Author: Jim McLennan

Robotica Destructiva

  By

★★
“Technically marvellous. But only technically.”

To bring out one of my go-to phrases, if I was eleven years old, and hopped up off my face on candy-floss, this would probably be one of my favorite movies. Instead, it’s the kind of film which apparently caused my brain to shut off as some kind of defense mechanism. I’m not kidding. Ten minutes into my first viewing attempt, I suddenly fell asleep. I think my mind may have experienced the cerebral equivalent of a blue screen of death and ran out of memory, forcing a shutdown. For this is just an insane overload of a movie, all the more so considering it was a labour of love, assembled over a period of multiple years.

Gaffin and pals are part of a rock band out of Florida, called The Killer Robots, whose schtick involves dressing in (undeniably impressive) robot costumes, and have also made films like The Killer Robots and the Battle for the Cosmic Potato. Maybe if I’d seen those, this might have made sense, instead of being the incomprehensible gibberish it seemed.  As far as I can determine, the plot is this. The Killer Robots steal the Arculon Destroyer from planet Radia, leaving it defenseless. To retake it, the rulers defrost a trio of android warriors: Mytra (Belko), Azalla (Martin), and Luna (Theron), known as the Destructivas. Mayhem ensues. Which is my way of saying “I’m not sure what happens thereafter.” Oh, except there’s time-travel. Definitely time-travel.

To say this is loosely-plotted, would imply there was any plotting going on at all. There’s no shortage of stuff happening, to be sure. However, very little of it makes coherent sense on more than the shallowest of levels. Characters arrive, do something or more or less relevance, and then vanish without explanation. I was somewhat amused on occasion, such as the way the Destructivas keep getting arrested, convicted and sent to space prison. Or there’s the “peacekeeper” chasing after them whose hand turns into a literal hammer. It’s just that it feels as if Gaffin simply hurled every idea he could think of into a blender, flicked the on-switch and committed the results to high-quality digital video.

Make no mistake, there’s a strong visual aesthetic here, perhaps best described as Tron, remade for fifty bucks after a hit of industrial-strength weed. The poster above is actually a fairly decent representation of the lurid delights in question, and I can’t fault this side of things. However, the lack of characterization, and performances which largely feel like having Chris Farley yelling in your face for a hour, outstay their welcome and become wearing. I would say, it’s the kind of thing which might work better as a music promo. Except, after the credits, that’s exactly what we get: a promo for The Killer Robots. And it’s kinda dull, with the band just wandering round in their admittedly impressive costumes. I still might buy a ticket for a live show. Their movies? Not so much. 

Dir: Sam Gaffin
Star: Amber Belko, Torie Martin, Kristal Theron, Sam Gaffin

Mother’s Day (2023)

  By

★★★½
“Everybody has issues.”

I’d be the first to admit, those issues likely extend beyond the characters in the movie, and probably extend to the script writers, because there are certainly… well, let’s just say, some novel concepts here. The heroine is Nina Nowak (Grochowska), a former Special Ops soldier, who had to fake her own death and give her son Maks up to adoption, for both their security. She’s been keeping an eye on Maks (Delikta) from afar, but after he’s abducted at the request of a gangster Nina took down, she needs to become considerably more hands-on. Rescuing Maks, however, will bring her into contact with a number of rather odd  people, on both sides of the law.

In particular, there’s Igor (Delikta), her contact inside the establishment, who is divorced, and has a fragile relationship with his daughter that he desperately wants to repair. On the other side is the very strange Woltomierz (Wróblewski), a gangster who keeps the severed head of his father in a jar on his mantelpiece, and is known as “Volto” for his habit of tazing incompetent henchmen to death. Getting, and keeping, Maks out of his grasp is going to be a challenge for Nina. Although her bad-ass credentials are firmly established after she takes on a group of men outside a convenience store, armed with nothing more lethal than a six-pack of beer. Nina literally knocks one of them out of his shoes.

This is not to be confused with any of the other similarly titled films, not least the 2010 movie starring Rebecca de Mornay. Nor should it be confused with another recently released Netflix movie about a mother with special skills, looking for her abducted child, The Mother, starring Jennifer Lopez. With that said, the look and feel of this is impressive, the fight scenes in particular being well-staged and imaginative – though fair warning, do not expect realism. or anything approaching it. I’m unaware of Grochowska having any particular action background, yet she still delivers on that front.  Most notably, she stabs someone in the head with a pair of carrots: I’ve not seen that since the equally bonkers Clive Owen movie, Shoot ‘Em Up.

