Book Review – The Blue Monsoon by Damyanti Biswas

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Okay, so let’s get this out of the way up front before anyone accuses me of, uh, something or other: I’ve known Damyanti for a while now. At least in the way of Internet folk knowing other Internet folk. But, other than that bar fight in Myanmar, we’ve never met face-to-face.

So, there. Haters can accuse me of playing favorites all they want but all I’m going to them is, “Neener, neener, you’re right.”

Anyway, usually I reserve these book reviews for folks who could use the boost, but Damyanti is well beyond that point. But, I’m going to leave a review for a couple of reasons: I kinda know her and this book rocks. So, TL:DR, just go buy the book. It’s a cracking good read set in a place that might as well be an alien planet to most Westerners. But, Mumbai is real.

One of the best things about The Blue Monsoon is the city itself becomes a major character and helps to drive the narrative. It breathes and stinks and lurks in dark alleys ready to gut you for your soaking wet shoes. In some ways, the city is kind of like Albuquerque if we got more than a few inches of rain a year. It’s as fully-featured a character as the rest of them. Think about the neon-soaked noir of Blade Runner where the glitz and glamour of the rich are always just around the corner mocking you for living in squalor and you’ll get a feel for the Mumbai Biswas has shown us. Now, I don’t know much about India – it’s never been on my travel bucket list – but I do know Westerners either view as a quirky place where everyone dances all the time or a place where gang rape is considered a quality pastime. Maybe you could get a little spiritual awakening to go with your hot-as-lava curry. Like most views Westerners hold of the world – Americans, especially – those views range from distorted to flat-out bullshit. India is a big country, it’s been around a long time, and its got its own set of issues that usually don’t involve dance-offs in the streets. I’ve been to a lot of countries and the sad fact of the world is humans are basically all the same. So, put aside what you think you know and dive into a world where people may have different names and eat different food, but have a lot of the same problems as everywhere else.

Because, ultimately, that’s what a good crime story should be about: The problems. Sure, it’s sexy AF to watch people rip off casinos and disappear into the night, but that’s just fantasy. Crime stories, real ones, aren’t elegant. They’re brutal, ugly things that, just like Biswas’s Mumbai, will slit your throat and steal your shoes.

The Blue Monsoon is a crime story in that vein. It deals with the kind of rugged violence that you really only get good old fashioned oppression. It shines a light on the Caste System and the crushing poverty that comes from that kind of system. It looks at gender roles and inequality and all the bad things people can find to do to each other in the names of revenge or justice or whatever we decide to call cutting people up and leaving them on temple steps. Any name we can attach to the atrocities that helps us sleep at night, I guess.

Is it any easy book to read? Not really. Should you read it? Absolutely. Like I said at the beginning, it’s a great story and the city is just as much a character as noble Arnav, iron-willed Tara, or dedicated Sita. This is a richly detailed tapestry woven from words. You could hang this sucker on your wall if you didn’t mind it dripping on your floor and, frankly, it’s probably best to not think too hard about what’s dripping off it and pooling on your tile. Equal parts mystery and twisted travel guide, The Blue Monsoon is an unpredictable thriller brought to life by a rare talent.

Plus, I think it’s sale right now, so go get it.

A ritual murder at a Mumbai temple exposes the city’s dark secrets and ravages the personal life of a detective in this sequel to The Blue Bar.

Amid incessant rains pounding down on Mumbai, Senior Inspector Arnav Singh Rajput is called to a shocking crime scene. A male body is found dismembered on the steps of a Kaali temple. Drawn into his flesh are symbols of a tantra cult. The desecration of a body at a Hindu place of worship puts the city on edge and divides Arnav’s priorities: stopping a fanatic from killing again and caring for his wife who’s struggling through a challenging pregnancy.

Then video footage of the murder is uploaded onto the account of a Bollywood social media influencer, triggering twists in the investigation Arnav didn’t see coming. Caste systems at war. A priest under suspicion. And an anonymous threat that puts his wife’s welfare at risk. When more bodies are found, the savagery of the city begins to surface—and Arnav fears that no one is safe from a bigger storm brewing.

