Michael Patrick Hicks's Blog, page 42

Review: The Adventures of Tom Stranger, Interdimensional Insurance Agent by Larry Correia

Review:

My original The Adventures of Tom Stranger, Interdimensional Insurance Agent audiobook review and many others can be found at Audiobook Reviewer.

While listening to The Adventures of Tom Stranger, Interdimensional Insurance Agent, one word kept popping into my head – ridiculous. Although this audiobook is billed as a comedy, ‘ridiculous’ is not necessarily a compliment.  Comedy, you see, is largely subjective. I’ll take George Carlin over Adam Sandler any day of the week, and, unfortunately, this Audible Original was a lot like mainlining a Sandler production – it’s ridiculous, but not in a good way.

Tom Stranger is an insurance agent for the multiverse. He’s been mistakenly paired with a yuckster of an intern who reminded me of Shaggy from Scooby-Doo, and who has a pathetic GPA in his Gender Studies degree track (this, by the way, is an example of one of the running gags that The Adventures of Tom Stranger has to offer). Stranger voyages across multiple Earth’s in search of his proper intern, squaring off against his rival, the insurance agent Jeff Conundrum. Along the way, there’s a few dashes of Chuck Norris hero-worship, purple people eaters who harvest men’s scrotums, and a meta guest-appearance by the author Larry Correia, who finds himself in need of rescuing by the ubiquitous, bow-tie loving insurance agent.

Correia sets the tone immediately in the opening chapter, which involves Adam Baldwin, President of the United States and celebrated star of the long-running Firefly, grappling with a global crises as the scrotum-collecting purple people eater’s devour Europe. A deranged, loud-mouthed Secretary of Defense loses it over a computer glitch, shoots the computer, and then acts like a massive buffoon while drawing stick figures of the alien creatures gathering their victims genitals. Along the way, we get some dated humor about Windows Operating Systems and John Tesh. The rest of the book follows a similar path for the next two hours, with much of the humor focused on hitting cheap, easy marks like Today’s Youth, Telemarketers, Obama, and Occupy Protestors. Although the setting and premise are most certainly unique, none of the jokes are particularly original or funny.

Narrating Tom Stranger is not-President Adam Baldwin, from the short-lived TV series Firefly. Although the story itself didn’t do much for me, Baldwin’s narration is pretty good and he’s clearly having a fun time hamming it up with the material. He delivers a pretty broad range of character voices here, from the overly-aggressive Secretary of Defense to the level-headed Stranger, with dashes of milquetoast in between. He also does a damn effective manatee. On the production quality end of things, the sound is crisp and clean, and on par with the handful of other Audible Originals; in this regard, it’s as excellent as I expected.

Audible is currently offering The Adventures of Tom Stranger, Interdimensional Insurance Agent for free until June 21, 2016. Not a bad deal to hear Adam Baldwin imitate a manatee.

[Audiobook provided for review by the audiobookreviewer.com]

Buy The Adventures of Tom Stranger, Interdimensional Insurance Agent At Amazon

Original post:

MichaelPatrickHicks.booklikes.com/post/1405890/review-the-adventures-of-tom-stranger-interdimensional-insurance-agent-by-larry-correia

NOW AVAILABLE – CLONES: The Anthology

Update – 5/24/2016 11:55 a.m.

Over the weekend, myself and several of the other contributors joined fellow CLONES writer and podcast host, Hank Garner, on his Author Stories Podcast. Give it a listen!

Human cloning.

Technology evolves faster than we do.

The law shields us from our worst temptations.

But the opportunity is there, dangling just out of reach—perfection and ascension… or delusion and destruction.

In this collection of clone-themed stories, ten of today’s top speculative fiction writers explore our morality, our built-in societal restraints, and reflect upon our state of grace.

Similar is not necessarily the same.

“CLONES: The Anthology” features stories from Amazon bestselling authors Rysa Walker (the Chronos series), R.D. Brady (the Belial series), Susan Kaye Quinn (the Singularity saga), Best American Science Fiction notable Samuel Peralta (Faith), and USA Today Bestselling and Multi-Award Winner P.K. Tyler, plus five more of today’s top authors in speculative and science fiction.

