Tag: novel

Super Bitches and Action Babes, by Rikke Schubart

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Literary rating: ★★★
Kick-butt quotient: N/A

Subtitled, The Female Hero in Popular Cinema, 1970-2006, this is non-fiction, being a feminist – I guess, more post-feminist – analysis of action heroines over the time in question. It made for an interesting read, being considerably more dense than my typical reading material: Schubert seems to be aiming at an audience that already know what she means, with a good number of terms left unexplained in the text. Yet it was equally frustrating: for every section that had me nodding in agreement, there was one where I was at least raising an eyebrow, if not snorting derisively.Parts are incisive and smart. Others exemplify the worst excesses of ivory-tower academia.

The basic concept appears to be that action heroines fall into five archetypes: the dominatrix, the Amazon, the daughter, the mother, and the rape-avenger. Some may incorporate elements from more than one; Schubart makes the argument that The Bride from Kill Bill is all five, to some degree. To make her case, she looks at example of actresses who have made their careers in the genre, from Pam Grier through Michelle Yeoh to Milla Jovovich, and also specific entries such as Xena: Warrior Princess and the Alien franchise. There are some issues here: calling Pam Grier’s Coffy “action cinema’s first female hero,” is simply wrong. Even if you ignore silent heroines like Kathlyn Williams and Pearl White, who have admittedly fallen into obscurity, Cheng Pei-Pei is more deserving of the title for 1966’s Come Drink With Me. Schubart clearly knows of Hong Kong cinema, as her section on Yeoh indicates. So why no mention of Cheng?

Indeed, Grier is also called “the biggest, baddest and most beautiful of all female heroes in popular cinema.” While she undeniably deserves respect, I’d disagree with all three of those claims. There are some other gaffes as well, e.g. references to an Israeli fighting style called “krav manga“, which is presumably the art of hitting someone with Japanese comics. Or quoting Kill Bill as “Silly rabbit. Tricks are for kids,” and analyzing it on that basis. Perhaps Trix breakfast cereal doesn’t exist in Denmark? Or the assertion that Charlie’s Angels was guilty of “copying the martial arts wirework of The Matrix“. Um, wirework hardly started there, and in any case, that’s because they shared an action choroeographer in Yuen Wo-Ping? Other sections have not aged well, such as the blunt proclamation that “there is no historical evidence” as to the existence of genuine Amazons, and the analysis of Jovovich’s career as characters that “appear almost ugly with marked features, an androgynous appearance, and a hysterical behavior” does not stand up well from a current perspective.

On the other hand, Schubart is entirely willing to go against prevailing wisdom. For example, I can’t argue with her calling the much-derided Barb Wire “a shameless and witty remake of Casablanca” (though it gets scant coverage, considering its cover placement). She also defends Ilsa, She-Wolf of the SS, saying “My experience is that men who have enjoyed the ‘nauseating’ and ‘sickening’ pleasures of Ilsa have turned out to become quite normal social beings.” Guilty as charged. I must also agree – to the point that I’d like this on a T-shirt – when Schubart says, “A film is not better because it is politically correct, nor is it worse because it is politically incorrect.” In comparison to some academics, she seems utterly sane. She quotes one such scholar, the apparently borderline lunatic Richard Dyer, as saying “For the male viewer, action movies have a lot in common with being fellated.” Okay. Whatever, dude. Schubart, mercifully, largely avoids such excesses.

Largely, but unfortunately not completely, such as her claim that “Being a man is not an essence, but something which must constantly be tested and proved by, for example, raping women.” [Emphasis added] It is moments like that which do make it hard to buy into her analysis, since they appear to stem from a world-view incompatible with my own. Yet, Schubart would perhaps be fine with that, since one of the tenets of postfeminism she espouses, is a film can be read in different ways, depending on the reader’s experiences, and that all such readings have legitimacy. Seems reasonable to me: presumably the same applies to her book. That flexibility, and the five archetypes, are worthwhile elements here, which I’ll absorb going forward. “Men’s recognition of each other’s accomplishments rests on acts of violence”? Not so much.

