influence of potable spirits, he beckons spirits of another sort to take the problem out of his hands, and expose his mother in a way that cannot be denied. And damn if they didn't hear him.

Rachael Franklin, a Wiccan Priestess, has just won the lottery, and has an inclination to set up a New Age bookstore called Dragon's Den (great name.) She calls on the Goddess to send her to a new home where she can make a difference. She throws a dart at a map and eventually finds herself on the front step of Kevin's grandmother's abandoned house with the local agent from Century 21.

So, in one corner, wearing the red trunks, we have Rachael and her three cats: Merlin, Tara, and Ralph. In the other corner, wearing the blue, is Lady Katheryn, the murder, and the House of Christ, the local Christian cult that thinks that whole "live and let live" thing is for sissies.

And the bell rings.

The Good: Is it right to point out the good points of a novel by pointing out the mistakes the author could have made, but didn't? Forgive me if it's not kosher, but as I write this I can't stop making comparisons in my head between this book and other small press books I have reviewed.

For instance, most first time, small press authors try to tell big stories, and tell them too small (all life on earth my be destroyed by a world wide phenomenon. Let's tell the story of one family driving across country.) Ms. Chaze's story, on the other hand, has a simple, relatable plot, and doesn't skimp on the ensemble needed to tell the story.

Most genre books in general are plot based. This story is character driven, which I have firmly come to believe is the better route to take. Every plot-advancing decision Rachael Franklin makes comes from who she is as a person, not from what decision needs to be made to advance the plot in a certain direction. This gives the book a believability that many sci-fi and fantasy stories lack.

And, finally, it doesn't hurt that the reader might be learning something new. Not being knowledgeable about Wicca myself, I enjoyed reading a book told from the perspective of a philosophy I'm not accustomed to.

The Bad: The book suffers mostly from what most first time authors suffer from - amateur writing syndrome. The dialogue has no real spark. It's too on the nose. The story has no irony. In what could have been a very scary and engrossing story, there was only occasional suspense, and not very strong suspense at that.

Not only that, but the author tends to write too much about things that are obviously important to her, but are not important to the story. At all. Not even a little. It is not hard to see that Ms. Chaze loves animals, but why do why have to plod through pages and pages of Rachael feeding the cats, sleeping with the cats, potty training the dog, etc? Dragon's New Home is the first book of a trilogy. I have the sneaky suspicion that once the series is done, it will be apparent that instead of three short novels, the book could have been one moderately-long novel, if the writing were more focused on the story and less sidetracked by animals, visions, astral projection trips that don't really go anywhere, and the like.

The Ugly: A nit-picky thing, perhaps, but come on. Xena is spelled with an "X," not a "Z." I don't know if this was done out of ignorance, or because the author wanted to avoid copyright issues, but it is aggravating to no end, especially since the word is used so often (it's the name of the dog.)

Well, I hope I didn't bore you with another long review, but I have a lot of hope for this author, and I wanted to be thorough. This book is a so-so read, but I'd keep my eye out for future books by this scribbler.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

Dragon's New Home by Theresa Chaze
Published by: Publish America, Inc.; May 2003
ISBN: 1592863108
Genre: Fantasy, Wicca, Pagan
Author's Webpage: www.geocities.com/tirgana/page1.html

I don't like romances. I'm not terribly fond of mixing science fiction and fantasy together. I've always found vampire stories that try to give a scientific explanation for the existence of vampires rather silly.

So what do you get when you have a romance novel placed in the future on the moon between a human and a space alien vampire? A pretty good book, actually.

Centuries ago, an alien craft crashed on earth. The aliens hid the crash, and blended into human society. Glimpses of their otherness eventually gave rise to myths of vampires. Now there is a civil war among the vampires of Earth. The Tourists, an elitist association, want the vampire race, the luren, to return to their home planet, and are willing to do so, whatever it takes. Their adversaries, the Residents, believe the humans they live among and hide from have rights and should be respected, and not merely treated like food.

Whether or not the vampires could ever return to their home world has long been only an academic question, until another luren spacecraft crash-lands on the surface of the moon. The multinational Project Hail is developed to try to determine the origin of the craft and maybe, just maybe, send a message to that far away star.

Abbot Nandoha, an old and powerful Tourist, has every intention of helping the humans contact this distant world, with his own imbedded SOS buried in the signal. Titus Shiddehara, a Resident, is sent to stop him at all costs. Too bad Abbot is Titus's father. And too bad there is more to Project Hail than either of them know.

