I've archived and cross-linked the previous 10 reviews on the main site, Brightdreamer Books.
Enjoy!
Saturday, June 30, 2012
Tuesday, June 26, 2012
Siege Therapy (Steve Thorn)
Siege Therapy
Steve Thorn
Amazon Digital Services
Fiction, Sci-Fi
** (Bad)
DESCRIPTION: Jake doesn't remember the accident. All he can do is endure its aftermath, as his paralyzed body is shuffled about the hospital. Worse, the doctors who saved his life discovered a malignant brain tumor, requiring special treatment. It's not all bad, though; part of his therapy involves a VR game, Hallowed Kingdoms, in which he rules over a small village and grows it into a powerful city. But there's a shadow in this game, a nagging feeling that something isn't as it should be... either with the simulation, or with himself.
A Kindle-exclusive title.
REVIEW: This short story sounded intriguing, with VR simulations used as virtual therapy. Unfortunately, it not only feels far too long, but it concludes on such a rotten note that it spoils whatever interest I may have had with it. Nothing is truly resolved or even explained, except that my sympathies for any of the characters were entirely wasted. Ultimately, it was a waste of time.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Devil's Race (Avi) - My Review
Others See Us (William Sleator) - My Review
Game Over - Extended Edition (Todd Thorne) - My Review
Steve Thorn
Amazon Digital Services
Fiction, Sci-Fi
** (Bad)
DESCRIPTION: Jake doesn't remember the accident. All he can do is endure its aftermath, as his paralyzed body is shuffled about the hospital. Worse, the doctors who saved his life discovered a malignant brain tumor, requiring special treatment. It's not all bad, though; part of his therapy involves a VR game, Hallowed Kingdoms, in which he rules over a small village and grows it into a powerful city. But there's a shadow in this game, a nagging feeling that something isn't as it should be... either with the simulation, or with himself.
A Kindle-exclusive title.
REVIEW: This short story sounded intriguing, with VR simulations used as virtual therapy. Unfortunately, it not only feels far too long, but it concludes on such a rotten note that it spoils whatever interest I may have had with it. Nothing is truly resolved or even explained, except that my sympathies for any of the characters were entirely wasted. Ultimately, it was a waste of time.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Devil's Race (Avi) - My Review
Others See Us (William Sleator) - My Review
Game Over - Extended Edition (Todd Thorne) - My Review
Sunday, June 24, 2012
Mental FOCUS Training Secrets (Nathan Cadbury)
Mental FOCUS Training Secrets
Nathan Cadbury
Amazon Digital Services
Nonfiction, Self-Help
***+ (Okay/Good)
DESCRIPTION: Everyone knows that setting goals and working towards them is the only real way to get anywhere in life... but this world is just so full of distractions that it's tough to figure out where, or how, to begin. It's patently impossible to focus 100% of your energy 100% of the time. The good news is, you don't need to - you can accomplish anything you set your mind to by breaking it down into smaller, shorter goals. Learn how to rein in your mind and harness that scattered energy so that it works for you, not against you.
A Kindle-exclusive title.
REVIEW: Like most self-help books, this starts by telling the reader something they already know (they need to learn how to focus), explaining why it will behoove them to pay attention (focus brings great rewards), then attempts to teach them what they need to know to change their lives for the better. Also, like most self-help books, Cadbury makes it look easy in print (or eInk.) He repeats himself for emphasis, perhaps more often than necessary, and includes many vaguely motivational quotes to fire up the reader. While not particularly ground-breaking, Mental FOCUS Training Secrets does just what it sets out to do: it explains the benefits of a focused mind, and outlines a plan to transform a scattered brain into a more effective, task-accomplishing machine.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Predictably Irrational (Dan Ariely) - My Review
The Motivation Myth (Mattison Grey and Jonathan Manske) - My Review
Hocus Pocus, You're Focused! (Arthur Laud) - My Review
Nathan Cadbury
Amazon Digital Services
Nonfiction, Self-Help
***+ (Okay/Good)
DESCRIPTION: Everyone knows that setting goals and working towards them is the only real way to get anywhere in life... but this world is just so full of distractions that it's tough to figure out where, or how, to begin. It's patently impossible to focus 100% of your energy 100% of the time. The good news is, you don't need to - you can accomplish anything you set your mind to by breaking it down into smaller, shorter goals. Learn how to rein in your mind and harness that scattered energy so that it works for you, not against you.
A Kindle-exclusive title.
