May 2016 – PALANTIR PRESS

COVER DESIGN AWARD!

Congratulations to Biserka Design, the awesome team behind this cover. They’ve been awarded a gold star, one of four runners up to the April winner out of 96 entries, by Joel Friedlander of The Book Designer. See for yourself here!

Here’s our entry and the judge’s commentary:

Stephanie Sorensen submitted Toru: Wayfarer Returns designed by Biserka Design. “The design also credits Phelan Davion and Michael Lars for the samurai image used and adapted by the designer. Biserka Design has a Facebook page. No plot summaries, but the designers nailed the genre (steampunk set in Japan) and the heart of the brief–samurai with dirigibles!”

JF: Samurai with dirigibles, what’s not to love? This cover has it all, with great atmosphere, the mystery of that looming airship, and the seriousness of the samurai at the center.

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For the photo used by the designers, check out Phelan Davis’s site.

Now check out the cover one last time, big enough to see and savor!

SALVATION’S DAWN

A worthy addition to the epic fantasy canon by Joe Jackson.

446 pages, Kindle and paperback

“If it so pleases you, we will fire dance in his honor.”

This story is a treasure, a work of art, a labor of love and a magical artifact. Weighing in at 446 pages and something near 200,000 words, Joe Jackson’s first foray in epic fantasy nails both epic and fantasy. Featuring the rare strong female lead, who is not human but demon-hunter, black and winged, but simultaneously all female and all warrior, Jackson’s world and heroine are fresh and unique.

First, to the naysayers. Yes, the story starts slow. For the world-building is intricate, detailed, lovingly crafted and real. I know Kari’s world, for I have now smelt it, tasted it, heard it, learned of its gods and demons. I call this not fault but beautiful slow-building power and solidity, a concreteness and reality that make Jackson’s world as real to me as Tolkien’s or Le Guin’s or Salvatore’s worlds. Is there too much explanation and back story and arcane detail? Possibly. But if you are a reader who is looking for your next great fantasy world and characters to fall in love with and pursue through hundreds of rich and glorious pages, you will not mind the slow pace of the first half or the detailed descriptions of races and lands and history but rather will revel in them.

For gamers, of both the dice or digital tribes, you will instantly know the distinctions between rogues and wizards, healers and tanks. If you, of those tribes, enjoy the RPG part of MMORPGs, you will love this book. And if you are a dice-throwing D&D fanatic, you will have found your ancestral home. If you have no idea what I am talking about, this beautiful rich world and its gloriously complex and detailed heroine may not move you, and so you should pass by, and read something simpler and less demanding. But if you are of either of those tribes, then you must make this journey, alongside Kari, demon-hunter.

I do not want to give away details of the plot, or Kari’s relationships with her fellows the Silver Blades, or her fascinating back story, for these are pleasures due the worthy reader. But any book that begins with a bath and a double god-hammer and ends with a fire dance promises a strenuous and adventurous journey, slow though its start may be. The fighting is rare but physical and visceral, with a Special Forces concreteness that makes the moments memorable. The sex is loving and based in relationship. The conversations are between real and distinctive characters, with individual motivations and agendas.

Jackson has fashioned an amazing world and a brilliant heroine. I look forward to the next installment in the Eve of Redemption series and highly recommend this work to fans of epic, gargantuan fantasy.

NO NET

Author: Noah Nichols, musician and writer

392 pages, paperback and Kindle

This absurdist, surreal, adult black comedic satire starts off with a bang, or more precisely, a violent and ultimately fatal series of head butts and only accelerates from there. In a completely wacky world where the internet suddenly vanishes leaving behind befuddled consumers and, oddly, the ability to text, a memorable mayhem-loving set of characters confront their new reality and come to terms with the gaping hole in their lives left by the missing internet. I don’t recommend this book to the faint of heart, or anyone who gets his or her panties in a twist over, oh, lessee…racism, misogyny, graphic violence, casual murder, profanity or domestic violence. Wait, I may be unfair, or at any rate unbalanced, on the misogyny charge, as male characters also receive the ultimate in male suffering by way of strategic kicks and knee strikes.

But having offered fair warning to the faint of heart and panty-twist-prone, freely admitting I was…horrified (one searches for a more neutral word, and fails, honesty being the key value here) …as I read, and noting that I received this book free in exchange for a fair and honest review, I have to say this mad twisted tale summoned from me solid admiration for craft and artistry. My favorite read this year? Nope. Something I can recommend to anyone I personally hang out with? Probably not, but then I am an old fuddy-duddy and quite comfortably so. But is this a humdinger of a ride, conducted by a skilled and mad writer? Most definitely. Will it find an audience? Is this writer worth reading? Yes and yes, I believe so, with some admitted fear and trepidation for the fate of civilization as we know it.

