Teleportal

teleportalI thought long and hard about writing this review. I generally try to offer reviews of books that I loved. This isn’t one of them.

Teleportal tells the story of a small group of physicists who invent/discover/develop a teleporter. I can’t really tell you more about the plot without too many spoilers. Needless to say, it’s not exactly a walk in the park for the inventors.

One of the pitfalls of writing these kinds of stories is that you get into the “smart people making stupid decisions” really quickly. If you don’t it’s very hard to have an actual story. This is one of those books. It’s the kind of book I like to delete but I couldn’t put this one aside.

I think it’s because Gordon Savage managed to pull me into the characters’ world and made me believe it. I’ve known brilliant people like Dr. Melissa Kim. Brilliant in their own fields but stumps in any other. Her sidekick characters don’t get as much page time but it’s fine. They still had personalities of their own. When the Feds get involved, things go a lot sideways. The international responses seemed pretty realistic. I’m not sure about the North Korean sleeper cell, but I’m not really doing a lot in near-future SF/adventure myself so sure. Why not?

Like I said in the beginning, this isn’t a book I love, but it’s a book I can’t stop thinking about. That’s reason enough to let others know about it.

Grab a sample and see what you think.

About the reviewer:

NathanLowell_150x150Nathan Lowell has been writing science fiction and fantasy most of his life. He started publishing in 2007 and has no intention of stopping any time soon.

Learn more about Nathan Lowell and his works at http://nathanlowell.com

Beyond The Starline

starlineHackney combines the broad sweeps and high peril of the action mystery with the fine detail of character-driven narratives. Both rollicking tale of a plucky youth and sweeping portrayal of a complex society, this novel has much to appeal to readers of all ages and preferences.

Harriet Howland spends her days working in her mother’s laundry and her nights sneaking out to listen to the tales of derring-do told by Sibelius the sky monkey. But when pirates attack her home in search of both her and a mysterious brass device, she is thrust into an adventure more dramatic than the most unfeasible of Sibelius’ tales. Chased by both criminal factions and the police, each step closer to the truth of her past puts her two steps closer to disaster.

Hackney crafts a grimy, yet not depressing, world, filled with cheeky dodgers, melodramatic villains, and steam-gauge-clad machinery. Skilfully balancing description of technology and science with the casual perspective of a narrator used to the sights of their own society, he shows the reader a vast steampunk dystopia without descending into tedious exposition or specification.

Where this balancing act between the dark and light, familiarity and wonder, might fail is in the names of places and things: Harriet’s home town is called Lundoon; and several other names are almost those of the real world. With no explanation for why the names are this way, this neither one nor the other labelling can feel like cleverness for the sake of it.

However, this is the only bump in an otherwise engaging alternate reality, filled with the darkly comical, lightly threatening, and space squid.

Shifting between grimy back streets, labyrinthine swamps, and the voids between worlds, the plot races from danger to danger, casting doubt on ever more of Harriet’s comfortable assumptions.

Harriet is a well-written protagonist. Head filled with Sibelius’ tall tales and lacking life experience, her reaction to the sudden collapse of her life is a plausible mix of confidence and naïvety. It would be easy to characterise her as a ‘strong female lead’, but that would miss the fact that – while her sex creates obstacles – she is not defined by it.

The supporting cast are a similar mix of familiar stock figure and nuanced personality, both providing the sense that they have complete lives outside Harriet’s story, and making them immediately accessible without sacrificing the possibility that they are not what they seem.

Overall, I enjoyed this book greatly. I recommend it to readers looking for fast-paced steampunk adventure that is light without lacking depth.

I received a free copy from the author in exchange for a fair review.

About The Reviewer

Dave_Higgins

Dave Higgins writes speculative fiction, often with a dark edge. Despite forays into the mundane worlds of law and IT, he was unable to escape the liminal zone between mystery and horror. A creature of contradictions, he also co-writes comic sci-fi with Simon Cantan.

Born in the least mystically significant part of Wiltshire, England, and raised by a librarian, he started reading shortly after birth and hasn’t stopped since. He lives with his wife, two cats, a plush altar to Lord Cthulhu, and many shelves of books.

It’s rumoured he writes out of fear he will otherwise run out of books to read.

Learn more about Dave and his work at http://davidjhiggins.wordpress.com/

Behind Our Walls

behind_our_wallsI read Chad A. Clark’s short story collection, Borrowed Time (and reviewed it here) some time ago and really enjoyed it. So, when I learned that he was expanding one of those stories into a novel, I was excited to get to read it. You don’t need to have read the short story first to enjoy the novel though, and the story is included at the end of the novel, since the novel is a sort of prequel to that story, laying out the what happened before “Tomorrow’s Memory”.

Behind Our Walls is a unique take on post-apocalyptic fiction. There are no zombies, no dictatorships, no aliens. The threats are not external and easy to unite against. The world has simply fallen apart and we are watching it reform around Sophie, our young protagonist. Many of the themes popular in post-apocalyptic fiction are present here–extreme situations bringing out the worst and best in people, trust as a limited commodity, resource management for survival. But I don’t think I’ve ever read a novel before that focused on “what happens now” so fully. Backstories and causes of the downfall of the world take a serious backseat to grappling with how society will reform in the new reality.

The novel begins with Sophie on the run in the company of her parents, her sister Corrine, her sister’s fiancé Adam, and a man named Rowen. Without getting too spoilery, I think it safe to tell you that they meet other travelers and that people are lost, new alliances are made, moral quandaries are faced, and betrayals happen.

I was engaged by the story and cared about the characters throughout. There was good tension and suspense regarding what decisions different characters might make and what struggles they would face. I recommend the book for those who enjoy post-apocalyptic or survival stories, but are looking for something a little different in that genre.

About The Reviewer:

BRYANT-CroppedSamantha Bryant is a middle school Spanish teacher by day and a mom and novelist by night. That makes her a superhero all the time. Her debut novel, Going Through the Change: A Menopausal Superhero Novel is now for sale by Curiosity Quills.

Learn more about Samantha and her work at http://samanthadunawaybryant.blogspot.com/