The whole film is lit in a sickly green palette, which does a great job of making the city in which it takes place, look like a terrible place to live. Less successful are the attempts at drama. The Nina/Maks relationship is flat and unconvincing, and the rest of the cast largely seem to be weird for weirdness’s sake. They’re not as interesting as the makers think they are. The best way to look at this is perhaps as a female-fronted version of Crank: a deliberately excessive action flick, clearly not intended to be taken seriously. As such, I think it is a better effort than Jolt, another Netflix movie which seemed to be aiming along similar lines. The ending hints at a sequel and, truth be told, I wouldn’t mind one.

Dir: Mateusz Rakowicz
Star: Agnieszka Grochowska, Adrian Delikta, Dariusz Chojnacki, Szymon Wróblewski

Incarcerated

  By

★★½
“Chastely sleazy.”

There’s an interesting idea here, at least. As a young child, Elena (Ayala) has to watch as her mother and brother are killed by crime boss babe Maeve (McComb), after her father (Pardo) made the ill-advised decision to try and steal from her. It’s particularly awkward, since Maeve made him choose which of his two children should live… then killed the one he picked, his son. This Sophie-like choice has, understandably, left the father-daughter relationship somewhat strained, to put it mildly. 15 years later, Elena is a druggie, who robs a liquor store and gets sent to jail as a result. Except, this incarceration is entirely deliberate, because it’s the facility in which Maeve is now serving time, giving Elena her long-awaited chance for revenge.

Naturally, it proves not quite as simple as that, even though within two minutes, her friendly cell-mate, a veteran of the system, is providing a helpful gobbet of exposition about how Maeve has a parole hearing coming up, and has bribed a judge to recommend her release. From here, the inevitable tropes of the women in prison genre kick in, replacing the fairly original overall concept. The enemy quickly made by Elena (or rather, “Sophia,” the name she goes by in jail – perhaps a nod to the whole choice thing mentioned above?) after an incident in the chow hall. The horny guard, Fletcher (Wiles), with an addiction to taking advantage of the inmates. Violence in the showers.

What’s weird, though, is the relatively tame content, considering the situations. For example, on arrival, Elena is given a strip-search by Fletcher, in a rather creepy scene – rendered oddly powerless by the lack of any nudity. The same goes for several scenes shot in the prison showers, in a way which would barely stretch a PG-rating, and feel more in keeping with a TV movie (it’s not: this was made for streaming company Tubi, who have plenty of “mature” content on their service). The only exception is Fletcher getting his comeuppance, which involves a certain body part being sliced off and flushed down the toilet, in fairly graphic fashion. Mind you, Monroe was responsible for the remake of I Spit On Your Grave: it does feel as if he’s more comfortable with violence than sex.

This is all more than a bit implausible, from the way Elena miraculously ends up two cells down from her target, through the way she’s able to keep her identity secret on the inside, to the finale where all pretense at prison security simply evaporates. Can’t help thinking, she could also have just waited until Maeve got out on parole and taken care of her revenge then, considerably more easily. But where’s the fun in that? There are no surprises in the way things unfold, and the almost tasteful amount of restraint here left me suffering from a bit of cognitive dissonance. It feels as if Monroe misunderstood the assignment a bit, resulting in a missed opportunity.

Dir: Steven R. Monroe
Star: Yesenia Ayala, Heather McComb, Jason Wiles, Danny Pardo

The Alien Corps, by P.J. McDermott

  By

Literary rating: ★★★½
Kick-butt quotient: ☆½

If you’re even slightly familiar with the Star Trek universe, you’ll be aware of the Prime Directive. While never explicitly stated, it’s the rule which prohibits interfering with the development of less technologically advanced civilization, in particular those that are not capable of space travel, or are unaware of the existence of life beyond their own planet. It’s a key concept in this book too, though is meshed together with a religious theme – not something often found in this kind of science fiction.

