Jason Halstead

"Take my love, take my land,
Take me where I cannot stand.
I don't care. I'm still free.
You can't take the sky from me!"

Pardon me while I hum along. Why I'd have the theme song to Firefly in my head after reading Voidhawk will be readily apparent to anyone who's ever seen the show and read the book.

In fact, let me really geek this out. Imagine a Firefly-Spelljammer crossover. You now have a pretty good idea of how Voidhawk is set. For those of you who didn't spend an unwholesome amount of show more time debating the merits of stone dice versus plastic, and who can't tell me why Fireball is a more effective zombie deterrent that Melf's Magic Arrow, let me do a little explaining:

Spelljammer is a not too well known role playing game set on space going sailing ships. Instead of the Millennium Falcon sweeping through space, think the Black Pearl. Firefly is probably the best TV show in the history of TV and definitely the best Sci-Fi TV show. A band of unlikely people crewing a space ship, going from port to port, job to job, getting in interesting scrapes and adventures and becoming a tight knit family as they survive each new peril.

Now, put those two things together, and you've got Voidhawk: a swashbuckling fantasy of sword and pistol, spell and sail. This is fantasy in the Star Wars (New Hope) mode, fast, lots of action, not a lot of introspection. The characters don't get into long deep discussions about the morality of killing the bad guys, they, like Leia, grab a gun and start shooting. They don't have long conversations about how they feel. The reader does not have to slog through pages of internal monologue in which the characters debate their place in the universe and the nature of man.

It is, in a word, fun. The action sequences are especially well done, blending ship to ship combat with hand to hand and magic in a way I've never seen before (and I've read a pretty good collection of fantasy novels over the years.) A very quick example: Hordes of zombies are attacking the ship. The wizard is holding a protective circle around the ship. The hand to hand specialists will have to get the zombies off the landing struts before the ship can lift off. The pilot is in charge of a split second lift off. The Captain and a few of the crew are soaking the ground with oil so that, if they can get the timing right, they can drop the protective circle, have the zombies storm the ship, take off with minimal zombies clinging to the ship, knock the ones that are off, and then drop greek fire and light the ground under the zombies so they all go up in flame. In one scene we've got high magic, hand to hand, real world tech, flight fighting techniques, and zombies. Seriously, what more could you possibly want in a book?

Plot, character development, and snappy dialogue. Hmm... you're pretty picky aren't you?

There is plot coming out the ears of this book. We call books that read like movies cinematic. I'd call this book episodic. It reads like a TV show, and a first season one at that. We get to know the characters as they go on a series of adventures. There's not much of an overarching plot, unless you want to consider the introduction of the characters an overarching plot. However, each of the adventures is a nicely wrapped package of something interesting. Yes, some of them will feel a bit, familiar, if you've watched Firefly, but just when you start to think that possibly the book is in danger of straying from homage into full out rip-off, it finds its own footing and differentiates itself nicely.

Character development is probably the weakest aspect of this book. Most of the book is told through the point of view of Captain Dexter Silverhawk, and by the end of the book we know him pretty well. His First Mate(s) and Arms Master are well fleshed out, too. The other sevenish (the number of characters changes during the book) are more like character sketches than full characters. But as a certain TV show from the sixties proved, you can get on pretty well with a few well developed characters, a few less developed characters, and a crew of revolving redshirts.

Snappy dialogue: let me flat out say it, it's not as good as Firefly, but nothing else is either. Joss Whedon does dialogue snappier and tighter than anyone else, and he's got an ear for how people speak that's astounding. Jason Halstead doesn't. Which doesn't mean the dialogue is bad, though there are moments when the desire to create a distinct style of speech for his characters mucks with the flow of the scene. One of the reasons that accents and unique grammar structures are hard to pull off is because they trip up the reader. Watching a TV show the viewer sits back and absorbs words, but a reader has to slog through those words, put them together and try to figure out how they sound and what they mean. Since Halstead's characters speak in a sort of westernized-pirate patios, it can be even trickier to keep your eyes moving. Most of the time it's not an issue: the language flows properly and sounds correct for the characters, but every now and again it slips.

It is very clearly a first novel, and the writing gets better as the book progresses. Though I haven't started it yet, I anticipate the sequel will be even better yet. And, though I'd usually rather spend an hour grinding my teeth and wishing I was anywhere else, I'll enjoy the flight I'm taking on Friday because the sequel to this will make great plane reading.

At $15.99 the paperback is probably a bit over priced. The $6.99 Kindle book price fits better with the length of the book and the quickness of the read. Either way, if the rogue with a heart of gold and his cast of colorful misfits is your idea of fun reading, this book is for you. show less

The Lost Girls by Jason Halstead

This is one of those tough books that you have to dig past a few things to get to the place where you decide you like it.

