Trey Stone's Blog, page 32

Book Review: Vol’Jin by Michael A. Stackpole

This is another book in the Warcraft universe, books which I’ve read quite a few of, and which I always love to review. If you want to check it out, my favorite is right here, and boy is it good.

I’m not going to get into too much detail about Warcraft, so if you don’t know what that is Google is your friend, but it’s based on some video games from the 90s, and the online game World of Warcraft has been one of the world’s most popular for a few years now. The gist of is that there’s two factions, The Alliance and The Horde, both composed of different races like humans, dwarves, orcs, and elves, and they fight each other.

This book is centered on the troll character Vol’Jin, as the title probably gives away, and his stay in Pandaria after being mortally wounded and left for dead. He makes it by a hair, and is cared for by the Pandaren, a group of Panda-like warriors who center their life around a lot of philosophy, meditation and marital arts. (No, it’s not based on Kung-Fu Panda).

There’s also a human character called Tyrathan who is very prominent, but I’ve never heard of him outside of this book, so I doubt he’s a big player (but then again, I don’t know everything about the Warcraft universe).

Vol’Jin however is a big player, being the leader of the troll faction, and for some time (after this book though), warchief of the Horde. The books dives deep into his being, his backstory, his personal history, upbringing and daily life, and if you’re a fan of him or the trolls, you’ll probably love this. On the other hand, there’s a lot of philosophy going on here, both because of the Panderan, but also because Vol’Jin spends a lot of time pondering his existence, which in my opinion makes the book a bit slow. Stackpole’s writing is great, it’s healthy mix of beautiful prose and detail, and witty dialogue and action, and I was pretty much into it from the start. But then it took a while to build up, and though the ending was great, it felt a bit drawn out.

Also, if you’re not already versed in the Warcraft lore, this book isn’t going to give you any of that, in my opinion. It’s very much a book served to players and readers of the other books, and I’d bet that if you picked this as your introduction to Warcraft you’re going to feel left out. A lot of backstory is taken for granted, and much of the great fighting and action between all the factions is left out. It is very much a book about Vol’Jin alone, and with him being away in Pandaria, it doesn’t give you a good overall picture of the rest of the world.

But that’s not to say it’s not a great book if you’re into Warcraft. I loved reading and learning more about Vol’Jin, and particularly the history of the Pandaren. You’ll enjoy it a lot if you know what you’re getting yourself into, and I think I can say that Michael A. Stackpole is my second favorite Warcraft author, right after Christie Golden.

Book Review: The Trouble With Being God by William F. Aicher

I’ve been wanting to read this book since before it was released really (at least this edition of the book, which is the 10th anniversary edition), because around the time I started to follow Aicher he was designing this cover. He was doing polls on his Twitter, letting people vote on variations of this one, and I was interested right away (I think I initially voted for a cover that sported a knife somewhere in the graphic, but I think this one suits it best in the end).

The story follows journalist Steven Carvelle, who when a priest is found dead, naked, and crucified, is pulled into a string of horrifying murders as he tries his best to both report, and help his friend Detective Miles, investigate.

Aicher’s writing is pretty perfect, judging by my taste. Quick, to the point, definite, but allowing itself to be beautiful and descriptive some of the time. It leads to a good pace, yet a strong, flesh-out story, but at the same time it doesn’t get boring. It’s a difficult balance, but Aicher manages it perfectly.

There’s a few mistakes in this book, typical errors, and some beginner’s mistakes. We all have them, there’s no getting away from that, and Aicher even acknowledges it in the back of this book. Because this was the first one he wrote, and even though this is the revised 10th anniversary edition, he didn’t want to alter the story too much. He didn’t want to take away from it that roughness that makes it his first book, and I get that. The errors are minor and easily overlooked anyway.

Aicher’s writing is gripping. This story pulls you in right at the fucking start, no question about it. I read it in two sittings, more than half of the remaining book in one go. In one sense, the books feels very short, and fast-paced, yet at the same time there’s so much stuff happening all the time. I don’t understand how he does it, writing a book that feels short, but reads long. It’s weird.

But yeah, this is a very exciting book, and I’m very happy I got the 10th anniversary edition. There’s some notes back there that I really loved reading. And the ending is absolutely amazing. I loved it, I really did. In this version of the book there’s an alternate ending at the far back, but Aicher says he doesn’t want people to read that, so I didn’t. The ending is perfect as it is.