Book Review – Let Slip The Beasts by Suzanne Berget

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When H.G. Wells wrote The Island of Dr. Moreau back in 1896, it was considered scandalous. A sharp stick in the eye of God followed by swift kick to His nuts. It was, in many ways, an exploration of what it really means to be human and only in later years was its true genius discovered, put on display, and paraded around like furry bread and circuses. Blasphemous though it might have been, it paled in comparison to seeing Marlon Brando chewing the scenery in the ’99 movie.

Since the release of the dear doctor’s island and its nascent furry fetish, plenty of other people have taken up the reins – no pun intended – and looked at what it would mean to start turning humans into animals. Franz Kafka, I’m looking at you. Because the thing about Wells’ work is he kind of just let it lie there like a bored hooker. Turning people into animals was shocking in 1896. Now we see it every Black Friday here in the States. So, what would it all mean? What if we could take elements from animals and use them? The strength of the great apes, the wisdom of the dolphins, the ability to creep people the heck out like spiders?

These are questions that a handful of sci-fi authors have dealt with in the past, albeit more on the horror side of the house than the sci-fi side of the house. Of course, the erotica folks took the idea and ran with it, but dino-sex and bigfoot sex and werewolf sex are far from an exploration of the underpinnings of humanity. Those things are just exploring humans having sex with everything that moves. Not judging here, let your freak flag fly.

So, along comes Suzanne Berget, who decides to create a Moreau-esque critter of her own. Berget pulls from some of the classics – The Island of Dr. Moreau and Bladerunner spring to mind – and adds her own twists and turns. Unlike a lot of authors who find inspiration in simply copying the existing works, Berget uses those ideas as springboards for her own ideas. Now, it’s been said that there’s nothing new under the sun so building off something else is not a problem in my mind. Hell, I’ve got my own book that’s an unholy marriage of Cthulhu and Tron, so I’m not really in a position to criticize. Even more importantly, Berget didn’t just crib those stories, change a few names, and call it her own work. She used some basic ideas – human beasts and out-of-control corporations – and built her own unique tale.

That’s not an easy thing to do, but Berget pulls it off with some aplomb and what we get is more than the sum of two stories separated by nearly 100 years. Instead, we get some great characters, some seriously nerve-wracking scenes, more than a few teeth, and a hefty dose of moral ambiguity on the part of both the supposed good guys and the supposed bad guys. In other words, we get a story that feels real.

And to think, this is her first book. It’ll be fascinating to see where Berget goes as an author in the future if she continues to let her imagination run free.

“Beneath the streets of East Resplendent, monsters are mounting a war against their masters.
Kaliope Dearborne, a customer service nobody for a pharmaceutical mega-conglomerate, wants only to escape her cubicle and find true meaning for her life. But after accidentally killing her little sister’s bully, she’s taken captive by The Warren, a ragtag group of runaway medical test subjects.
Kaliope learns that she and her captors are experiments owned by the VyroGen corporation. Locked away and evolving, pieces of her slough off as she grows stronger, faster, and hungrier. Only Thresher—not quite man, not quite animal—keeps her from losing her grip on reality.
When Kaliope discovers the hidden truth of her genetic code, she joins The Warren in the war against VyroGen. With chemistry-altering pheromones and brain-tampering, she’s converted into a sleeper agent. But deep inside the dark heart of the corporation, Kaliope finds something that drastically changes her role in the war. She might win back her memories, her body, and her life, but will Kaliope lose her humanity in the process?”

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Book Review – The Twisted Grain by Dr. C.L. Spillard

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For those of you who missed out, I reviewed another of Dr. Spillard’s books – The Evening Lands – back in ’21. The Evening Lands was a great read, focusing on the nature of good and evil and Verity’s guardian devil. Verity is back in The Twisted Grain, the new psych thriller from across the pond. This time, Spillard injects a bit of eco-disaster into the mix.