Fortunately, Titus has help. Connie, his Resident connection back on Earth, smuggles him much needed information and blood. And a former lover, Inea, takes up the charge to defeat Abbot and save humanity from a possible luren invasion.

I'm telling you, the book is much better than my description, as I'm trying to keep this review spoiler-free, and if I reveal all the coolness that occurs, you'll be spoiled. The plot has great twists and turns, political intrigue, romance, and familial angst. The story constantly builds on what came before, tightening the screws until the action-filled d?uement.

Certainly not your typical vampire story, Those of My Blood is definitely worth a read if you're looking for something a bit different.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

Those of My Blood by Jacqueline Lichtenberg
Published by: BenBella Books; October 1, 2003
ISBN: 1932100091
Genre: Science Fiction
Author's Webpage: www.simegen.com   [Read more...]

Correction added on 12/31/2003. My review contains a remark that implies that Mr. Carter's book is self-published. It is not. His book was published by Publish America, so it would be considered a small press publication.

Mark Twain, among others, is credited with ending a rather long letter to a friend with, "I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead." Or something like that, anyway.

I have to make the same apology for my review of Gary Carter's Jump Start. I wanted to get this review done before the holidays, as Mr. Carter has waited forever for me to get my act together and read his book. I wasn't sure how to begin, so I used my old The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly format, and this is what came out, a 1500 word review. But I don't have the time to make it any shorter. Sorry.

The Gist: Jacob Malfusco's "career as a botanist had long ago dried up, and his career as a paleontologist had never gotten off the ground". That is, until he and his class from San Diego State have a weekend dig in Death Valley and uncover the bones of what can only be a dragon, a dragon that dates back a measly nine thousand years ago.

Marsha Kimbrough is a crack-pot archeologist with theories of space astronauts visiting the earth and being the cause of just about every unexplained phenomenon in earth's history: Stonehenge, the extinction of the mammoth, the pyramids, the extinction of the Neanderthals. She is taken seriously by few of her peers until she and her daughter discover what appears to be an Egyptian pyramid in the middle of the Australian desert.

Papalov Ulysses Darringer, an astronomer working out of Mt. Palomar, has discovered that the world is going to end when a meteor storm of epic proportions is going to smash the earth in less than a year.

When the meteors turn out to be dragon eggs, sent to earth because our planet is the equivalent of an interstellar smorgasbord, the two down-and-out-scientist-turned-celebrity-experts must help the president push back a plague of biblical proportions, as millions and millions of flying lizards start feeding on us natives.

The Good: To me, the idea that dragons are alien livestock, and that life on earth becomes feed for them periodically over the history of the planet, is fiendishly clever.

The author certainly has done some homework, as various objections that kept cropping up in my mind as I read the book were addressed and answered later on. Though I wouldn't call this book "hard" science fiction, he doesn't just tell the story the way he wants, while ignoring all the "hey, what about..." questions such a story creates. It is a bit grating to have the question floating around in your head from the beginning of the book, only to have it addressed near the end, but what are you going to do?

And I noticed in this book something that I have noticed in many of the first time author/self published books I've reviewed. The writing got noticeably better as the book went along. Clunky at the beginning, the writing became much smoother later on, with the exception of the last two chapters, which I'll get to later.

All in all, though I think the book is flawed, I wanted to keep reading. I wanted to see how the story ended, which is a lot more I can say about other books I've reviewed.

The Bad:

1. The Dialogue: When it comes to both books and movies, I'm a big, BIG dialogue freak. Give me Tarantino! Give me Kevin Smith! Give me Mamet, over and over and over again. Reading many first time authors, I've come to the conclusion that dialogue simply must be a difficult aspect of writing to learn, because many of these authors are quite bad at it.

The book begins and ends with exposition done in the "As you know Bob" tradition, where people stand around telling each other things they already know, so the reader is clued in to what's going on. Though Mr. Carter does not indulge in this hackneyed technique often, his characters do speak throughout the book in a stilted, unnatural way that sounds like it came off a keyboard.

2. Stupid protagonists: One of the keys to the plot working in the novel is that the dragons appear right out of the oceans one day, and start their feeding frenzy, and the whole world is completely taken by surprise.

