A lovely short novella read for the Indie Ink Awards.
I thought the setup was interesting and the story's complexities regarding strained family relationships and loneliness. "If you truly love someone you'll let them go" is a big factor I can see here. I enjoyed the between the lines implications about robots and their usefulness, plus what they may be built for and what happens when they don't meet that.
I do wish we had seen a little more of the world. We get a lot of callbacks to real 90s-2010s pop culture and the like, but it's hard for me to know when this story is taking place. John and Javi talk about these things through the lens of nostalgia, but they seem in their 30s or 40s at most when we first meet them. By best guess it's 30 years later - so maybe 2060 at most - where we're having carebots. I hardly see much else besides viewing screens, watch phones, and automated cars for tech in the world, which we already have in 2026, so it feels more current world plus bots. I wish we had more view of how the world views bots and relationships of humans to bots.
Lastly, I do think Javi and John's relationship went a bit fast. Javi was inviting himself over to John's house seemingly after a few minutes of talking. I think the book had plenty of room to add time skipping/fast forwarding elements like "they spent weeks texting/calling each other" to make it seem less like a sudden relationship and something more earned. Perhaps these items got edited out, but I think the show more book would've felt slightly more believable with them.
Overall I enjoyed it. It's a quick read with tight edits and not a lot of lollygagging in the middle. show less
I thought the setup was interesting and the story's complexities regarding strained family relationships and loneliness. "If you truly love someone you'll let them go" is a big factor I can see here. I enjoyed the between the lines implications about robots and their usefulness, plus what they may be built for and what happens when they don't meet that.
I do wish we had seen a little more of the world. We get a lot of callbacks to real 90s-2010s pop culture and the like, but it's hard for me to know when this story is taking place. John and Javi talk about these things through the lens of nostalgia, but they seem in their 30s or 40s at most when we first meet them. By best guess it's 30 years later - so maybe 2060 at most - where we're having carebots. I hardly see much else besides viewing screens, watch phones, and automated cars for tech in the world, which we already have in 2026, so it feels more current world plus bots. I wish we had more view of how the world views bots and relationships of humans to bots.
Lastly, I do think Javi and John's relationship went a bit fast. Javi was inviting himself over to John's house seemingly after a few minutes of talking. I think the book had plenty of room to add time skipping/fast forwarding elements like "they spent weeks texting/calling each other" to make it seem less like a sudden relationship and something more earned. Perhaps these items got edited out, but I think the show more book would've felt slightly more believable with them.
Overall I enjoyed it. It's a quick read with tight edits and not a lot of lollygagging in the middle. show less
The Finding Machine: A 1990s British Cozy Mystery with a Sci-Fi Twist (An Alex Martin Cozy Mystery Book 1) by Lucy Lyons
Read this as part of the Indie Ink Awards and I thoroughly enjoyed it that it only took me a day or so to complete it. Well formatted, very minimal typos or otherwise, and a great cozy story to boot. Doesn't ask much of you other than to follow along. I was surprised to learn it's part of a series, but I suppose that's great because the book is so self-contained that it doesn't feel like it's missing anything or needs to keep going.
I read this story as part of the Indie Ink Awards. I enjoyed this book thoroughly. Well formatted and with a mystery I wanted to see through to the end. I loved the intertwining relationships of the characters and seeing them go about their daily lives despite the main question of who was writing those amazing stories. It says much about the passage of time regardless.
I thought it started to drag a bit somewhere close to the end before the reveal, but it eventually wrapped up as expected and nicely. More of a cozy book than anything.
I thought it started to drag a bit somewhere close to the end before the reveal, but it eventually wrapped up as expected and nicely. More of a cozy book than anything.
I read this book as part of the Indie Ink Awards. I thought the idea of the setup was really interested and felt pretty invested in the two main characters, Laurel and Spencer, right from the get go.
I think Spencer was a little too sad for my tastes (he cries basically every time he shows up in a chapter), but I loved his vibe. I could have done without the litany of Twilight references; I think those were unnecessary and cheapened the text as being an original one.
I think a lot more could have been done in regards to the set up and interweaving more of what happens in the final climax of the book into the rest of it. For most of the book it felt cozy, which was fine, but I was wondering why the book was listed under the horror genre given how comfy everything seemed to be. Given everything that happens close to the end, I wish there had been a little more work in building that at the beginning. I found myself skimming the town point-of-view sections entirely.