Now, the jury is largely out on the long-term effects of GMO foods. Considering the complex nature of our food supplies and how we consume them, it’s entirely possible dastardly things are afoot. Whether those dastardly thing are intentional is also a question for the future. But Spillard drags the future into the here and now with an essentially two-part-in-one story. The first part of the story explores Verity and her interrelationship with Reid – a villain with a change of heart, his mad-scientist machinery, and just how big and out-of-control things can get when we let them go.

So, that’s the skeleton of the plot. Much like The Evening Lands, The Twisted Grain is much more than its underlying plot. A good writer – and Spillard falls into that group – knows that the skeletal plot is just a parts hanger, something to keep the narrative cohesive while the real magic occurs elsewhere. For instance, if you were to view the skeletal outline of Superman, it would probably look something like “A dying planet fires its last son into a distant planet. Shenanigans ensue.” Or: “The crew of the Enterprise sets out on a wacky adventure to find God. Hijinks ensue.” In the case of Superman, more than a few keys points get lost in translation. In the case of Star Trek V, that pretty much sums up the movie. The Twisted Grain’s plot outline falls into the Superman category rather than the Star Trek V category.

Excuse me for a moment. I just have to say Star Trek V was freakin’ stupid. God, I hate that movie.

Anyway, back to the task at hand. The Twisted Grain is much more even than Dr. Spillard’s blurb below would have you believe. Much like The Evening Lands was a philosophical traipse through the poison-daisy-filled fields of good and evil, The Twisted Grain is a trek through the nature of just what vile really means. Worse, who is really behind the vileness. Villains aren’t always out in the open about their villainy. Sometimes, the villain just wants money or power, but the truly great villains are looking for so much more. Just like the truly great heroines have a little more up their sleeves that some would guess.

So what you wind up with a nation-hopping – and mind-bending – adventure where you’ll spend almost as much time plumbing the depths of the psyche as wading through the sometimes foul nature of the world. You could technically sum it up with “A heroine and her former tormentor hatch a mad plan to save the world. Danger ensues.” but it wouldn’t capture the magic and brilliance of actually reading the book.

Highly recommended.

“He tried to destroy her mind.
Now she must face him again – when she believed him dead.

The day after arriving home from the terrifying internment camp whose prisoners she had been sent to interview Verity is confronted, in her home, by its chief interrogator, Reid – the man who subjected her to his memory-obliterating invention the Inverse Polygraph.

But something seems to have changed in him.

In an apparent gesture of reconciliation, he offers to work with her to rid the world of an environmental menace – one which, he found out at the Camp, she abhors.

She agrees.

But lurking in her mind is a suspicion: Reid’s plan is so tempting – so perfect – that she suspects it could only have been hatched by her long-term nemesis, Stan ‘Satanic’ Mills, in an attempt to subject humanity to a new peril and create more fear – the fear on which he feeds…“

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Book Review – Postscript by Barbara Avon

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Kind of an auspicious day for a book review. I never had much family drama over the holidays, but I do know of people whose families were, shall we say, dysfunctional. So, when your drunk uncle is ranting and screaming racist epithets at the mashed potatoes and you desperately need an escape hatch, turn to a good book. Speaking of which, how about a timeless romance for your Thanksgiving pleasure?

There’s this theory out there that states that love knows no boundaries. Distance, time, acceleration, mass so dense not even light can escape, whatever. No boundaries for love. Or, at the very least, love chooses to ignore those boundaries in favor of its desires. At this point, you might be thinking, “Hey, quantum physics! I love quantum physics!” and maybe you’d be right.

Avon’s Postscript is a tough book to review because it comes with a twist that takes it from the standard “Boy and girl meet and fall in love and then some stuff happens but it all works out in the end and they wind up having crazy monkey sex on the swing set in the park” and turns it into something more magical. Not magic as in pulling rabbits out of hats, more like magical in the way things are not always as they seem but really they are it’s just that you’ve been seeing them wrong.

Anyway, I won’t give away the twist. Not that the book would be any worse if you knew the twist, it’s just that the twist is like icing on the cake. Or crazy monkey sex in swing sets if that’s more your thing. No judgment here.