Without spoiling the experience for future readers by sharing specific moments from the book, allow me to share some observations from my own personal journey through shock and awe.

I’m a quiet reader. Sedate, well-behaved. I don’t snort and laugh out loud, grimace and moan when reading. My husband had to send me into a different room while reading this because I was shrieking, laughing, snorting and going “no, no, no, noooooooo…you can’t do that!” Mostly cries of horror and offense, yes, but any writer that can rip me out of my solemn ways like that gets points, even if I am terribly offended, which I was.

Points must also be given for a timely exploration of our society’s device addiction. To the critics who do not feel this was the most realistic exploration of what would happen if the internet vanished, I can only reply that they are absolutely correct, but I*don’t* think realism is what Mr. Nichols was going for in this work.

I was struck by echoes of Quentin Tarantino movies like “Pulp Fiction,” “Kill Bill” and “Inglourious Basterds;” or Frank Miller’s “Sin City;” or the shoot-‘em-up balletic violence scenes from the Wachowski brothers’ (or are they sisters now? they were brothers when they made it, so how does one manage this courteously and correctly, gah!) “The Matrix;” or even, stretching a bit here–and not wanting to besmirch the more-heart-less-violent Coen brothers–but some of the speeches in Coen brothers’ movies like “Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?” Words are weirdly twisted, turned inside out, used gloriously (?inglouriously?) wrong, but deftly, with rhythm, with a beat, and not just on the hip hop and rap passages. I found myself reading passages aloud because they had a delightfully dance-y beat to them.

Mr. Nichols also used story structure in an intricate and pleasing way, with short chapter-vignettes, at first seemingly unrelated, introducing a dizzying array of characters all confronting the No Net disaster. Eventually the characters and their stories interlock in interesting and unexpected ways, often with a small jolt of very real and tender human feeling, made all the more moving because of all the violence and offense and mayhem that had preceded such moments.

And the hand-drawn line art work—naïve, but intricate and illuminating, by artist James King. Very odd, to be sure, but of a piece with the writing and structure. I have to give points for the flamboyant and fiery out-there-ness of the writing and the art.

So, how do I grade this thing with stars as I am required? It’s a stumper, folks, so I will think out loud for you so you can make your own decision. I can easily defend a one-star score, just to scare off the many people who will be terrified and spontaneously combust if they attempt to read this. This needs to come with some kind of “don’t let the children or delicate adults read this” warning sticker. But I can also completely agree with the folks who give it five stars for the over-the-top and knowing writing style and moments of completely beautiful heart-felt humanity mixed into the mad stew that is this book. Be a waffle with a three-star review? That feels cowardly and wimpy, and three is kind of my go-to score for something that either lacked punch or had distracting craft flaws in spite of otherwise great story-telling, which doesn’t fit on either score. This book packs a whole platoon of punches! The book is well-edited, engaging, comes with weird original art and wacky but deliberate, knowing and original word choices, is brilliantly structured and tells a clear enough story with cartoon-y but vividly memorable characters. I cannot give that a three. I also cannot give something that upset me so much a five. (Noah, dude, watermelons, really?!?) So…Mr. Nichols, a four it is, but a very well-earned four, star-dusted with shattered fragments of a five, with my apologies as a newly hatched reviewer for not being able to bring myself to overcome my own reading preferences enough to bestow the mighty five star.

BRIDGE THROUGH TIME

348 pages

A campy romp through space, time and family by Canadian fantasy and YA novelist Scott Spotson.

In this sequel to YA and fantasy author Spotson’s science fiction debut (“Life II”), the eldest son born in the “wrong” time stream to time traveler Max Thorning must set things right and restore the universe to its rightful order.

