Category Archives: Challenges

Pruning some of the <100 page stories from the review request shelf

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ShortStories
Today I set out to read a number of short stories, as opposed to a single book for review. Before I post those reviews though, I’m going to allow myself a small, selfish gripe. It’s really just to make myself feel better. We all need that on occasion.

I say this a lot, but I’m not a huge fan of short stories (or novellas, novelettes, etc). I respect that it takes a lot of talent to cram any amount of punch into a short piece, but I generally find them less than satisfying. And this feeling has only intensified with the recent trend of serialised shorts, in which stories are apparently no longer expected to stand on their own. Rather, they form part of a larger whole. I am not a fan. In fact, I hate this. A lot. I’m of the opinion that if an author wants to write a 100 page work there is no good reason to break it into four 25 page stories. There just isn’t.

But I digress. My initial point was just that I dislike short stories. Somehow, however, my review request list is always cluttered with them. And though I find their presence an annoyance, I can never bring myself to just delete them. I’ve promised to give all books  sent to me consideration (though I don’t honestly consider a short story a book), so eventually I’ve so far always given in and read them…basically just to remove the detritus form my TBR list.

It always feels like homework when I do it, though. With few exceptions, any enjoyment I get out of the experience is of the ‘creating order and neatness’ kind. Not that there aren’t good shorts out there (I always hope to be reading one) and not that I don’t give each a fair crack at a good review. But they really aren’t my thing. OK, now that’s out of the way…

Passion of an AngelDescription from Goordreads:
A captivating, mystical and erotic story about the life before Earth. The first world was ideal, the first humans were immortal, everything was given to them to ensure a happy and endless future and life seemed to be going perfect. But there was a curious angel who changed the course of life.

To begin with, angels hadn’t any feelings, they were cold, emotionless creatures wandering around the new world and examining the surroundings. But one of them learned to feel and to see the beauty of God’s creation and for that life, even the angel is surely ready to leave even Heaven.

Review:
This is essentially the exodus of Adam and Eve. It just starts a little earlier in the timeline. I’ll confess that I don’t gravitate toward religious stories at all. But even if I did, I’m still not sure I would think well of this one. There is a lot that is assumed…or rather, presumed. For example, Eve and the Angel hide their actions from Adam. However, two such innocent creatures wouldn’t have even had the moral understanding necessary to perceive those same actions as anything but natural in the circumstances. So, there is no reason they would think to hide them.  It requires the reader to impose modern western morality (or rules God doesn’t set out until far later in the Bible) to circumstances that would essentially be wholly without need for them in order for this story to make any sense at all.

Plus, the passionate ‘Love’ referred to in the title is 100% based on sex. There isn’t a single conversation between the characters prior to ‘the love.’ Guess even in Eden a woman’s worth still boiled down to her willingness to open her knees.

I also thought that the writing was rough and overly dramatic. I don’t think it was originally in English. Too many adjectives are used in the dialogue tags. As and example, in about a page I found “answered shortly,” “confessed honestly,” “sighed desperately,” “responded abruptly” and “cried out maliciously.” As well as “sneered the man smugly,” which isn’t a dialogue tag, but just felt like one more of the same. The dialogue itself was also really stiff, the POV was inconsistent and the whole thing felt as if it moved ahead in jolts instead of a smooth progression.

I’ll admit that a devoutly Christian reader might really enjoy this. But I’m not that reader and was less than impressed.

Blood for GoldDescription from Goodreads:
It all begins when fate starts to play a twisted game with a young female thief, Ulian, destroying her calm life in the capital and sending her to the island of Vrisiok – the most dangerous place in the kingdom of Remmiak, where human and orks are in constant war for its rich gold mines. 

While Srevtiur and Ulian cannot read this book and unveil their uncertain future and each other’s past, you have the Arasak blessing to do so!

Review:
This could have been a good story, if it was a complete anything. It’s not. It is, in fact, apparently the first five chapters of a much larger work. Why do authors do this, publish part of a book? A full quarter of it is a flashback and nothing in it concludes. What’s the point of reading it then?

The writing itself is fine, if a bit stiff. It suffers from a painful dearth of contractions, as is common in a certain sort of sword and sorcery book. The story seems really interesting and I was falling in love with the characters. Too bad I didn’t get to see them accomplish anything. All in all, disappointing, but only in it’s incompleteness.

Veritas Liberabit Vos Description from Goodreads:
A Skydive goes wrong and the participants share an experience that on the one hand gives them a definitive explanation for a controversial phenomenon, but on the other, sets before them a myriad of questions they decide to investigate. They go their separate ways and back to their normal lives, yet things aren’t quite the same and for some, life seems to have taken a twist towards the surreal.