As with some others this one took me out of my comfort zone right from the start with what seems at a glance to be jumping right into the middle of a fight. Then it turns out to be a rape. Worse yet it turns out to be mutilation when the victim apparently has her fingers augmented with blades that make her into a sort of wild unpredictable show more Cuisinart stuck on slice and dice.

I might have set it aside at this point but Kat, the cop who's nearly raped, is an interesting enough character to draw me in. She's petite, but dangerous. She's had augments done to her and there's a story behind all that but it takes a while to wheedle it out of her.

She also calls herself a lesbian a dyke and gay at various stages. She has a massive distaste for men. But the interesting part about her personality is that she's every-mans dream and nightmare. She's strongly independent and in some ways throughout the narrative somewhat indistinguishable from a male except when describing her own body parts. She loves women and hates emotional involvement, or maybe is afraid of that kind of involvement.

Right from the get go she gets hurt and inflicts a lot of justice on her assailants. She's almost a rent-a-cop in this world which has some portal-ish connection to a world of magic which all sounds fantastic unfortunately it's only incidental to this novel. After getting patched up Kat will have to undergo some Psych time, which is how she meets Natalie who is married and straight yet hits on Kat.

Kat loves the attention and flirts a lot which just sends all sorts of conflicting messages because Kat is a loner and knows better than to even try to get involved with a confused straight woman. As I mentioned there is a back-story to Kat and; Natalie, being a therapist, is supposed to get to the core of it. This makes for a hot and cold romance.

After a couple of more incidents Kat is injured badly enough to need more augmentation until it appears she'll be mostly a cyborg before she's finished. Natalie is put off by this(not the cyborg-the job), but she's already compounded things by hiring Kat to look into her husbands illicit affair. True to her almost male like nature Kat gets immediately involved with Skyler, a lovely escort she hires to help go undercover to check out a modeling agency while still working on Natalie's case.

This story quickly becomes a convolution of plot that puts Basic Instinct to shame. In fact, this is Basic Instinct with a mostly female cast.

Anyway, everything will come together. Oddly the best part though is finding out what Kat is all about when she reveals her past finally.

This is a great character study that makes for an interesting and sometimes gruesome beginning to a series.

Good book for Suspense and SSF lovers. Contains elements of lesbian content although I'm not sure how representative Kat might be. She's mostly augmented and bad ass and driven.

J.L. Dobias show less

This novel started strong - the characters were interesting, the writing good and the emotions portrayed convincing and powerful. Eric's dedication to his daughter was admirable and Jessica was appealing and interesting. There were some truly tense scenes and good horror/suspense novel fare. Then things started to go downhill. The warder was a weak and pointless character, serving only to dump some information and then essentially commit suicide in a truly stupid manner. And it deteriorated show more further when Jessica crossed the bridge and Eric trailed after her.

Firstly - I get the impression that Jessica crossed the bridge on her voalition - nobody had captured her or whatnot, so why was it just immediately assumed she had been captured by the Evil King (cliche)? The squalid, dark and nasty lives of the peasants seemed exaggerated and unnecessary, with the only ray of light being the Smith. Now, there's a tale I would like to hear more of. Instead, it appears as though the author no longer wanted to make much effort - plot points were rushed; emotions were told, not shown and there was repetition of phrases and other such grammatic errors that choke the plot and show that the editor lost interest about partway through (and with good reason, as so did I).

Dark Earth was nowhere near as interesting as Mundania (and can you say "rip-off", I could not help but think of Xanth and Florida). It was a generic fantasy kingdom ruled by greed. Yawn. And as for the concept of the Dark Earthians taking over our world - well, that's ridiculous, given their fickle loyalties, their selfish behaviour and their primitive weaponry, I would say it was all one big farce.

And why was Jessica - by far the most interesting character - relegated to little more than a trophy to be rescued and owned. She served no purpose and showed little initiative throughout the latter part of the plot. I would suggest that the author were to step back from the first person narrative - something like this would be much stronger were we able to see what Jessica was going through - to discover who had captured her as she went through the gate and to feel her distress at watching her father tormented. show less

This is a Post Apocalyptic thriller that reminds me of the genre's heyday in the 80's. This is a good thing! It's been a while since I've read a really good P.A. story. There is a minor sci-fi element to the book, but that sort of thing was often seen in P.A.s. The writing is good, and the dialog is very natural and convincing. The action is clearly written and a lot of fun. At times, the book feels like a gun-slinger western.

Wanted is a lot of fun. I found myself compelled to read, and I show more connected with the characters. Halstead does a nice job making them come to life and building believable relationships between them. I really enjoyed revisiting the genre with this well written book.

If you enjoy a good, solid P.A. thriller reminiscent of the '80s, then you will enjoy Wanted. show less