So, you’ve got a couple of people – both broken in different ways – but trying hard to fix themselves. Piece their lives and psyches back together after stumbling through that trauma-inducing thing we call life. They’re not bad people, not in the sense of the truly vile, they’re just hurt and rough around the edges. And a little prickly. But, frankly, we all get prickly sometimes and being prickly can just mean that little poke on the finger that calmly says, “hands off for now, bub”.

The characters are fleshed out enough to make them interesting and compelling and you generally feel for them, but the real star of the story is the story itself. Avon unfolds things gently with the deft fingers of an origami master. Little hints here and there. Whispers in the back of your head that make you think there’s no way that could happen. But not only does it happen, it happens in a way you don’t even see coming.

It’s part romance and part ghost story and overall a lot of fun with an absolutely perfect ending.

“In the Fall of 1985, Jameson Brooks spends his days working for Frank’s Moving. At night, he attempts to fill the void of an empty heart with one-night stands, fueled by alcoholic binges. Lina is a dancer, and a lonely spirit. She isn’t interested in the advances of the handsome, yet rough bachelor that lives above her. Her demons still follow her. Her abusive husband’s ghost lingers, along with that of a very shady newspaper editor. When Lina disappears, love fuels James’ drive to discover the truth by using the clue hidden in the note he finds underneath his door. “Postscript” is a ghost story, a love story, and a story that will make you believe. It includes horror elements and flashbacks to the early 1900s in Prohibition Canada.”

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Book Review H.E. Double Toothpicks by Michael D. Dolce

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Let me get this out of the way and say I’ve know Mike for quite some time. We were both in theater in college although he was much more in theater than I was. I was largely just a hanger-on who did the occasional acting role, did grunt work building a set or two, and got hit in the arm with a flying piece of wood that left a scar that’s kind of visible to this day. I performed one of Mike’s early pieces – Zero The Clown – as an interp piece in a few college speech tournaments and we’ve also sparred on Facebook about who the better superhero is: Batman or Superman. It’s Batman. Just go ahead and admit it’s Batman. He and I also put down a pint of cheap whiskey in his front yard while he was sitting on the steps and I was sitting on a broken toilet in the front yard. Hey, it was college, you do these kinds of things.

Anyway, I’ve known him for a while.

The few of you that have read Roadside Attractions know I’ve dabbled in the idea that we don’t fully understand just what – and more importantly, who – the good guys and bad guys are on a celestial scale. Michael took that idea far further than I ever did in H.E. Double Toothpicks – a rollicking tale about temptation, demonic interference, and rising to the top of the cesspool of Hell only to find maybe it isn’t exactly what you thought it was.

Now, it would be easy to follow the general mythos of Hell and say the only people there are the bad guys and they deserve an eternity of punishment for pissing us off when they were alive. However, if you pay attention to the rules laid out by Christianity, things aren’t really that simple. Especially if you pay attention to the odious Jack Chick, purveyor of hilariously ridiculous comics about people going sentenced to an eternity in Hell for the sin of playing Dungeons and Dragons, listening to cool music, or generally being a great person but forgetting to pledge yourself to the J-man.

The general concept of Hell also makes you wonder why someone could be a vile bastard their whole life and get punished in Hell. Isn’t that exactly the kind of person Hell would want?

Anyway, asking questions like these is the kind of thing that can you a horse’s head in your bed from organized religion. But those kinds of questions also make for good stories. What if? What if? What if? Those are the kinds of springboards you use to drop some dope words onto the page.

And that’s precisely what Michael did. He started with a proposition and let it take him places. They weren’t always places sane people would want to go, but sanity has no part in these kinds of tales. This is the realm of mad prophecy, damn it. The kind of tales that lure mythology into dark alleys and do unspeakable things.

It’s easy to get lost in worldbuilding. There’s also some shiny thing in the corner that needs a description and a backstory even though it’s not really pertinent to the plot. Worldbuilding should be just enough. Just enough to get the idea across. Just enough to start the bubbling in the reader’s head. Too much and it’s like drowning in beer. In a world like Hell, it would be easy to go completely overboard with the worldbuilding and describe the ever-loving, uh, hell out of things. Fortunately, Mike knows when to ease back and remembers that he’s got a story to tell. Sure, he has fun with the demons and the general vileness of Hell, but he doesn’t let it override the story.