I did feel like the author perhaps had a version of this book where the husband was physically abusive to Laurel, and that got edited out. The way that the other characters talk about him makes it seem like it maybe was once the case before, and it didn't seem like it correctly matched with what was happening in terms of how she was currently experiencing the emotional abuse. I thought perhaps the author was working up to having the husband become physically abusive and have that be the tipping point for Spencer to show more kill him, but that did not happen. Either way, the abuse angle didn't seem to match up just right, and I think the depths of that could've been explored better.
Great LGBTQ+ rep in here. I enjoyed watching their relationship get built and how that blossomed over time in this sweet and innocent way, even if I knew where it was going to inevitably end up. Loved Laurel's friends too. Overall a solid read. show less
I think Spencer was a little too sad for my tastes (he cries basically every time he shows up in a chapter), but I loved his vibe. I could have done without the litany of Twilight references; I think those were unnecessary and cheapened the text as being an original one.
I think a lot more could have been done in regards to the set up and interweaving more of what happens in the final climax of the book into the rest of it. For most of the book it felt cozy, which was fine, but I was wondering why the book was listed under the horror genre given how comfy everything seemed to be. Given everything that happens close to the end, I wish there had been a little more work in building that at the beginning. I found myself skimming the town point-of-view sections entirely.
Great LGBTQ+ rep in here. I enjoyed watching their relationship get built and how that blossomed over time in this sweet and innocent way, even if I knew where it was going to inevitably end up. Loved Laurel's friends too. Overall a solid read. show less
I read this book as part of the Indie Ink Awards. I enjoyed reading this book, but my expectations were set differently going into it, and I wish the "erotica" genre had been applied to it. There are a lot of explicit and descriptive sex scenes in the book (which were fine) that makes it land squarely in the "needing an erotica genre tag" for me.
I found the story itself to be a bit slow, but I assume that this is based on the same kind of storytelling that would deliver similar fantasy books into having plot plot plot and then a big action scene at the end. I really enjoyed the end climax, and wish there were more smaller action scenes in the middle. Well formatted, few typos. I enjoyed the supplemental illustrations as well.
I found the story itself to be a bit slow, but I assume that this is based on the same kind of storytelling that would deliver similar fantasy books into having plot plot plot and then a big action scene at the end. I really enjoyed the end climax, and wish there were more smaller action scenes in the middle. Well formatted, few typos. I enjoyed the supplemental illustrations as well.
I had a hard time feeling any empathy for any of the characters and was pretty happy they did all end up dying in the end which made it difficult to keep picking up this book and feel invested in them. I think that was kind of the point, however!
This book has no shortage of horrors to explore: from body horrors, bugs bursting from people's mouths, people crawling across the ceiling, flickerings of ghostly apparitions, bursting boils, and even a dip in a fresh pt of lava, across the multiple stories with abstracted, dark art supplemental paintings, we begin to unravel the mystery of the Gallery of Nightmares, the Shadow Nook, Jonathan, and what happened to his parents. We're just at the beginning of Jonathan's story as he's beginning to figure out who he is and how he fits in this puzzle. I can see a lot of series potential in this and how Jonathan will continue to interact with the Gallery... and the Gallery will interact in turn.
Supers are only super when it comes to their powers, but they're still human in the brain parts – that's what I get here.
Whether you're a super trying to impress someone, or you feel like you're teaching someone else a lesson with your power, or maybe you just didn't think and made a totally off-the-cuff decision... Everything has a consequence when your powers are beyond the ordinary.
Read this book and you'll see what I mean.
Whether you're a super trying to impress someone, or you feel like you're teaching someone else a lesson with your power, or maybe you just didn't think and made a totally off-the-cuff decision... Everything has a consequence when your powers are beyond the ordinary.
Read this book and you'll see what I mean.
Looking for something fresh in the sci-fi/fantasy realm? This has just about everything from spaceships, to portals, to angels, elves, orcs, and everything in between. There's a mix of elements you may already know and love, and plenty of new ideas/concepts to go around. N.A. Soleil's writing style is elegant and lends an ease to your reading – they never lean too hard into unnecessary grandiloquence which is often a gripe I have with fantasy novels. The 400 pages flits by fast as you read about Redd's adventures both to and within Everdark.
This novel is good to read, and the quality of the printing is nice. The satin matte cover feels really nice to hold in your hand, which makes it a lovely tactile experience as well. Fonts are not too big/too small or overbearing, and when fonts do change, they help to engage the reader by accenting what they're reading. Pages are printed on an off-white, thick stock which makes it difficult to skip any pages – definitely a plus!
