ASTROTWINS: PROJECT RESCUE – Mark Kelly

Posted by Daniel on June 16, 2017
Posted in: CHILDREN'S, HISTORICAL FICTION, SF/FANTASY, Uncategorized, YA. Tagged: , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

A children’s book about pre-teen astronauts written by an actual astronaut?!  Heck, yeah!

It is 1976 and the Cold War and Space Race are in full swing.  Twin brothers Mark and Scott Kelly are bright and curious and along with their friends Barry and ‘Egg’ and their grandfather (from whom they appear to have inherited their curiosity and general trouble-making) they have put together a working spaceship from some left-behind scraps from a discarded NASA storage space. Some of them have already made a journey into space (in a previous book, Astrotwins: Project Blastoff).

In current space news, a Russian cosmonaut has had some trouble in his Soyuz capsule and is now stranded as he orbits the earth.  After careful consideration and discussion with the Russians, NASA has announced that they will not be able to send a rescue ship to help the cosmonaut and the Russians have announced that they are not able to launch a rescue mission.

Cosmonaut Ilya Ilyushin will die in space, trapped in his Soyuz capsule, unless something can be done.

But it’s the 1970’s.  No one else has the ability to put a ship in orbit other than NASA and the Russian space administration.  No one except the Kelly twins and their friends, using cast-off NASA pieces!

After some very careful planning and with one of their group traveling to Russia to help coordinate the rescue efforts, twins Mark and Scott blast-off and plan an extra-vehicular activity – a spacewalk to the Soyuz ship to retrieve Ilya.

The book does a really nice job of capturing and explaining some of the 1970’s (in particular, what the ‘cold war’ was).  It also does a fine job of portraying the energy and excitement of a youngster and the belief that all things are possible.

Clearly there’s a lot of fiction here, and I absolutely loved author Mark Kelly’s note at the end of the book stating that even as smart as he and his brother were, they weren’t likely to have ever gone into space without the training of NASA.  Of course this wouldn’t have been able to happen, but it appeals to a youngsters desire to be an astronaut, to explore and to do something that most adults haven’t done.  It certainly appealed to the 12-year-old in me.

And as I stated in the beginning, the fact that this was written by a twin astronaut only makes it so much more interesting.

The downside to the book is that it’s set in the 1970’s.  It makes a lot of sense, given the story-line, but it could almost as easily have been set today.  Although the U.S. and the Russians work together on the International Space Station there could still be a need for a rescue that only the ingenuity of the youngsters could manage.

Still, this was a real treat and should have great appeal to any youngster who’s ever looked at the stars and longed to explore.

Looking for a good book? Astrotwins: Project Rescue by astronaut Mark Kelly is an exciting historical adventure for elementary and middle school students that will appeal to a sense of adventure and the interest in the space program.

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

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Astrotwins : Project Rescue

author: Mark Kelly

series: Astrotwins #2

publisher: Simon & Schuster/Paula Wiseman Books

ISBN: 1481424580

hardcover, 256 pages

THE FOREVER WAR – Joe Haldeman

Posted by Daniel on June 15, 2017
Posted in: SF/FANTASY. Tagged: , , , , . Leave a comment

THROWBACK THURSDAY: REVIEWING A REISSUE

I remember the first time I read this book, back when it first was published (or at least first available through the Science Fiction Book Club).  It was the mid-1970’s and this was only the second book I ever read, cover-to-cover in one sitting. I was completely enthralled.  There were so many different angles to this book: the aspects of time; human sexuality; war;….

Forty years later and I’m reading it again to prepare for one of the follow-up books (Forever Free), and it still holds a wonderful power over me.

Haldeman’s writing is crisp and sharp. He doesn’t spend a lot of time with flowery prose and instead cuts right to the matter, like an efficient soldier should!

We follow one soldier, William Mandella, as he moves up the ranks – from Private to Sergeant to Lieutenant to Major – and through the years (from 1997AD to 3143AD).  He becomes a career soldier, not because of any fascination with the military or a desire to serve, but because – as a survivor of multiple campaigns – there aren’t a lot of other options for him.  His family is gone, the life-style has changed and is totally unknown to him, and the only place or people who will accept him for what he is, is the military.

It’s no secret that Haldeman is writing a metaphor for his experiences in and out of Vietnam and it’s just a little bit sad that much of the book is still relevant today.

Looking for a good book? The Forever War by Joe Haldeman is a ‘classic’ and anyone interested in sci-fi in general or military sci-fi in particular should make time to read this.