And, boy is that story a doozy. Take two very different people and drop them into a mess of situation and they’ll quickly discover they’re maybe not so different as they think. Just like so many of the things we think aren’t as true as we like to believe. For instance, I’m actually 6’3″ 215lbs.

Character development is an important part of this story and that is where Michael really shines. Without telling us what to believe about a character, he lets their actions peak for them. From the nigh-incorruptible Cho to the pre-corrupted Mann, their actions show us who they are more than the narrative’s words.

So, all in all, an excellent read. An elegant blend of philosophy, humor, and just enough hot demon-on-demon action to keep things from getting too over the top. If you’re devoutly religious, you might want to shy away from this book. No, scratch that; you’re exactly the person who needs to read this. And if you’re not devoutly religion, you should probably read this book as well.

“What is the bureaucracy of Hell like? How does one get a job there? Can one fall any lower than Hell itself? Revel in the story of former con man and splendid deviant, Sam Mann. How does someone incorruptible end up in Hell? What happens when that someone, in Hell on a ridiculous technicality, can’t be made to suffer? Does all Hell literally break loose? Marvel at the tale of late professor of philosophy and all-around good guy, Cho Huimang. What happens when Sam and Huimang meet? In a place where repetition is a cornerstone of social order, can there be change? In the ultimate pit of despair, can there be hope in Hell? Anything is possible in H.E. Double Toothpicks.“

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Book Review – Arkadia by Dzintra Sullivan

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Ah, high school. Those lovely days when your clique defined you, the classes bored you to tears, and people framed you for murder. The salad days, as they say. Now, my high school days are long, long behind me. Like previous millennium kind of far back. Which, granted, wasn’t that long ago, but it still makes me feel cool to tell you young punks I left high school when there were still 19s in front the year date.

My lawn, get off it.

Anyway, Dzintra Sullivan dragged me back to the post apocalyptic hellscape that was high school in Arkadia – a book about a witch who’s pretty, popular, and brimming with supernatural power. Kind of like me in high school. Except for the pretty and popular part.

Okay, so that sets the stage. High school. Undisciplined witch with gnarly powers. A world that mostly doesn’t realize people like her, vampires, shape shifters, and other mythic folks exist. And a looming deadline that’s not college. A coming of age story with a slight twist.

So, what to say about this book? It’s a coming of age story, but it’s so goddamned fun it’s hard to see it as just a coming of age story. It’s about growing into your skin and all the little things that happen in high school. It’s about sex with a guy who can turn into a dragon. It’s about long-lasting feuds and renegade magic and friendship and wondering who you can trust when you can’t really trust yourself. And, of course, learning to trust yourself.

But, over all, it’s just a lot of damned fun. Go check it out and dip your toes back in the back-stabbing prison of high school.

“Arkadia Castner, beautiful, popular, and the most messed-up witch you’ll ever meet. Sent to the Halfway House under the supervision and guidance of Den Mother and telepathic empath, Eloise Mayflower. The Halfway House is the last chance for troubled paranormal teens. Eloise has been empowered to know and feel what the teens need. Making her their instant enemy and ally. Then Bohdan Drak walks in, tall, dark, and so damn sexy it hurts to look at him, sparks fly. He’s a dragon shifter and when their souls meet, Arkadia finds a new reason to fight for a brighter future. Just when Arkadia thought life was good, darkness and despair crept in. She’s been framed for a murder, and everyone believes she’s guilty. Can she trust Bohdan and true love? or is it her destiny to be banished forever?“

Book Review – Monstrous Creatures by Patricia Correll

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There’s kind of this notion in society that things and people are either all bad or all good. It’s a simplistic view of the world that ignores the nuance of reality. Even in the cases where the villain is working ostensibly for good causes, we tend to sweep their vile crimes under the rug and pretend they were good all along. Never mind the trail of corpses that got us to this point, they get brushed aside as the redemption arc takes hold. Vampires get this weird kind of treatment all the time. Even going all the way back to Stoker’s Dracula, we’re expected to ignore the beast in favor of the dude who just wants his lost love back. Never mind the blood. Never mind the broken people he’s left in his wake. Never mind the endless murders. It’s all good: He just misses his wife. There’s never an acknowledgment of the crimes. Like, at least give us a “Hey, I know I’ve been a total dickwad” moment.

