Redemption of the Rebels

Sky Fighters and Houndy Crunchers #2

by Ross Eberle

The year is now 2002. Two years have gone by since the Thirteen Makers, handpicked by Master Mantecado himself have spread the word of the Sky Fighters to the humans. But now, things are changing...Some things faster than most people come to expect! When Muggins reaches age 16, he is brought over to Evensongland by Master Mantecado. His Mom and her three siblings are there to have him become a Sky Fighter!

This proves to be quite an exciting endeavor for Muggins, but it is only the beginning of his adventures - To start off, he is brought to the 2nd Anniversary Rally of the Sky Fighters at the newly reconstructed Earth Coliseum.

Elsewhere, on Earth, we find Frederick, the other teenage boy, still having to deal with his abusive step-family. Luckily, for Frederick, he will be whisked away to Sky Fighter Land once more, much to the chagrin of his bitter step-family. Once there, Frederick will find he has a few of his own adventures to go on-For starters, he and his friends he made last year, Brent Hauser and Maya Lhaka make a shocking discovery, which may impede on their previous progress.

Soon after this, dangerous things will start happening...The Python Demons have not forgotten about their Sky Fighter enemies, and of course, they have a few nasty surprises in store for them this year. Will Frederick, Maya, and Brent be able to overcome the arrival of the mysterious trio known as the Sand Tomb Guardians? Will Frederick be able to emerge victorious in battle against the newly appointed Sky Fighter Coliseum Battle Masters? Will he be able to find out what a Sky Surfer is? Find out all this and more in the second installment of the Sky Fighters Novella Series!

148 pages, Paperback

First published August 4, 2009

About the author

Important note: All characters, images, details, published, and unpublished works of the Sky Fighters are Copyright © Ross Eberle. All rights reserved as noted by the U.S. Copyright Office. Furthermore, the contents of this novel series are purely fictional. As such, it is not intended to represent or depict any factual event, person, or entity; any and all similarities are nothing more than a coincidence.

Ask the author about his FREE novel chapters!

Ross Eberle is the creator of the Sky Fighters Novella Series! He was born in New Jersey and grew up in Philadelphia before moving down to Florida in the summer of 2003. His grandfather was once a famous Big Band singer. His name was Ray Eberle. If you'd like to know more about him (As well as the author's Mom, grandmoms, aunts, and uncles), you can find all the details on his article at Wikipedia right here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Eberle

The concept of the Sky Fighters first came to Mr. Eberle during a class project where students had to color in a totem pole. Back then, he was only 7 years old. And even though the teachers would not allow him to take part in the class project, seeing one of the animals carved into the totem pole drawing gave him the inspiration to create special alien creatures which resembled foxes. They were multicolored and had square-shaped ears. These were known as Houndy Crunchers.

Soon thereafter, he 'bagged' a bag of Home Girls potato chips as part of a class grab bag simply by selecting a number from 1 to 10. He selected number 5 and won the chips. The chips had an interesting picture of the Home Girls on them. While out shopping with his Mom, this gave Mr. Eberle the idea to bestow superpowers to the Home Girls and make them Humanistic Sky Fighters. The name Sky Fighters did not come to him until years later, however. By the time it did so, their appearance had advanced and included such perks as wire-like tentacles on the sides of their bodies. These are called Wickwires, and can be extended and retracted according to their Willpower.

As you read Mr. Eberle's novellas, you will notice the people who are Sky Fighters have the ability to change their size, essentially making themselves 200 feet or taller or 7 inches or smaller. They also have magical powers, including Elemental Attacks, Teleportation, Invisibility, Summoning, and once they're strong enough, they grow a set of wings and are able to fly! He decided to make the first half of his books novella-length because of the way he has the plot set up. The storyline has eight parts to it with each part depicting the events of a particular year or years. There may even be a ninth installment of the series in the works!

If you've come this far in reading Mr. Eberle's biography, then hats off to you! He hopes you love reading his Novella Series as much as he loves to read in general.

Reviews

[Marc *Dark Reader with a Thousand Young! Iä!* · Rating 5 out of 5]

Re-read report! Since I caught up on the series to date and developed a better grasp of its nature and intention, I am thoroughly enjoying it. In particular I can better appreciate each installment's beats in the broader series plot; the storyline is best captured across multiple volumes in this novella series. Among other insights, I now recognize it's a progression fantasy (a term I didn't know on my first go-around).

In any case, my original review (below) stands, but everything is a positive to me now. (And the thing with the school was given new layers in the updated editions, including evacuating the building first.) There is so much enthusiasm, heart, and personality in these books, I would read them any day over countless other self-published works.