Author: Rikke Schubart
Publisher: McFarland, available through Amazon, both as a paperback and an e-book

Last Day in Limbo, by Peter O’Donnell

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

Although this is the eighth book in the author’s trail-blazing (at the time it was written, action-oriented heroines were nowhere near as numerous in fiction as they are now) series, it’s the third that I’ve read. (Long story!) It was published in 1976; but in terms of the series’ internal chronology, just a few years have passed since the series opener. So in the book, it would still be the late 1960s, and protagonist Modesty is now about 28 years old. As is often the case, I would advise readers NOT to read the cover blurb. IMO, it discloses way too much information that’s better learned as O’Donnell chooses to gradually unfold it.

When the tale opens, we find Modesty and one of her (to use a contemporary term) “friends with benefits,” multimillionaire tycoon John Dall, enjoying a white-water canoeing excursion in the remote wilds of the Rocky Mountains, accompanied only by a 60-year-old Indian guide. It’s indicated that Dall would be glad to have a more committed relationship; but while Modesty has a lot of admirable qualities and makes a devoted friend, her hellish formative years left her with too damaged a psyche for committed romantic love. O’Donnell never made that any part of her character arc, so readers shouldn’t approach the books with that expectation (or hope!). Barely two pages into the story, though, their idyll is rudely interrupted by the appearance, seemingly out of nowhere, of two gun-toting thugs, who take the couple prisoner after brutally murdering their guide. This begins an adventure that will take us to more than one locale, but principally to the dense (and deftly-evoked) jungles of Guatemala, and which will involve mortal danger, intense mental and physical challenges, and a high body count.

An obvious question readers might ask is, does reading this out of order result in “spoilers” for the earlier books? I would say no, because Modesty’s adventures are each episodic and self-contained; and she and sidekick Willie don’t significantly change, either in their life circumstances or in terms of character growth. Some characters here do appear in earlier books: Sir Gerald Tarrant, for instance, is already introduced in the first book, and Steve and Dinah Collier are in the story A Perfect Night to Break Your Neck, included in the story collection Pieces of Modesty (which I did read previously), though that’s not their first appearance in the canon. The madman who calls himself (and actually believes that he is!) “Lucifer” is, I’m guessing, the title character of the third novel, I, Lucifer, and both Dall and British spy Maude Tiller have also apparently shown up before.

But while having read about them earlier would make them more familiar, all of these were depicted here with enough clarity and depth that I felt I knew them fully well as people. And while occasional references are made to previous adventures, the significance is explained in each case, and for me the effect was simply to whet curiosity, not spoil it. (Of course, it’s clear that Modesty emerged from these triumphant; but that’s a “spoiler” only if you don’t grasp the idea of the word “series….” :-) ) I’d recommend reading the first book before this one, to get a basic idea of who Modesty is, what her early life was like, and the Modesty-Willie dynamic; but otherwise, I don’t think it’s essential to read the earlier books first.

In terms of style and literary vision, this book felt, to me, very much of a piece with the two I’d read earlier. While he doesn’t write with the elaborate diction of his 18th-century Romantic predecessors, O’Donnell’s solidly in their literary camp with his use of exotic locales, extreme situations, and above all, frank appeals to the whole range of readers’ emotions. (In one revealing exchange, Dall tells Modesty she’s a “romantic,” whereupon she replies, “Of course I’m a romantic, dum-dum! And proud of it. There’s not enough of it about these days.”) His plotting is taut and well-constructed, with a good deal of suspense, a steady pace interspersed with frequent jeopardies and vivid action scenes. Modesty has to display her planning acuity and ingenuity as well as her fighting skill; and surviving and taking down the baddies here won’t be a cake-walk, since while she’s highly competent and a born leader, she’s not Superwoman. On the contrary, she’s very much a flesh-and-blood woman, who can bleed and cry (though she doesn’t like to do the latter in front of others); and she’ll do both before we close the book.

In contrast to the cynicism of much modern literature, despite the gritty milieu we find ourselves in here, O’Donnell’s vision is a solidly moral one. Our heroine (and Modesty is a heroine, not an anti-heroine) is pitted against villains who are radically evil, and while she, Willie and their friends have foibles, they basically have a solid and instinctive orientation towards the good. And O’Donnell knows that the basic dividing line between the two separates those who care about others and try to treat them decently, vs. those who care only about self and consider all other humans as things to be used. The author’s social message here isn’t loudly delivered; but we do get a clear look at both the misery the downtrodden in the Third World have suffered (and still do), and the reality that a fixation on vengeance rather than justice can make the oppressed a mirror image of the oppressors.

