Kindle Spotlight -- Flame Kissed

Alexis Radcliff is back with a new series called Seeking the Dragon. She asked me to review the first book, Flame Kissed, and so here we go.

The protagonist is 17-year-old Ella Denton. Years ago, her family was killed in a mysterious fire and she got shuffled between foster families until finally arriving at the Dentons. So now she's settled in and getting ready to go off to college. But before she does, she heads off to a ski lodge with friends and family. There she is reunited with her long-time crush Nick. She plans to confess her feelings for him, but stuff happens and she ends up getting transported to a parallel world called Ether-Realm which seems to be filled entirely with dicks. They all either want to perform unspeakable medical experiments on her, enslave her, or just beat her into submission. Not a good way to spend summer vacation. I get the sense there are nicer people around, but we don't meet them in the first book. But hey, at least she has some strange magic power to make things a little better.

And that's pretty much it for the first volume. It's very short and mostly just serves to introduce us to Ella and the Ether-World. Obviously there are big secrets to be revealed, but you'll have to wait until later. Honestly, you can almost skip this one because I've told you just about everything. Still, it wouldn't hurt to start from the beginning, and you can knock this out in about an hour. For the most part, it's written well, although Radcliff uses words like "feel" and "saw" instead of just showing what was felt and seen.

I sort of feel this should have been longer, because it just doesn't do as good of a job as it should bringing us into the world. It doesn't really get good until the end. On the flip side, however, that hopefully means the subsequent books will be even better.

https://www.amazon.com/Flame-Kissed-Seeking-Dragon-Book-ebook/dp/B074SWT6C2/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1508706089&sr=1-1&keywords=Flame+kissed

James Review -- Star Wars: Aftermath: Empire’s End

This week I decided to review Star Wars: Aftermath: Empire’s End by Chuck Wendig. 

The story opens with Norra Wexley’s team hunting Imperial Grand Admiral Rae Sloane, whom they believe is responsible for a series of assassinations and attempted assassinations using mind- controlled agents, including Nora Wexley’s husband Brentin. Meanwhile, Sloane and Brentin have joined forces to hunt down Gallius Rax, the true mastermind behind the assassinations and now leader of the Empire in all but name. Both group’s find their way to Rax’s home world of Jakku. Sloane and Brentin arrive first and begin a long journey across the world having to ally with the local Hutt crimelord.

When Norra’s group arrives, they find a massive Imperial fleet gathered around the planet. While their ship flees Norra and Jas Emari take an escape pod to the planet’s surface, and Norra’s son Temmin sends Mister Bones, a B1 battle droid he had repaired and upgraded to protect his mother. 

Soon Norra and Jas are captured and separated. Eventually Norra is rescued by Mister Bones and they shortly regroup with Jas, who had also escaped captivity.

Meanwhile, on Chandrila, the current Republic capital, the members of Norra’s team that fled Jakku find themselves caught in a maze of Republic politics as they try to gain support for an attack on the Imperial fleet over Jakku. Eventually they succeed, but as the battle rages, Norra’s group and Sloane’s duo discover what Rax’s true plan is. And other enemies are closing on the Republic’s leaders while the bulk of its fleet is away…

T

he book also includes several sections showing events away from the main plot, and flashbacks to earlier portions of Rax’s life and his education by Palpatine.

I give the book 7 out of 10. I still like most of the characters and the battle sequences were entertaining. It was also interesting to see a little of Palpatine’s thought process behind the plan he entrusted to Rax. However, the political scenes dragged on far too long in my opinion, and felt like filler for the most part. Also, there were a number of sections near the end that made little sense to me. Finally, I feel that the ending created more questions than it answered.

Kindle Spotlight -- Horns of the Ram

Last year I reviewed Austin Rogers' intriguing sci-fi novel Sacred Planet (http://tinyurl.com/y7w73hzr). A while back, he asked me to review the follow-up. I was sitting on a sizable pile of stuff to read and couldn't get to it right away, but while it's no longer timely, I'm keeping my word and finally reviewing it. Here is Dominion Series book two, Horns of the Ram.