“The Replacement Husband” Nathan M. Beauchamp

“Like No Other” Daniel Arthur Smith

“Awakening” Susan Kaye Quinn

“Eve’s Children” Hank Garner

“Black Site” Michael Patrick Hicks

“Fahrenheit 1451” Samuel Peralta

“All These Bodies” PK Tyler

“B.E.G.I.N.” R.d. Brady

“Splinter” Rysa Walker

“The Vandal” Joshua Ingle

 

Buy CLONES: The Anthology for only 99c!

My story, Black Site, is a wicked little bit of Lovecraftian horror, which one advanced reviewer has called a “gory sonovabee” and “gut-ripping, face-twisting, vomit-inducing horror.” Another wrote that it is “A deftly written thrill ride that kept me intrigued and guessing all the way to the end. (P.S. This would make a great sci-fi movie, kept envisioning it as one as I read.)” So, hey, if there’s any Hollywood execs reading this, maybe you want to heed this advice?[image error]Chris Fried, reviewer extraordinaire over at The Leighgendarium, said Black Site is “A true tale of horror and science untethered, successfully cultivating your sense of dread and raising your apprehensiveness. All of that spine-tingling tension eventually climaxes into an explosive, senses-shattering finale.”

In addition to Black Site, you’ll find plenty more great stories on hand in CLONES: The Anthology, and, for a limited time, this collection of short stories is on sale for only 99c. So, buy it now for a great savings! It will soon be going back up to its regular list price of $3.99. There’s even a paperback version available so you can get a physical copy of that great Ben Adams artwork to display on your bookshelf.

And don’t forget about the CLONES: The Anthology Kindle Fire HD Giveaway!

To celebrate the release of CLONES, our benevolent story curator, Daniel Arthur Smith, is giving away one 6″ Kindle Fire HD tablet to US winners (international winners will get a gift card equivalent).

If you’re on Facebook, you can enter the contest here!

If you’re not on Facebook, no worries! You still have a chance to win by following this link directly to the Rafflecopter link and signing in with your e-mail address.

As always, reviews are appreciated. Once you’ve read CLONES: The Anthology, please share your honest thoughts on Amazon and/or Goodreads. Reviews are the lifeblood of writers and serve as social proof for other potential readers who may be on the fence on whether or not to check out this work.

Thank you, and happy reading!

Review: Odd Adventures With Your Other Father by Norman Prentiss

Review:

Odd Adventures With Your Other Father is a wonderful little book, with all kinds of emotional and narrative layering.

Although it is structurally a bit dissimilar, it resonated in a similar way with me and reminded me of Stephen King’s Hearts In Atlantis – this book is a series of short stories, as relayed by Celia’s father, Shawn, to her, and tied up around Celia’s own journey to dig even deeper into the history of her other father, Jack.

Jack and Shawn are a closeted couple, and Shawn tells Celia of their road trip across the country in 1985, following their graduation from college. Jack has a gift, a glamor, and, thanks to their bond, can transmit imagery only to Shawn. At first it’s a bit of a gag, but as they find themselves in more precarious situations Jack’s gift takes on more of a tone of warning in order to protect them both. Across a series vignettes, Shawn tells their adopted daughter about their travels to strange locales and close encounters with the paranormal.

Each of Shawn’s stories are well told and Prentiss uses this character as narrator masterfully. I couldn’t help but get wrapped up in Shawn’s stories myself, and was eager for more. Just as good is Celia’s own adventures. Throughout it all, you get a wonderful sense of familial love and deep, honest affection that really tugs at the heartstrings. This is definitely a family I’d like to spend more time. Thankfully, in a recent interview Prentiss revealed he is working on a sequel to this book called Haunted Places With Your Other Father, which I’ll definitely be looking forward to.

 

Buy Odd Adventures With Your Other Father At Amazon

Original post:

MichaelPatrickHicks.booklikes.com/post/1404212/review-odd-adventures-with-your-other-father-by-norman-prentiss

Review: Motorman by Robert E. Dunn

Review:

After murdering a prostitute, junkyard car repairman Johnny hits the road and finds himself in even deeper trouble than he bargain for. Stuck in the Ozarks, he finds himself holed up at an auto repair-shop, where his talents are demand because he “has the good hands,” and surrounded by half-metal men and a weird blue ooze.

