Tag Archives: Kevis Hendrickson

Clearing Off the Short Story Shelf, Jan. 2022

The Ghost Of A Ninja, by Richard Auffrey

I wouldn’t have thought it was possible to make rape, murder, and vengeful spirits boring, but Auffrey managed it. Mostly because the writing is so stiff, flat and dry. There is no sense of peril or tension. I have the rest of this series, but I think I’m just going to delete it.

Ophelia, by Vicki-Ann Bush

Some of the Alex McKenna series was featured over on Sadie’s Spotlight. So, I picked up this novella as an Amazon freebie to see if I’d like the series. However, where I thought this was a prequel, I’ve discovered it’s a companion novel to book 2. So, I read it out of order. This, no doubt, effected my enjoyment, because there was a certain amount of presumed knowledge that I didn’t have. But, even outside of that, I felt like this novella was super disjointed and hard to follow.

The Beginning of the End, by Emily S. Hurricane

The Bloodlines series was featured over on Sadie’s Spotlight, earlier this year. This was an interesting start to an apocalyptic story. But I’m just not a huge pan of serials. And, prior to reading it, I didn’t realize that’s what this is. Breaking a single story into several less-than-100-page stories makes little sense to me. But the writing is good and the plot seems interesting.

Fool the Demon, by Stacia Stark

I read this after book one, Speak of the Demon. I wish I’d found it first, because it’s a nice introduction to the series. I like the characters, world and writing.

Tribute to the Alpha, by Cara Wylde

Yeaaaah, NO.

Ladies and gentlepeople, your romantic hero:

“We can just kill your men to the last one, until only boys are left to protect you. You’d surrender then, and we’d enslave all the females. We need child-bearers, after all.”

That is his total attitude until has a sudden and inexplicable 180° attitude change at 70% for no reason at all. NONE. He then became loving and kind—a completely different character. Who need consistency?

Then the story ended with the human bride suggesting they set up a boarding school to train future girls to be shifter brides, so that alphas can BUY THEM.

No, this is so much NO for me.

Ambushed, by Rebecca York

I thought these stories would stand alone better than they apparently do. This was pretty clearly a single action scene, followed by a single mild sex scene and nothing more. The mechanical writing seemed fine, but there wasn’t enough of a story here to be worth bothering with.

I was doing some maintenance in my Calibre database last night, after I posted this, and found a couple more short stories. Some of them I’m fairly sure that I thought I’d deleted during my big purge last year. Meaning they were in Calibre, but no longer marked as owned on Goodreads. And for at least two of them I think it was because of naming conventions. For example, Into the Abyss (Rogue Hunter: Gaia #1) was in Calibre as Gaia: Into the Abyss. So, I see how they got missed. I probably didn’t manage to match them up

The result was that I decided to give this short story spree a little more time and read six more stories. I chose six for balance. I thought, I read six yesterday and I’ll read six more today. The six are Unspoken, Unwilling, Wintergreen, Gaia, Ink and A Cupid’s Wager and the reviews are as follows:

Unspoken, by Kerrigan Byrne

This story has been republished as Highland Secret. But I have an older copy (as part of a box set). I think it is unchanged other than the title and cover. But since I’m not 100% sure, I’m going to stick with the old title and cover.

I thought this was an entertaining novella by older erotic romance standards. You know, where the language is all gendered—’his manhood’ and her ‘feminine core’—and velvet over steal, her pearl, etc. But I appreciate that the heroine is described as more rounded and soft that a lot of romance heroines are allowed to be and she is the initiator in the pairing.

Unwilling, by Kerrigan Byrne

Like Unspoken, this has been republished. It’s new name is Highland Shadow. But I have the old copy in a box set. I think I liked this the most of the three Maclauchlans novellas I’ve read. I appreciate a fiery, independent woman. I like seeing their male romantic partner stymied by them. However, the villain is SUPER cliched and the story does suffer from enemies, enemies, angry sex, suddenly in love plotting. But I guess I can’t hope for too much in a <100 page novella.

Wintergreen, by Alexis Hall

I don’t know how something with no sex in it can be so sexy.

Into the Abyss, by Kevis Hendrickson

Not so much a story as the start of something else. Also, only about half the listed 35 pages, as the rest is a sample of the following story/book. So, all around disappointing as a stand-alone read.

Ink: Some Like it Haunted, by Ellen Mint

Some of the Coven of Desire books have been featured on Sadie’s Spotlight. So, I picked up this prequel to test the waters. This was a fun, if somewhat insubstantial novella (most of it is sex). But as an intro to the series, it works. I’m curious to see where it goes.

A Cupid’s Wager, by Deanna Wadsworth

Meh, basically just an extended sex scene with a little bit of larger plot hinted at, should one continue the series (if there is a series). Writing was fine though.

Clearing Off the Short Story Shelf

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You know, I keep saying I don’t read short stories. But people keep sending them to me and I always feel too bad to just ignore them. So I end up reading them in the end. Maybe I should just give up and admit I read them, even if begrudgingly.

I received a request from Kevin Anthony to read Feast, Stray, Love. Since both the first and second were free on Amazon at the time, I figured, why not?