The central character is Commander Hickory Lace, part of the Alien Corps. This is a group created by the Vatican to investigate extraterrestrial “messiahs” as they are reported, to see if they are potentially also the Son of God like Jesus. After a century, they’ve had no success: perhaps the latest candidate, Kar-sèr-Sephiryth of the planet Prosperine, might be “the one”. The Corps are working with Earth’s Intragalactic Agency, in which Hickory’s father is an admiral, as Prosperine has the rare material Crynidium, essential to faster-than-light travel. The IA has their version of the Prime Directive, so Hickory and her crew have to disguise themselves as the local population. Not everyone abides by the same rules. The Bikashi, an outlaw race thrown out of the Galactic Alliance, are present on Properine, seeking to control the Crynidium for themselves, and don’t care about manipulating the development of the natives.

I liked the concept and the world-building here, with Prosperine truly seeming like an alien planet in every regard. The scenario poses an interesting challenge for the heroine, with the strictures imposed by the Intragalactic Agency limiting her ability to counter the Bikashi, who are operating under no such constraints. Fortunately, she has some tricks up her sleeves, most notably her empathic abilities, which even work on the native wildlife. Along with her team, she has to find a way to thwart the rebellion being fomented among certain radical elements by the Bikashi, while also trying to decide whether or not Kar-sèr-Sephiryth is legitimate. This process does lean more heavily on smarts than firepower, in part because the weapons so far invented on Prosperine are relatively primitive.

It feels as if every member of the Alien Corps ends up both captured by, and then escaping from the Pharlaxians, the religious reactionaries leading the revolt, with Bikashi help. I’d have a word about their security protocols, if I were their leader. The religious elements are not overpowering, and there is a lack of resolution which is a bit unsatisfying: we never reach a conclusion as to Kar-sèr-Sephiryth’s divine status. Still it’s kinda brave even to suggest the concept that the second coming of Jesus Christ could be as an alien. The ending feels like Hickory and allies are heading off on another mission:  however, naming the series after the planet suggests they’re not going anywhere. Nor are Hickory’s Daddy issues. It may be a somewhat optimistic take on first contact, yet was thoughtful enough to make for a satisfactory read.

Author: P.J. McDermott
Publisher: ‎ Patrick McDermott Publishing, available through Amazon, both as a paperback and an e-book
Book 1 of 4 in the Prosperine series.

Boudica: Queen of War

  By

★★★
“Fury woad.”

The latest take on one of Britain’s greatest historical heroines has come in for a fair bit of critical flak. But I really did not think it was all that bad. Sure, it plays fast and loose with historical accuracy (Christianity wasn’t a thing in Britain at the time). However, we’re dealing with someone about whom there is very little reliable record. Why not throw in chunks of the Arthurian mythos, if it might make for a more interesting end product? The usual basics are there. Queen of the Iceni Boudica (Kurylenko) loses her husband (Standen), and subsequently falls foul of the occupying Roman Empire. She raises an army, leads a rebellion, kicks Roman butt for a while, but eventually goes down, fighting. That’s the Cliff Notes version. 

The variations are in the details, and the  versions previously reviewed each take a different approach. For example, Warrior Queen (2003) leaned into the drama. This goes the other way, coming to life most in the battle sequences. It should be no surprise: Johnson is a former stuntman, who has turned to directing action films. He’s best known for excellent Scott Adkins vehicle Avengement, but here we previously reviewed his war film, Hell Hath No Fury. There isn’t the budget here for the necessary scale – the Iceni army reportedly numbered well into six figures, but when Boudica is giving her inspirational speech, it’s more like a soccer mom offering half-time motivation. Yet it makes up for this in gory intensity: this is certainly the most blood-drenched version of the story ever told.

It does take its time getting there. Initially, Boudica is not a warrior queen at all. It’s only after she gets a sword handed down from previous generations that she begins to head in that direction. She encounters a female fighter (Martin), who regards Boudica as the fulfillment of prophecy. It’s when the Roman’s take over, flogging and branding her, then doing worse to her daughters (an angle which is handled weirdly,  yet not ineffectively), that Kurylenko becomes the bad-ass Brit bitch we expected from the likes of Sentinelle. She paints up her face and takes the battle to the enemy, in a way which is up-close and personal.

At least for the first few battles, the Romans won’t know what hit them, and this absolutely doesn’t soft-pedal the brutality of hand-to-hand combat. It’s a shame there’s some stuff around the periphery that doesn’t work so well, such as a mercenary called Wulfgar (Franzén), who speaks modern-sounding French – was that even a thing in 61 AD? – and appears to have the hots for Boudica. There’s also the way her sword seems almost magical, which does perhaps take away from her intrinsically heroic nature, and doesn’t add much. I think if you took the best elements of both this and Warrior Queen, you might have something close to definitive. This can provide Kurylenko and a solid eye on the action. That’s still good enough for me. 