REVIEW: Like most self-help books, this starts by telling the reader something they already know (they need to learn how to focus), explaining why it will behoove them to pay attention (focus brings great rewards), then attempts to teach them what they need to know to change their lives for the better. Also, like most self-help books, Cadbury makes it look easy in print (or eInk.) He repeats himself for emphasis, perhaps more often than necessary, and includes many vaguely motivational quotes to fire up the reader. While not particularly ground-breaking, Mental FOCUS Training Secrets does just what it sets out to do: it explains the benefits of a focused mind, and outlines a plan to transform a scattered brain into a more effective, task-accomplishing machine.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Predictably Irrational (Dan Ariely) - My Review
The Motivation Myth (Mattison Grey and Jonathan Manske) - My Review
Hocus Pocus, You're Focused! (Arthur Laud) - My Review
Tuesday, June 19, 2012
The 19 Dragons (SM Reine)
The 19 Dragons
SM Reine
SM Reine, publisher
Fiction, Fantasy
**+ (Bad/Okay)
DESCRIPTION: Long ago, the world worshipped dragons. Each of these immortal beings was a pillar for part of the Earth, their personalities as varied as their domains. Then greed and forgetfulness overcame mankind, and the slayers came to pierce their hides and plunder their hoards. So the dragons took on mortal bodies, rebirthing as themselves so long as the sacred Device was in their possession. Thus they could hide from the slayers and still watch over their world.
But not all dragons were content with this fate. Nor were they content to let a world that had forgotten them - had actively turned on them - continue to live in peace.
Now, as war shakes the world, great automatons and dirigibles from the East raining fiery devastation upon the city of New Haven, the Device is stolen. One by one, the dragons fall - and, with them, the corners of the earth whose pillars they formed. Even as the survivors race to unearth the traitor in their midst, pieces of the world vanish into the eternal Void. Should the last dragon fall, the world itself shall end, and not even dragons may be reborn from the nothing that remains.
A Kindle-exclusive title.
REVIEW: This intrigued me with its mixture of dragon lore and steampunk. Reine's world is bleak, torn by a senseless war and directed by those who merely use Man's short-sighted and destructive instincts to further their own selfish ends. With 20 chapters, nearly one of the titular 19 dragons falls in each, a long and increasingly dim death march for a world too caught up in its own struggles to care. Despite the darkness, I found it interestingly different... until close to the end. Reine then abandons her otherwise-original ideas and pulls a handful of plot twists out of the Void, never quite explaining how the apocalyptic climax resolved anything before segueing to a too-hopeful and happy (and pointless) conclusion. She also gets too clever for her own good with the formatting, especially during the finale. Disappointing.
You Might Also Enjoy:
The Airborn series (Kenneth Oppel) - My Review
Boneshaker (Cherie Priest) - My Review
The Leviathan trilogy (Scott Westerfield) - My Review
SM Reine
SM Reine, publisher
Fiction, Fantasy
**+ (Bad/Okay)
DESCRIPTION: Long ago, the world worshipped dragons. Each of these immortal beings was a pillar for part of the Earth, their personalities as varied as their domains. Then greed and forgetfulness overcame mankind, and the slayers came to pierce their hides and plunder their hoards. So the dragons took on mortal bodies, rebirthing as themselves so long as the sacred Device was in their possession. Thus they could hide from the slayers and still watch over their world.
But not all dragons were content with this fate. Nor were they content to let a world that had forgotten them - had actively turned on them - continue to live in peace.
Now, as war shakes the world, great automatons and dirigibles from the East raining fiery devastation upon the city of New Haven, the Device is stolen. One by one, the dragons fall - and, with them, the corners of the earth whose pillars they formed. Even as the survivors race to unearth the traitor in their midst, pieces of the world vanish into the eternal Void. Should the last dragon fall, the world itself shall end, and not even dragons may be reborn from the nothing that remains.
A Kindle-exclusive title.
REVIEW: This intrigued me with its mixture of dragon lore and steampunk. Reine's world is bleak, torn by a senseless war and directed by those who merely use Man's short-sighted and destructive instincts to further their own selfish ends. With 20 chapters, nearly one of the titular 19 dragons falls in each, a long and increasingly dim death march for a world too caught up in its own struggles to care. Despite the darkness, I found it interestingly different... until close to the end. Reine then abandons her otherwise-original ideas and pulls a handful of plot twists out of the Void, never quite explaining how the apocalyptic climax resolved anything before segueing to a too-hopeful and happy (and pointless) conclusion. She also gets too clever for her own good with the formatting, especially during the finale. Disappointing.
You Might Also Enjoy:
The Airborn series (Kenneth Oppel) - My Review
Boneshaker (Cherie Priest) - My Review
The Leviathan trilogy (Scott Westerfield) - My Review
Monday, June 18, 2012
The Object Serial (Winston Emerson)
The Object Serial
(Episodes 1, 2, and 3)
Winston Emerson
Amazon Digital Services
Fiction, Sci-Fi
** (Bad)
DESCRIPTION: Today, in Louisville, Kentucky...