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The Forever War

author: Joe Haldeman

series: The Forever War #1

publisher: Open Road Media Sci-Fi & Fantasy

Kindle Edition, 292 pages

GIRL ON THE LEESIDE – Kathleen Anne Kenney

Posted by Daniel on June 14, 2017
Posted in: ROMANCE, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , . Leave a comment

*** WARNING — POTENTIAL SPOILERS AHEAD***

I don’t like using the term “chick-lit” (though it might apply here) and instead prefer to use the term “pastel fiction” … fiction which is soft, gentle, with beautiful prose that paints a nice picture for the reader. This book might typify the ‘pastel fiction’ label.

Siobhan Doyle has grown up under the care of her uncle, Keenan (‘Kee’). in rural Ireland.  Her mother died in an IRA bombing and her father was out of the picture before she was born.  Kee has been very protective of his beautiful niece, but when an American scholar, Tim Ferris, visits on his research trip studying Irish literature, Siobhan starts to realize that there’s more to life than uncle Kee.

Author Kathleen Anne Kenney does a very nice job of bringing the reader into rural Ireland and creates a village as idyllic as I’ve always imagined and hoped rural Ireland to be.  The cast of characters inhabiting the village, whom Kenney shares with the reader, is small, even though Kee runs a small, local pub. But this works well – no need to clutter up the book with characters not necessary to the story!

The story….  In literature, there are four main types of narrative conflict: man against man; man against nature; man against self; and man against society.  Sometimes we also consider: man against machine; and man against fate/supernatural.  And while it’s true that such conflict can sometimes be internal, I’m going to add one more form, specific to ‘Pastel Lit’: man against his imagination.

What we have here is a ‘slice of life’ in a pretty setting.  The most dramatic event in the book occurs in the Prologue.  After that this becomes a ‘coming of age’ book for Siobhan.  But Siobhan is a late bloomer.  She is twenty-six at the start of the book (after the Prologue), working behind the bar of the pub.  She’s an introvert – we’re told that straight up – but this coming of age story seems just a little odd, given her age.  Keenan is not an over-bearing or cruel ‘parent’ to Siobhan.  In fact he loves and adores her.  Her friends love and adore her.  The visiting American literature professor seems to love and adore her, but she’s confused about her feelings for him because she’s never had such feelings before.

Then she does something wrong.  She lies about something to the American, and even though she’s knows it’s wrong, she can’t stop herself and she can’t admit it.   Her reason for continuing the lie never quite rings true for me.  Her brain is screaming at her to tell him the truth, “But what Tim did next chased all thought of caution away. He took both her hands in his and looked gravely down into her pale face.”  For the rest of the book she imagines the worst because of the lie, and it eats away at her, and as though she were seventeen instead of twenty-seven wonders:

“…is it love? How can I know that? It’s so scary and confusing. I’ve never … done this before. How in the name of heaven do people know when they love someone?”

There is one source of dramatic conflict that has the potential to create some real tension, and Kenney does her best to build up this tension.  Siobhan’s biological father gets in touch with her and requests a visit.  Keenan begins to show some of the Irish fire in his blood at the prospect of seeing the man who impregnated his daughter and then abandoned the woman and child.  And what of this father who is a stranger to his own family?  What brings him out of the woodwork?  What conflict will he bring to Siobhan’s life?

But this is Pastel Lit.  Keenan is calmed and much too easily admits to selfishly holding on to Siobhan and Siobhan’s father loves and adores her and just wants her to know that he’ll be there for her from now on if she wants it.

One moment in the story came completely out of the blue.  When Siobhan encounters two young women in a bookstore talking about a particular Irish poet that one of the girls just loves, but can’t figure out how to answer the teacher’s question about two particular poems.  Siobhan instantly connects with the girls and helps them find the answer and she feels very good about herself and what she does.  This will lead to a decision later in the book but the moment itself felt quite unnatural – enough so that I made a note in my book – “why is this here?”

And finally, even the resolution is too easy – soft and pastel.  The conflict of how she imagines every terrible thing because of her lie is finally admitted, but even here she suggests a lie (“I wonder if I was wanting you to figure it out the whole time.”), and everyone – Tim, her friends – takes it all in stride, as if it wasn’t worth being conflicted about in the first place.

There is a market for chick-lit/Pastel Lit (my wife, for one) and those who enjoy the form will find Kenney’s writing easy to fall in to.  She definitely defines her characters well and will make you believe you are in the beautiful Irish countryside.  But I personally like a little more grit and conflict to move my fiction forward.

Looking for a good book? Girl on the Leeside by Kathleen Anne Kenney is a soft, easy to read tale of a twenty-something young Irish woman growing in to love and knowledge. It lacks some conflict/confrontation but offers a lovely diversion in a beautiful setting with a friendly cast of characters.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.
In full disclosure, I am personally acquainted with the author.