If you haven’t glommed onto it yet, Motorman is a weird novella. Although it has a few really good moments, the highlight of which is some exceptional body horror in the last couple chapters, it is not without its fair share of problems (needless to say, your mileage may vary.)

I should note here that I am not in anyway a “car guy.” I don’t really get the appeal of sports cars – yeah, they’re nice, but… so what? For me, a car is an overly expensive tool that I can never stop investing in because it always needs gas and oil and brakes and a host of other pain in the ass things that cost way too much money, and which gets me from Point A to Point B. If I lived in an area that had consistent and reliable public transit, like Chicago or New York, I would happily ditch my ride in favor of a subway pass. If electric cars had battery life that could survive hundreds of miles on a single charge, I would be pretty pleased in knowing that I don’t have to get another freaking oil change or deal with the artificially inflated prices at the pump. So yeah, I am not at all a car guy. However, I am not above having my curiosity piqued by gorgeous cover art and exclamatory text promising mad science and alien goo.

Johnny, though, certainly is a car buff. I presume author Robert E. Dunn is as well, but if he isn’t the technical details and junkyard information at least rang true enough to my ignorant eyes, and I’m more than willing enough to take his word for it when it comes to engine blocks and horsepower and whatever the hell else he threw in there.

What didn’t ring quite well enough, though, were some of the more supernatural/fantastical elements Dunn inserts into the narrative, primarily the ooze. What the heck was that stuff? Where did it come from? What does it want? Why does it do what it does, and how was it discovered? Like Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Motorman completely eschews any explanation for the hows and whys of the science behind the horror.

The ooze and the dead hooker are largely MacGuffins so that Dunn can get to the meat of the story, but I still found myself wanting more details and more consequences. I understand Johnny killing the girl in a fit of rage and fleeing the scene during the book’s opener, but I kept expecting his anger management issues to play a more central role to his character, or for his murderous actions to carry some weight beyond the opening segment. Instead, Johnny spends the majority of the book being a really placid grease-monkey. He’s also a hapless loser who instantly falls in love with any girl who even so much as gives him a side-eye. I just wish there had been a bit more range to his character, and more turbulence to his clearly troubled emotional state and immaturity. He spends a little much of the book being an observer for my liking, although the few times he is allowed to get his hands dirty it’s to great effect.

As far as the Damaged People! thing goes, I dug the heck out of this segment of the premise. This isn’t quite spoiler territory, I don’t think, but the local doctor that Johnny ends up working for has devised a way to merge man and machine thanks to the mysterious ooze. That’s pretty cool! And it brings about a couple deliriously trippy segments throughout the book that I loved a lot.

This is a quick read, and I found it to be enjoyable over all. It’s not high art, and it’s not completely flawless in execution, but it is a good bit of B-movie, grindhouse fun. And the events leading into finale are pretty dang good, particularly during the last couple chapters of this short book. There are several really cool ideas on display here, and I completely dug Dunn’s Frankenstein-ian riff on greasers and hot rods. Is greaser gothic even a thing? Maybe it should be. I’d be more than willing to check out another!

[Note: I received an uncorrected advanced proof copy of this title for review.]

Buy Motorman At Amazon

 

Original post:

MichaelPatrickHicks.booklikes.com/post/1402962/review-motorman-by-robert-e-dunn

Review: The Cupid Reconciliation (Genrenauts Episode 3) by Michael R. Underwood

Wounded Genrenaut Mallery is back in action in Episode 3, following her injuries in the opening of episode one, The Shootout Solution – and just in time for a trip to Romance World! On Earth Prime, divorce rates are skyrocketing and people are canceling their dating site subscriptions en masse, which can only mean there’s trouble in Rom-Com region. Angstrom King and his crew must fix another broken story by finding and reuniting star-crossed lovers led astray.

I’m not normally a big fan of romantic comedies. I don’t hate them, mind you, but rom-coms, and usually comedies in general, frankly, are not typically the genre I turn to when in need of entertainment. I’ll watch them now and then, but usually only if there’s something really appealing beyond the typical meet-cute stuff. And, if you’ve been following my reviews for any length of time, you’ll probably have noticed that romance is not really my read of choice, either.

