Category Archives: Mini-Review

Mini-Review: Young Rissa by F.M. Busby

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Young Rissa

I read this book years ago, working graveyard at Kmart to pay my way through college, so when I saw it available as a ebook at Fictionwise, I bought it and read it.  It’s pretty cool sci-fi.  It tells the story of a young woman named Rissa that grows up in a corporate-oligarchic world but escapes to the outer planets to lead a resistance against the powers that be.  On some levels its pretty dated, technologically and politically, but it’s still good writing and a good story.  It’s the first book of a trilogy.

http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=citofama-20&o=1&p=8&l=bpl&asins=0759241007&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr

Mini-Review: Death By Bikini

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Death by Bikini (Death By...)

Death By Bikini
by Linda Gerber
I don’t read a lot of mystery/detective type stories.  I’ll be honest, I bought this (as an ebook from Sony) because of the clever title and cover art.  I thought it was an interesting story and a great setup for a series (of which it is obviously the beginning).  It has a little bit of a modern Nancy Drew (in a good way) feel to it, with a young heroine who has parental problems and the angst of growing up.  If you like that type of story then this is a good one for you.  If you just want to try something different, I enjoyed it too. 

http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=citofama-20&o=1&p=8&l=bpl&asins=0142411175&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr

Mini-Review– Holocene: the Missing 6000 Years

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I had high expectations for Holocene: the Missing 6000 years. I have a minor in anthropology and have always enjoyed learning about the past. The Holocene is a tempting topic. It is the time period between the end of the Ice Age and the invention of writing (hence the start of history), and is a period when much must have happened with civilization, war, government, and art, and yet for which there is little evidence. I was hoping that some of that blank slate would be filled by this book. However, this book proved to be a chapter length list of what we don’t know about the Holocene. It was correct and it was well-written, but it wasn’t what I wanted. I doubt I would recommend this book. The questions presented therein can be found in other places– free on the net, for instance. However if you are interested, here is the link to the book on Fictionwise.

Mini Review: Red Chapel

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Red Chapel
by Mike Resnick

While visiting England in the fall of 1888, a young Theodore Roosevelt assists Scotland Yard in the effort to capture Jack the Ripper. As the streets of Whitechapel become bloodier with each murder, Teddy’s American brand of investigative consultancy shines light into the darkness of the world’s most famous unsolved mystery.

Red Chapel is short story that was originally published in Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine. I downloaded it in ebook form from Fictionwise. At $1.29 it was appropriately priced. I enjoyed the story, of course as I mentioned before I love any alternate history with TR. TR meets Jack the Ripper– a must read. The story was pretty simple– no surprises, you could say even a bit on the predictable side. That being said, the plot worked and there were no holes in it– something that is more difficult to pull-off in alternate history books than perhaps any other genre. It was well-written and TR was excellently represented. I would recommend this story to anyone interested in TR or AH.

Mini Review: The Slippery Art of Book Reviewing

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I mentioned before that I had purchased The Slippery Art of Book Reviewing by Mayra Calvani and Anne K. Edwards, but now I’ve actually read it. It’s a great book if you want to be a book reviewer, and even if you don’t. Don’t read it straight through though. This isn’t a simple how-to book. This is a text of everything you ever wanted to know about book reviewing. It is meant to be read and reread sections at a time and to have on hand to turn to when trying to write a review. I bought it in ebook form and it was well worth the money.

Mini-Review: 1901 by Robert Conroy

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1901 by Robert Conroy
Alternate History is one of my favorite genres to read. Take an event that might have been in history and tell us what would have happened if… Robert Conroy has several books out that take this idea and make good use of it. In 1901 Teddy Roosevelt prevented European nations from interfering in the western hemisphere and established the Roosevelt Corollary. German for one was not too happy with this development and actually created plans for a possible invasion of the USA. This book is the story of what would have happened. It is more than a decent read and is probably pretty close to what actually would have happened, though we’ll never know for sure. The only down side to this book from my view is that the main characters were too much like those in Mr. Conroy’s other book– 1862. Still, this was a good story with a great premise, a fine time period for a setting and TR vs. Germans! If you want to try out alternate history for the first time, you could do worse than this book. If you are like me and will read any AH with TR, go for it.

Second Look: Gods Behaving Badly

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I did a mini-review about a year ago of “Gods Behaving Badly” by Marie Phillips. I remarked at the time how much I loved this book. It was funny, sad, surprising, sad again, and then funny again. After a second reading, it is still just as good.

Imagine the Greek Olympians were still around today, power diminished, living in London. Though they still do their jobs– Apollo still sees that the sun comes up and goes down, Ares still manages war, and Hermes still delivers the dead to Charon the boatman as well as over-seeing the world’s money– they have little extra power and have to work for their money. Aphrodite has a job as a phone sex operator, Artemis walks dogs, and Apollo has an idea for a television show in which he plays a psychic.

The book is well-researched and the gods are perfectly portrayed. The two main human characters in the story are very real and their relationship is very touching. Most of all, the book is extremely well-written. It is very witty, well-plotted, and the language use is wonderful.

I highly recommend this book to anyone. If you have a love of mythology or fantasy you will really appreciate it.

Mini-Review: Royal Harlot

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Royal Harlot by Susan Holloway Scott is not the type of book I usually read. To my recollection, it is one of maybe two historical romance novels that I have read. That being said, I enjoyed the book quite a bit. It seemed well-researched and the characters were realistic enough for the History teacher in me. There was plenty of sex (always a plus) and the story moved quickly along. I wasn’t expecting an intense plot and there wasn’t one, since there rarely is an intense plot to real life people, but the lives of Charles II and his consorts were interesting enough. If you enjoy your History mixed with plenty of heaving, bodice-bursting breasts then this is the book for you.

Mini-Review: O Pioneers!

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One of the things I wanted to do when I got my Sony Reader was to read some of the classics that I had never gotten around to. The first one I chose was O Pioneers! by Willa Cather. I love this book. It tells the story of Swedish immigrants in the mid-western US in the nineteenth century. I enjoyed the story and the characters. What I really enjoyed was the realism and how things just seemed to happen– much like they do in real life. I went out and found the movie version with Jessica Lang et al and watched it afterwards. It was pretty good too. I highly recommend this book and you can download it for free here.

Robinson Crusoe – Mini Review

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Until I got the ebook for my Sony Reader, I had not read Robinson Crusoe since childhood. I enjoyed re-reading it. It is dated and by modern standards does not fit together like a novel should, and it has inaccuaracies about the wild, but none of this is surprising since it was written way back in the 1600s and Daniel Defoe is considered one of (if not THE) the world’s first novelists. Besides, it’s one of those books that everyone should read.