If you’re looking for an amazing indie thriller, get this. Get it. Right here.

Why Do You Do It If You Hate It?

Most of the time I love writing. It’s a passion, it’s a hobby, it’s an art, it’s a job, whichever way you cut it, I love doing it. There’s just something about taking those stories inside my head and creating them on paper, watching them unfold, unwrapping the mysteries, and see them grow that makes me happy. Simple as that: it makes me happy. I like doing it, as I do many other things, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

At the same time, sometimes I absolutely hate it. I was called out recently on Twitter for basically “complaining”, from a person who asked me something along the title of this post: “Why even bother if you hate it?” This person allegedly loved every single aspect of writing, never found it stressful or tedious and apparently thought I complained.

And you know what? That’s great. Well done to you, if you never dislike a single aspect of creative writing. That’s impressive. Me, I hate parts of almost everything I do. I love my job and my career (which isn’t writing), don’t get me wrong, but sometimes I dread going to it, and I just can’t stand it some days. I hate going to the gym, even though I do it nearly every single day and wouldn’t have it any other way. I hate a lot of stuff, some of the time. That’s not going to stop me from doing it, or from loving it, most of the time.

I feel like writing is something that’s particularly easy to hate. It’s emotional, it’s raw, it’s so much of you. At the same time, it can be difficult. It can be frightening, especially when it comes to putting it out there. It can be absolutely nerve-wracking. So yeah, I definitely hate writing sometimes. I hate having to wrap my head around it, I hate when I feel like it isn’t going the way I want to, and it might discourage me to think of what this is going to be in the future. But that’s not going to stop me from loving it at the same time.

I’d never think that anyone who said they disliked being a writer, didn’t know what they were doing. In fact, the exact opposite is probably true. You really know the truth of it, if you know how painful it can be. And if you keep going even then, well, then you’re definitely a hell of a writer.

Book Review: Sword of Destiny by Andrzej Sapkowski

I love reading a lot of different books, particularly indie books, but I also love having a series going at the same time. Recently I read the Dark Tower, but now I’m on The Witcher series (of which this is the second book, unofficially), and they’re great.

When I say it’s unofficially the second, that’s because the series kind of start with the third book. They’re all in the same universe, with the same characters, but the two first books are collections of short stories. The end of this one ties directly into the third book, which I’ve barely begun, which starts of the series properly as the first novel.

Published in 1992, you can kind of tell that this is an older kind of fantasy. It’s as if you can tell that books written by authors in recent years, try very hard to give you that immersive, complete, perfectly-built-world instantly, whereas in this you’re following just a handful of characters on a much smaller scale. I’m sure it expands as soon as I get into the novels, but so far, I don’t know much about the universe, the world, or the kingdoms, and lots of things go unexplained. I like that. You have to pay attention to what’s being said, particularly between the lines, and figure out how people know each other and why their paths might have crossed before.

The Witcher series centers around Geralt of Rivia, who is a witcher. Witcher’s are monster hunters, highly skilled soliders who are mutated with concoctions and magic to be able to slay foul creatures where ever they may roam, for a price. Geralt is by no means a chosen one, or a very special person, other than being one of the few who survived his training. There’s not very many witchers, but there are a few. The Witcher series has also been made into a video game series, the third of which has been very successful in the last few years. I’m playing it these days and I love reading the story as I do.

You might have gauged from the author’s name that he’s Polish, and you can certainly tell from his writing that he’s inspired by medieval Europe. It’s a very different kind of fantasy, with a lot of folklore, and it has this fairy tale feel to it. That’s not to say that it there isn’t plenty of murdering and slaughtering going on, in addition to other vile acts, as well plenty of sexy times. Geralt do like the womenfolk, and they tend to like him too.

What I like about Geralt, is that he isn’t some whiny, ‘I-hate-being-the-witcher’ brat. He’s good at what he does, he knows it, and he enjoys it (mostly). At the same time, he’s got morals. There’s a difference between monsters and other fantastical creatures, and he doesn’t just kill anything for gold. He’s just trying to live his life, and goes on some incredible adventures while doing it.

The Witcher universe is vast, and incredibly well put together, and I can’t wait to uncover more of it. If you’re looking for a strong, high-quality, different kind of fantasy, give it a go. And if you don’t particularly like short stories, maybe skip right to the third book, ‘Blood of Elves’. I’ll review it soon enough.