Content issues here aren’t too problematic, given the literary genre that this is. There’s some swearing and religious profanity (but no obscenity). There are no sex scenes, but there is reference to sexual activity, and it’s made clear that two of the principal villains are into kinky sex that involves inflicting extreme humiliation on women (though O’Donnell spares us any specifics). That such behavior exists in the world should (and does!) offend every decent human; that it’s depicted at all in a book will offend some readers. In the author’s defense on that score, I would say only that a mentality which freaks out on wielding power over other humans is realistically apt to also be reflected in warped sexuality; it warps every aspect of the personality. The language and sexual attitudes/behavior of most of the characters here are what would realistically be expected of secular folk who move in these kinds of circles. Indeed, while some readers would roll their eyes over using the term here, because of the unusual and extreme situation (“unusual,” though, is not the same thing as “impossible!”), I would say that O”Donnell depicts a wide range of life-like characters with very convincing realism, and that his characterizations are a strong point of the series.

Again, I’d recommend reading the series opener before reading this installment; but otherwise, I’d have no hesitation in recommending it to any reader who enjoyed the first book.

Author: Peter O’Donnell
Publisher: Souvenir Press; available through Amazon, currently only as a printed book.
A version of this review previously appeared on Goodreads.

Crimson, by Arthur Slade

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

The world of Illium has enjoyed a millennium of peace under its powerful queen Servilia. Though “enjoyed” might be the wrong word, since it has come at the cost of freedom, and harsh justice. A victim of the latter is 15-year old Fen, who four years previously, had her hand lopped off for stealing a trinket from a merchant’s stall. Worse follows, as she wakes up to find her hair has turned red, the sign of a “wildmage” – someone who has magical powers, an ability Servilia seeks to extinguish before it can pose a threat to her rule.

Fen is forced to leave her family, and seek sanctuary in the forest of Helwood which provides the only area outside the queen’s control. She meets another wildmage, Ithak, with the talent of invisibility, who brings her to the legendary Mansren, who lives in the centre of Helwood. History had told her he was evil incarnate, overthrown by the queen after a violent war, a thousand years earlier. But how accurate is that version? For he offers to help Fen free her sister from Servilia’s dungeon, if she helps him become whole again. But is the reward worth the cost – both personally to Fen, and for Illium?

This is a well-written page-turner, which I found myself looking forward to reading each night. It poses some interesting more dilemmas, without ever getting bogged down in them, such as the limits of personal responsibility, the veracity of the past (as Ithak says, “Those who win wars write the histories”) and the balancing of evils against each other. Fen is initially prepared to do anything to rescue her sibling; however, she gradually realizes that by doing so, she may have unleashed a more destructive force on the entire world. For Mansren’s mind has been imprisoned by Servilia in the middle of a lava lake for centuries, which hasn’t exactly improved his state of sanity, charming and eloquent as he may be.

I will say that the means by which the dilemma is resolved is perhaps a little bit of a stretch. Perhaps a greater emphasis on the powers locked within Helwood, and how Fen taps into them, might have been better. The setting also appears to be Chinese, though I’m not sure why; I was quite surprised when this suddenly cropped up. I certainly wouldn’t have guessed this from the cover, and it’s little more than window-dressing. However, the story does a lot of things right, bringing us along with Fen on her heroic arc, as she grows into her powers and learns that everything she has been told may not necessarily be the truth. Though she’s “just” a teenager, there are few of the obvious trappings of YA fiction, and it’s the better for it.

It is a little restrained on the action front, with Fen largely refusing to use her abilities against others, and in the final act, being more an observer up until the very end. However, these moral restraints help her character from becoming over-powering, and on several occasions, there’s a genuine sense of threat. With this being a stand-alone book, it is entirely possible it could end in her being forced to make a heroic sacrifice, and Slade handles that aspect particularly well. I was actually quite sad there are no further volumes, but it’s also nice to have a story which is entirely wrapped up in a fully satisfactory way. I’ll have to make do with perhaps checking out some of Slade’s other works.