#1:

I’ll be honest: the story borders on the absurd. But sometimes that can be a lot of fun. This is one of those times. I rather enjoyed poor Damien’s continued frustration, he and Ben’s love, the series of abrupt and unexpected events, and the interesting plot that seems to be developing. Unfortunately, since I’m not a HUGE short-story fan to start with, I’m fundamentally opposed to short stories that don’t actually end. Isn’t a series of interconnected, conclusionless short stories better called chapters…of a book? Given my feelings on the matter, I was disappointed to reach the last ‘page’ only to discover it wasn’t the end of the actual story. This is my primary complaint, though. The writing is fairly smooth, the tone often sarcastic, and the characters pleasantly engaging.

#2

This second installment of Feast, Stray, Love picks up shortly after the end of the first. Damien has moved to a neighboring town, manages to find himself in yet another fine mess, and apparently hasn’t been able to avoid The Factory’s reach. Though the novella could use a little more editing, I still really enjoy Anthony’s writing and characters. But the story seems to be splintering a little bit. I’m not certain what Caleb and the pastor’s drama has to do with the original plot. I’m also left wondering how The Factory is getting away with what it is doing. It doesn’t seem very well hidden. Lastly, Damien has developed a rather startling ability, but never batted an eyelash at it. Seriously, who’s that calm about something like that? (But you’ll have to read the story to know what I mean.)

I’ve had Kevis Hendrickson‘s The Grey Elk on my list for a while. I downloaded it from Smashwords; I’m fairly sure it was during one of the seasonal sales (read for free).

The story is less than 15 pages long, so there isn’t really time for much to develop. However, I was impressed with how much Hendrickson managed to convey in so few words. The language leans toward some version of oldish English (I guess). It’s full of words like ere and erst. It fits the fairytale-like telling of the story, but I found it also felt artificial. I’ve previously read one of Hedrickson’s Sci-fi books (Rogue Hunter: Quest of the Hunter). I’ll be honest and say I apparently prefer his space opera to his fantasy. But he certainly knows how to write.

I grabbed Dark Bites, by T.C. Harley, from Smashwords. It’s a freebie.

This is not a short story. At 19 pages, it is, at best, the first couple of chapters of a longer piece. Even if I had been impressed by the writing, the plotting, the characterisation, etc I would be extremely dissatisfied with such a short, incomplete piece of something more. It’s pointless on its own for anything other than tempting you to seek out the next bit of story. This does not please me. As it stands, I thought that the writing was OK. The story looks like it could be an OK YA piece. But how could I know? I only got to read the first 19 pages of it.

I grabbed Elkica Lond‘s Indestructible from the Amazon free list. It’s also free on Smashwords.

There were a lot of things I liked about this story. I liked the use of Judeo-Christian mythology without even a whiff of proselytization. I like the subtlety. There were a number of things that you were never told directly, but the events and contexts told you. I liked the fun way the genders of some well-known characters were swapped around. What I didn’t like was that it felt incomplete. Even the title, Indestructible, is predicated on an event whose importance is never explained. I think this would be much better as a longer piece. But as it stands, it’s still pretty entertaining.

Book Review of Rogue Hunter: Quest of the Hunter, by Kevis Hendrickson

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Author, Kevis Hendrickson, sent me an e-copy of the sci-fi novel Rogue Hunter: Quest of the Hunter

Description from Goodreads:
Zyra Zanr is the most feared bounty hunter in the galaxy. Criminals everywhere cower at her name. During the attempt to capture a notorious fugitive, she stumbles onto a conspiracy to murder the senators of the InterGalactic Alliance. Behind this plot is a clandestine force seeking to destroy not only the InterGalactic Alliance, but mankind as well.War looms on the horizon as Zyra collides with this deadly force threatening to rock the very foundations of time and space. Zyra’s quest to uncover the mastermind behind this plot will pit her against an evil menace beyond her wildest imagination. Only Zyra can save humanity from an impending holocaust. Victory will mean the salvation of the human race. Failure will mean the end of all that Zyra holds dear.

Review:

Zyra Zanr is one tough cookie. She is willing to tackle challenges on a galactic scale with almost no-one covering her back and manages to survive time and time again. Rogue Hunter: Quest of the Hunter tells her story admirably. It starts on a high note and maintains it throughout. Zyra is an interesting character and I loved the men in her life. They each have a little something to appreciate about them. There are a few too many ‘and then she suddenly saw a …’ — insert miraculously placed laundry shoot to dive down, convenient atmospheric control panels to change air content and kill pursuing aliens, willing pilot to rescue you at the last second, etc. Similarly, Zyra’s talents seemed to be almost boundless. She is faster, stronger, smarter than almost everyone else. While I accept that as the ‘Grande Dame Bounty Hunter’ that is to be expected, credibility is stretch a little too thin when she and her unaltered equipment are still hacking computer 300 years in the future. Does technology not progress in the future universe?

There is a pretty drastic shift in the book and plot about half-way through and I don’t feel like the second half holds up as well as the first. This is largely because [without giving too much away] she looses contact with all of her friends leaving almost no-one for her to interact with. Therefore the story becomes much more heavily dependent on description of feelings, thoughts and actions than on the direct interaction of characters. Despite this, a lot of ground is covered and the action continues. This is the first in a series of books focusing on Zyra. (At least I think it is the first. There is definitely room for prequels.) Arcs are left open and there are definitely unanswered questions at the end. But there is more than enough here to keep the reader interested. I enjoyed it and look forward to the next instalment.

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Sci-fi, fantasy, UF/PNR & LGBT+