Book Review: A Colour Of Magic By Terry Pratchett

I’ve had this lying around for ages now, and I’m so glad I finally read it. I don’t know how much of an introduction I’ll give, but Terry Pratchett is a wonderful fantasy author, best known for his Discworld series, of which this is the first series. He unfortunately passed away a few years ago, but he’s in the spotlight again these days with the series Good Omen which he wrote together with Neil Gaiman.

I loved this, it was such a breath of fresh air. A lot of people have told me to avoid this book, and start with some other book in the Discworld series because apparently this one isn’t good, but I don’t understand what they’re talking about. This was excellent.

Pratchett wrote this in 1986 if I recall correctly, and he was doing a lot stuff back then that you can’t do in writing now. For example, some of his dialogue is just ‘?’ he said, which is absolutely brilliant. Short and to the point, but totally unacceptable today. Also, his view on world-building is just to tell you how the world works, pretty straight forward, and then move on with the plot. It’s refreshing. There’s no intricate weaving of fantasy term and jargon into the plot, it’s just: “here’s the thing.”

And the story is great. The plot is essentially that a tourist arrives to our magical realm and meets the wizard Rincewind. The tourist pays Rincewind to show him around, and so adventure ensues. It’s simple, fun, and hilarious. I also enjoy that it’s so short. It’s a simple evening read, and instead of feeling overwhelmed, you’ll want to pick up the next one.

If you’re looking for a different brand of fantasy, this might very well be it.

Making Editing Fun Again

I recently wrote a blog post about how I changed up my writing habit. If you want to read it (which you do, of course, how silly of me to ask), you can find it here. With this newfound love for writing, I realized I had to do something similar with editing, the result of which, is this post. Thank you for reading, and enjoy.

If you’re anything like me (or thousands of other authors), you hate editing. Some people love it, and more power to them, but I usually despise it. I find drafting so much more fun – incredible, enormous, giant heaps of more fun. Might have to do with the fact that I’m a mainly a pantser/discovery writer, so when I’m drafting I get to see the story for the first time which is amazing. And also, since I don’t plot, I have to correct a F**K TON of stuff afterward. …It’s cool, I’m cool. *labored breathing*

Anyway – what I usually do when I edit, is that I have a list of stuff to fix, and then I comb through it from top to bottom. You start with the big stuff: plot stuff, character arcs, character motivations, and you constantly move down to a smaller level, like sentence structure, grammar, typos. A to-do list for my editing might look like this:

Fix major plot holes
Resolve issues x43 and x12
Develop character A & B
Restructure chapters/scenes 35-42
Rewrite: this and this and this
Change character motivations for X
Tighten relationship between E & F
Add descriptions
Tighten scenes
Cut fluff
Reread for spelling, grammar, typos (repeat until dead).

This isn’t necessarily a complete list, and it will of course depend on the type of story, the genre, the length, and the way in which you write, but you get the picture. I would have a list of this stuff, and I would comb through the entire manuscript time and time again. Usually, I would do just one or a few of these at at time. For example, I might “fix major plotholes” and “resolve issues” on the same round, but I wouldn’t worry about tightening small scenes or fixing typos (of course if I happened over some glaring ones, I’d make sure to fix them, but not actively).

This makes editing incredibly tedious and boring, in my opinion. An alternative, is of course doing it all in one go. Just going through the whole manuscript once, and fixing everything at the same time. If you can do that, you are amazing, good on ya. I can’t. First of all, it sounds absolutely overwhelming, and second, I wouldn’t trust myself that I’d be able to fix everything. In my opinion, it serves your work well that you comb through it a few times.

So, what I ended up changing wasn’t what I did, but how I did it. I still comb through the manuscript, time and time again, fixing stuff. But I’ve stopped doing it top to bottom, and I’ve stopped doing it so rigidly as explained above. Of course, I still have to comb through for typos, but with the other things, I’m much more free.

I’ll pick a thing I know I need to change or edit, and I’ll jump in somewhere. Say it’s a characters motivations. Maybe it was unclear in the first draft, or contradictory. Then I might want to get to the back of the book, to the last scene, and see if the character is still behaving how I want them to. If they are, great, lets jump to the beginning. Are they acting the same? Yes, no? Do we want them to or not? What about in the middle?