But, I knew and expected certain things about Michael R. Underwood’s journey to Romance World in advance. For one thing, this is the latest episode in his Genrenauts novella series, so skipping it was not an option. I knew there would be some in-story relevance to this episode, and after only a few prior stories I’m already hooked on these characters and want to see how they operate in as many wide-ranging genre worlds as possible. So, despite Romance not being my typical go-to, I was still keen to check it out simply to get another Genrenauts fix.

Turns out, I kinda loved this story. I loved the way the effects of a broken story in Romance World ripple out toward Earth Prime. I loved the way Underwood plays with typical Rom-Com tropes and uses and subverts those tropes with a sly wink-and-a-nudge to craft his action sequences. There’s a certain spy element to this story; it’s subtle and not lavishly done, but I really appreciated the minor way the Genrenauts team have to sort of espionage their way into matchmaking this world’s repair. And I really liked the way the story world responded to their efforts. It’s just all around fun, and a classy little story to boot.

Best of all, though, is the character development. This is really the first episode that we’ve seen Mallery in action, and she’s pretty damn cool, and fun to hang with. We also get plenty of character development for Leah Tang, who has been our window into these worlds since King recruited her in the series opener to fill the void while Mallery recuperated. There’s a lot of meat to Leah’s role here, from worrying about what Mallery’s return means for her place on the team, to her moral compass and willingness to question the methods and motives of her fellow Genrenauts.

As with the previous episodes, the bottom line here is on sheer enjoyability. I found myself glued to my Kindle with this one. It’s a quick, breezy read, but one that I was quickly captivated by thanks to the cast and the growth in both character and over-arching plot development. And, as usual with this series, by the time I finished this episode, I found myself hankering for another fix and ready to dive into episode 4.

With the Genrenauts series, Underwood has crafted a wonderfully delightful series of novellas using the episodic structure of a TV show to tell his tale. This makes for a perfect bit of binge-reading, one that reminds of me shows I loved as a kid like Quantum Leap and the early seasons of Sliders. Think of it as Netflix for the mind.

 

 

Note: I received an advanced copy of this title from the author for review. As far as I know, there is not yet a release date available for this title.

However, Michael R. Underwood is currently running a Kickstarter campaign to fund the release of Genrenauts: The Complete Season One Collection. Since I’m a fan of this series, backing his campaign was a no-brainer for me. If you’d enjoyed this review or have read the previous installments, I heartily encourage you to check out his Kickstarter for the omnibus and, if possible, chip in. For only $10 you can get the entire Season One collection in your choice of digital format – as released by Tor, each individual episode has cost $2.99. As a collection of six novella-length episodes, you’re saving about half by becoming a backer. Or you can get the book in print, as well, for a little extra. Money well spent, I think.

Review: There Will Always Be A Max (A Genrenauts Story) by Michael R. Underwood

Review:

What I love most about the Genrenauts series is the elasticity the central premise allows for each subsequent entry. If you’re not familiar with Michael R. Underwood‘s latest series, Genrenauts is a literary-focused spin on Quantum Leap with a side of Star Trek. Earth Prime – our Earth – is the center of a multiverse where any number of story genres exist. The Genrenauts, led by Angstrom King, travel from one story world to the next, setting right whatever has gone wrong.

So far, his team has helped fix a broken story in the Western world, and another in the Science Fiction realm. Now, Underwood turns his attention, ever so briefly, to the post-apocalyptic wasteland that movie buffs are sure to recognize in this Tor.com Original short story, There Will Always Be a Max.

Angstrom King rides solo through a desert wasteland, one so desperate for a lone, renegade hero in a region that “ached for stories like it ached for water.” King has taken on the identity of Max, a weary traveler with a souped up car, a shotgun, and a worn leather jacket. His mission is to help a small group of weary travelers make it across the stretch of irradiated land and get a water filtration unit back to their people. That is, if they can survive being chased and attacked by the gang of marauders known as the Skull Boys.

Yep – this is a Genrenauts story that is full-on Mad Max, and boy is it a fun one. It’s a quick read, and while Underwood plays with some familiar tropes and a bit of in-world literary analysis, this is basically a twenty-page chase scene actioneer. As far as the story goes, it’s a one-and-done, short and sweet, but I’m hopeful that the Genrenauts, either as the usual team defined in the previous two novellas, or on another solo mission, find themselves in another post-apocalypse landscape soon.

