Reading – Page 5 – The Warbler Books

Spell/Sword – G. Derek Adams

July 30, 2016 No Comments

Asteroid Made of Dragons was G. Derek Adams’s first (semi-)traditionally published work, but the man was no stranger to releasing books. As you may (or may not) recall from my review of AMoD, Adams had self-published two prequels prior to winning the Sword and Laser contest on Inkshares. The first of those books is Spell/Sword, wherein we meet the protagonist duo of Rime and Jonas and go careening through glowing canyons and flying on wyverns with them on their first adventure. Adams was kind enough to provide me with a copy of Spell/Sword in audiobook form, which is currently available on Audible, and is wonderfully narrated by Rachel Ahrens, who brings a voice and character to Rime so close to what my mind created when I read AMoD that I was a bit surprised, to be honest. She really did a fantastic job. The thing about Adams’s writing is that,

Monkey Business – Landon Crutcher

July 10, 2016 No Comments

I enjoy a good laugh as much as the next person, but I rarely find myself seeking out books in the humor category, opting instead for more “serious fare.” I don’t know why. I loved Lamb, had an exceedingly good time with Asteroid Made of Dragons, and have a leather bound and much loved collection of Douglas Adams’s famous Hitchhiker’s Guide series. And those are off the top of my head. Point is, I probably ought to laugh more. So when I spoke to Landon Crutcher about his debut novel— the first to be published by Inkshares’s Quill imprint — I decided it was past time for me to read a book that’d make me laugh. And laugh I did. Monkey Business is just like Landon described it in our chat: a zany, shenanigans-filled Will Ferrell-style comedy on paper. I was of two minds when I initially heard that description, as

Ageless – Paul Inman

June 17, 2016 1 Comment

We often try to classify writing by its elemental genre, the thing at the heart of the text that drives or emotional attachment to the story. These aren’t things like “fantasy,” “science fiction,” or “slipstream”; rather, it’s mystery, adventure, wonder, horror, relationship, and the like that connect us, on a human level, to what we read. At a first glance, Ageless seems to be a combination of mystery and wonder: we have the big “what if” of wonder— what if a person aged so slowly that they were essentially immortal?— and the puzzle-piece arrangement of our leap into the story, immediately eliciting questions of “how” that start off a mystery. But as Ageless progresses, it becomes clear that it is a character-driven story, unfolding across generations, and dealing with fundamental questions of love and loss, and the limits of human kindness and cruelty. It is a book about relationships. It’s

Octavia’s Brood – Walida Imarisha & Adrienne Marie Brown

May 26, 2016 No Comments

A few weeks ago, I attended a rally in support of Bernie Sanders just north of Oakland, in Vallejo, California. At the rally, I heard a sentence that struck a deep chord within me: An idea does not have to be radical to be revolutionary. It’s a simple statement, sure, but it has legs. I imagine that, during the height of the civil rights movement, there was a portion of the American population that felt the idea of racial equality was radical. But thinking about it, were people asking for anything completely new? No. They were asking to have the rights of protection, access, and representation that already existed for a majority of Americans. I don’t mean to say that radical action wasn’t taken in the name of revolution. Rather, that the desires of the movement were not radical, though they were certainly revolutionary. I think that our current politics are

Central Station – Lavie Tidhar

May 20, 2016 No Comments

I thought it would be difficult to find a book at good as Hannu Rajaniemi’s Collected Fiction this year, but Lavie Tidhar’s Central Station, also published by Tachyon, has overtaken it for the top spot in my list this year. By a tiny margin. For me, Central Station was more than a good—or even great—book. It was an important book, for several reasons. The first is that it is some advanced science fiction that breaks through a number of barriers in the genre, which I’ll dig into below. The second is that it was written by an Israeli author and takes place in Tel Aviv. Representation in speculative fiction has been a hot topic for the last few years, and I’ve been rather appalled by the backlash in some areas of the community at the idea of diversity in sci-fi and fantasy. I love reading fiction precisely because of the extraordinary opportunity