But, the world is only taken by surprise because all of the world's governments and scientific institutions are full of idiots. When the dragon egg "meteors" were still a year out, the scientists knew that they were behaving in a way that simply wasn't natural, but no one seriously considered the idea that they might be guided. When the meteors, which were expected to be swallowed up in Jupiter's gravity well, split up, went around it, and regrouped on the other side, the scientists simply mumbled "weird meteors, ain't they?" Nobody seemed to entertain the idea that these might be guided objects till they landed on earth, and every single one of them went into the sea. Finally, people said, "hey, that ain't right," but they still don't take any measures to prepare the military or civilian population for a possible attack, or first contact.

I cannot believe that this would actually happen. If the world were actually under this kind of threat, there would be world meetings. Every single scientist remotely qualified would be consulted, and the suggestion that the objects were being guided would have been brought up and taken seriously from the start, and most countries would have started beefing up their militaries within the month.

3. Lack of Scope: Let me just say that if you have an end of the world novel, which is only one hundred seventy-seven pages long, you're leaving too much out. The book follows only Malfusco, Kimbrough, and Darringer as they advise the President, and drive home to San Diego. That, along with five to ten pages devoted to a little girl in Japan, is it. Though I think this would work in a movie or novella, there needs to be more for a novel. The book abounds with subplots that could have been, but weren't. There was not one international conference. No religious doomsayers. No increase in crime. No political ramifications. Is there nothing of interest going on at all in the world besides three scientists on a road trip from Colorado to California to look for Kimbrough's daughter, who's probably already dead?

4. Improbable science and scenarios:

a. Even with the existence of the human species at stake, I cannot believe it possible that within five months, a SUBTERRANEAN lunar colony is built, and a ship is sent to Mars, with the intent of setting up a colony there as well.

b. Human "intelligence" began about nine thousand years ago. One premise that provides the foundation of the book is that humans were "Jump Started" by aliens about nine thousand years ago, in order for the population to grow to the ridiculous size it has so there is lots of food for the next time the dragons are sent. This is Kimbrough's theory from the start, and events prove her theory correct. However, there is no real reason given in the books to believe the theory in the first place. Several times it is stated that human culture started all around the world at "around" the same time, but that's only true if you're willing to seriously dick around with the numbers.

The mammoths went extinct ten thousand years ago, or so we think. But what if it was really more like nine thousand? Neanderthals went extinct about thirty thousand years ago, but what if it was really thirty-six, or twenty-seven? It's not a big stretch to think that an event like the extinction of the mammoths, that current theory states happened ten thousand years ago (according to the book) actually happened only nine thousand years ago. However it isn't reasonable to believe that this same event occurred at the same time as events we believe to be six and a half or seven thousand years ago, like Stonehenge. In a timeline that is only nine or ten thousand years long, our scientists and historians have placed events that occur at the same time three thousand years apart? We can't be THAT far off. But these leaps are made to make this basic theory work, and only to make the theory work, with no proof given.

5. Chauvinism: All of the female characters are portrayed as emotionally weak in this novel. While the men are characterized as decisive, stoic, making the tough decisions, the women are characterized as overly sentimental, hysterical and distraught. The only people opposed to the president using excessive force, when all other options have been used up, are his female advisors, who have to be shouted down. Kimbough is insanely determined to reach San Diego. She knows the place is destroyed, and she has no reason to believe that her daughter is even there in the first place. But when stopped at a roadblock in Arizona, she yells at her husband not to be a wimp when a soldier stops them by pointing an M-16 at his chest. She wants to go home NOW! Good Lord.

6. Anti-climatic ending: The world is doomed. The dragons are overrunning the world; the alien spacecrafts are on their way. This is it--don't get scared.

And then... the book ends a little disappointingly.

And finally, the ugly: This alone almost made me put the book down around page forty or so.

What do the U.S.'s top astronomers advise the President to do when it looks like the earth is going to be smashed into oblivion? Put a colony on the moon that faces away from the meteor shower. It should be safe from impact cause the moon doesn't rotate, you see.

The moon doesn't rotate?

Oh. My. God.

I feel a bit flummoxed when it comes to rating this book. I enjoyed reading it, I don't deny that, but the entire time I'm also thinking how much better it could be. Since I'm torn down the middle, I'll tear the rating down the middle as well.