The story picks up shortly after the first book. Davin and Strange are the only two members of the Fossa to survive the ambush in Jerusalem which resulted in the abduction of Sierra Falco. Davin is patched up by a Middle Eastern group of freedom fighters called the Defenders of Glory, and they task him with rescuing Sierra. They send along a Defender named Kiki to help them/make sure they don't run away. The trio sets off in the Fossa for Carinian space.

Meanwhile, Ulrich Morvan continues his mysterious and sinister agenda to make Carina great again. He's championing for war, and he doesn't particularly care who it's with. His sights are set on Earth--the Sacred Planet, and he wants to claim it for Carina.

Meanwhile, Cristiana of the house of Eagle wants to be the champion of Zantorian of the Sagittarium Regnum like her hero Kastor (only with a more optimistic future). She competes in an intense race across a volcanic planet to make it happen, but the competition is fierce.

Back on Earth, the Defenders begin their campaign to seize Jerusalem from the Confederacy. Backed by a mysterious adviser, it looks like they might have a shot at pulling it off. Zantorian is concerned by these developments, so he sends Cristiana and fellow warrior-noble Larkin to get to the bottom of it. But when they arrive, they discover the identity of the adviser, and it's the last person they would ever suspect.

So some people want to start a war, and others want to prevent it. Regardless of who succeeds, the galaxy will never be the same.

As I reported last time, this series is pretty much Game of Thrones in space. But before you go writing Austin Rogers off as a George R.R. Martin wannabe, hear me out. Horns of the Ram is a worthy follow-up to Sacred Planet. It's well-written, has great action and endearing characters. There are also very detailed descriptions of what is happening in each scene, so you feel like you're there. If you like science fiction, you have no excuse not to pick this up. Give this series a try, and you won't regret it.

https://www.amazon.com/Horns-Ram-Dominion-Book-2-ebook/dp/B06WLMXT3B/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1507770630&sr=1-1&keywords=Horns+of+the+ram

James Review -- Rita Longknife: Enemy in Sight

This week I decided to review Rita Longknife: Enemy in Sight by Mike Shepherd. 

When this book begins, the series namesake is in command of a heavy cruiser dedicated to exploration. She has found the wreckage of an alien ship, in a time where humanity has never contacted any non-human sentient life, and evidence that first contact was made by pirates. After her ship returns home, a council decides to commission a task force to deal with the growing pirate menace before attempting to locate and establish peaceful contact with the aliens. Rita is assigned a command of the warships assigned to the mission with her husband Ray attached to the fleet’s ground force.

Meanwhile the pirate fleet splits into two groups, each with a small colony as a base. But they swiftly reunite when an alien colony rich in gold and silver is found. At first the occupation of the alien world seems to go well, but it swiftly turns into a fight with the alien settlers waging a guerilla war against the pirates. And after some of the pirate ships seeking more worlds to plunder are routed by an alien fleet and lead it back to the occupied colony, the pirate armada flees, planning to make a stand at the nearer of the two colonies they were using as bases.

The anti-pirate task force encounters a suspected pirate vessel near the planet Savannah and sets out in pursuit but the acting leader of LeMonte, one of the pirate base worlds, manages to convince them his world is just an unregistered colony rather than a pirate port. The naval force returns to base but soon one of the two pirate ships that survived the first battle with an alien fleet, and whom had abandoned their comrades, arrives warning of an alien attack force. The naval fleet sets out again but this time discovers that both pirate colonies have been eradicated. The warships move on to the alien colony the pirates had occupied and find themselves facing an alien fleet of unknown power and technology…

I give this book 9 out of 10. It has a nice variety of scenes, and I like some of the new characters a lot, or, at least the ones that weren’t in books I have read before, but there were two major drawbacks that keep me from rating it higher. The final battle was too short for my taste and, even worse, the battle between the pirate armada and the alien pursuit force was skipped entirely. After all the pirate-focused chapters I was really looking forward to this conflict but, instead, the pirate plotline ends as soon as the pirate fleet is deploying to make its stand. I’ve always liked this author’s space battles so I view this as a horrible error.