Burdened with an excessively high IQ and severe ADHD, along with frequent night terrors and a nagging sense he doesn’t belong “here,” Kyle Thorning nonetheless overcomes his father’s depression, his parents’ divorce and his personal limitations to become a world-famous PhD in physics and land a position at CERN, the famous particle physics lab in Switzerland. He even scores a hot physicist girlfriend and seems poised for success and happiness. But events beyond his control have been growing alongside his stellar career, namely the stealthy global takeover of the entire planet by four-legged, four-armed, multi-colored aliens called the “Darsians.” One things leads to another, and eventually Kyle realizes the magnitude of the destruction his father Max Thorning caused by going back in time and creating a second time stream, one overrun by Darsians slowly tightening their grip on his planet by addicting humanity to super strong cidda coffee and enthralling them with integram virtual lives. Can Kyle save humanity–and his father’s life–by finding the means to go back in time and set things right before it’s too late?

Buckle up for a campy ride. Spotson’s writing is fast-paced and clear, well-formatted and cleanly copy-edited. The story starts a bit slow, giving needed space to catching up readers who may have missed the first book, but shifts into a trot by mid-book and gallops to an exciting finish by the end. Spotson “helicopter parents” his verbs with generous doses of adverbs for extra oomph, quite never trusting them to carry the weight of the action unaccompanied. Characters, male and female, spend a good deal of time with tears rolling down their faces, drawn in cartoon-y over-the-top ways, melodramatically nervous, terrified, enraged, grieving or otherwise discombobulated much of the time. I wondered if I had wandered into a middle-grade story, with all the exaggerated emotion and adverbs, but the occasional bouts of romance (committed relationship, discreet, “off screen”), the moments of parental worry about the impact of divorce on children and the physics duel at CERN tugged me back up into a YA-to-adult targeting. To be clear, his writing style drove me nuts, but I found myself unable to put the story down. I had to find out whether Kyle succeeded or failed, and how it all went down. And if that isn’t the definition of engaging, dear reader, I do not know what is.

On what to rate this time travel tale, I am honestly flummoxed. I have to assume the adverb-and-hysterical characters thing is a consciously chosen style, since the world-building is intelligent, the story-telling robust, the copy-editing excellent, and the occasional bursts of physics quite fun. You have to give the man extra points for coming up with not one but two separate ways to travel through time, after all, while working neutralinos, anti-Higgs bosons, Casimir effects and slit experiments gone rogue into the story. I happen to have a minor in physics, and his physics are nonsensical hand waving, but exuberantly delivered with Trumpian compelling effect. The aliens, while central to the plot and eventually revealed in all their glorious villainy, seem almost an afterthought in this family-centric tale of a son’s quest to save his father and the universe. Five seems too high for a book with this many adverbs, histrionic characters and weeping spells; three stars too low for something this well copy-edited and exuberantly over-the-top campy fun. I can see the B-movie version, shot for a skinny budget, of this noble tale of courage and sacrifice in the war against the aliens. Four stars, recommended for precocious children with ADHD who like physics and time travel stories and for adults looking to discover the next campy cult favorite.

THE DRAGON’S CASTLE

A fresh and engaging take on the making of a wizard, this second book in the Apprentice Series by prolific and award-winning fantasy, science fiction, YA and spirituality writer James Cardona shows his fantasy and YA background.

604 pages, $4.99 Kindle, $24.99 paperback

Bel, a new graduate of Lasaat, the elite school for wizards, now serves as apprentice to forest archmage Nes’egrinon. Before he can even recover from wounds suffered in the quest to win his mage staff, Bel and his master must answer an urgent summons and rush to the capital to help King Thrashel save his throne and his realm. Bel and Nes’egrinon are soon plunged into a cascade of challenges: succession battles, wizardly corruption, multiple hostile armies and the much-reviled foreign avian wizards, not to mention mighty creatures bent on humanity’s destruction. Bel must also face his own greatest personal challenge, his love for Shireen, the woman he can never have if he is to achieve his full potential as a wizard.

Written for a young adult audience, this second book in multiple-award-winning author James Cardona’s Apprentice Series covers familiar ground—the training of a wizard—in fresh and engaging ways. Older and more mature than Harry Potter and his friends at Hogwarts, Bel and Shireen must together grapple with the terrible trade-off at the heart of their quest to become wizards, the requirement that they abandon all hopes of love and marriage, even as their love rekindles and grows ever deeper and more passionate. More earnest, dutiful and altruistic than the edgy, cool, pot-smoking, alcohol-guzzling magician college students of Lev Grossman’s “The Magicians” series, Bel and Shireen must make life-changing decisions while learning their wizardly powers, dodging various enemies and watching their elders grapple with the consequences of their own youthful decisions. Less formidably confident than Mother of Dragons Khaleesi from G.R.R. Martin’s “The Game of Thrones” series, these young apprentices are approachable, fallible and engaging heroes, their interactions with each other and their masters leavened with a gentle humor as they struggle, fail and rise to try again and make wise decisions without half the knowledge and wisdom they need.

