James Pyles's Blog, page 42
July 13, 2022
Review of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, Ep 3, “Ghosts of Illyria”
If you like my work, buy me a virtual cup of coffee at Ko-Fi. I watched Star Trek: Strange New Worlds S1, E3 Ghosts of Illyria last night. Not a bad episode as things go, and I did find some connections to other Star Trek shows from the past. Pike, Number One, Spock, and a […]
July 11, 2022
Book Review of Transient: A Tech Noir Novel
If you like my work, buy me a virtual cup of coffee at Ko-Fi. Transient: A Tech Noir Novel (2016) by Zachry Wheeler isn’t your ordinary vampire tale. In fact, when I first started reading it, I had no idea there were vampires involved. It’s set in the future by quite a few years or […]
July 10, 2022
Review of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, Ep2, “Children of the Comet”
I just finished watching Star Trek Strange New Worlds Season 1, Episode 2, Children of the Comet. The show starts on the surface of a desolate planet with a sparse and impoverished population of humanoids barely surviving. One of them looks up and sees what appears to be a comet in the sky. Meanwhile, aboard […]
July 9, 2022
Review of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, Episode 1, “Strange New Worlds”
I know I always approach these things on the late side, but I’ve just gotten around to seeing the first episode of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, which happens to be titled Strange New Worlds. Oh, I’ve heard a lot about it, but that doesn’t translate into actual experience. Other people’s perceptions might be different […]
July 8, 2022
Book Review of Andy Weir’s “Project Hail Mary”
Finally got to dig into Andy Weir’s 2021 novel Project Hail Mary. It’s a relatively new book in my local public library system, so I only get to keep it a max of fourteen days with no renewals. As of this writing, I have five days left. My main reason for bumping it up on […]
July 7, 2022
Video Introduction to My Novelette “Ice”
My first self-published novelette Ice was published December 2021, but like a lot of indie and self-published works, it needs all the help that it can get just to let people know it exists. To that end, and to market my “brand” (as it were), I’ve taken to TikTok, creating little two and three minute […]
June 24, 2022
Review of Leo Flynn’s Revised “Mara’s Awakening”
Last year, indie author Leo Flynn asked me to review his SciFi story Mara’s Awakening, part 1 in the 3 part saga. I did review it and as much as I wanted to be nice about it, I didn’t think much of the story. It was too short and there was almost no story or […]
June 19, 2022
Book Review of “Skin Traders: A 224-Verse Book”
I just finished reading Gregg Cunningham’s short novelette Skin Traders: A 224-Verse Book. Gregg and I share a table of contents in a number of anthologies including Raygun Retro and World War Four and we know each other somewhat online. He was one of the people who turned me on to the 224-Verse to begin […]
June 15, 2022
Book Review of Denton Salle’s “Sworn to the Light”
Yes, I’ve been remiss in reviewing my (online) friend Denton Salle’s novelette Sworn to the Light: The Avatar Wizard – Book 1 (of four). However, I did download it onto my Kindle Fire last month and last night I finished it. Excellent work. A very compelling YA Fantasy work that I think my grandson would […]
June 11, 2022
More Social Media Dabbling: Video Reviews and Commentary
Okay, fine. I’ve made another two TikTok videos. The first is a three-minute whimsical review of Adrian Tchaikovsky’s 2018 science fiction novel Children of Time. My written review of the book is more straightforward and detailed. TikTok videos are brief by design, so I had to compress everything into a max of three minutes. As […]