Oh, and don't forget to check out the helpful glossary at the back in case you get stuck!
This novel is good to read, and the quality of the printing is nice. The satin matte cover feels really nice to hold in your hand, which makes it a lovely tactile experience as well. Fonts are not too big/too small or overbearing, and when fonts do change, they help to engage the reader by accenting what they're reading. Pages are printed on an off-white, thick stock which makes it difficult to skip any pages – definitely a plus!
Oh, and don't forget to check out the helpful glossary at the back in case you get stuck!
“Meet me in the middle, says the unjust man. You take a step towards him, he takes a step back. Meet me in the middle, says the unjust man.” - A.R. Moxon
The Fractured Balance tackles this idea – what happens when evil has been met in the middle one too many times? The system that has allowed this slow, dangerous decline towards the unjust negatively affects all of the lives it touches.
Now drop Pheonix (sic; he was named by uneducated slavers! They don’t know how to spell!), a carefully created genetic experiment honed to emotionlessly kill after years spent in the neglect of slavers, from orbit, explosively landing like a meteor on the surface of Telerath. While Pheonix may not have (or at least show) much in the way of feelings, what he does have is an impeccable sense of justice – and an unbiased, third-party opinion to the mass-adoption of “The Balance” that has for years tipped towards the unjust. Who better to do this than an immortal?
Pheonix’s matter-of-fact blunt nature itself has a sort of je ne sais quoi charm, drawing in friends who have sensed the same in their world who see in him a spontaneous ally with the ability for change. Pheonix channels his anger and rage and takes action after observing the lives of everyone affected by the so-called “Balance”, training against everything from magic and bladestorms to physical combat, releasing hell upon the dark zones that plague the planet with horrors untold, tearing them apart as he comes into show more his own as the absolution of the just – The Ascended of Justice.
For Pheonix, Chani, Tyyrulriathula, and the others, what they’ve taken up on Telerath is only the beginning of what will certainly be a hard-fought war to shirk the “Balance” and restore order to not only Telerath, but the Metacosm as a whole.
The Fractured Balance uses a mixture of the discussion of the how and why evil has managed to take root along with hack-and-slack execution, allowing its own balance between necessary dialogue and action. Engrossed with deep lore and plenty of characters engrossed in their own rich universes, you’ll find plenty of world-building walking the fine line between sci-fi and fantasy. If you love detail-oriented science-fantasy and epic story arcs, get in now and stand with Pheonix as he begins to excise every fragment of evil he can from the very make of the universe itself. show less
The Fractured Balance tackles this idea – what happens when evil has been met in the middle one too many times? The system that has allowed this slow, dangerous decline towards the unjust negatively affects all of the lives it touches.
Now drop Pheonix (sic; he was named by uneducated slavers! They don’t know how to spell!), a carefully created genetic experiment honed to emotionlessly kill after years spent in the neglect of slavers, from orbit, explosively landing like a meteor on the surface of Telerath. While Pheonix may not have (or at least show) much in the way of feelings, what he does have is an impeccable sense of justice – and an unbiased, third-party opinion to the mass-adoption of “The Balance” that has for years tipped towards the unjust. Who better to do this than an immortal?
Pheonix’s matter-of-fact blunt nature itself has a sort of je ne sais quoi charm, drawing in friends who have sensed the same in their world who see in him a spontaneous ally with the ability for change. Pheonix channels his anger and rage and takes action after observing the lives of everyone affected by the so-called “Balance”, training against everything from magic and bladestorms to physical combat, releasing hell upon the dark zones that plague the planet with horrors untold, tearing them apart as he comes into show more his own as the absolution of the just – The Ascended of Justice.
For Pheonix, Chani, Tyyrulriathula, and the others, what they’ve taken up on Telerath is only the beginning of what will certainly be a hard-fought war to shirk the “Balance” and restore order to not only Telerath, but the Metacosm as a whole.
The Fractured Balance uses a mixture of the discussion of the how and why evil has managed to take root along with hack-and-slack execution, allowing its own balance between necessary dialogue and action. Engrossed with deep lore and plenty of characters engrossed in their own rich universes, you’ll find plenty of world-building walking the fine line between sci-fi and fantasy. If you love detail-oriented science-fantasy and epic story arcs, get in now and stand with Pheonix as he begins to excise every fragment of evil he can from the very make of the universe itself. show less