Uniquely wonderful is the author’s ability to take the reader into the minds of the young apprentices as they struggle to learn their craft, whether it be sensing the forest and the life force of all the creatures it contains, sending oneself out into the world or peering into another’s mind. Even more thrilling are the moments when the reader gets to experience the same skills now masterfully exercised through the viewpoint of their experienced masters at the fullest extent of their powers. Author Cardona exercises a rich and vivid imagination, taking the reader on an exciting, well-paced and always surprising journey through a complex and concrete world. Whether it be political maneuvering, pitched battles, magical fights or courtly marriage ceremonies, Cardona tells his tale in memorable detail.

I admire the complexity and depth Cardona brings to this young adult tale and the respect he has for his readers. He does not insult his young readers with over-simplification and a dumbed-down vocabulary. Relish with me “the fetor of death,” for example. Or the speech of the Tundric officers, with their echoes of the poems of the Icelandic Viking sagas like “game of iron” or “swords covered in the dew of men’s blood.” His political setting of warring realms under outside threat carries echoes of the warring but inter-related Anglo-Saxon realms on the eve of the Viking invasions that eventually unified England. He explores the ancient and persistent trade-off between a spiritual vocation and an ordinary layman’s life through both his young apprentices, standing on the precipice of their decisions, and through the lives of their old masters, who have had to live with their decisions. While his heroes are moral and generous, they are also prey to selfish urges, lapses into cowardice and thoughtlessness. In short, they are very human and real. And oh! He does marvelous things with the great creatures awakened in his story.

Definitely a worthwhile and engaging read, but a few problems bear mentioning. Typographical slips and jarring word choices and repetitions occasionally marred my experience of this magical adventure. Language choices veered from courtly formality (“My good king!”) to contemporary informality (“you know,” “neurotic kook”). I was unsure whether these were attempts at humor or just sloppy style. I hate sounding pedantic about such details when the story, world and characters are so well imagined and engaging, but I believe it hurts the cause of indie publishing when self-published authors release work that does not meet traditional professional editing standards.

In spite of my gripes about these small flaws, I would strongly recommend this series to young fantasy fans for its unique and memorable spin on the path of the wizard and the vividly imagined experience of being a wizard.

MILLION DOLLAR STAIRCASE

276 pages $4.99 on Kindle

Author: David Crosby. Mr. Crosby is an award-winning photo-journalist making his novelist debut with this book, first in his Will Harper mystery series.

Former journalist Will Harper struck it lucky when Aunt Dotty kicked the bucket and left him enough to kiss his job goodbye and buy a boat. Then his luck runs even hotter when the attractive French-speaking owner of the run-down marina where he parks his boat gets romantic. But they’ve got trouble with a capital “T” because evil developers want the city fathers to wield the weapon of eminent domain to bulldoze her marina and put up a million dollar staircase, ADA-compliant, of course, in the middle of their new development. With the help of a hotshot lawyer who owes him a favor and armed with his journalistic sleuthing skills, fearless and generous Will swings into action to help his new lady friend.

First, the fun. It’s a sun-drenched Florida coastal setting, with ramshackle bait shacks, live aboard boats, lazy boozy meals, flowered shirts, greedy developers, corrupt local politicians and scary tattooed “muscle.” My apologies for bringing current events into a review, but I write this review in the heat of the 2016 presidential campaign, where it’s the Donald and his eminent domain wielded against little old ladies so he can build a casino parking lot vs. Bernie fighting for the revolution of the little guy against Big Money. Mr. Crosby has written a timely book, and built a fictional world around a real and current issue. He’s definitely fighting for the little guy, or in this case, the lovely Sandy of the French accent who is in danger of losing her marina to the evil developers. The author demonstrates a good grasp of the legalities of eminent domain and the strategies of evil developers and does a solid job of helping the reader understand them as well. He also knows his way around journalism and boats.

Somewhat confusingly, the book is marketed as a mystery. It is not a mystery, or at least it is not mysterious. The villains are introduced straight off as villains, rather selfish and ham-handed villains in fact, and the only mystery is how and when they will receive their come-uppance for being so villainous and dastardly. “Million Dollar Staircase” is not so much a mystery as it is the introductory pilot for what looks to be a private detective series built around the dashing, justice-minded, generous, brave, gentlemanly, independently affluent and conveniently skilled Will Harper. Think of it as an extended character sketch with some fun action sequences as the bad guys are foiled and brought low.