Pandora's Box 4S 800

Today I want to tell you about an exciting new product I just acquired. It is the Pandora's Box 4S and it is a dream come true. It's pretty much a retro videogame console that only plays arcade games, but man, they are some of the best games ever. This isn't shovelware; these are real arcade games you used to have to shell out your hard-earned money to play in the arcade, or plunk down thousands of dollars for a full cabinet in your home. There are multiple versions of this available, but I'm going to focus on the particular one I bought.

The thing comes pre-loaded with (depending on the model you purchase) 800 or more arcade games. It has many of the greats such as the Ninja Turtles games, The Simpsons, X-Men, countless fighting games like Street Fighter, and obscure Japanese titles. If I had this as a kid, I would have literally died of joy.

However, I should mention it's not perfect. Here are the pros and cons.

Pros:

1.) 800 of the greatest arcade games ever

2.) HDMI support. You can also hook it up to your PC monitor.

3.) Uses an authentic joystick setup

4.) USB support

5.) You can create a Favorites list so you don't have to keep cycling through the massive library to find the game you want to play.

6.) The games run pretty faithfully from what I've seen so far.

Cons:

1.) The emulation isn't perfect. I've noticed some slight (and not so slight) glitches.

2.) Comes with a very cheap HDMI cable which broke the same day I set it up. You're better off using your own.

3.) The power cable comes in two pieces that don't fit very well together.

4.) The model I got has a two-player joystick board which requires you and a friend to pretty much be rubbing up against one another to play. There are other models which come with different controllers, so maybe shop around a bit.

So far, I feel the pros outweigh the cons and this thing is fantastic. I'll keep playing on it, and if my opinion changes, I'll let you know.

https://www.amazon.com/Console-Classic-Players-Pandoras-multiplayer/dp/B074FVLQF2/ref=pd_rhf_se_p_img_1?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=T5REGJKJ54PT85FKT4NY

James Review -- Star Trek: Enterprise: Rise of The Federation: Patterns of Interference

This week I decided to review Star Trek: Enterprise: Rise of The Federation: Patterns of Interference by Christopher L. Bennett. 

The story begins shortly after the prior book. After the chain of events that led to the collapse of the Partnership of Civilizations was started by the Federation trying to help them without understanding their situation, Admiral Jonathan Archer is trying to set up a non-interference directive in the hopes of preventing any future such disasters. But he faces strong opposition from his friend Thy'lek Shran, who views such a directive as an indictment of one of his proteges killed at the forefront of the crisis, and others who fear such a directive will lead to Starfleet officers doing nothing while less advanced civilizations are destroyed by forces beyond their control--such as natural disasters.  

While Archer doesn’t consider the latter scenario likely, he must also struggle with his dedication to his cause after realizing that both the Orion Syndicate and Section 31 hope for the directive to become reality as well as the news that his beloved dog Porthos is dying.

Meanwhile, Sauria has been conquered by Emperor Maltuvis, who received economic aid from the Federation in exchange for valuable resources found in his nation before launching his plot to seize control of his world, and is now receiving covert aid from the Orion Syndicate. Starfleet sends a team to assist resistance forces opposing him but the Orions plan to arrange a disaster involving the aid team to encourage isolationism within the Federation. Charles Tucker III hopes to use the Saurian situation in his quest to destroy Section 31 by planting evidence showing that the organization’s apparent leader is working with the Orion Syndicate. But he must decide how much he is willing to sacrifice to end Section 31 and face the possibility that he is becoming too much like his enemy.

There is also a plot involving the planet Birnam where the Earth Cargo Ship Verne has discovered that some of the planet’s mobile plant life contain compounds that would be of great pharmaceutical value. But there is some evidence that the plants in question might be sentient and the only way to harvest the compounds is to kill the plants. After the USS Endeavour arrives to investigate the possibility that the plants are intelligent, tensions quickly heat between the Starfleet crew and the members of Verne’s crew who believe the plants aren’t intelligent and that the tests are taking too long, thus delaying pharmaceutical deals.

I give this book 9 out of 10. It has a nice variety of scenes but there is very little action in it. Even the Sauria plot only has a couple of short action scenes. Also I feel it suffers from the fact that the ultimate resolution of most of the plots has been established elsewhere. Finally, the Birnam plot feels completely disconnected from the Non-Interference Directive and Sauria plots.