If you haven’t read any of the prior Genrenauts exploits, no worries – you can start off here just as easily as with Episode One, The Shootout Solution.

Michael R. Underwood is currently running a Kickstarter campaign to fund the Genrenauts Season One Omnibus. If you’ve read these books, or my past reviews have sparked your interest enough, please check out his fundraiser and, if possible, chip in. For only $10 you can get the entire Season One collection in your choice of digital format – as released by Tor, each individual episode has been $2.99. As a collection of six novella-length episodes, you’re saving about half by becoming a backer. (And yes, I am a backer.) Or you can get the book in print, as well, for a little extra. Money well spent, I think.

Buy There Will Always Be A Max At Amazon

Original post:

MichaelPatrickHicks.booklikes.com/post/1401941/review-there-will-always-be-a-max-a-genrenauts-story-by-michael-r-underwood

The CLONES: The Anthology Kindle Fire HD Giveaway!

CLONES: The Anthology is now available for pre-order at Amazon in both print and ebook editions. For a limited time, the Kindle edition will set you back only .99. (You can get the print edition today; the ebook releases on May 24.)

And hey, speaking of Kindle…would you like one? To celebrate the upcoming release of CLONES, our benevolent story curator, Daniel Arthur Smith, is giving away one 6″ Kindle Fire HD tablet to US winners (international winners will get a gift card equivalent).

Enter by clicking the link below!

A Rafflecopter giveaway

Review: The Invasion by Brett McBean

Review:

The Invasion, by Brett McBean, is a startlingly bleak home invasion story, but one that is wonderfully written. The opening paragraph alone delivers the goods and the promise of what’s to come.

“There is something ominous about a front porch light glowing in the daytime. It speaks of a place left in limbo, of lives interrupted and of simple, everyday tasks forgotten. It signifies that for this house, night has yet to end.”

Damn if that didn’t suck me in right from the get-go!

The night is certainly long for the family tucked behind the once-believed secure walls of the Carmela house. Deb, a romance novelist, has just finished hosting Christmas dinner for her brother, his boyfriend, her niece, and literary agent. After the guests have tucked themselves into bed, they are brusquely awoken by strangers in the home, who then tie them up and taunt them before things escalate further. And then Mr. Fear arrives…

Although The Invasion is a straight-up home invasion horror, this is not a merely a burglary interrupted but a story of psychopathy and cultish belonging. For the invaders, it isn’t about robbery so much as it’s sheer entertainment for them, their enjoyment fueled by their victim’s fright.

At times, McBean’s work is downright savage, and he doesn’t shy away from the cruelty of his crazy invaders, who get off on filming their horrendous crimes. The character work is nicely executed (no pun intended), and by the final pages I was really feeling for Deb, and her friends and family, and the devastation that’s been unleashed upon them. McBean uses their shared history as both friends and family to give us insight into their past relationships with one another, and with the Carmela house itself. Although the focus is squarely on the humans within, the house itself provides the narrative with its shape and structure as each chapter takes us on a tour of the large residence.

The Invasion is a chilling story, and while it is violent it never delves into overdrawn sequences of torture porn. McBean relies on his characters and atmosphere to bring the biggest scares, along with the frightening threat of home invasion that many readers will bring to the reading all by themselves.

[Note: An advanced copy of this title was provided by the publisher for review.]

 

Buy The Invasion At Amazon

 

Original post:

MichaelPatrickHicks.booklikes.com/post/1400774/review-the-invasion-by-brett-mcbean

Review: Strike (Hit #2) by Delilah S. Dawson [Audiobook]

Review:

My original STRIKE (HIT #2) audiobook review and many others can be found at Audiobook Reviewer.

Picking up moments after the conclusion of the previous book, Hit, Strike finds Patsy Cline and her boyfriend, Wyatt, on the run with a truckload of laptops containing information on Valor Savings Bank’s conspiracy to buy out the United States government. They run headlong into the arms of the underground rebellion, the CFF – Citizens For Freedom – and its militaristic cell leader, Leon Crane. The CFF is composed of those few who are aware of Valor’s takeover and the demise of US democracy, and their plan is to fight back, no matter the cost. Joined by a handful of other teens on the run from Valor and united by their recent shared history as indentured assassins for the New World Order of Valor Savings, Patsy soon discovers that the CFF has secrets of its own.

