Tag Archives: Indie

Book Review of U.S. Army Mage Corps: SWORD, by John F. Holmes

U.S. Army Mage Corps: SWORDI downloaded a copy of  U.S. Army Mage Corps: SWORD, by John F. Holmes, from the Amazon free list. At the time of posting, it was still free.

Description from Goodreads:
What if … magic were part of every day US Military Operations? 

In a backwater Central Asian Country, a threat to Western Civilization is growing, unnoticed by the world. The men and women of the US Army Mage Corps, feared on the battlefield and despised back home, enter into a struggle which may cost them their lives and their country. 

Review:
This is another case of interesting concept, poor execution. Basically, I liked the characters, though they were never deeply developed. I liked it idea of magic in the modern army and honestly, the army bits are well done. But the story stops and starts, jumps around and isn’t particularly developed. There are also no limits or descriptions of the world or the magic, so creatures and abilities just seem to pop up willy-nilly. The writing is simplistic, POVs shift without warning and the editing is a mess.

I’m actually going to take a moment to address this last point, because I downloaded my copy of the book on May 11, 2015 and there is an author note on Goodreads saying, “As of 09/25, heavily edited to fix mistakes.” One would presume 9/25/2014. This is supported by a comment on an Amazon review in which the author states, “Uploaded a much edited version. Thank you for the comment.” That was Nov 3, 2014. So, I can only assume I have that newly edited edition. Now, Holmes may have fixed some errors, maybe even ‘heavily edited’ it, but there is no way this book has been in the hands of a professional editor. There are still a ton of mistakes, some of them things like zeros showing up in the middle of words. Things a standard spell-check should have caught.

So, in the end I think the book could have been better…maybe even could have been good. But it’s not there yet. It’s too rushed, there isn’t enough explanation of the magic limits, and there are too many characters and POVs to feel invested in the characters. Meh.

Unmemorable

Book Review of Unmemorable (Unmemorable #1), by A. P. Jensen

UnmemorableI picked up a copy of  Umemorable, by A. P. Jensen from the Amazon free list.

Description from Goodreads:
A housekeeper with mad street smarts collides with a supernatural bodyguard who’s been sent to protect her from an underground war that has raged for centuries. 

Raven leads a solitary existence and that’s the way she likes it, but the life she knows turns upside down when her apartment gets gunned down and Cain Henson steps in. Cain’s been sent by a Seer who believes Raven is a woman of prophecy that can control an ancient army that no one can see. 

Filled with mystery, magic, a kick-ass heroine and romance, Unmemorable will lead you on a wild adventure that will keep you on the edge of your seat and guessing until the last page.

Review:
Nope, I was not impressed, not at all. The bones of a good story were here. The writing is pretty good. The editing is un-noteworthy, meaning it didn’t grab my attention, which is what you want in editing. But there my praise mostly ends. Yes, I’ll concede that Raven was sassy and determined to remain independent. Both of which are good qualities, too bad they’re completely undermined at every single stage of the book. Every-time she attempted independent action she ended up in trouble, needing rescue.

She’s obstinate to the point of ridiculousness. Well past the point when the truth is impossible to deny she’s still denying it and insisting on going back to work, which is just stupid and suicidal. As is insisting she be allowed to go to the club when people are hunting and trying to kill her. It was so obviously only a chance to get her in a skimpy dress so he could ogle her and move the sex along that I actually cringed. But mostly it was just STSL.

The sex was…oh, wow…bad. When she yelped indignantly, he pulled off her pants and put on a condom. Before she could sit up, he sat with his back against the headboard and pulled her over him to straddle his cock. That’s her loosing her virginity and there is literally NO FOREPLAY (or hymen to deal with). All of the sex is like that, abortive and un-erotic.

There are also a few plot holes that, while maybe not large, annoyed me. First, she is so forgettable that her mother literally walked away and accidentally left her in a park at 1 day old. So, how did she manage to get raised in foster care? How did her Foster parents remember her? Second, if she is so dramatically forgettable how has she made it to 27 without noticing that this is something special? It’s freakin’ impossible. People forget her between one blink and the next, even when standing in front of her. But it did provide the perfect opportunity to show a woman as so stupid she doesn’t even know about herself until a man (Cain) comes along and mansplains it to her. No thank you.

Similarly, she is a Barbie. I don’t mean her physical appearance. I mean the book is full of things she’s never done, never experienced, never tried, etc. It’s so prevalent that I finally decided she didn’t really exist until Cain showed up to see her and take her out of her packaging, because apparently she spent 27 years doing nothing.

But worst of all, the whole this is bloody boring. Almost nothing happens. They play scrabble, talk and watch Lost (an unfortunate and dated media reference). Then nothing concludes or wraps up. As far as I’m concerned it might as well have been a series of random events with no beginning point and no end.

Book Review of Full Blooded (Jessica McClain, #1), by Amanda Carlson

Full BloodedI bought an ecopy of Full Blooded, by Amanda Carlson.

Description from Goodreads:
Born the only female in an all male race, Jessica McClain isn’t just different—she’s feared.

After living under the radar for the last twenty-six years, Jessica is thrust unexpectedly into her first change, a full ten years late. She wakes up and finds she’s in the middle of a storm. Now that she’s become the only female full-blooded werewolf in town, the supernatural world is already clamoring to take a bite out of her and her new Pack must rise up and protect her.

But not everyone is on board. The werewolf Rights of Laws is missing text and the superstitious werewolves think that Jessica means an end to their race. It doesn’t help when Jessica begins to realize she’s more. She can change partway and hold her form, and speak directly to her wolf. But the biggest complication by far is that her alpha father can’t control her like he can the rest of his wolves.

When a mercenary who’s been hired by the vampires shows up to extract information about the newly turned werewolf only days after her change, they find themselves smack in the middle of a war and there’s no choice but to run together. When it’s up to Jessica to negotiate her release against her father’s direct orders, she chooses to take an offer for help instead. In exchange, Jessica must now swear an oath she may end up repaying with her life.

Review:
I thought this was ok. There were things I liked, like Jessica’s insistence on independence and the way Rourke went all desperate and weak-kneed at toward the end, not to mention needing rescue. But while I found the latter half of this amusing and would read more of the series, I wasn’t overly impressed.

One of my number one dialogue pet peeves is when characters say each-other’s name all the time. Think on it; if you’re having a conversation with someone, especially if it’s just the two of you alone, how often do you say their name? Maybe once, in the beginning to get their attention, if even then. In this book these characters used a direct address or name in almost every interaction, sometimes multiple times in the same brief conversation. It drove me absolutely crazy. It just feels so very unnatural.

There is non-stop action in this book and, while action is good, it prevents boredom, there is no downtime in this book and I think it needed some. The characters needed a breather here or there, so that the reader could take a moment to digest. You’re never given any time for big reveals to settle before the book whizzes off to something else, denying the moment any gravitas.

It’s also a cliffhanger. True, it’s not a precipitous as some of them I’ve encountered and I don’t mind some open threads to carry over into a next book, but nothing really wraps up in the story, which annoys me in general, but is especially annoying when the ebook is $8.99 (a new paperback is only $5.20). Seems a little expensive for just part of a story, and that’s honestly all this is.