Alexander Pyles's Blog, page 5
September 21, 2019
Review: Severance
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Today is part 2 of my reviews in Apex Publication‘s Back Catalog Blog Tour this month! Enjoy my review of an older title of theirs, SEVERANCE, a remixed generation ship story from former Cracked.com writer, Chris Bucholz.
The Argos has spent over two centuries en route to Tau Prius, its destination, but the inhabitants have grown tired and bored of their journey. Rampant hedonism is common among the people, just to fill the time. Laura Stein isn’t a partaker of any of this revelry. She wants...
September 20, 2019
Review: Aetherchrist
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Today is a special blog post, as is tomorrows, because I am taking part in Apex Publication‘s Back Catalog Blog Tour this month! I took some time and reviewed two books from authors I’ve been waiting to read for a while and I’m happy to say I was disappointed by neither of them!
Anyway, I want to dig into Kirk Jones’ AETHERCHRIST and do I have a gospel to drop on all of you!
AETHERCHRIST begins in the desolate and impoverished back country of rural Vermont. We follow Reymond (also called R...
September 19, 2019
Review: A Closed and Common Orbit
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I’m still trekking through the Wayfarers series by Becky Chambers on audio book, so I come to A CLOSED AND COMMON ORBIT, narrated by the lovely Patricia Rodriguez and this stand alone sequel to the previous book, was honestly, somewhat of a mixed bag.
The reader is re-introduced to Lovelace, the Wayfarer’s AI, who was rebooted at the end of the previous novel, and she has no memory of what has previously occurs. In order to not cause the crew pain, she leaves with Pepper, an energetic engine...
September 17, 2019
Book Release: Beyond
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Another month, another Black Hare Press anthology. This one is based around the paranormal, ghosts and the afterlife.
I managed to crank out five micro fiction stories for this one, even included a small riff on Ghost busters, so be sure to check those out. The list of all those stories will be at the bottom here. As with the other anthologies, I’m alongside 100+ other authors and their supernatural tidbits.
I hope you all enjoy!
Follow the link here to find it in e-book, paperback, and hard...
September 14, 2019
Review: The Demolished Man
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I’ve been meaning to read more hugo winners, so when I finally got around to grabbing the novel which won the very first year it was offered. What do you get when you mix telepathic police, murder, and corp take-overs? Well, you get this book, Alfred Bester’s THE DEMOLISHED MAN.
For being the very first hugo winner, I was expecting something grand, instead,it was somewhat underwhelming, more a piece of dated science fiction. I know this is always a danger when reaching back over fifty years....
September 12, 2019
Review: Roughneck
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I am back on a graphic novel kick and decided to give ROUGHNECK from Jeff Lemire a try and it was by far one of the best things I have read in recent months. Lemire’s writing is sparse, but beautiful, leaving room for his two-tone illustrations that are occasionally spotting with bright red blood. I read his Descender series recently and loved the themes and here it seems Lemire dives deeply into new, deeply intimate themes of abuse, forgiveness, healing of heritage, among others.
After Dere...
September 10, 2019
Review: 100 Words of Horror Pt. 3
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The latest in Kevin J. Kennedy’s drabble series of horror, Part 3 does not disappoint with bringing another group of horror writers together in one volume!
A little different from previous anthologies, Kennedy states in his opening words that he opened this volume to the public and received a massive response. Of course this means that the drabbles collected here are his personal favorites out of the pleathora of submissions.
Having already gone through two of these previously, I didn’t find...
September 7, 2019
Review: Permafrost
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It has been awhile since I have given a time travel story a try, and I was quickly reminded why I actually do stay away from such stories. PERMAFROST by Alastair Reynolds had promise of a thrilling ride, but instead handed out plenty of ideas with hardly a vehicle to carry them in.
It’s 2080 and humanity is putting all its’ eggs in one basket: experiment time-travel. If they can make small alteration to the past, they may be able to avoid the global catastrophe that is slowly exterminating t...
September 5, 2019
Review: Death Comes For The Archbishop
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This was our classic read for my local book club. I’ll be honest, I’m not a big fan of classics in general. DEATH COMES FOR THE ARCHBISHOP by Willa Cather surprised me on a number of levels, and the fact that I enjoyed it so much, was one.
Cather’s epic follows Father Jean Marie Latour in 1851 as he journeys to a rather tortured section of the church as its newly appointed Apostolic Vicar. What follows is a series of stories from Latour’s life and how the diocese changes and develops in thi...
September 4, 2019
Review: The Taiga Syndrome
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THE TAIGA SYNDROME by Cristina Rivera Garza, translated by Suzanne Jill Levine & Aviva Kana, has by far one of the most startlingly beautiful prose within it’s covers. This brief novella is an exquisite lesson of what is both said and not said, but also long form poetry at its absolute core.
The reader follows a failed detective turned noir author, who is tasked with searching for a woman, who has run away with another man into the taiga. It is down this slippery fairy tale-esque slope the r...