The thing is, ignoring the bad in favor the redemption arc cheapens the character. Sure, sure, the notion of being really sorry for your crimes and promising to be a good dude in the future is supposed to wash away the sins but, again, reality doesn’t quite work that way.

So, along comes Patricia Correll and Monstrous Creatures and finally gives us a protagonist of sorts that fully acknowledges his life of misdeeds and aims to make things right by doing more than donating a small sum of cash to the local homeless shelter. It also shows us a more nuanced view of a character by showing us how others react to the character. Sure, you’ve got a guy who’s been feeding on the blood of the living for centuries, but he’s also a great guy to work for. So, while I’m sure his victims would feel differently, his staff genuinely thinks he’s a good guy. And rightfully so. In a time when being employed was just slavery with a couple pennies at the end of the day, he treats his employees well and pays them fairly. Also, he’s a hell of a lot better than working for other vampires who just forgo the pennies at the end of the day and go full-on into slavery. Perhaps treating his employees with dignity and respect was just his redemption arc. Or perhaps it’s a little jab at present-day employers who tend to see employees as replaceable cogs.

Either way, that’s not the end of it. Without giving away the soul of the story, the redemption arc in Monstrous Creatures doesn’t pull any punches and fully acknowledges the vamp’s former misdeeds.

I enjoyed the hell out of this story. It’s short but to the point and the shortness doesn’t mean Monstrous Creatures doesn’t wrangle with some hefty topics.

For hundreds of years, reclusive nobleman Janusz has lived with a terrible secret. Now he’s ready to end his long life, and possibly redeem his soul–but he’ll need help.

Sarah has been apprenticed to a hunter of monsters for most of her life. When her teacher’s oldest enemy approaches them with a proposition, they both need to decide if they can risk trusting him.

Good-natured Peter has served as Janusz’ secretary for years. He has no idea what his gentle, quiet employer really is. But he’s about to find out.

Monstrous Creatures is a story of regret, redemption, and the things that haunt the dark.

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Book Review – Shades of Survival by Robyn Watts

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Let’s talk zombies. They’re the perennial bogeymen of the apocalypse, an unstoppable force that devours everything in its path, moaning disease on two legs – provided the legs haven’t rotted off anyway. The first pop-culture zombie invasion started way back in 1919 in a largely-forgotten French silent movie called J’accuse that featured romance and the rising dead of World War I. The big daddy of zombie movies, though, still has to be Romero’s Night of the Living Dead, a movie Romero himself said was inspired by Christmas shoppers.

I would argue that zombie can also represent the crushing weight of day-to-day life in the modern world. They’re the constant siren-song of social media and “making it big” and keeping your head above water when most people are quite happy to stand on your shoulders to keep their own heads above water. The burdenous ennui of Godot wrapped in rotting flesh and waiting to gleefully eat your ass. Not in that way, either, ya pervs. The bad way. With teeth and blood and screaming.

In literature, the big name in zombie books has to be Brooks’ World War Z. The comic rendition of The Walking Dead was good, but World War Z was on a whole other level. World War Z had the temerity to reimagine the zombie hordes and giving us a worldwide look at how the whole planet dealt with the dead rising. Now, let’s get the elephant in the room out of the way: There are some similarities between World War Z and Shades of Survival, but there are important differences, too. In a genre that’s been kicking around for over a hundred years – at least in film and probably in lit, too – there’s going to be some cross-pollination going on. It’s inevitable and understandable. But each new interpretation brings the creator’s voice to the moaning, grumbling hordes of Wal-Mart shoppers at Christmastime.