For some reason, jumping back and forth like this, makes it a lot easier to spot mistakes. I know the story from A to Z, I wrote it that way. I know what my character does in every chapter, and when I read it in that order, none of it surprises me. I’m finding it much easier to fix these things, if I’m jumping between different parts of the book.

Say we’re talking about a plot hole, something that didn’t quite come together. Instead of reading through the whole book, looking at how those things come to pass, look at the first and the last scene that are relevant to the event. See anything obvious that needs fixing? Or pick out all the scenes that has to do with this whatever-the-hell-it-is. Looking at them isolated, instead of wrapped around the rest of your story might be a great help.

I’ve done exactly the same when trying to tighten scenes. Instead of going from top to bottom, I’ll find a scene I really like, one to use as my standard. Then I’ll jump to somewhere else. Is that scene the same? Shorter? Longer? Does it pack the same punch? If it does or doesn’t, is it supposed to? Comparing these thing with each other, instead of looking at them within the framework of the entire manuscript, has helped me a lot.

In conclusion:

The way I’ve changed my editing, is that instead of solely going from top to bottom through my manuscript (though I still have to do that too, obviously), I’ll isolate certain things I know I need to fix, and jump back and forth between them. This has made it much easier for me to look at those things objectively, instead of as a part of my writing, and correct them. It’s also made editing much more fun, and less daunting. Hopefully, it’s a method that can work for you too.

Book Review: Next Girl To Die by Dea Poirier

This is one of the first books in ages that I per-ordered, like, six months ahead of time. I’ve been excited about it since whenever I started following Dea Poirier on Twitter, and though it is a month since it was released, I managed to get to it before too long. I knew from the release that it’s been very well accepted, so I was really itching to get on with it. And boy, let me tell you…

To paraphrase the official blurb, the plot is that Detective Claire Calderwood is called back home to Maine, to help the local police, fifteen years after her own sister was murdered there. She has to come face-to-face with her own past, to be able to solve the eerily similar crime.

Poirier’s writing is compact. That’s the best way I have to describe it; it’s not overly complex or difficult, but it’s still very all-encompassing and comprehensive. It’s beautiful and sincere, and it paint a very vivid picture, very quickly. The result is that it pulls you in fast. I felt like I’d read a lot of Poirier’s books before, I felt like I recognized the feel, the atmosphere, her style, even though I’ve never read a word of it before. It’s familiar and it grips you quickly, and it’s all very well done.

The plot is exciting, and I was hooked pretty fast. It has this Noir feeling over it that I love it, you get pulled into this dark (and I imagine foggy), island atmosphere, and I loved it.

It’s written in first person, present tense, and though it’s no fault of this book, it’s just a style I struggle with. It’s difficult for me to read for some reason, I find I often have to reread sentences because I don’t get them at first. Also, I know first-person present is supposed to feel more immediate and that you’re closer to the protagonist, but to me it often feels more static, and choppy. You have this robot narration that happen a lot, and I hate that I never see the protagonist from the outside, from an objective view-point. But still.

There’s a few things I struggled with in the book. It took me a while to get that Detective Calderwood had moved back home. I didn’t get that she would uproot her whole life just to help with this one case, so that was a bit confusing. Also, she meets her mom and dad for the first time in ages, when she arrives, yet her dad is never in the picture again? Not even once? Also, somewhere toward the middle of the book, she starts to wonder if the fifteen-year-old murder of her sister and this new crime is related, but I thought that was the whole premise of the book? That that’s why she was called by the local police, wasn’t it?

Anyway, these aren’t and weren’t any major issues for me, and with the exception of a few typical debut-book-errors, this book is excellent. I was excited about this for ages, and it wasn’t without reason. The writing is dark, eerie, and beautiful, but at the same time to the point and powerful. There’s somewhat of a romantic subplot that I didn’t care about, but that’s just a personal preference, I’m sure most people will love that.

If you’re looking for your next chilling thriller read, set on an island in Maine, where dark things have been happening for ages, and every other person seem to have something up their sleeve, you should check this out!

You can find Dea Poirier and her writing here.

 

Book Review: Wolfheart by Richard A. Knaak

Another Warcraft novel, finally done! I’m working my way through all of them, and now I only have 4 left before I’m done.