Author: Arthur Slade
Publisher: Dava Enterprises, available through Amazon, both as a paperback and an e-book

To Love a Viking, by Heather Day Gilbert and Jen Cudmore

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

Heather Day Gilbert (who’s also a Goodreads friend, and one of my favorite writers) earned high marks from me with her earlier Vikings of the New World duology. Here, she teams up with a new-to-me fellow evangelical Christian writer, Jen Cudmore, to deliver another solid work of historical fiction (the opening volume in a projected series) set in the same era. My trade paperback ARC of this novel was generously given to me by Heather herself; no commitment that my review would be favorable was asked for or given.

Our setting here is partly in Viking-ruled northern Scotland (“Caithness”), but mostly in Scandinavia –specifically, in Tavland, a fictional large island west of Norway. (A map of the island is provided, but it has no scale and doesn’t show it in relation to any other body of land. I picture it as about midway between Norway and Iceland, and perhaps about the size of the latter.) Novels set in fictional countries aren’t unheard of (The Prisoner of Zenda comes to mind). In this case, I’d guess the reason for the device is that the authors wanted to be able to depict a Viking polity, but not to have to be bound to the historical personalities or events of any of the actual ones. The time frame is mainly 998-999 A.D. (with a short prologue set in 989). This was a time when Christianity was spreading in the northern lands, but far from universal. So polygamy and concubinage are still legal, as is slavery (and sexual exploitation of slaves). Warfare and violence are common, life expectancy can be short, and women are under a yoke of patriarchy –though in some ways it’s not as heavy a yoke as it is in the more “civilized” lands of the south in that day.

We have two co-protagonists and primary viewpoint characters here, both young women. Tavland native Ellisif, born into a land-owning family, is about 26 in 998, mother of two little girls, pregnant again, and trapped in an abusive arranged marriage. Somewhat younger at around 20, Inara was born in slavery in the islands north of Scotland, to a now-dead Tavish mother kidnapped into slavery some years earlier. Tall and strong, tough-minded and blessed with some sword skills (long story!), we meet her on the Scottish mainland hiding out from her former master. (We learn the backstory behind that only gradually.) Her goal is to become a warrior. (Although relatively rare, shield-maidens weren’t unknown in Viking society, and could be accepted as such on their merits.) Circumstances are about to bring these ladies’ life-paths together. Their viewpoints are supplemented by those of two Tavish male characters, both single: young jarl (a Viking noble title, cognate with the English “earl”) Dagar, who as a teen was engaged to Ellisif, before her parents died in a accident and her oldest brother got the bright idea of selling her like a cow or a mare to her present husband, and ship-builder and occasional warrior Hakon.

As you’ve no doubt already surmised, yes, this novel does have a romantic component –and, indeed, two romances for the price of one. :-) But it offers more than that, as serious writers know that fiction must if it depicts romantic love as a realistic (and good!) part of the totality of human life; and our two authors here are definitely serious writers. We’re looking here at family life, social relationships, implicit questions of social justice and the relationship of Christian faith to conduct; and we’re also getting a crash course (which sadly is as relevant in 2022 as it was in 998!) in the grim realities of spousal abuse and what is or isn’t a helpful way of dealing with it. (The “Word from the Authors” at the end is constructive in that regard.) Questions of gender roles, and the relationship of career goals vs. family life, are also front-and-center here, and again very relevant.

One thing that quality historical fiction such as this tends to show is that human nature and needs haven’t really changed over the centuries. (In opposition to that idea, it’s often asserted by modern would-be critics, who know little of history, that romantic love was only invented in the 1700s, and was a concept totally unknown and unimaginable before that. Plenty of primary-source evidence exists to belie that claim; it was not only a known concept, but felt by lots of people, then as now. It just wasn’t always as readily taken into account by people making the decisions about marriages then as now –and, as Ellisif and Dagar would tell us, the ones getting married weren’t always the ones making the decision.) And though this is a “romance,” it’s no bodice-ripper.