So, what are the similarities? Well, for starters Shades of Survival has a similar theory of rolling out its massive, world-ending tale in bite-sized chunks rather than following a straight narrative. They’re both large tales told in vignettes. Apocalyptic amuse-bouche. There are major differences, too. Shades keeps the narrative tightly focused on one person rather than the entire planet and is told in a series of letters written by one woman as she watches first the world then her world collapse around her. Like all good stories, it has moments of levity and moments of sheer terror. It also spends a goodly deal of time taking a hard look at the living, uninfected people who still inhabit the world and just how they fall to their animal natures. Almost as if virus mutated and while it tuned the vast majority of people into nigh-unstoppable killing machines, it turned the some of the rest into massive assholes.

There’s a disconnectedness to Shades of Survival as well. As our protagonist is recounting her life post-zombie, she’s looking back through time. This kind of creates a gnawing sense that no matter how things might look in the short term, nothing good will come of this tale. In a way, it’s almost like reading Anne Frank’s diary; you just know there’s no way this will end well. And just like young Anne’s diary, you’ve got an intimate, front-row view of the end of everything.

“Hollywood shows us their idea of survival in an end of the world, apocalyptic scenario. But what would it really be like? How would you actually cope and survive? Shades of survival is a journal-type account of one person’s desperate attempt at surviving the apocalypse. Dealing with the dead walking, the living attacking, periods, and lack of hair dye. They come across different types of people, dealing with different situations and learning that Hollywood can only glamourize what would, and ultimately does, drive the average person crazy.”

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Book Review – Ego Trip by Eric Malikyte

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Years ago, I had a buddy at an old job who actually had a set of Google Glasses. Remember those? Eyeglasses with a HUD that could display extra information like emails and videos and stuff like that. They were kind of a trip and, in their own way, kind of disruptive. This guy would be walking and talking and would suddenly stop what he was doing, fiddle with his glasses, and then move on like nothing had happened. And that was primarily for email and meeting notifications.

Google had some cool designs for Google Glass including adapting them so they could do little things like identify parts of the car you were working on give you and exploded – no pun intended – view of the bomb you were defusing. They were intended to be less virtual reality – which is tremendously immersive – and more augmented reality, meaning they dropped a layer of reality over the top of the layer of reality you were experiencing during normal day-to-day activities. Pokémon Go did the exact same thing a few years later by layering tiny monster eggs over your phone’s camera. While less immersive than Google Glass, Pokémon Go did have more than a few people step into traffic or get mugged because they were focused more on the augmented part of reality than the rapidly approaching car or knife-wielding maniac parts of reality.

Point being, even sticking parts of virtual reality on top of reality can change what we perceive as real.

Now, imagine what it’s going to be like when you don’t have to don a bulky headset to play Drunken Bar Fight (a fun game that I highly recommend) or wear glasses to see different things. Stuff a chip in the side of your head that can directly interface with your brain and suddenly you can experience all sorts of wacky realities. You could be the star of a show, the smartest person in the world, or the savior of the human race. It could all be a game. Realities on top of realities on top of realities that would all seem just as real as stepping on a Lego.

And that’s the heart of Eric Malikyte’s latest work, Ego Trip. This isn’t the first time I’ve reviewed one of Malikyte’s books. He’s dipped his toes in the monster-ridden wasteland of Mars and cuddled with Lovecraft’s demons and always delivers a cracking good story. This time around, he’s left the monster-monsters behind and focused on the human-monsters that we all love to believe we aren’t. Instead of Mars or the frozen end of the world, we get a tour of a dystopian country run more by corporate greed than political greed. So, you know, less sci-fi than functional modern-day reality.

In a way, Ego Trip is about two guys who desperately want out of their lives. They’re both ground down by the day-to-day activities of trying to keep their heads above water. One keeps his head barely above the water intentionally, the other sticks his neck as far out as he can. One plays a game of good-guy/bad-guy, the other plays a similar, if augmented-reality-driven, version of the same thing.