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Girl on the Leeside

author: Kathleen Anne Kenney

publisher: Nan A. Talese

ISBN: 0385542399

hardcover, 304 pages

THE MOON AND BEYOND – John E. Siers

Posted by Daniel on June 13, 2017
Posted in: SF/FANTASY, Uncategorized, YA. Tagged: , , , , , . Leave a comment

Deep Space Research Institute is a covert operation that does its business right under the noses of the authorities and officially sanctioned space programs.  The DSRI consists primarily of scientists who have developed a means of propulsion using gravity to provide thrust rather than tugging things back to the earth.  Using this concept, the DSRI builds a fleet of space craft that are capable of leaving Earth and returning without damage and begins to set up a colony on the moon.  When the United States government gets wind of the operation they try to shut it down, forcing the leaders of DSRI to make a hasty exit – to the moon.

The Lunar Free State – as the colonists declare themselves – declare their independence from the United States and any and every other country on Earth.  They look for countries that will recognize their independence and be willing to begin trade and perhaps even share ambassadors.  But as with any newly found country, hostilities run high and the price of freedom doesn’t come without sacrifice.

Author John E. Siers has written an absolutely engrossing, believable, and exciting story.

Right from the start, Siers had me hooked.  His research and explanation of what was happening was so spot on I checked my book three times because I thought I was reading a non-fiction account of the space race. Then, about half way through the book, Siers picks up the action and never really lets it drop.  It subsides here and there, but it’s otherwise an action-thriller to the end.

Siers must be a bit prescient… on multiple occasions he writes about politicians that seem to have come from the 2016 Presidential race.  “…we should face the fact that the truth doesn’t matter to politicians or to the media. Only perceptions matter. Victory goes to the guy who puts the best spin on the story” he writes at one point and “It’s a hoax so blatant tha most of the media dropped it after the first report” he adds later.

The characters are all pretty strong and mostly unique enough to be distinguishable from one another and the world-building is wonderful and authentic. But it’s the concept and the thrill ride that really engages the reader.  I wish I could be a member of the Lunar Free State, and I’d love to read the next book in the series!

Looking for a good book? The Moon and Beyond by John E. Siers is a thrilling sci-fi adventure sure to be loved by fans of the genre and could attract some YA readers as well.

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

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The Moon and Beyond

author: John E. Siers

series: Lunar Free State #1

publisher: Mill City Press

ISBN: 1938223764

paperback, 427 pages

THE DELPHI EFFECT – Rysa Walker

Posted by Daniel on June 12, 2017
Posted in: SF/FANTASY, YA. Tagged: , , , , , . Leave a comment

Seventeen year old Anna Morgan communicates with ghosts.  It happens without warning and it’s no wonder that she struggles to stay focused and the foster homes she’s been in shuttle her around and don’t want to have to deal with her.  When she comes into contact with another young girl, this one brutally murdered, Anna is drawn into a conspiracy that reaches deep into the government.  Meanwhile a covert operation is trying to recruit Anna because of her gifts, but kidnap one of Anna’s few close friends, causing Anna to focus on them with the intent of bringing them down.

Author Rysa Walker has created an interesting (though not a particularly original) world here and what starts out as a murder mystery becomes a political thriller aimed at a young adult readership. The teens’ talents are what keeps the book most interesting, but it’s the relationships between the teen characters that moves the story forward.

While I liked the ideas and themes I felt that the book was terribly uneven. I would be really interested and invested for a while, and then I’d be completely bored for a few chapters.  Then there’s be a burst of action  and it would catch my interest, and then there’d be great periods of time where the teens just talk and repeat themselves and it didn’t feel like the story was moving forward and I’d be really bored again.

Clearly I wasn’t invested in these characters.  I didn’t find anything about them that really made me care about what they were doing – most of the time.  I was willing to buy into the concept early, but I couldn’t keep that interest all the way through.

I thought I would like this, based on the description and the number of high ratings the author has received for her works, but this book definitely didn’t work for me.

Looking for a good book? The Delphi Effect by Rysa Walker has some interesting ideas, but the writing is uneven and often too slow.

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

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The Delphi Effect

author: Rysa Walker

series: The Delphi Trilogy #1

publisher: Skyscape

ISBN: 1503938824

paperback, 372 pages

SKY JUMPERS – Peggy Eddleman

Posted by Daniel on June 9, 2017
Posted in: CHILDREN'S, SF/FANTASY, Uncategorized, YA. Tagged: , , , , , , . Leave a comment

This post-apocalyptic setting is a little unusual compared to most that I’ve read.  So many novels today set in the future after a nuclear holocaust are dystopian novels of the tremendous struggles and meager existence of deformed survivors.  But this book paints a slightly brighter picture – though not all is smooth skies (or there wouldn’t be any drama to the story).

