Tag Archives: book probe

Sci-Fi Book Probe: Drizzt, Pathogen Protocol, Secret Scouts

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RevolutionSF’s Sci-Fi and Fantasy Book Probe provides you with new books, eliminating all that troublesome freedom of choice. Book Probe’s choices are best. Book Probe is your friend. 

Timeless: A Drizzt Novel by R.A. Salvatore

RA Salvatore has done more for Dungeons & Dragons than the 20-sided dice industry, and now he’s doing more with his most famous character, the dark elf Drizzt.

These stories are epic fantasies, with all that the genre requires: magic, monsters, fighting. All good things. The immense world of D&D’s Forgotten Realms is put to excellent use, again, and I found myself flipping through player’s handbooks, DM’s guides, and Monster Manuals as I read.

These books will make you want to start up a D&D campaign. If you already are playing or running one, they will make you want to stop what you’re doing and get back to it.

For veterans of the Drizzt stories, this one is a welcome return. All the parts still work great.

For folks reading the Drizzt character for the first time, the book works great, too, which is nice. Also nice: Those folks will now have a few dozen other Drizzt appearances to catch up on, once they get pulled in.

 

 

A Deep Horror That Was Very Nearly Awe by JR Hamantaschen

You need more weird fiction, and this book has it. This one is a collection of 11 short stories, all of them crammed with horror, suspense, humor, and an underlying sense of disquietude. I mean that as a compliment.

Hamantaschen also has a particular skill with story titles that I wish others would emulate. Far from using one word (“Dark,” or “The Tunnel” are two books I just made up but probably exist) or from clearly describing what is going to happen in the book, Hamantaschen gets goofy. And by that I mean, excellent.

For example, “No One Cares But I Tried.” “I’ve Read With Some Interest About…” Here is my personal favorite: “Story Title Revealed About Halfway Through.”

My favorite story is “I Will Soon Be Home and Never Need Anyone Ever Again.” I hope it’s embarrassing for Hamantaschen to hear this: but this story is sweet. Its characters are outright charming. So, unlike many stories that call themselves “weird fiction,” not every story here ends with staring into the gibbous moon while the abyss consumes your mortal soul.

Just give it a read. You’ll dig it.

Secret Scouts and the Lost Leonardo by Mr. and Mrs. Kind

This book both made me feel smarter and reminded me of 1980s movies, so that’s a double-thumbs up from me.

It’s about a gaggle of kids, who, as kids in 80s movies were prone to do, stumbled onto a mystery. In this case, it’s a mystery about Leonardo Da Vinci, and the book proceeded to school me on Da Vinci stuff that I did not know about.

Sure, Dan Brown named a whole code after Da Vinci, but there’s more. Da Vinci kept busy.

The story’s setup is very much in the style of Explorers, or even E.T., and I mean that as a compliment. It’s also crammed full of factual stuff, which is a good way to cram education into a book about kids and historical mysteries.

This book, the first in a series, is fun for the young ones and the old ones and any variety of age, really. It’s just fun.

For more about the series, check out Secret Scouts. 

Pathogen Protocol by Darren Beyer

This one is a hard-science space adventure story, crammed with true-to-life space science details by someone who would know: Author Darren Beyer, has been a Space Shuttle experiment engineer, who worked on the Hubble Space Telescope launch and was part of Shuttle recovery crews.

Beyer knows his stuff, but also can tell a terrific story. That’s a drawback that faces some folks with real science experience: how do you translate the one thing into the other? Beyer does it by having the real science parts as the launch pad for the sci-fi adventure parts.

It’s part 2 of a series, so you’ll need to pick up part 1. But that’s a good thing in this case. It’s just more neat stuff for you to read. I’m anxious to see what’s next.

Barren by Peter V. Brett

 

This one is a novella set in the author’s “Demon Cycle” storyline. You need to check those out for the covers alone, but inside the covers are cool stories about good guys fighting demons. “Barren” is also that, with an excellent female hero and a story that could be a TV series. By that, I mean, I wish it was a TV series, right now.

If you’re just discovering Brett with this book, you’ve got lots more to read ahead of you. Get on that. If you’re a “Demon Cycle” fan already, well, I don’t need to tell you to pick this up.

Book Probe: The Wild Dead, Nuomenon Infinity, Metal Chest

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You need new geek-centric books. These are the books you need. Get them at the linkage. No thanks necessary.

The Wild Dead by Carrie Vaughn


The Wild Dead is another book set in the post-apocalyptic world of Carrie Vaughn’s “Bannerless,” which I described as a “Reese’s Cup style combination of two great tastes… murder mystery and post-apocalypse.”