This is what makes good sci-fi. The best science fiction is always about people. Sure, technology can abound and the world can be remade to fit the story, but at the end of the day good sci-fi is always about the people involved. And Malikyte is good at creating people. Especially people who have no qualms about exploiting the technology in their neon-drenched wonderlands. And as the crushing blows of that exploitation slowly dawn on you, the general sense of foreboding evolves first into malaise then to shock then to the general notion that maybe hunting Pokémon on your phone was only the beginning of how weird, wonderful, and wicked the future is going to become.

Paul Anderson Fou’s life is about to change. This rather boring fast-food worker has been offered a chance of a lifetime. Dynamo, a mysterious girl–the only one who’s ever willingly talked to him–has gifted him the key to his dreams of MMO stardom, a chance to dig himself out of his successful brother’s basement, to make something of himself.

But, as bodies start piling up all over Neo Rackham, attracting the attention of a relentless detective with a cybernetic eye, Paul’s life is certain to become far more complicated than he ever dreamed.

The price for fame is high.

And some deals are too good to be true.

Paul is about to find that out the hard way.

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Book Review – Shadows and Relics by L.L. Gray

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No matter what happens, I will always think the Urban Fantasy genre is worthy of respect. Building a sci-fi or fantasy world whole cloth is a blast, no doubt about it. But taking our world and adding elements to it – bizarre and extraordinary elements – and making it feel real takes a deft brush. Now, granted, New Orleans has always had a touch of the bizarre and extraordinary, but not to the extent of leprechauns owning bars. At least not last time I was there. Again, granted, I was pretty drunk but I’m fairly certain I’d recognize a leprechaun behind a bar.

So, let’s take New Orleans. The city of vampires and voodoo, absinthe and witchery. The only place I’ve ever been that came stocked with a leather store and a voodoo store. The perfect setting for some explosive entertainment involving magic, werewolves, and fae magic. Now, drop a smart-talking tough with just enough street sense to know when she’s in over her head into the milieu, stir gently, and wait for the fireworks.

I’ve never been into rehashing plots. If you want to know the plot of the story, look below for a synopsis and then buy the book and read it. Trust me, L.L. can tell you the story better than I can. Instead, let’s take a closer look at the elements of the story: Deception, intrigue, and adventure. A lot of urban fantasy focuses primarily on the latter. There’s nothing wrong with a good adventure, but a linear plot can get tedious. Go here, fight these folks. Go over there, fight those folks. It’s the literary equivalent of an 80s Schwarzenegger movie. Entertaining, amusing, a serious drain on the national popcorn reserves, but ultimately just a tale of large people beating each other up. Now, drop some deception and intrigue into the mix and you’ve got yourself the makings of a serious ass-kicking cocktail.

And, while the writing is top-notch and the characters fun, it’s the change in the blueprint that really breathes life into Gray’s story. A simple task that gets well out of hand and various threads that all get woven together into a neat tapestry of magic, mystery, and a surprisingly relatable villain.

And let’s not forget Meridiana.

So, if you’re into strong female characters with karambits (they’re fun knives, I highly recommend them), some less-than-common magical folk, and an overall fun story that will keep you guess, pick up a copy of Shadows and Relics. And for this trip to New Orleans, you can leave the stakes behind. Although some steaks might come in handy.

A dark ritual. Werewolves on my trail. A single chance to uncover the truth…

Cameron Blaze is my name, living on the edge is my game. Acquiring an ancient artifact? Sure, I like old stuff. Procuring a precious? I’ve got some sticky fingers right here. I will do pretty much anything to make rent and will enjoy the hell out of the ride as I go.

When werewolves turn up in New Orleans for the first time in living memory, I was curious. When they start to disrupt my business, I was annoyed. But when they come at me? I’m ready to open a can of whoop-the-wolf, no matter the consequences.

Adding to my canine conundrum, ghosts are disappearing from the New Orleans cemeteries and rumors of dark rituals are floating around the seedy underbelly of my city. To top it off, a powerful and mysterious relic has gone missing. A relic that, by all accounts, has the power to tear the veil that separates this world from the next to shreds.

With time running out and lives on the line, will I be able to find this ancient relic before all hell is set loose on my city?

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