Review:
Um….um….I’m sure something interesting was going on in this story somewhere. Unfortunately, I have no idea what it is…something about crop circles and a convoluted interweaving series of events. But it was all so confusing I never did catch on. What’s worse, by about 75% I was so bored with all the telling and not being sure what the point was and some of the painfully mundane events that I started skimming instead of reading. (That couldn’t have been helping my understanding any.) I gave serious thought to just not finishing it. It’s also another short story that doesn’t actually conclude. I seriously don’t understand the point of short stories that don’t end! Wouldn’t it be better just to write a novella that does?

The Loving Husband and the Faithful WifeDescription from Goodreads:
The Loving Husband and the Faithful Wife
A cutesy tale of romance and domestic bliss? Step inside this suburban home to find out what happens when the couple decide to have an extension added. What could possibly go wrong?

The Debt
Meet Del. Meet Tel. Two men from the wrong side of the tracks. Del stayed straight. Tel, well, he didn’t. Now Del is in debt up to his eyeballs, facing ruin. Only Tel can help. Will he though? And if he does, can Del afford the terms? 

Two dark tales of fear, paranoia, and good intentions, set in situations where grey bleeds into black, and where there are no easy answers. Kit Power invites you to see the world through the eyes of the faces that pass you every day. Discover how it feels to really know someone.

Review:
The first story started out well and then tapered off into mundane predictability. It was well written and all, but after a certain point you just knew where it was going to go. Though, I do have to admit that the final dénouement pulled everything together nicely. The second was better and I really appreciated the interpretable ending. Both stories show a real talent for placing the reader in the characters’ heads and they all felt real to me. I’d be well up for reading more of Power’s books.

Book Review of A Touch of Midnight & Kiss of Midnight, by Lara Adrian

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I grabbed Lara Adrian’s A Touch of Midnight from the Amazon free list and Kiss of Midnight from my local library.

A Touch of MidnightDescription from Goodreads:
Savannah Dupree is halfway across the country from her Louisiana bayou hometown, a freshman studying at Boston University on a full scholarship. But academic excellence is only one of Savannah’s gifts. She possesses something even more remarkable than her quick mind and insatiable curiosity for learning. With a simple touch, Savannah can see an object’s past—a skill that puts her life in danger, when her studies bring her into contact with a centuries-old English sword and the secret hidden within the blade’s history: the vicious murders of twin boys by a group of fanged creatures borne of the worst kind of nightmare.

In all his three hundred years of living as one of the Breed, vampire warrior Gideon never dreamed he’d see the blade again that spilled his young brothers’ lives ages ago on that blood-soaked night in London. Ever since the boys’ deaths, Gideon’s been on a personal quest to rid the world of Rogue vampires, but now he can’t help wondering if the brutal slayings of his only kin was something more sinister—an act perpetrated by an unknown enemy. An enemy who is apparently living in hiding somewhere in Boston. There’s one certain way to prove Gideon’s suspicion, but it will mean using innocent, gifted Savannah to help uncover the full truth—a truth that will shatter everything she knows about herself and the world around her. And with danger closing in from all sides, the passion that ignites between Gideon and Savannah will tempt them to risk their hearts and lives for a love that might just last an eternity…

Review:
Pompous, overwritten, rushed and containing every cheap PNR cliché known to man. However, I think (though I may be giving it too much credit) that since this was published well after the bulk of the other books, it is intended for pre-existing fans of the series, whose well entrenched love of the Breeds would carry the day. Perhaps it has more meaning and resonance for such readers. This is the first of the Midnight Breed books I’ve ever read and I WAS NOT IMPRESSED.

Kiss of Midnight

Description from Goodreads:
He watches her from across the crowded dance club, a sensual black-haired stranger who stirs Gabrielle Maxwell’s deepest fantasies. But nothing about this night—or this man—is what it seems. For when Gabrielle witnesses a murder outside the club, reality shifts into something dark and deadly. In that shattering instant she is thrust into a realm she never knew existed—a realm where vampires stalk the shadows and a blood war is set to ignite.

Lucan Thorne despises the violence carried out by his lawless brethren. A vampire himself, Lucan is a Breed warrior, sworn to protect his kind—and the unwitting humans existing alongside them—from the mounting threat of the Rogues. Lucan cannot risk binding himself to a mortal woman, but when Gabrielle is targeted by his enemies, he has no choice but to bring her into the dark underworld he commands.

Here, in the arms of the Breed’s formidable leader, Gabrielle will confront an extraordinary destiny of danger, seduction, and the darkest pleasures of all. . . 