As with Hit, author Delilah S. Dawson tells a hard-edged story of young adult dystopia packed with plenty of action, thrills, and more importantly, believable characters. Patsy and Wyatt are a great couple, and it’s fun to watch their relationship deepen, while Patsy grows into her role as a leader as their circle of friends expands. There’s plenty of paranoia to go around, especially as the teens find their world turned upside down more than once across the duration of Strike, and Dawson presents plenty of solid world-building to flesh out Valor’s history and plans to take over the nation.

One of the elements that I appreciated the most in both of these books is the setting of rural Georgia. While the threat of Valor is nation-wide, Dawson’s choice to place the start of a financial takeover dystopia in the suburbs and backwoods locales of her own backyard in the South provides a brilliant bit of scenery, and a much appreciated change of pace from the usual big-city areas these types of stories are typically set-in. It also helps give Strike a fun little bit of Red Dawn flavor!

Returning to narrate is Rebekkah Ross, whose performance here is a great as it was the first time around. If you liked her work in Hit, and I most certainly did, then you’ll do just fine with her second turn with these characters in Strike. Her Southern accents are well-done to this Northerner’s ears, but never distract in the few instances they’re used. Ross maintains a “typical” American accent for the bulk of her narration, making the audiobook completely accessible. She does a good job hitting a deeper register for the male characters, and demonstrates enough vocal range to provide separation among the various characters during dialogue. The production values are solid across the board, and this audiobook is a representative of the professional qualities I would expect from a major publisher like Simon & Schuster Audio.

[Audiobook provided for review by the audiobookreviewer.com.]

 

Buy Strike At Amazon

Original post:

MichaelPatrickHicks.booklikes.com/post/1398446/review-strike-hit-2-by-delilah-s-dawson-audiobook

Review: A Whisper of Southern Lights by Tim Lebbon

Review:

Although I was not a big fan of Lebbon’s previous two installments in his Assassin’s series — “Dead Man’s Hand” and “Pieces of Hate,” collected together in the recent Tor novella, Pieces of Hate (reviewed here) — there were enough interesting ideas in Pieces of Hate to keep me curious enough to see what comes next. Maybe it was because I had enough of the background story, or perhaps because I went in expecting there to be zilch in the way of resolution regarding Gabriel and his battles against the entity known as Temple, but I found A Whisper of Southern Lights to be much more satisfying.

Gabriel and Temple are basically immortals, and their personal battles have allowed Lebbon to play in some interesting settings. We’ve gotten a weird western and a bit of high seas pirating adventure, and now Lebbon takes us to Singapore circa World War II (personal note: Lebbon teases an Antarctic expedition as another setting in their worldwide struggles through time, and I’d pay good money to read that story, because I’m just a sucker for stories set in that region). Both Gabriel and Temple are hunting for a man named Jack Sykes, which never bodes well for the dude unwittingly falling into the middle of their bloody, violence-fueled triangles.

I was fortunate enough to have a wonderful vacation in Singapore a while ago, so I had no trouble imagining the sweaty treks through the rain forest, and war-time is always an interesting period to explore some supernatural shenanigans. I dug those elements the most here. I fell in love almost immediately with Singapore, and hope to go back one of these day. Books set in this region at least provide enough of a mental sojourn until I can physically head there again. It’s also a bit of a reminder that I need to seek out more Singaporean literature… Yeah, I know, I’m digressing here.

A Whisper of Southern Lights is a short novella, which makes for a brisk read. Lebbon gives us enough sketches of life on the front lines in the Pacific Theater, but I wouldn’t have minded more details. Gabriel’s relationship with Temple has always been one of the strongest elements of this series, and that remains true here, as well. The ending felt a little bit rushed, but there’s a marvelously macabre display where our characters confront one another before the requisite cliffhanger.

Yeah, another cliffhanger and little in the way of resolution. The last line of the book, though, does actually have me antsy for another entry, so kudos to the author! I feel much more invested in this series after this particular entry than I did with Pieces of Hate.

[Note: I received an advanced review copy of this title from the publisher via NetGalley.]

 

Buy A Whisper of Southern Lights At Amazon

Original post:

MichaelPatrickHicks.booklikes.com/post/1398439/review-a-whisper-of-southern-lights-by-tim-lebbon