THROWBACK THURSDAY: REVIEWING A REISSUE

I haven’t read much by Juanita Coulson, but when I see her name I have two reactions … first, that she was one of the early authors for the LaserBooks series in the 1970’s, and that I met her and Buck at a convention in Minneapolis many, MANY years ago.

Reading this book brings to mind another thought … science fiction writing has changed over the past four decades.

The story: Alien life is making its way to Earth.  Not much more is known other than that an intelligence outside the solar system has sent a signal and it’s getting closer.  On Earth, Ward Saunder was the leader of the Saunder family and fought to protect his family from chaos and death with the approach of the aliens.  Now, the family matriarch, Jael, is continuing the battle, determined to make the Saunder family into a formidable dynasty.  But that proves challenging since the family members are all head-strong and pushing against the aliens, and against family.  Who will win the battle of control?

This is a pretty fascinating idea and was generally well received/reviewed when it was first published in the 1980’s.  But just as fashion and music has changed over the decades, so has literature and reading tastes.

The book starts out with a bang and really captures the reader’s attention, but then book slogs through 300 pages of family squabbles.  Aliens on the way?  That’s not nearly as important as the internal strife of siblings.  Right?

There’s a great truth to this … we all go on living our lives despite disasters and atrocities happening all over the world.  The difference?  Our lives aren’t meant for dramatic story-telling.

Mostly I just didn’t ever care about the family.  Nobody was particularly interesting or worth caring about, which makes for 300 pages of slow reading.

The book reminds me of a sci-fi version of the television shows Dallas, or Dynasty.  Is it coincidence that these shows were popular in the 1980’s, when this book first came out?  I don’t think so.  Would those shows be popular today?  Probably not so much.  Neither will this book.

Looking for a good book?  Tomorrow’s Heritage is a reissued book by Juanita Coulson.  It shows its age.  It is about a dysfunctional, powerful family at a time when aliens are about to invade the earth.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

* * * * * *

Tomorrow’s Heritage

author: Juanita Coulson

series: Children of the Stars #1

publisher: Venture Press

ASIN: B015U695LI

Kindle edition, 384 pages

I seem to have a knack for requesting review copies of books that are in the middle or at the end of a series.  This is often because publisher’s aren’t particularly good about letting the reviewer know it’s the middle of a series.  Such is the case here.

Blood Will Follow is book two in “The Valhalla Saga.”  Two vikings have won a battle (Ulfar Thormodsson and Audun Arngrimsson), though it wasn’t easy and they lost many friends but something else as well.  They are now immortal.

Sounds like a pretty good deal, but in this era, when Christianity is just getting a foothold in the Nordic countries, and the Norse gods still walk the earth, this leads to more questions than celebration.

Ulfar and Audun go off on their own to try to understand what has happened to them.

The book suffers (though that’s a bit of a harsh word) from the second book syndrome.  I suspect that the characters were introduced in the first book, giving us some sort of action but really setting up who the people are.  This book then sets the story.  It seems evident that there is more to come and yet this book didn’t really have much of a beginning and no real conclusion.

I liked what I was reading … the writing is smooth and the characters and world interesting to me.  But without knowing what’s really happening, this book doesn’t stand well, alone.  I would be very interested in reading the first book and then deciding if I am interested enough to finish the series.

Looking for a good book?  Blood Will Follow, by Snorri Kristjansson, is the second book in a series and doesn’t stand well as an individual novel, but the characters and setting (ancient Scandinavia) make this attractive.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Edelweiss, in exchange for an honest review.

* * * * * *

Blood Will Follow

author: Snorri Kristjansson

series: The Valhalla Saga #2

publisher: Jo Fletcher Books

ISBN: 1782063366

hardcover, 308 pages