The quality of the writing here is very good, and the collaboration is seamless; I’ve read and liked several of Heather’s books, but I couldn’t tell any stylistic difference between the various parts of this book to suggest different authorship. Past-tense, third-person narration is used throughout, however, rather than Heather’s characteristic present-tense first person. (I like the one as well as the other, so that was no problem for me.) A textured picture of Viking daily life is presented, clearly based on solid research; but the research isn’t intrusive. Like Norah Lofts, our authors here avoid archaic-sounding diction in their dialogue; there are touches that suggest the setting, but we basically understand that the characters’ Old Norse is translated for us into conventional modern English with an “equivalent effect” (which explains the single use here of “okay” in conversation). References to Christian faith are natural in the circumstances of the story, and not “preachy.” Our Christian characters are Catholics (one minor character is an abbot), but denominational distinctives aren’t much in evidence. (I’d have liked more reference to the development of Inara’s faith, which is actually treated very sketchily.) Directly-described violent action scenes only occur in three places, and aren’t very graphic, but Inara shows her mettle enough to earn her “action heroine” status from me.

As a concluding note, we use “Viking” today as a general term for the ancient and early medieval Nordic inhabitants of Scandinavia, men and women, old and young. In the book, though, it’s used as it was then, as a term for a warrior. (It comes from the verbal form, “to go a-viking,” that is, trading/raiding, as inclination or circumstances dictated, in the lands to the south.) With that understanding, the title has a special meaning that will become apparent by the end of the book. :-)

Authors: Heather Day Gilbert and Jen Cudmore.
Publisher: WoodHaven Press; available through Amazon, both for Kindle and as a printed book.
A version of this review previously appeared on Goodreads.

Firestarter, by Stephen King

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

Having watched both versions of the film, I followed up by reading the book on which they were based. Despite my general fondness for horror, I haven’t read very much Stephen King: this is only the second novel of his, after Salem’s Lot. First thought: at 576 pages in the mass paperback edition, it’s quite a door-stopper, and you can see the problems in adapting a work of that size into a movie. Inevitably, a lot of the detail and nuance is going to be excised. There’s no doubt, the 1984 version is more faithful; the 2022 adaptation takes the basic concept of a young girl with pyrokinetic powers, on the run from the government with her father, and does its own thing, more or less.

How you feel about those different approaches, probably depends on how you feel about the original book. Despite the length, it wasn’t a chore; I was typically reading 25-30 minutes a night, and never felt like it was a burden. King had a relatively straightforward style, that’s generally easy to read. The novel does, like the 1984 film, move back and forth in the time-line. It begins with Charlie and her dad trying to escape the experimental government program which spawned them, only later filling in how they got to this point – both the events of that program, and the subsequent surveillance, leading to the death of her mother. This, to me, worked better on the page than the screen, where it ended up becoming too convoluted.

You get a good deal more background on “The Shop”, the murky federal group behind everything, and its employees. In particular, a good portion is told from the perspective of near-insane operative, John Rainbird, Here, he’s very badly disfigured, the result of a friendly-fire incident in the Vietnam War, which seems to have helped push him over the edge. His madness is considerably more apparent in the book, along with the dubious nature of his psychological attachment to – almost dependence on – Charlie. The novel also delves deeper into Charlies’ internal struggle for self-control, fighting to keep hold of her talent, rather than letting it rule her.

While both film versions end with her fiery escape from the shop, albeit in radically different ways, the book has a fairly lengthy coda. [spoilers follow]. This covers Charlie’s return to the Manders farm, where she finds sanctuary once more. Inevitably, however, word seeps out and the Shop pay a visit, only to find their target already left. The novel finishes with Charlie arriving at the offices of Rolling Stone magazine, ready to tell her story. From a 2022 viewpoint, this had not aged well, with that publication now a de facto mouthpiece for the establishment, with as much counter-culture credibility as Teen Vogue or Buzzfeed. However, this remains an entertaining read, and if such a talent ever existed, you sense the events it depicts are quite plausibly how things could go down. Here’s hoping we never find out.

Author: Stephen King
Publisher: Pocket Books, available through Amazon, both as a paperback and an e-book
Standalone novel.