Smart, shy Lillia lives with her brother Drake and sister Kate in foster care. Used to being treated like dirt by classmates and foster parents, she was barely phased when the drunken, leering college boy tried following her home.
Danny woke up after an all-night bender on a stranger's doorstep, half-covered in his own vomit. His cell's almost out of juice, his friends are nowhere in sight, and he's lost his wallet along with his short-term memory.
Meredith just started as a cop three days ago... three days that have made her reconsider her chosen field and city of residence. The other cops don't like her, the people don't like her, and she just nearly ran over a citizen fleeing an attacker. And Day Three isn't even over yet...
Sherman lives on the streets, trying to avoid trouble as he begs for change from a population that considers him invisible, either because of his black skin or his homelessness. When the rich aren't ignoring or belittling him, street gangs are robbing him of the few dollars he manages to scrape together.
These lives, and many others, would weave through any normal day on the streets of Louisville, briefly entangling before going their separate ways. But then the Object appeared. A great, looming sphere in the sky, something about it seems to bring out the worst in people. Within minutes, chaos consumes the city, panic gripping the populace in waves of riots and shootings. Wherever the Object came from, whatever it wants, Louisville will never be the same...
A Kindle-exclusive title.
REVIEW: The first part in a sci-fi serial series, it promised apocalyptic/dystopian paranoia and sci-fi mystery. (And, yes, it was free when I downloaded it.) Unfortunately, the sci-fi part of the story hardly comes into play: in these first three parts, the titular Object simply shows up and watches the chaos its arrival creates, without tangibly affecting anything. That leaves dystopian paranoia to carry the day... a task at which it fails, owing to an utter lack of an actual story. Maybe Emerson establishes that in the next installment, but this fragmentary introduction simply features a bunch of mostly-unlikeable people in miserable situations whose lives only become more miserable due to circumstances beyond their control. There just plain isn't enough here to interest me, let alone convince me to keep following this listless, unpleasant slog through the Object's shadow.
You Might Also Enjoy:
When the Tripods Came (John Christopher) - My Review
Life as We Knew It (Susan Beth Pfeffer) - My Review
The Visitors trilogy (Rodman Philbrick and Lynn Harnett) - My Review
(Episodes 1, 2, and 3)
Winston Emerson
Amazon Digital Services
Fiction, Sci-Fi
** (Bad)
DESCRIPTION: Today, in Louisville, Kentucky...
Smart, shy Lillia lives with her brother Drake and sister Kate in foster care. Used to being treated like dirt by classmates and foster parents, she was barely phased when the drunken, leering college boy tried following her home.
Danny woke up after an all-night bender on a stranger's doorstep, half-covered in his own vomit. His cell's almost out of juice, his friends are nowhere in sight, and he's lost his wallet along with his short-term memory.
Meredith just started as a cop three days ago... three days that have made her reconsider her chosen field and city of residence. The other cops don't like her, the people don't like her, and she just nearly ran over a citizen fleeing an attacker. And Day Three isn't even over yet...
Sherman lives on the streets, trying to avoid trouble as he begs for change from a population that considers him invisible, either because of his black skin or his homelessness. When the rich aren't ignoring or belittling him, street gangs are robbing him of the few dollars he manages to scrape together.
These lives, and many others, would weave through any normal day on the streets of Louisville, briefly entangling before going their separate ways. But then the Object appeared. A great, looming sphere in the sky, something about it seems to bring out the worst in people. Within minutes, chaos consumes the city, panic gripping the populace in waves of riots and shootings. Wherever the Object came from, whatever it wants, Louisville will never be the same...
A Kindle-exclusive title.
REVIEW: The first part in a sci-fi serial series, it promised apocalyptic/dystopian paranoia and sci-fi mystery. (And, yes, it was free when I downloaded it.) Unfortunately, the sci-fi part of the story hardly comes into play: in these first three parts, the titular Object simply shows up and watches the chaos its arrival creates, without tangibly affecting anything. That leaves dystopian paranoia to carry the day... a task at which it fails, owing to an utter lack of an actual story. Maybe Emerson establishes that in the next installment, but this fragmentary introduction simply features a bunch of mostly-unlikeable people in miserable situations whose lives only become more miserable due to circumstances beyond their control. There just plain isn't enough here to interest me, let alone convince me to keep following this listless, unpleasant slog through the Object's shadow.
You Might Also Enjoy:
When the Tripods Came (John Christopher) - My Review
Life as We Knew It (Susan Beth Pfeffer) - My Review
The Visitors trilogy (Rodman Philbrick and Lynn Harnett) - My Review
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