Ongoing series gasping tally:
Book 1: 22 gasps
Book 2: 16 gasps
Total gasps to date: 38

****************************

Recommended for fans of Pokemon who always wished that Bulbasaur was, instead of an adorable little plant-dinosaur-thing, a 200-foot tall man named Barry Watts.

I did not review the first book favorably [edit: later softened and re-starred], so why did I read book two? Partly morbid curiosity, mostly to see if there was any explanation provided for why Ross Eberle (the character, not the author) (spoiler for the first book) blasted an elementary school full of people to pieces in a fit of pique. There is no such explanation; it remains a mystifying act of consequence-free mass murder. Other than that, though, the light-hearted adventure continues. And, to be fair, the books possess a certain infectious enthusiasm, and feel like they come from a place of joy.

I still don't know how to categorize this series, because it defies normal genres. It's part gamelit/litRPG, part Pokemon fanfiction, part wish fulfillment fantasy, a tiny bit space opera, maybe some elements of Naruto and/or Yu-Gi-Oh! or similar. Really, the most accurate media comparison for these books might be the Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers. I can easily imaging the Python Demons' leader Meh-Meh as Rita Repulsa, with goals and dialogue that are on par.

Here's a good thing about this second book in the Sky Fighters and Houndy Crunchers series. It's . . . better . . . than the first book. Oh, it still has a deeply self-inserted protagonist (whose "real first name" of Brian used in the last tenth of the first book has been dropped again, for reasons), but the autobiographically-inspired charm is part of its appeal. It still invites comparisons with the Moon People trilogy, although thankfully with normal human grammar, with its invariably happy characters, a meandering plot, and no tangible conflict until one final explosive set-piece. This book improves significantly on the first with significantly better prose, especially the dialogue, and most welcomingly, a notable reduction in excitable exclamations This calls for some statistical analysis! Take it away, Commodore 64:

[SCANNING --- incidence of words = "excited","excitement","excitedly" --- RESULTS: Book 1: 33 occurrences; Book 2: 7 occurrences]
[SCANNING --- incidence of word = "suddenly" --- RESULTS: Book 1: 35 occurrences; Book 2: 8 occurrences]
[SCANNING --- incidence of words = "smile","smiled","smiling" --- RESULTS: Book 1: 62 occurrences; Book 2: 46 occurrences]
[SCANNING --- incidence of words = "shock","shocked" --- RESULTS: Book 1: 33 occurrences; Book 2: 7 occurrences]

FINAL ANALYSIS: 62% reduction in passive blissful reaction takes

The best improvement of all is the humor. It is stated that the Sky Fighter Leaders compete in "the first annual Gasping Contest" which is not explained in the least, but I think it's the book poking fun at itself for how many times people gasp? Maybe??? For comparison, "gasp" or "gasped" occurs 18 times in the first book, and still 16 times in the second even with this possible self-awareness. There were several other moments that were probably intended to be humorous but come across a bit weird. One semi-comical moment landed for me, when Frederick awkwardly tries to hit on a girl, and second almost made the cut with a recurring gag where Frederick always falls asleep while traveling to Sky Fighter Land and misses seeing what it's like to go through a vortex, but the joke is then immediately explained, thus killing it.

Because of these improvements I was going to give this book two stars, but then some other stuff came along that ruined that aspiration. [Edit: Now giving it more stars, because I have come to think of the things I am about to elaborate on as positives rather than negatives.] The first of these was in the Pokemon chapters, by which I mean the side story (inserted into both books so far and not yet meaningfully intersecting with the Ross Eberle/Muggins storyline) of Frederick Feldroppy Pierce, who keeps getting pulled to the Pokemon world Sky Fighter Land from his Harry Potter-inspired origins, where he is joined by Brock Brent and Misty Maya and goes around to Pokemon Gyms Battle Colliseums where he uses his Pokemon Sky Fighters stored in Pokeballs Summoners to fight against Gym Leaders Battle Leaders to earn badges. Remember kids, shout something like,

“Menkaura Tiki Man! You are selected!”

because as long as you don't actually say, "I choose you!" then the Pokemon company cannot sue you. That is law.

For his second Coliseum Battle in this book, Frederick shows himself to be a misogynist, so that's great, but Maya's always right there ready to read him the riot act for it.

Let's see, other weird stuff, so much to select from. Let's go with the following moment, in which it's worth setting up with the fact that most of the primary story is recounted in first-person POV by Ross Eberle (the character, not the author) but then often zooms off to events that that narrator has no possible knowledge of, without even a paragraph break. So let's check in actual "pop/rock artist named Ryan Cabrera" who is a Sky Fighter, for reasons, and out of nowhere is a captive of the Python Demons.