Hope is a twelve-year-old living in a small town called White Rock in an age after the country was ravaged by the “Green Bombs” of World War III. White Rock is quite secluded, with few ways to get to the community.  The community is in a crater left by one of the bombs and strange swirls of air create drafts through the crater referred to as Bomb’s Breath.  Hope and some of her younger friends cliff dive into the Bomb’s Breath where the air currents cause the children to float gently to the ground.  But catching the right current is tricky and a wrong move means a long fall to certain death, so sky jumping is forbidden by the parents.  Still, Hope knows that she and her friends can do it, repeatedly and safely.

One of the results of the war is the loss of knowledge of how many things were done before the war.  To encourage a return to knowledge, White Rock hosts an invention competition, hoping the youth of the day will come up with a wide variety of necessary and/or simply helpful inventions.  Not only has Hope never won this competition, her inventions usually fail early on and she doesn’t have a project worthy of even entering the contest. She assumes it’s because of her failures that her father, much beloved in the community, won’t run for the role of leader in the village.

A band of thieves manages to make it into the village, holding the adults hostage, but leaving the children alone.  The thieves want the antibiotics that the White Rock villagers have created and are willing to kill to get it.  Hope’s father is willing to share, but the plant that the medicine is extracted from isn’t ready, and the thieves aren’t willing to wait.

The only hope for the community is for Hope and her friends to journey outside the safety of the crater and get a military force to save them.  But escaping the community means going through the Bomb’s Breath and a heavy winter storm.

This book was a lot of fun.  The description of the Bomb’s Breath is wonderful and certainly made me wish I could enjoy it…though I wouldn’t want to have to go through another world war for that to happen.

The descriptions of life after ‘the bombs’ feels optimistically realistic – almost adventurous fun – which of course is what it is trying to represent.  This is ‘fun’ enough for school-aged kids to read, with plenty of adventure and CTPP (Cool Things Per Page).

The writing is generally swift and flows nicely, capturing and holding a young reader’s interest.  There are moments when author Peggy Eddleman stops telling the story and just provides an information dump for the reader, but other than that the story is exciting for the younger readers and Eddleman does a very nice job of world building.  This is the sort of book that is easy for younger readers to get excited about and I look forward to reader the next book in the series.

Looking for a good book? Sky Jumpers is an adventurous post-apocalypse story by Peggy Eddleman for younger readers and provides an exciting read.

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

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Sky Jumpers

author: Peggy Eddleman

series: Sky Jumpers #1

publisher: Random House Children’s Books

ISBN: 0307981274

hardcover, 288 pages

RACE THE NIGHT – Kirsten Hubbard

Posted by Daniel on June 8, 2017
Posted in: CHILDREN'S, SF/FANTASY, Uncategorized, YA. Tagged: , , , , , , . Leave a comment

A small assortment of youngsters are alone in the desert with only ‘Teacher’ and ‘Nurse’ as guides and over-seers.  Teacher instructs the children from old World Encyclopedia’s and tells them that ‘they are the world.’  The implication is clear that civilization as we know it has been destroyed.

But the students start to question Teacher and her methods when she has them work and practice mind-reading/ESP.  The young girl, Eider, seems particularly curious and her curiosity only grows stronger when she meets a man hiking in the desert.  At their own pace, each student begins to have questions, and the strange, doom-forecasting words heard over the static on the radio challenge what they think they know.  Ultimately, Eider, Jay, Finch, and Avis will have to make some discoveries for themselves instead of relying on Teacher.

Author Kirsten Hubbard does a really nice job of capturing and conveying the dark, uncertain world in which the students live.  We can’t help but wonder where we are and everything we believe about the world, just as the children believe, seems to be turned on its side.  A big portion of this tone-setting is Hubbard’s beautiful way with words.

But once you step back from the flow of words and the tone of the book and look at the story itself, we flounder a bit.  There’s not really much here and what there is offers more questions than answers.

I like books that have me question, but I like the answers to come along eventually to confirm what I was expecting or to change/surprise me.  But this offers no such resolution.  In many ways this book is reminiscent of Lois Lowry’s The Giver, but I don’t expect Hubbard’s book will achieve the same fame or recognition and hence the unanswered questions become annoying rather than a classroom discussion point.

Looking for a good book? There’s much to like here with Kirsten Hubbard’s Race the Night but at the same time, it withholds just enough to not be satisfying.

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

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Race the Night

author: Kirsten Hubbard

publisher: Disney-Hyperion

ISBN: 1484708342

hardcover, 288 pages