Tag: Aliens

New Book Review 6: No Dogs in Philly

The sixth book I’m reviewing is No Dogs in Philly, the first book of the ‘Special Sin’ series by Andy Futuro. It’s written as a mix of genres, with cyberpunk, dystopian, Lovecraftian horror, and crime noir all represented in the story.  This is definitely one of the best indie books I’ve read, and I’d definitely recommend it to other readers.

The protagonist is a woman named Saru, a detective working in a future version of Philadelphia. In this world, most people have brain implants that allow them to have continuous internet access inside their brains (side-affects include getting your entire perception of reality taken over by hackers). The highest level of society is the Gaespora, alien-ish beings who are more or less benevolent but whose motives deliberately unclear. Somebody in Philadelphia is murdering girls with blue eyes, and the Gaespora put Saru on a case to protect one particular girl, Ria, a young woman who goes through her life protected by a dog-like entity who only she can see. As the story goes on, we learn of divine-ish forces controlling the all of the events, a concept fitting with the Lovecraftian horror concept of the story (the works of early 20th century horror writer H.P. Lovecraft featured god-like otherworldly beings who are either indifferent or antagonistic to our world).

It’s a pretty wild premise. The world of the story is dark and gritty as any noir story, with the addition of monstrous otherworldly threats lurking in the landscape. All of these different genres could clash with one another in really ugly ways, but in fact I was thoroughly impressed with how well the author blended them. In the world that he’s made, everything fits in. Every hallucination, every death-cult, every drinking binge from the protagonist, not one of these elements feels out of place.

The story does jump around some between points of view, and certain aspects of the story were deliberately mysterious for so long that I never really felt that I fully grasped everything that was going on. This may be a book that benefits from being read at least twice, as there were times when I felt really lost. This was not a matter of sloppy craftsmanship though. The pieces were all there. They were just difficult to understand in the first read.

Apart from the excellent crafting of the world, the story’s writing was superb. The sentences were clean and professional. The editing was for the most part flawless. I say “for the most part” because there were a handful of word choices which I found unusual. The author had a strange fondness for the word “tits” which never really made sense to me. It was very distracting. The rest of the writing was good enough that I’m willing to overlook the overuse of that word.

As I said before, I would definitely recommend this book. There is violence and profanity and horror themes, so readers who are sensitive to those things probably wouldn’t enjoy it, but I think fans of science fiction, horror, and crime fiction would enjoy it quite a lot. I certainly did. Andy Futuro published a sequel earlier this year, Cloud Country, which I will probably buy and review later.

Now, the plug. If you liked this book review, you can see my others here:

New Book Review 1–New Book Review 2–New Book Review 3–New Book Review 4–

New Book Review 5–New Book Review 6–New Book Review 7– New Book Review 8

If you are a fan of fantasy, you can look into my own book, Tales of Cynings Volume I, in print format here or Kindle format here.

New Book Review 2: Neosol: Maelstrom

 

The second book that I’m reviewing is Neosol: Maelstrom, the first of science fiction series ‘The Neosol Saga’ by Andrew Wales. Andrew and I were both students at Pacific Lutheran University, and he was a great help to me with understanding Amazon’s self-publishing process. We published our respective books within a week or so of each other, and I’m proud to give his work a review now.

Neosol: Maelstrom follows the life of a college student and mall cop named Jon Enger, who becomes an unwilling warrior in an extraterrestrial war against a race of evil lizard-people called The Brotherhood. The book draws extensively on the modern-day mythos of Ufology, with references to flying saucers, Grey and Nordic aliens, the “Roswell event”, international conspiracies and government cover-ups, and of course villainous shapeshifting Lizard People bent on galactic domination. The book’s main setting is Seattle, WA, a city both Andrew and I are quite familiar with. The fine details of the known real-world setting and the investigable alien background lends a degree of credibility which benefits the story greatly.

Jon Enger, our protagonist, has a storyline which has parallels to any number of superhero stories. Through events beyond his control (in this case, alien abduction), he develops abilities which turn him into an engine of total destruction, a Neosol soldier. The chaos and violence which stem from his abilities becomes a force he must learn to control, and the sudden pressure of being drafted to battle aliens becomes cause for a difficult double-life. Part of Jon’s crisis is keeping his life as a Neosol separate from his ordinary human life, and the narrative’s develop shows this to be impossible. Beyond the madness and mayhem of the alien warrior story is the story of a young man struggling to hold his life together. This struggle is conveyed in very human and very believable terms. Jon Enger is an action hero, but he is also a struggling college student. The balance between the two is struck very well.

I was particularly impressed with the book’s fight scenes. Each one is carefully plotted and choreographed. As far as I could tell, no details were overlooked. The violence was, however, quite over-the-top at times. When he gets going, Jon Enger fights like The Terminator or like a character from a video game. The fights are described with every burn, slash, and bullet wound included. Certain readers might be turned off by that, but for others it might be exactly what is desired in an action thriller.

Now, I know that Andrew has released two editions of this book, and the one I read was the first edition. The first edition had quite a lot of spelling and grammar mistakes (though they were mostly concentrated at the beginning and became fewer as the story progressed) and the sentences would have benefitted from being more concise.  I know that he corrected many of the mistakes in the second edition, which I have not read and which I am giving him the benefit of the doubt on.

Fans of sci-fi action and conspiracy buffs will take a great deal of pleasure from this book. I enjoyed it, and I can imagine somebody from a more specific target audience enjoying it even more.

Now, the plug. If you liked this book review, you can see my others here:

New Book Review 1–New Book Review 2–New Book Review 3–New Book Review 4–

New Book Review 5–New Book Review 6–New Book Review 7– New Book Review 8

If you are a fan of fantasy, you can look into my own book, Tales of Cynings Volume I, in print format here or Kindle format here.