And at this time, he had some sort of special cuffs over his hands.
[. . .]
He was wearing some sort of red metal armor for reasons unknown.

Unknown to whom? I mean, presumably Ryan knows why he's wearing it. And what's with all of the "sort of"?

The two Python Guards standing outside the cell looked at each other nervously. Why I never knew they had such emotions!

Who is talking to who, exactly, here?

Finally, Ryan concentrated real hard and, using his mouth, he fired some sort of laser missile beam at the force door.

There are names for 9 elemental attributes, 30 Tribes, 8 Species Levels, countless attacks like Sand Spikes, Sky Jump, Fire Storm etc. but here all we get is "some sort of laser missile beam"?

Here is one of my very favorite quotes from this book:

The Collective Soul Squad [. . .]

I should probably mention that, yes, that is the full membership of the band Collective Soul who are Sky Fighters, joining Christy Turlington, Jon Bon Jovi, Jack White and Meg White of The White Stripes, and plenty more celebrities who are secretly giant magic-spewing warriors as needed. Back to the quote:

The Collective Soul Squad had actually managed to capture Osama Bin Laden and turn him over to the local authorities of the United States without giving away their Sky Fighter Identities. It was now the beginning of December.

Okay then . . .

What else? Oh, the book opens with Ross/Muggins getting to become a Sky Fighter himself, in addition to being able to summon and command Sky Fighters. It's the character creation chapter! Muggins got to choose an Attribute, Class, Sky Fighter Skills, etc. For Class,

“I want to be a Bard.” I replied, smiling."

Well that in small part explains my dislike of these books, because in my fantasy RPG experience, there are bard people, and not-bard people, and I am definitely the latter. He then chooses Telekinesis and Music as his Sky Fighter Skills. Alright, it will be interesting seeing how he applies these abilities in the story later! I shall read on . . .
. . .
. . .
. . .
. . .
. . .
. . .
. . .
Uhh, maybe he will use Telekinesis or Music in book three four through seven?

If any passage can possibly encapsulate the nature of these books for the uninitated, it's this one:

“And now…” my Mom said. “Our final Attack…Go!”
“Maximum Lightnings!” Dean Roland declared.
“Twister!” Ross Childress declared.
“Fire Breath!” Ed Roland declared.
“Chakra Beam!” Spiral Staircase Sifer Zero declared.
“Shadow Power!” David Gallows declared.
“Tsunami!” Shane Evans declared.
“Metal Spike Perforator!” Jon Bon Jovi declared.
“Dust Wave!” Doyle Bramhall II declared.
“Earth Impaler!” Will Turpin declared.
“Ice Breath!” Simon Summit declared.
[. . .]
These Attacks were launched all at once by the Sky Fighters who declared them. Together, these Attacks inflicted a total of 101500 damage! This totally pwned and wiped out the oncoming army of Python Demons!

Those crazy Python Demons, so powerful that they caused minor damage to some shopping carts when they first came to Earth ten years prior, in the first book's first chapter. I am so glad that these supposed prime antagonists didn't show up again until the very end of the second book, after giving several weeks' notice of the exact date they were going to attack, because surprising the Sky Fighters would just be rude.

The reason for which I am most glad that I continued this series is that it gave me better insight into the main character's strange ebullience around adult men, frequently patting their chests, beaming at them, and sometimes blurting, "I love you!" at an adult male who pays him any attention. It finally occurred to me, and I don't know why I couldn't see it at first; he is a child of a single mother, and he is yearning for a father figure. I get it now. Whew, I did NOT expect these books to contain such subtlety. (Update: I now know the character is autistic; originally this was not specified until book 6 but the revised book 1 now includes this illuminating information.)