Chariots of the Gods — Erich von Daniken

April 26, 2016 No Comments

Several years ago, while working at PlayStation, I was introduced to the most compelling evidence I have ever seen for the existence of extraterrestrial intelligence. That there is extraterrestrial life is, to me, a given. That there is intelligent extraterrestrial life also strikes me as true, it not because of statistical likelihood, then certainly because of the aforementioned evidence. That evidence came in the form of a four hour documentary called “The Disclosure Project,” in which people who are trained observers — pilots, control tower operators, radar technicians… Mainly military and paramilitary personnel — soberly talk about their experiences with UFOs and other phenomena. I’m not asking you to watch all four hours of it, but I encourage you to check it out. It might blow your mind a little bit. “The Disclosure Project” started me down the rabbit hole of research into extraterrestrials. The issue is that the “good

Asteroid Made of Dragons – G. Derek Adams

April 20, 2016 3 Comments

It is obvious that G. Derek Adams, author of Asteroid Made of Dragons, understands the trappings and tropes of fantasy backwards and forwards. It is also obvious that he has tremendous love for the genre because (and in spite) of its cheesier clichés and frequent absurdities. I’m not getting down on fantasy here. Long time readers of the Warbler know that I, too, love fantasy well, even if my interest waned of late. Adams’s book was the perfect supplement to A Crucible of Souls—a book that took itself very seriously—in reinvigorating my love of fantasy. Asteroid Made of Dragons is a self-aware, funny, and action-packed novel that is basically a Dungeons and Dragons adventure in delicious prose. It is absurd and delightful, with a great cast of characters, fun set pieces, and suffused with a larger-than-fantasy-life essence that punctuates every page of the book. It also happens to be the third book

A Crucible of Souls – Mitchell Hogan

April 14, 2016 No Comments

When the prologue of A Crucible of Souls started to play, I noticed a few interesting things happen simultaneously. First, I recognized instantaneously that the reader, Oliver Wyman, would be fantastic. Second, I thought “oh I know where this is going.” And finally, I thought, “this, again?” You see, over the past year I’ve found that epic fantasy has gotten a bit stale for me. This doesn’t cover all of epic fantasy, not by a long shot. But I’ve grown tired of some of the tropes endemic to the genre. This feeling was particularly pronounced when I listened to The Sword of Shannara, which I found tiresome and derivative, much to the chagrin of a few commenters on the internet. Poorly understood precursor civilizations, whose only remains are valuable artifacts, some language, and thinly veiled threats to not repeat their mistakes, lest you lead the world to a second “shattering,”

Featured Author: John Carter

April 12, 2016 2 Comments

Today’s featured author is John Carter, who can be found on Facebook and at TheWorldsofJohnCarter.com. His book, The Army of the Man, makes use of one of the most intriguing parasites around today, Toxoplasma gondii. I can’t wait to read this book. About The Army of the Man: 1968. The arms race spirals out of control as the world’s super powers push the limits of science to obtain superiority. Science fiction becomes fact with the breakthrough of the Sekhmet Serum. The dawn of the super soldier is on the horizon thanks to a common parasite: Toxoplasma gondii. 2018 Eric Lawson, a fervent protester and opponent of the United States government, is broke. With graduation at hand, he faces an uncertain future. When approached by a representative of “The Man,” he’s offered a chance to fulfill his lifelong dream of changing the world. After being injected with the Sekhmet Serum, Eric embarks on an epic

Featured Author: Peter Ravlich

April 11, 2016 No Comments

With the Inkshares/Geek & Sundry contest into its second week, it’s time to continue the featured author series! This time, Peter Ravlich’s Phase Three, which touches on some classic science fiction themes while addressing some very real elements of our lives today as consumers. Peter Ravlich can be found on twitter (@PeterRavlich) and on inklings.co.nz. About Phase Three: The world has an addiction. Augmenting reality – augmenting ourselves – averted a looming energy crisis, but it has become something more than that. “Overnight equality,” promises the slogan, and what’s a decade or two between advertisers? We redefined what it means to be human, then bought our own bullshit retail. But the physical world still exists, however much we stare into the infinite. People yet remain, living outside the reality bubbles we create. And so do the consequences of our inattention. Three individuals, each a casualty of flawed implementation, face intimate, inconsequential decisions

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