David Lee Summers

This was not a good book.

I mean, honestly, I didn't expect it to be a good book. But it's really not a good book. The writing is pretty amateurish; the plot is rambling, ridiculous, muddy, and thin; the characters are unconvincing and uninteresting; and it manages to include some sex that is simultaneously both gratuitous and deeply unsexy. I will say this for it, at least: it does come up with some actually kind of original ideas about the origins of vampires and how they work. They're not show more good ideas, mind you, but at this point it's so difficult to come up with anything new on the subject of vampires that that's almost impressive. Almost.

It did have a couple of points of interest for me, though. One is that one of the characters works at a job very similar to mine, and the other is that it's set in various places in my adopted home state of New Mexico, including some significant events that happen in the town I live in. No doubt people from, say, New York City are used to seeing their own stomping grounds depicted in fiction, but that generally doesn't happen when you live in Middle of Nowhere, New Mexico. So I got a little bit of a kick out of that (and, indeed, it was the only reason I picked this book up in the first place).

That doesn't help make it any better of a book, though. show less

Set in the 1870s, this Wild West steampunk adventure is full of surprises. Ramon Morales and Fatemeh Karimi make a great pair of heroes as they travel from New Mexico to California. Gun fights, dirigibles, steam-powered mechanical wolves, a Russian plot to take a chunk of the US, plus an unexpected alien influence called Legion provide a dangerous playground for our main characters – and plenty of entertainment for us.

I read this book back in 2011 and it was great to see it come to audio! show more I enjoyed it more in this medium as the narrator did it justice. If you love your Wild West and you like it weird, then this is a great series to get into. The story includes several different ethnicities and I love that about this book. The frontier West was a very diverse place and having that reflected in this work is worthy.

Our Persian healer, Fatemeh, has traveled far from home and she’s a bit vague about why. I love that we have this little mystery about her. Also, she talks to owls… or does she? She claims that she only understands their nature but to others it looks like she is actually communicating with them. While I felt the romance between her and Ramon sparked a little too easily, I also feel they make a great couple. Fatemeh is of the Baha’i faith while Ramon is Catholic and this sets up a dynamic to explore not just culture clash but also these different religions.

Meanwhile Ramon has recently had a big shift in his life. He was a sheriff in Socorro, NM and then things went south.. and so did he while he fled with Fatemeh (who was about to be executed for witch craft). Their search for work takes them all the way out to California. Along the way they meet the eccentric inventor, Professor Maravilla. He’s got a thing for steam-powered mechanical beasties. I loved his owls!

Then there’s the bounty hunter Larissa who I look forward to hearing more about later in the series. She’s got plenty of gumption and loves her independent life but she’s drawn into this bigger plot as Russia starts making moves to invade the West coast.

Now lets talk about that alien influence Legion. We come across it early on but it’s not clear right away if it’s something supernatural, man-made, or from outer space. Whatever it is (and yes, we do get that cleared up in this book), it has a hive mind and can communicate directly with humans as well as influence them. So we got the Wild West (yay!), steampunk (awesome!), and now this unknown big picture influencer. The author does a great job of pulling this all together.

My one real quibble with the story is that sometimes it’s a little too easy for Ramon and Fatemeh to convince a ‘villain’ to assist them. It seems like everyone is really a good guy at heart and was just simply misunderstood or was acting under some false or incomplete data. I think the story would have benefited from a real villain or two.

The Narration: Edward Mittelstedt did a really good job. His Spanish accent was consistent throughout the story. Now, his Spanish pronunciations were sometimes different from what I expected. Living in New Mexico, I expected a certain accent (like for Chavez or Maravilla). Mittelstedt’s pronunciation isn’t wrong but it’s not the local dialect either. I believe it’s the difference between high proper Spanish and the Southwest Hispanic accent. Besides that, he was great with keeping all the characters distinct and also with the various emotions throughout the story. He also gave Fatemeh a consistent Persian accent. His female voices were believable. show less

Lions and tigers and Clusters, oh my! Book Three in The Old Star Saga. I loved this series. Well paced and written in clean, unaffected style, this is good sci fi with a nice balance between geeky astrophysics and human sensitivy. I grew very fond of the characters by the end of it: pirates, sailors, warriors and wild women. This book brought the first two together beautifully, with enough information placed here and there to show the whole picture without being repetitive, and to answer show more some of the mysteries brought up earlier in the story. And it kept me guessing right up to the end. show less

"The Astronomer's Crypt" by David Lee Summer is a horror story with a mix of ghosts, Apache legends, nasty drug smugglers, a desperate drunk combined with the inner workings of an observatory for astronomers. Oh and very bad weather.
Mike Teter saw something terrifying two years ago when he was working as a telescope operator at Carson Peak Observatory in New Mexico. Against his better judgement, he is back at the observatory and he is about to realize that what he saw was not his show more imagination.......
The story is well written and I was drawn in very easily but I did not find it scary at all. I was more fascinated by the author's very detailed description of what people actually do in an observatory. I would love to read another book by the author based on his experience working in a real observatory. I found that the added drama of drug smugglers took away from the story itself. I was more interested in what Mike Teter saw, the Apache legends and as I said, the observatory. I almost felt like the story ended on a bit of a cliff hanger and would be interested in reading a sequel.
I received an ARC of this book from the publishers via Netgalley for free in exchange for an honest review. show less