This one is a crime drama that happens to be set after the apocalypse. Amid the post-apocalypse, when do people find a space in their schedules for murder? That’s just not good time management.

In spite of all the murder and the post-apocalypse, this story is surprisingly optimistic and sweet. Author Carrie Vaughn digs into her heroes and finds goodness and persistence, not fatalism and pathos.

I admit, I was a little bummed out that my advance review copy promises “map TK.” I love maps of fantasy & sci-fi worlds. So this one will be even better when it goes on sale for normal humans, because of the maps, I’m sure of it.

Metal Chest by Chris Yee

Metal Chest is a story about a robot and a guy roaming an apocalyptic wasteland (that’s the best kind of wasteland.)

But it feels like a Western, and the characters behave like they’re in a Western. By that, I mean the characters and the setting are clearly established through dialogue, which is such a refreshing change from paragraphs and paragraphs of descriptions.

Here’s an example: “Clunkers like you won’t get very far if you stick to being friendly all the time. You got to look after yourself. Put everybody else second. They’ll all leave you dead in the dirt.”

That tells you everything you need to know about the speaker and the one he’s talking to. And it’s just one line. The book contains lots more than one line.

The whole thing is a terrific exercise in subverting tropes. More than that, it celebrates Westerns while also being a fine example of one.

I’m going to need to see more from author Chris Yee. But in the meantime, Metal Chest is worth a reread, preferably with your boots kicked off by a campfire.

Nuomenon Infinity by Marina Lostetter 

Nuomenon Infinity is a second book in a series of mosaic novels, containing shorter stories that all take place in the same world.

In this case, it’s about two space convoys, one launched by a space consortium and another a ragtag fleet thought lost, both of which address the story from different directions.

And now that 70s song “Convoy” is stuck in my head.

Both stories are thrilling and crammed with action, with echoes of “Firefly” and “Battlestar Galactica.” Like those shows, these books are surprisingly, effectively human. The story really sticks it to your emotions. I cried a time or two. Then I read in the author’s afterword that she named one character after the Orlando nightclub shooting victims, and cried again.

That’s good stuff, right there.

Book Probe: Robots of Gotham, Spaceship Next Door, The Poppy War

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Book Probe is where new books come to get found. Your next enjoyable book is right here, without the hassle of having to pick one yourself. Trust Book Probe. Book Probe is your friend. 

Robots of Gotham

This is good stuff, exploring society in a very “Terminator” future after the puny humans make peace with the machines.

As you can imagine, it doesn’t go well.

The whole story is a thrilling action flick in book form, with cool robots and conspiracies and things blowing up. Read it while walking in slow-motion away from an explosion.

I’m also very pleased with the extensive backstory, with the 2083 Sovereignty Matrix explaining what countries are ruled by which robots (my home state of Alabama is still ruled by a human! That’s a refreshing change (sick burn directed at my own home state.)

One quibble: The title “Robots of Gotham” sounds like it would be an awesome Batman story. The word “Gotham,” perhaps, should be off limits. People may expect certain things from such a story. Well, one certain thing.

Granted, if the title gets one person to pick it up thinking “Batman,” but delivers robots and conspiracies instead, that’s not a bad tradeoff.

The Spaceship Next Door

This one could have been a movie in the 80s; it has the same tone as “Goonies” and the same sense of amazement as “Flight of the Navigator.”

It stars a fearless teenager in a town where a spaceship landed, and then didn’t do anything for years.

It’s the “for years” part where everything gets good. Of course, the spaceship finally does stuff.

This story is thrilling, funny, and heartwarming.

 

Uncorking a Murder by Michael Carlon

This is a murder mystery that is in tune with current culture, the idea of which blows my mind.

Most standard-issue murder mysteries exist outside of a time period, but this one is so of the moment, and also so good.

It’s about a murder investigating podcast, like Serial and others of its ilk. For story purposes, naturally, hijinks ensue and the host gets involved with a real life case.

The story goes down a dark corner after that, into intensely thrilling action, drama, and conspiracy stuff. It’s a quick, fun read.

And conveniently, unlike podcasts, you don’t have to use your ears for anything.

The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang

Author R.F. Kuang has introduced a fantasy world bursting at the seams with imagination.

As I read, I could see the wheels turning in Kuang’s head, as if the author could not wait to tell the reader about the next thing.

The story is inspired by Chinese history, and presents an epic fantasy world of war, gods, and a female hero’s journey from poverty.

The Poppy War is a delight. I’ve already recommended it to a dozen people. I can’t wait for more from this world and this author.