Dir: Jesse V. Johnson
Star: Olga Kurylenko, Clive Standen, Peter Franzén, Lucy Martin

Good Ol Girl

  By

★★★
“It’s… complicated.”

This documentary takes a look into the lives of three women in Texas, who are all operating in the male-dominated world of ranching. Some were born into it, while others came to it through choice. In particular, Mandy Dauses falls into the latter category, having left her East-coast home because she felt that Texas represented the best chance to fulfill her ambition of becoming a ranch manager. On the other hand, Sara Lemoine Knox is struggling to balance what she feels is an obligation to carry on in the family business, with her own goal of becoming a lawyer. Meanwhile, Martha Santos is looking to find work in that line, but without her own property, is finding it a challenge.

It’s a way of life which is gradually becoming more endangered for both men and women. For example, Martha’s family used to own land near Laredo, but they sold it to satisfy the ever-increasing appetite for land on which homes and businesses could be built. Similarly, Sara’s heart really isn’t in farming, even though she was given her first property, covering 160 acres, at the age of 12. Even beyond their chosen (or imposed) profession, they have other ambitions. Mandy desperately wants to start a family, but at age 37, time is running out for her. Though during the course of the documentary, she does discover she is pregnant. These are all imperfect lives, and that’s probably the point, offering an non-idealized take that’s radically different from the fictional, romantic version of cowgirls.

Dauses likely represents the most interesting and complex of the characters. On the one hand, she’s clearly a strong, independent woman, who moved half-way across American in pursuit of her dreams. On the other, she still cooks dinner for her long-term boyfriend, John, who expects a meal to be ready on the table when he comes home (regardless of the fact that she has her own job, too). Outside of the story of her pregnancy, however, there is not much sense of development. This is more a snapshot of the three women’s lives at this moment in time, without any narrative. When the end credits roll, nobody is particularly in a different place from there they were at the beginning.

This is not to say there’s any need for forced drama, but there’s not even much sense of time passing. Contrast, say, documentary series Clarkson’s Farm, which had a much more compelling narrative, simply through covering an entire year. Of course, it had the advantage of more time to tell its story, but the dramatic moments here, such as coming across a dead cow in the middle of giving birth, have no particular emotional resonance. Instead, it’s most interesting when you are shown the difficult task the women have to balance the various forces (internal or external) in their lives, looking to achieve harmony. The film probably needed to do a better job of that itself, if it wanted to have a lasting impact.

Dir: Sarah Brennan Kolb
Star: Mandy Dauses, Sara Lemoine Knox, Martha Santos, Joyce Gibson Roach

Taken: The Search for Sophie Parker

  By

★★½
“Taken-ish.”

For a Lifetime Original Movie, this is actually close to the best of its kind I’ve seen., but it is surely docked points for being a thoroughly shameless knock-off of a certain Liam Neeson movie, all the way down to the title. As there, we have an American abroad, searching for a teenage daughter who has been kidnapped by even more foreign sex-traffickers. They will stop at nothing – nothing, I tell ya! – to recover their child, be that personal danger or interference from local corrupt police. The main difference is it’s a heroine, NYPD detective Stevie Parker (Benz), with the location being shifted from Paris to Moscow – though under current circumstances, the location has not aged well.

Certainly, letting your daughter Sophie (Battrick) now go by herself to Russia, even if she is friends with the ambassador’s daughter,  would feel like utterly irresponsible parenting. Even a decade ago when this was made, it seems questionable, and concerns prove justified. Despite the presence of lurking CIA minder Nadia (Bailey), it’s not long before Sophie and her pal have snuck out, gone to a nightclub, been roofied, and are on their way to becoming the playthings for some rich tycoon, courtesy of the Chechen mafia. Mama Parker is not happy. She’s on the first plane to Moscow, where she teams with Nadia and reluctant local cop Mikhail (Byron, who’s English, though his IMDb credits are littered with Eastern Europeans!) to work her way up the chain and rescue the girls.

It’s never less than glaringly obvious, and the first thirty minutes are especially excruciating in this department, not least due to a shoehorned romance for Stevie: it is Lifetime, after all. Once she arrives in Russia – actually, Bulgaria standing in for it – while things don’t get any less predictable, the energy level ramps up several degrees, and this becomes considerably more watchable. Benz has the necessary intensity to be the unstoppable force she needs to be, and pairing her with another woman is an additional wrinkle that works nicely. The action is a bit limited, with the only real sequence of note at the end, when the pair storm the hotel where Sophie is being held before her departure, followed by a chase back to US sovereign territory at the embassy.