Review:
Blerghhhh. Let me just pause to clean up the vomit…ok, moving on. I absolutely, 100% do not understand why people love this series! It’s horrible. I picked this book up from my local library, but prior to reading it I read the freebie prequel A Touch of Midnight. Of it I said, “Pompous, overwritten, rushed and containing every cheap PNR cliché known to man…I WAS NOT IMPRESSED.” This one wasn’t rushed; I’ll give it that. But the rest of that sentence is true. It was also incredibly, I mean INCREDIBLY predictable. 

The dialogue was stiff and overly dramatic. There were numerous large, dull info-dumps. I knew what would happen at every stage of the game. A lot of hated PNR tropes were simply strung together and called a book and the plot was so thin cheesecloth would feel more substantial. 

What’s worse, I hated the characters. Lucan was just a selfish jackass and at no point did I feel he redeemed himself. And Gabrielle was TSTL. I mean, with the exception of the times they were in bed, she spent the whole book being angry, annoyed, or scared of Lucan. So…what exactly did she fall in love with? Then, of course, because she has to throw herself into stupid danger (can’t miss that tripe…excuse me, trope) she decides to leave all safety behind in a huff because she’s mad at Lucan. Dumb. 

Plus, can I just vent a moment on how much I hate how common it is for heroines to doubt their own sanity. It’s just a cultural reaffirmation of the idea that women aren’t as strong in the mental department as men. She’s made to look emotionally and mentally weak so that she needs a strong smart man to make all her decisions for her. Ugh. Gross.

And, and, while on hated tropes…being seduced in her sleep, denies her volition and accountability of her own sexuality. Not to mention, seriously people, no woman would sleep through a man sneaking into her bedroom and performing oral sex on her. The first dip of the mattress would have most women up and screaming in fear, not pleasure. I hate this romantic trope so much.

Yeah, so, so, so, yeah, I have no more words for how much I hated this book.

The Accidental Demon Slayer

Book Review of The Accidental Demon Slayer (Demon Slayer #1), by Angie Fox

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The accidental Demon SlayerI grabbed a copy of Angie Fox‘s The Accidental Demon Slayer from the Amazon free list. I believe that it is perma-free.

Description from Goodreads:
It’s never a good day when an ancient demon shows up on your toilet bowl. For Lizzie Brown, that’s just the beginning. Soon her hyperactive terrier starts talking, and her long-lost biker witch Grandma is hurling Smuckers jars filled with magic. Just when she thinks she’s seen it all, Lizzie learns she’s a demon slayer-and all hell is after her.

Of course, that’s not the only thing after her. Dimitri Kallinikos, a devastatingly handsome shape-shifting griffin needs Lizzie to slay a demon of his own. But how do you talk a girl you’ve never met into going straight to the underworld? Lie. And if that doesn’t work, how dangerous could a little seduction be…?

Review:
Meh. I’ve seen it done before and done better. Mechanically the writing was fine, as was the editing but the story itself and the plotting…disastrous. It’s a longish book. There should have been ample time to develop characters, a world and relationships However, Ms. Fox appears to have not bothered.

If this book was a cake, the eggs would still be in the shells (maybe even still in the container), the flour in its bag, the butter in the dish, the milk in the jug, etc, all tossed in a bowl to sit next to each other. All the ingredients are there (a hunky love interest, an unavoidable destiny, an evil antagonist, a spunky side-kick, etc), but not mixed, measured or cooked.

There is no depth to any of the characters and some, most notably Dimitri, are wildly inconsistent, as is the plot. Time is indeterminate. The whole book takes place in 2 or 3 days (not sure which), but characters talk about things happening days ago that appear to have happened hours earlier, at most. And at one point someone goes on what must have been an extended adventure in the time it takes Dimitri and Lizzie to sit up and say, ‘hi.’

A shirt is ripped open a page after it was slowly unbuttoned. Dimitri admits to a lie that couldn’t have held water with the rest of the knowledgeable coven. Plus, he talks like he just showed up but is also supposed to have been hanging out with the witches and werewolves for a while. The antagonist, who has been killing and absorbing the power of all the witches in America for a hundred plus years (so, you know strong and skilled), is somehow easily defeated by a slayer with two days of “training.” Honestly, how believable is that? I could go on, but you get the point, I imagine.

The book’s one real redeeming quality is the humour, but even it’s so over the top and ridiculous it can’t carry the load. No doubt, this will appeal to some. I’m just not one of those people. Too bad too, I spent forever deciding to read it.

Edit: Why the hell is she holding a sword on the cover? She uses a “switch star” (think Xena’s….round thing…with points). Not once does she use a sword. What’s more, the ONE TIME anyone does, it’s a katana.