And now, a word about ellipses. Are you an amateur author, lacking the financial resources to put your book through multiple rounds of high quality editing, including of the developmental, line, and copy varieties, not to mention proofreading, prior to publication? If so, you might consider refreshing your understanding of some of those obscure punctuation rules. Of specific interest here is the noble ellipsis. You might know it by it's more common name of "dot-dot-dot" and to be fair, I only recently learned what they were called, from my first-grader, and even more recently looked up in a grammar book how to use them correctly, so I understand why they are commonly misapplied. In professional publishing, a copy editor would ensure that the final product uses them according to the publisher's preferred style manual. There are different acceptable styles, but most often an ellipsis will appear in published fiction as follows: "word . . . word". See those spaces in between the dots, and before and after the set of three dots? That's the gold standard. Don't believe me? Go and check a few of your favorite physical novels on your bookshelf and flip around to find an ellipsis. Almost certainly, it will look like . . . this. Sometimes a style guide will allow for no spaces between the dots, like ... this, and very, very rarely will it be acceptable to not put spaces before and after the ellipsis like...this, but frankly those just look shitty. So . . . please type your ellipses as recommended here. NB: an ellipsis at the end of a sentence requires a fourth dot, called a "period", but that is some high level shit so let's just stick to the basics here. Of special note, please, please, PLEASE do NOT end every single chapter of your book with an ellipsis, do NOT capitalize the first letter following the ellipsis unless it is the start of a new sentence or a proper name that would be capitalized under any circumstance, and, finally , when you flip through those high quality, favorite novels of yours, make a note of how infrequently they appear, and consider whether your own writing should use...So...Damn...Many ellipses! This has been a PSA from my bleeding eyes.

Hmm . . . still some review space available, so here's something interesting. Take a look at the cover for this book, and the original cover for another self-published book that I recently read and reviewed, The Formerly Dark Mage. I placed the black rectangles to highlight the areas that I will then zoom in on:



Now look at the zoomed-in portions:




It's the exact same fire! What are the odds?

[Joshua Grant · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Sky Fighters must face new threats in Ross Eberle’s exciting continuation Sky Fighters Part II: Redemption of the Rebels! Old faces and newcomers both jump into the fray as the Sky Fighters deal with an impending new threat: the Sand Tomb Guardians. It’s fun to jump back into Eberle’s anime-esque world to reunite with previous characters and see the expansion of the Python Demons’ villainous plots! Fans of classics like Voltron will be right at home in this beat-em-up galactic thriller!

[Jeffrey Greek · Rating 5 out of 5]

As I was reading this, I was highlighting passages that I found amusing. The last 20% of this book is almost solid blue. The author is clearly growing into his work.

[Ross Eberle · Rating 3 out of 5]

=Young-Adult-Ross hums, an air of confidence about him, while he reviews the 2nd novella he submitted for publishing on August 4, 2009. Crossing his arms, he smirks to himself= "Hell, yeah!! Two books written and published. Who's the best writer? This'd be me-ow!!"

=From out of nowhere, a 'Ross of the Future' sneaks behind the Young-Adult-Ross and whacks him over the head, using a Japanese folding-fan= "Boink...Wronnggg!!"

=Young-Adult-Ross turns and scowls at Ross of the Future in angered-annoyance= "Heey!! Who are you? And what do you think you're doing, raining on my parade, huh!?"

=Ross of the Future crosses his own arms, just like Young-Adult-Ross did, and laughs a little= "So you wrote and published a couple of novels. But you're nothing special...Snowflake! And before you decide to argue with me, let me explain everything you've done wrong..."

(All silliness aside, I actually did several things wrong, while I was busily writing this book. First off, there were a small number of substantial spelling and grammar errors. And secondly, I also spotted a fair amount of plot-mishaps, and a few things left unmentioned. Third and last of all, when publishing this book, I should have made the cover matte, but instead, it was glossy. Well, no more! I've only just recently re-submitted this novella I wrote for re-publication.)

This time, however, all spelling and grammar mistakes have been fixed. Secondly, the plot-mishaps (Which included mentioning an incorrect year {1991 instead of 1999}, and a lack of notable dialogue and action/narrative in at least one or two chapters) have had their structural integrity internally-strengthened, so to speak. Finally, this book has been given a much more befitting matte cover, which will make it seem a tad more authentic and less...Glossy and 'glamorous'.

In addition to this, about a dozen more pages, chock-full of rich details regarding my characters, plotlines, and most of the settings the characters interact within have been added. If, even after you, my fellow Superior-Fans STILL notice anything amiss in the new edition, please let me know. And I shall do a third revision, just for you. Be glad, for not every author who writes a book, script, and so on, is willing to admit whenever he or she has made a mistake.

My final score: 3 stars...1 for the series. 1 for the characters. And 1 for my willingness to keep on writing, and see this franchise through to the bitter end.

[Frankie Cerniglia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book by a very good friend. Ross Eberle did it again for me!

[Alison Solberg · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really wanted to like this series. This second installment of Sky Fighters and Houndy Crunchers (do we even know what the Houndy Crunchers are yet?) is basically the same as the first book. There’s a lack of conflict except some ridiculously outrageous battles (like the one at the end that was over in ten seconds). The characters are strange and hard to relate to and the plot has many holes. There’s so many things that feel like they’re missing in this story.