There’s no denying a major case of American saviour complex here, with the locals being portrayed as useless or actively evil, and needing the help of the USA in order for any action to be taken. Chris noted the presence of a large Stars and Stripes in the film’s final shot, and it seems entirely deliberate, reminding viewers that they are now back on safe, i.e. American soil. Yet there is surprising darkness, not least in the  uncompromising fate meted out to the corrupt official. After a start where this struggled to hold my attention, by the end I was being just about adequately entertained. Given the source, that’s high praise indeed. 

Dir: Don Michael Paul
Star: Julie Benz, Amy Bailey, Andrew Byron, Naomi Battrick

Scorned

  By

★★★½
“Hell hath no fury, like…”

RIP James Caan. I mention his passing, because by coincidence I watched this the same day, and there are a couple of nods to Misery, one of Caan’s most famous works. There’s a character called Mrs. Wilkes, and we also get an explicitly acknowledged re-enactment of that scene. You know the one. That aside, I’d be hard pushed to call this a good film, yet I can’t deny I largely enjoyed it. It feels like an influence on Knock Knock, and if perhaps not quite coming up to that mark, it’s only marginal below, and I’m still a sucker for a full on, scenery chewing psycho bitch. In Sadie (McCord), we certainly get one.

She and boyfriend Kevin (Zane) are starting a romantic getaway in a remote cabin. Well, that’s his plan. Sadie’s is rather different, having found incriminating text messages on his phone – worse still, to her best friend, Jennifer (Bianca). Not helping matter: Sadie recently discovered she was pregnant, and out of concern for her unborn child, stopped taking her lithium and anti-psychotic meds. Kevin wakes to find himself tied to a chair, with some very awkward explaining to do, and Jennifer is being lured to the cabin with a not-so-genuine text message saying Kevin had split up from Sadie. Adding to the mix, a scary looking convict (Drucker) has just escaped from the prison just down the road, and is headed in their direction.

There’s one scene where I fell… well, I won’t say in love with the movie, but I’d not mind a one-night stand with it. It’s when Sadie has Jennifer and Kevin tied to the bed. She drags a microwave in there too, slaps Sadie’s pet in there and demands Kevin go down on his other woman, “or I will start this microwave, and her little doggie will cook from the inside out.” No, seriously. It’s clear that this film is not to be taken seriously, and the three performances at the core are perfect for that, with Zane and Bianca dead-panning their way through the carnage, playing the straight man and woman to good effect, in contrast to McCord’s over the top, dramatic excesses. For she is going to make Kevin and Jennifer pay for their betrayal. PAY, I tell ya!

Turns out she was brought up in a mental facility and given electroshock therapy, after an incident when she was 12. She is, in essence, the poster child for “Don’t stick your dick in crazy.” Which makes it all more fun to watch her tormenting the errant couple for their sin. It all builds, inevitably, to a climax which is just as gloriously silly. I mean, who keeps a loaded spear-gun on their sideboard? Kevin, meanwhile, is moving with the agility of a gazelle, considering what happened to his ankle previously. All that said, I genuinely didn’t know who would survive at the end. I’ll say it again: I enjoyed this considerably more than I would necessarily recommend it, and the rating above reflects the former.

Dir: Mark Jones
Star: AnnaLynne McCord, Billy Zane, Viva Bianca, Doug Drucker 

Beautiful Weapon

  By

★★½
“The world’s laziest assassin.”

By that, I am referring to the unnamed heroine of this film, because she doesn’t have to leave the house. She works as a hitwoman for Yakuza boss Yasuhiro Kokubu (Katô), and he delivers the targets to the front-door of her rural home, on the pretext of her being their entertainment. She then gives them the Black Widow treatment, having sex with them, before a couple of post-coital shots. She barely has to get out of bed, literally. In some way this makes sense, since she’s blind – I guess it’s nice to see the disabled being given equal opportunities in the assassin field. But she’s not exactly happy with her lot; her cleaner and handler Masahiko Yoshizawa (Murai) is concerned about her spiralling into alcoholism.