Justice is Calling, by Justin Sloan and Michael Anderle

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

I’ve heard of the “Kurtherian Gambit” universe before, but this would appear to be the first book I’ve read which is part of it. For some reason, I thought it was more of a science-fiction series. While there are elements of that, such as anti-gravity, and the overall setting is post-apocalyptic, this entry seems more like urban fantasy. We have the almost requisite vampires and werewolves, the former represented by the story’s main protagonist, Valerie. She flees the carnage in Europe after her brother tries to kill her, accompanied only by her faithful human sidekick, Sandra. On the airship to New York, they meet Diego, who is a werepuma, and the trio become allies.

On arrival, however, their individual goals in the New World have to take a back seat. They discover that humans in the city are using the local Weres to hunt and abduct vampires, so their blood can be harvested, and used as an “elixir of youth”. Valerie isn’t standing for that, needless to say, and starts assembling a combined force of vampires and Weres, to stop the farming and go after its instigator, Strake – part of a shadowy trio who run the city. Adding a sense of urgency, is that her brother is on his way across the Atlantic, eager to add what’s left of the United States to his dominion. There’s also whispered legends of the “Dark Messiah”, a particularly powerful vampire. Could that be Valerie? Or is there someone even above her?

The cover is a bit misleading, as Valerie seems much more inclined to use the sword nestling on her hip – or even her bare hands – than anything as prosaic as a firearm. Looking at the cover, it was only then I realized, it tells me more about what the heroine looks like, than I’d gleaned from the whole novel. As events were unspooling in my head cinema, she was almost a blank space. Diego probably gets more descriptive prose. The authors do a good job of capturing her personality though, and how honour is an important aspect of it. I also liked the dry humour that occasionally popped out.

There is definitely no shortage of action: the movie of my imagination was rated a hard R for strong violence. It builds over the course of proceedings nicely. First, Valerie rescues Diego from Strake’s “Enforcers”; then she and her were/vamp loyalists mount an assault on Strake’s HQ; finally, she has to face her brother in single combat. It did skirt around the deus ex machina a bit at the end, with a convenient (and not unexpected) arrival; though wisely, this then stands back and lets Valerie handle things herself. I’m not sure the set-up here quite justifies a further seven more volumes. Yet as a quick read, this was entertaining enough to leave me at least somewhat curious to see where it goes.

Author: Justin Sloan and Michael Anderle
Publisher: LMBPN Publishing, available through Amazon, both as a paperback and an e-book
1 of 8 in the Reclaiming Honor series.

Recompense, by Michelle Isenhoff

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

This is set around fifty years after “the Provocation”, a series of unsolved mass abductions which led to Capernica becoming a strictly-controlled hierarchical society of Uppers, Lowers and the Military. Orphan Jaclyn Holloway is a Lower, living in near poverty in the seaside town known as Settlement 56. The only way out for a Lower is to pass the stringent test which allows entry into the Military. On graduating from the local school, Jaclyn Holloway, known as Jack, narrowly fails to make the grade, but is visited by Willoughby who offers her instead a position in the Axis, a shadowy security organization. It turns out the abductions are starting up again, and Jack has a key role to play in finding who is behind the new wave, and stopping them.

There are chunks of this which are a little too Hunger Games. Most obviously, the authoritarian government and rigid class structure, with the heroine at the bottom. There’s also the (sigh…) love triangle, with Jack increasingly torn between hunky local boy Will, who did pass the Military test, and hunky sophisticate Ethan, her partner in the Axis. Is is just not possible for any YA heroine to remain in one, committed relationship for the duration of a series? Hell, a single volume? That’s the bad news. The good is… well, just about everything else, to be honest.

What I particularly liked was that it’s not the case that Lowers = good and Uppers/Military = bad. It’s easy for this kind of book to settle for simplistic black and white; Isenhoff doesn’t go that route, and it’s the better for it. The motivations of almost all the characters seem legitimate and well thought-out, though as yet, we don’t know much about the real antagonists here. For spoilery reasons, I can’t say a lot, but I imagine they are going to come out of the shadows much more in subsequent volumes. Jack’s ties to them [again, has there ever been an orphan in YA fiction without a dark secret hidden in their past?] weren’t a great surprise, yet help act as a counter-balance to her growing skill-set.