I like Will, although I question his judgment at times…in ways I cannot detail without spilling plot beans. He makes some very strange decisions. Let’s just say I found myself chanting “Call the police!! Call the police!!” several times. I guess hard-boiled detectives-to-be don’t instinctively do that when confronted by awkward corpses. He’s a nice guy, a gentleman, smooth enough with the ladies and treats them well, which is also appealing, but he lacks a certain cluefulness about the fair and mysterious sex. I liked him enough to want to pull him aside a couple of times and just tell him, “Dude, she’s just not that into you…” His difficulties with love form a kind of subplot as a backdrop to all the legal proceedings and action sequences.

Mr. Crosby is a good storyteller, although I’m not sure he’s demonstrated his mystery chops with this book. (Need more…mystery.) I would also quibble with his dialogue style, which is naturalistic to the point of being too real—greetings and small talk–and not as effective as it could be in showing character and pushing the plot along. Minor typos and formatting issues distracted slightly. He’s a great world-builder. I could feel the Florida mugginess and taste the seafood. I enjoyed his little guys and gals vs. the Big Bad Money Boys plot. His characters are colorful and memorable enough if not particularly complex. The story is conveyed with a warm, earnest upbeat feel, gliding calmly over the occasional murders and kidnappings and difficulties in romance with a gentle humor.

Mystery fans looking for a new series should check out Will Harper, perfectly positioned at the end of Book 1 to start solving crimes and mysteries, although Mr. Crosby’s ability to create mystery and tension remains, in this first pilot book, as yet unproven.

THE HOARDER’S WIDOW

The Hoarder’s Widow

Author: Allie Cresswell . This is Ms. Cresswell’s 5th novel.

354 pages, $8.50 Kindle, $12.99 paperback

We meet our protagonist Maisie at the moment of her transformation from wife to widow as her husband Clifford Wilde makes what can only be described as a spectacular exit from his role as husband, protector and, as the title gives away, hoarder. Author Allie Cresswell’s language delights throughout from the fiery first page, as she swiftly, concretely and vividly dispatches poor Clifford, allowing him a brief moment to explain himself before launching into the main adventure, Maisie’s long-delayed blossoming into the person she was meant to be.

Long confined and nearly entombed by her husband’s towering piles of broken treasures, we meet Maisie as she must deal with the logistics and shock of widowhood. I did not expect such a delightful journey from such a sad and soggy beginning. Though the rains fall often in this tale set in a lonely house at the end of a lane in the English countryside, Maisie’s personal journey and the friendships, knowledge and family she gains along the way are as warm and bright and comforting as a shiny copper kettle calling the reader to tea. The story is infused with a deep empathy and tenderness for the flawed and difficult personalities struggling with their challenges, whether it be Maisie coming to grips with what she has lost during her years with Clifford and the secrets she must face, or her hen party of new friends squabbling, or her limited and awkward grown children fluttering around her, casualties as much as she was of their father’s odd tendencies.

I do not wish to rob readers of the pleasures of meeting the emerging Maisie and her new friends, so I will not describe them except to say that their interactions provide wonderful moments of humor and poignancy as they accompany Maisie on her journey to her new life. Ms. Cresswell possesses a deft and elegant touch in creating her vivid characters both major and minor, all cracked pots and imperfect, but treated as worthy of happiness even so.

The plot may be simple, but it moves along at a comfortable clip, moving inexorably forward as Maisie uncovers old secrets and makes new friendships. Along the way, Maisie and the reader explore family, those families we are born into and marry as well as those we create with our friends or claim through duty mingled with forgiveness and understanding.

Film producers working with actresses “of a certain age” who complain of the lack of juicy parts for women of middle age would do well to grab this book and imagine casting Maisie and her friends. I can see a delightful ensemble piece, full of heart and insight into human foibles, anchored by Maisie and filled out by her friends, a must-see cozy film for those of us who long for something on the big screen without car chases or space aliens.

I recommend this book to anyone who enjoys superbly written, character-driven fiction. There is nothing flashy in this simple tale, but it is a rich and filling feast of real and complex characters muddling through life’s challenges and finding their way forward together. I would write more, but I need to go find out what else Ms. Cresswell has written, and settle in with a cup of tea and another of her stories. I loved this book and gave it a five.