To me, Warcraft is probably the greatest fantasy universe ever created. Even next to The Lord of The Rings, and A Song Of Ice And Fire, and so many other epic stories, Warcraft still remains number one to me. It’s just so incredibly vast, having played the RTS games since I was a kid, having spent countless hours playing the MMO, and now nearly having read all the books, there’s still always just so many cool new stories to learn. There’s ancient creation lore, there’s histories of massive wars that happened 10,000 years ago, there’s mythologies and legends, as well as all the stories of the minor characters that happen in the present. And it’s constantly evolving, constantly changing and moving on and on and on. I just never get sick of it.

This book is Alliance centered. (For those of you who doesn’t know the Warcraft universe—and I promise I won’t go on about it—but the Alliance is one of the large factions, comprised of humans, dwarves, gnomes, worgen, draenei, and night elves. The opposing faction is the Horde, which consists of orcs, trolls, tauren, the forsaken, goblins, and blood elves.) Personally, I find the Horde much more interesting, but I don’t mind reading about the Alliance now and again, they have some good stories.

There’s a few different story lines going on here. First, there’s a gathering in Darnassus, home to the night elves. All the races of the Alliance are invited, and they have much to discuss. At the same time, Jarod and Maiev Shadowsong run into some trouble. Variann Wrynn, King of Stormwind does some soul-searching in the forests of Darnassus, as do his son, Anduin. Some night elves stationed in Ashenvale run into unforeseen trouble. All the while, orc ships are making their way from Northrend to Kalimdor, carrying some dangerous and valuable cargo.

I think that’s all I’ll say about the plot, because going into detail will start spoiling it. But just know that there’s lots of stuff going on, plenty of mystery, intrigue, drama, and fighting.

There are many authors who write Warcraft novels, and usually, Knaak isn’t my favorite. In my opinion, due to my tastes, Christie Golden does them best. There’s just something about her writing that I respond to, compared to Knaak’s which I tend to find a bit drawn out, and slow-going. It’s the same with this book: great set-up and intriguing plot, but the middle feels drawn out and slow. It comes together really well at the end, when the pace quickens though.

I enjoyed that I learned a lot of new things about the Warcraft universe from this book, things I don’t think I’ve heard of from the games (though, I am quite out of the loop on that front). Maybe it’s because I’m not that fond of the Alliance, because there’s much of the backstory of Varian, Jarod, Maiev, and Genn Greymane that I didn’t know at all.

In conclusion, this isn’t the strongest of the Warcraft novels, maybe because I don’t particularly like Knaak’s style and the Alliance, but it’s still a hefty story that fires on all cylinders and even took me by surprise.

Writing More By Writing Less

My schedule has changed a lot recently. I’m trying to read more regularly, I play more guitar and accidentally joined a band, so I have to practice for that, and I’ve changed up my gym program. All of these thing, in combination with the normal, boring stuff like sleeping, eating, and going to a job that pays actual money, means that I don’t have as much time to write anymore.

I had to fix that.

I used to try and put aside a specific amount of time for writing. Not necessarily every day, but regularly. I’d say: “On these days, between these and these times, you’ll write.” It would look something like this:

Monday:        19:00 – 21:00
Wednesday:  17:00 – 18:00
Thursday:      19:00 – 20:30
Friday:           17:00 – 19:00
Saturday:       12:00 – 16:00
Sunday:          16:00 – 20:00

They might change a little bit from week to week, but with a schedule that looked something like that, I would sit down to write during those times. And I would. With a generous drizzle of procrastination of course, I’m not gonna lie, but I did. I wrote for those hours (or however long it was.)

The problem with this time-based approach—at least in my case—was that it didn’t give me even results. Depending on what mood I was in, how I was feeling, how many distractions there were, and so on and so on, I could write anywhere from 300 to 3000 words. (And it was hardly ever 3000). The problem was that I was too focused on those hours passing me by, not what I produced during them. I felt like if I’d sat down for 4 hours, I’d done a good job, which just wasn’t true because it might not reflect that way in my writing.

So I had to change it up, I knew that. I do that regularly anyway, because life happens, but this time I actively went for a new approach to my writing. Now, I don’t believe in writing every day. If you have the opportunity and want to, sure, go for it. But I don’t think it’s a necessity. (See how I didn’t use to write on Tuesdays earlier? Tuesdays were busy.)

Knowing I needed a change, I started thinking about what, and how I could change it. I knew time wasn’t a good measurements. I wanted to measure by result, by end products, but how? Words, pages, chapters, or scenes?