The physical action is quite low in quantity here, not least because the heroine is in training for a good chunk of this book. However, it’s well-handled, and to some extent, the restraint makes the moments that there are, more effective. Particularly notable was towards the end, with Jack scaling a 70-foot high grain elevator to help with a bit of impromptu demolition. Credit is also due to Isenhoff for getting balance right at the end, between tying up loose ends and holding the door open for the next episode. What you get here is fully satisfying, and if you’re not curious what happens next, you’re a tougher critic than I. If I didn’t have forty odd books already in the “to read” pile, I’d likely be interested in seeing where this goes.

Author: Michelle Isenhoff
Publisher: Amazon Digital Services, available through Amazon, both as a paperback and an e-book
1 of 5 in the Recompense series.

Girl Vs. by Xela Culletto

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

While a quick read, at 205 pages, after slogging through a couple of what can only be described as “chonkers”, I really didn’t mind. It’s briskly-paced, hits the ground running and largely doesn’t stop thereafter. I have some concerns about where things might go in subsequent volumes, so will probably stop here, just to be safe. However, I enjoyed what I read well enough.

It opens with an alien invasion having taken place, and humanity not getting the best of the subsequent war. The Vela, as the creatures are called, have taken over most cities with brutal force, scattering the surviving population to remote areas. One of these is Rhyan, whom we first meet living in a cave, as part of a small group. She lost the rest of her family to the Vela, and hates them with a passion. Rhyan puts that into effect with her blades, getting rid of any aliens that stray too close to her hide-out. However, circumstance forces her on the road, and she ends up at Springfield, a human stronghold with plans to take the fight to the Vela.

It was only while writing this, that I realized I didn’t actually know much about what the aliens looked like. I know they have claws. But beyond that? Here’s about the only meaningful descriptive passage: “It looked the same as them all—four long legs, bent into a ‘z’, supported the plump abdomen. Rising above that was a middle section from which taut appendages shot forth long serrated claws. The swiveling head, with its unblinking black eyes, was perched on top.” It has to be said, they also die very easily – I lost count of how many a teenage girl took out of the course of the book, with even a dozen being dispatched in one fight – to the point you wonder how they managed to defeat Earth’s armies.

Despite the heroine’s single-minded devotion to the cause, there are suggestions the aliens’ motives may be not as genocidal as they seem, with a theory they were looking to save the Earth from humanity by “thinning the herd.” I did notice the author’s page on Amazon says, “Aliens have always held her fascination, and she hopes to meet one someday,” which makes me wonder if these ones could indeed turn out to be benevolent-ish. To be honest, that’d kinda suck. I much prefer my alien invasions without moral ambiguity.

This is better when it’s not hinting at such things, with a laudable body count on the human side too, and a heroine who is easy to root for, even when some of her acts are morally dubious. There’s hardly a dull moment to be found, as we head to a climax where Rhyan and her colleagues are the only thing stopping a call for alien reinforcements going out. Bit of a helicopter ex machina there, yet I can’t complain about the heroine finally catching a break, after all she has been through to that point.

Author: Xela Culletto
Publisher: Amazon Digital Services, available through Amazon, both as a paperback and an e-book
1 of 2 in the Sinister Skies series.

Shadow Eclipse: Voyage, by E.M. Gale

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

After a brisk and entertaining start, this gets increasingly bogged-down in its own universe as it goes on. And, boy, does it go on. At a thousand pages in the print version, this became a severe slog, and ends in a unsatisfactory way. A second novel seems promised, but this came out in 2019, and has yet to be forthcoming. Maybe the writer got bored of the whole thing too?

As mentioned, it opens promisingly. Florentina Clarke (who hates her first name so much, she insists everyone just calls her Clarke) is having a really bad day. First, she has been turned into a vampire. Then, she and her grad student friends are thrown through time and space when an experiment misfires. They end up two hundred years in the future, on a far-off planet, and have to learn how to come to terms with a whole new way of life. Clarke is best-suited, and ends up getting them passage on a smuggling ship, where helped by her new vampire skills, she becomes part of the mercenaries who defend the ship. However, it turns out her future self – vampires being immortal – is rather famous and/or notorious, and she finds herself having to cope with that, and the resulting threats to her life.