Rating: 3 out of 5

Jump Start by Gary Carter
Published by: PublishAmerica; October 2003
ISBN: 0765307669
Genre: Science Fiction
Author's Webpage: http://www.garycarter-ent-jumpstart.com/index.htm   [Read more...]

You may not know this about me, but I have a tendency to speak before I truly know what I'm talking about. Going all the way back to this big Stryper incident between me and my friend Ross back in high school, I have a history of criticizing something, then having to come back and say "My bad," when I find out I didn't have a clue.

For instance, in my review of Morevi, I rant about characters living in medieval England using the words "pistols" and "bullets" instead of "muskets" and "musket balls." Well, turns out I should have done some research before blabbing away like that, as I later found out (with Tee's help) than muskets and pistols are two different things.

Which brings me to The Hunter's Blades Trilogy. After reading the first twenty pages of The Thousand Orcs I thought, "Is this a joke? Dwarves, Elves, Giants? Orcs, for chrissakes? If Tolkein were alive today, he'd clean up in the lawsuit."

I bitched to Evo. I bitched to Tee. I couldn't believe I was even considering reading these books. If I wanted elves and dwarves, I still had Return of the King to read. But c'mon, I thought, it's R. A. Salvatore, and The Thousand Orcs made the New York Times best-seller list. So I trudged on.

By page fifty, I was still reading. By page one hundred? well, you know, I really should learn to keep my mouth shut.

The Thousand Orcs, The Hunter's Blades Trilogy - Book I

Gandalug Battlehammer, the First King and Ninth King of Mithral Hall, has died. Bruenor Battlehammer and his clan must return to Mithral Hall so he can take his rightful place as King of the Dwarves, whether he wants to or not.

Along with his band of five thousand Dwarf warriors, Bruenor's closest companions accompany him: Regis the Halfling, Wulfgar the Barbarian, Catti-Brie, Bruenor's human adopted-daughter, and Drizzt Do'Urden. Drizzt the deadly. Drizzt the loved. Drizzt the reviled. Drizzt the dark Drow Elf.

As they travel home, the convoy encounters Orc raiders in larger and larger numbers. Obould, the King of the Orcs, as allied himself with Gerti, Queen of the Giants. Soon, open war is declared on the lands of the Dwarves.

Held up in the town of Shallows, the Orcs and Giants battle the horribly outnumbered Dwarves. Drizzt watches from within enemy territory as the city and his beloved king fall in battle. Now he is the only one left between Mithral Hall and the thousand Orcs.

How much does this book rock? About as much as my description of it sucks. Seriously, the book far outshines my synopsis.

Like most good fantasy, this is a dense book, filled with great characters and intricate plotting. Every individual character, like little pieces in a jigsaw puzzle, moves around and joins together with others, creating an intricate final picture. No characters are wasted. If any of them would have been omitted, the book would have had to end differently. Authors should take lessons on weaving a plot together this well.

Rating: 4 out of 5

The Lone Drow - The Hunter's Blades Trilogy - Book II

You didn't really think that Bruenor and all the dwarves died did you? Due to some from some unlikely allies, the dwarves escape the Shallows and make their way back to the king's palace. And the battle for Helm's Dee? I mean, Mithral Hall, begins.

This second installment in the trilogy is essentially entails one LONG battle between the Dwarves and Orcs at Mithral Hall, intercut with the story of the now deeply despondent Drizzt, who has become a one Drow army, attacking the Orcs from the rear. His sole goal in life is to destroy Obould, who the dark elf believes has killed all of his friends. Unfortunately the Orc king, through magic, sacrifices, and a new impenetrable armor, has become a god. Go figure.

This is definitely a "middle book," the action has increased, and the stage is definitely set for the final book.

Rating 3.9 out of 5
(I couldn't give it a four, it wasn't quite as good as the first installment, but it was close.)

These are the first books by R. A. Salvatore that I've read. Now I know why he is a best seller. These books are not profound. They are not really awe-inspiring, even given the scope of the story. Aside from some journal entries by Drizzt, there is very little that is "deep" in these books.

But, they are a hell of a lot of fun to read, and surprisingly well written. I'm thinking I may have to check and see if he could indeed have written a good book based on Star Wars: Episode II.

The Hunter's Blades Trilogy, a trilogy by R. A. Salvatore
Published by: Wizards of the Coast
Genre: Fantasy
Author's Webpage: www.rasalvatore.com

The Two Swords
Coming: October 2004   [Read more...]