I figured scenes and chapters are too variable. I write thrillers and some chapters are teeny tiny, and some are massive. It wouldn’t give me an even measurement.
Scenes… well, I could maybe go for that, but I don’t think like that. What’s a scene? When’s a scene two smaller scenes mashed together, or one long scene? Where do you draw the lines? It’s all a continuous blurred mess for me, every scene bleeding into the next, except for where you get hard breaks but those usually end up being chapters.
I could have done pages, but it that also feels too variable. If you have a long section of narration, compared to a choppy dialogue, it wouldn’t be the same from day to day. So obviously, I went with words.

Word count, simple as that. At the moment, that means I have to write 1000 words every day. I plan to up it to at least 1500, maybe 2000 soon, but for the moment its 1000. And I can do that however fast or slow I want, depending on the rest of my day. But I have to write 1000, and if I do it fast, that works in my favor. If I want, I can keep going, but if not, it means that the rest of my day won’t be as stressful, and that I might have time to relax a bit.

The results:

It’s doing wonders for my motivation and inspiration. Instead of sitting down thinking I’m going to write for 4 hours, and thinking that I have to make the most of those hours, I just need to write 1000 words. Today it took me less than 30 minutes, because I accidentally got up too early. And I loved it. It makes me want to sit down, both because I love to write even more now, but also because I ‘just-have-to-hurry-and-get-these-words-in-and-then-I-can-chill’. It’s a sneaky reward system and it works really well.

Also, I feel like my work is flowing much better now. One of my alpha readers told me once he could tell by my writing how fast I’d pieced together the first draft, and his conclusion was that the faster I did it, the better and more coherent it was. I never realized this myself, but he could see it on the page. And with this method, I’m doing a little bit at a time, more frequently than I did before (or at least felt I did before). It’s golden.

Also, it’s given me more time for my busy schedule. Somehow, I know manage to write a bit every day, and I have time for all these other things. It’s kind of weird, actually, where did all these hours come from?

In conclusion:

Changing my writing time from being time-based to being result-based has not only given me more time for other things during my day, but at the moment its also giving me a new-found love for writing, inspiring me to write more, more often, and faster. I’m looking forward to upping my word count goals, because this is getting fun.

In the end, I think the best thing you can do is change it up occasionally. Even if it’s just to prove to yourself that what you were already doing was the right thing, it’s good to try different things.

Book Review: Custodian (Monster of Earth #1) by Patrick F. Johnson

Frank Ford leads a simple life, balanced between working with his hands, or drinking with them. Life’s pretty mediocre, so when’s suddenly abducted by aliens, Frank doesn’t mind. This comes to a surprise to the aliens, who realize (after checking Frank over once or twice) that they’ve finally found their man. They’ve found a Custodian.

This is Sci-Fi adventure at its best. There’s evil aliens, good aliens, wonderfully advanced tech, awesome weapons, and only one person who can save the world: Frank (with some help). It’s wonderful to read and experience, and I was pulled into the story immediately. We learn much about Frank, about his previous life, about who he is as a person, and I enjoy a book with a good pace. I don’t want to be bogged down with too much ‘get to the point already’, and this book definitely doesn’t do that. But at the same time, I felt like maybe a few of the Sci-Fi aspects could have been given more attention. I wouldn’t mind to be served some more backstory, some history; but then again, I suppose that’s what the next three books in the series do.

Johnson’s writing is fun, light-hearted and easily accessible. I feel like I’d enjoy this book as a teenager, though maybe it’s not exactly aimed at that crowd. But it doesn’t try to go over your head, and I mean that in a good way. In one sense I want to say that it’s ‘simple’, but that’s not really what I mean. It’s just grounded. It’s cool, fun, exciting adventure, and it doesn’t pretend.

At the same time, the book really surprised me. Toward the end we get to see some action, and it’s the typical kind of Sci-Fi alien action scenes you’d imagine. It was coming to end, a kind of obvious end, and I was prepared for it. It’s what I knew the book had been about all the time, so I didn’t except anything else. But then it suddenly got deeper. Much deeper. I really didn’t see it coming, and I was really surprised. Johnson managed to carve out just a little more, something that really drove the nail home. I’m impressed.

This book hits all ends of the spectrum, so if you’re looking for an exciting, fun space adventure, with proper characters and a whole lot of story to tell, you should check this out. I’m happy to say I have all 4 books in the series, and I think I need to double check my TBR list.

You can find Patrick F. Johnson’s books here.