Of more immediate concern though, is Kokubu’s paranoia, which has convinced him that his trio of killers need to be disposed of, before they become a liability. His sent one assassin to visit her, only for her to prevail. So he follows up by dispatching the other one, Kenji Sakagami (Kusakari), to finish the job. Except he had followed the first killer and knows all too well what’s going on. Unsurprisingly, he suspects that once he kills her, his name will be next on his boss’s list, and so makes other plans, which involve him escaping with his target. However, Yoshizawa will need to be handled, and Sakagami also needs to convince her of his genuinely good intentions.

As you can imagine, given her static nature, it’s not exactly action-packed, though does ramp up nicely down the stretch. Until then though, it’s of an angsty drama, with more than the normal amount of sex. The focus is perhaps more on Sakagami than anyone else, with the heroine being quite passive. While this is perhaps inevitable, given her particular set of circumstances, it doesn’t make for thrilling cinema. The director seems fond of depicting things in real time, which is a bit of a mixed blessing. I could have done without a lengthy depiction of Sakagami’s first journey out to her home, but when the love-making between them gets a similar treatment, it’s an interesting variation on the way such things are usually depicted.

This is the first of the series which would give us Beautiful Beast a couple of years later, but is a little lower key and, in general, less interesting. The elements are all reasonable enough in themselves, it’s just that they are combined in a way which occasionally borders on the soporific. Action is probably not a secondary consideration here, likely ranking below both the drama and the eroticism, and very much of the “blink and you’ll miss it” kind. The finish is strong, though this too seems over-extended beyond what it might merit. As a portrait of a damaged assassin, it just doesn’t convince, perhaps because we do not spend enough time with her, and even her blindness doesn’t matter much. 

Dir: Kazuo ‘Gaira’ Komizu
Star: Masumi Miyazaki, Masao Kosakari, Kunio Murai, Takeshi Katô
a.k.a. XX: Beautiful Weapon

Daisy’s Run by Scott Baron

  By

Literary rating: ★★★★½
Kick-butt quotient: ☆☆

By the time I reached the end of this, what stood out most is how far we had come from the initial scenario. We start way out in deep space, where the crew of the Váli are awoken from their cryo stasis after the ship suffers significant damage as a result of a hull breach. By the end, everything has changed dramatically. The situation back on Earth, the mission of the Váli, and the very nature of the heroine, 25-year-old comms and electronics specialist, Daisy Swathmore, are are all radically different from what they initially seem to be. It’s basically a dramatic arc for the entire human race.

It begins with Daisy adjusting the setting of her neuro-stim. It’s designed to allow learning while the wearer sleeps. But she disables the firewalls which are there to stop the brain being overloaded. She becomes a lot more knowledgeable and skilled – but also incredibly paranoid, believing the cyborgs and enhanced human colleagues are plotting… something. Daisy is already prejudiced against those who are not entirely human, but are her concerns the result of mental illness, or is there something genuinely going on? She eventually decides to go AWOL, hiding out in the bowels of the ship as she digs for the truth, becoming a one-woman human resistance, before leaving in a shuttle and making her own way back to Earth. Where things are certainly not as she expected to find them.

Baron does an excellent job of engaging the viewer from the very first page. The opening line is, “Should we wake them? I mean, the ship is on fire, after all,” and if that doesn’t get you interested in reading on, I don’t know what to say. It’s an interesting exercise in reverse world-building, in that it starts out at the small and personal level, only gradually opening up to reveal what’s going on in the universe at large. Getting there involves going along on the heroine’s paranoid journey, and in the middle I was increasingly convinced that her fears were justified. They are. And they aren’t. That’s a tricky task to pull off, but the author manages it.

The neuro-stim is a nice Macguffin, which allows Daisy to have the necessary talents for the plot, but Baron doesn’t just rely on that as a crutch. For example, this allows her to build a scanner that will tell her which crew-mates are human and which are cyborg. However, just as tricky is then having to get them to pass through it. The book occasionally feels like the text of a space-based adventure game, with a cycle of problem > solution > progress > problem. Yet this keeps the narrative moving forward, and we learn alongside Daisy the truth about the situation. While ut comes as much of a shock to this reader as it does to her, the facts seems to fit the preceding elements. Well done, Mr. Baron. I think we’ll be revisiting Daisy down the road.

Author: Scott Baron
Publisher: Self-published, available through Amazon, both as a paperback and an e-book
Book 1 of 6 in the Clockwork Chimera series.