Which all sounds considerably more exciting than it is. There’s a lot, and I mean a lot of agonizing over whether or not to look herself and her pals up in the history books, to see their fates. It’s a painfully responsible approach to time-travel  which really doesn’t do much for the reader. The same goes for her relentless angst about whether or not to tell her friends about her vampiric status. Do or don’t, then move on. Matters aren’t helped by a clunky structure in which it fells like every conversation becomes a three-way dance with Clarke’s internal thoughts chiming in after every single sentence. A long way before the end of the book, I was mentally screaming “STFU!” at her inner monologue.

The action components also seem to decline over the course of the book. There’s a point where the ship – which may not be quite what it initially appears – seems to be under almost constant attack, keeping Clarke and her merc colleagues very busy. However, this fades away and a vampire duel is about all it feels like the second half has to offer. I did like Gale’s world-building, with different races kinda-somewhat getting along, and some thought has clearly gone both into the vampires and the time-travel aspects. However, it’s not clear what Clarke’s eventual place in the universe is going to be, and her friends are also rendered increasingly irrelevant as the story progresses. It ends with her vampire boyfriend getting the chance for revenge he has been seeking, though this felt almost painfully foreshadowed and doesn’t provide much satisfaction in terms of tidying up the threads. Can’t say I’m too bothered whether or not volume 2 ever appears.

Author: E.M. Gale
Publisher: Lightbulb Works, available through Amazon, both as a paperback and an e-book
1 of, uh, 1 in the Shadow Eclipse series.

Sin, by J.M. Leduc

  By

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

Sinclair O’Malley, known to everyone as Sin, is a bit of a wild card. She was initially an FBI agent, but was released by the agency, largely for her refusal to stay within the lines. In particular, she went off-book to end a human trafficking ring in Nicaragua. She is the kind of person whom we first meet interrupting a funeral, by rolling up to it late, on a Harley. But this is just the book’s first misstep. For rather than demonstrating her bad-ass credentials, it just made me feel she was a selfish and egocentric narcissist, shrieking “Look at meeeeeeee!” everywhere she went. Subsequent actions did little to disavow me of this belief.

Anyway, inexplicably, the agency now desperately want her back. For a number of their agents have turned up dead, after being sent to investigate the corpses of young Latin American girls, which have turned up along the coast from Florida to Louisiana. The bodies showed evidence of torture and sexual assault. But Sin in particular is needed, because the agents were found near Tumbledown Bay, the small community in the Florida Keys where she grew up – and which she, quite deliberately, left. Convinced to return, in part due to her father being terminally ill with cancer. She discovers the community has fallen under the thrall of a sleazy preacher, the Reverend Jeremiah Heap. He just happens to have opened an orphanage, catering to Latin American girls. Might this be connected?

Oh, of course it is. There’s a paedophile/snuff movie ring, streaming their acts over the Internet to an elite clientele. Quite why they bother importing children from South America (to borrow an infamous movie tagline, “where life is cheap”) rather than… Oh, I dunno, streaming from there to begin with, is never clear. But then, the international criminal masterminds here are basically brutish thugs. The rule here in Tumbledown Bay is: the stupider and uglier you are, the more likely you are to be involved in the ring. Sin is neither, to be fair. But I found most of her character traits thoroughly off-putting. This quote resonated: “Some of us can change, Sin. And some of us are still the bitter, nasty-mouthed, bitch they were seven years ago.” That’s your heroine, folks.

It’s clear the kind of persona Leduc is aiming for. A take-no-nonsense woman, prepared to do whatever it takes, and unconcerned about whose toes she might stomp on in the process. But it needs more finesse and balance; there’s nothing, for instance, to explain her dedicated squad, who leap to her every need. Why do they have such loyalty to her? ‘Cos she’s hot? Might as well be. There’s also a pacing problem: the storming of the orphanage feels like it should be the climax, yet the book rattles on for a further twenty percent, tidying up loose ends. These should probably have been shifted into a further volume, this one ending with the line, “I am the Pearl Angel of Death, she thought, and I will hunt and find each and every one of those people.” Instead, it’s all downhill from there.

Author: J.M. Leduc
Publisher: Amazon Digital Services, available through Amazon, both as a paperback and an e-book
1 of 3 in the Sinclair O’Malley Thriller series.