Tag Archives: scifi

SPSFC2021: It’s The Final Countdown!

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We are fast approaching the end of the first inaugural Self Published SciFi Competition and folks, this one is going to be a photo finish!

After starting with 300+ books our ten teams of judges have narrowed the field down to seven finalists, and y’all, I have firsthand witnessed the incredible amount of care that the judges are putting into the SPSFC and it is awesome to behold. The willingness to set aside so much of your own free time for one specific and time consuming task is humbling to see and I am honored to be a part of it all.

I say that to say: This has not been an easy journey. The nature of competitions like this mean 1 shall rise and 299 shall fall, right? BUT this competition has worked hard to shine as bright a light on the fallen as I have ever seen in any such competition. From the beginning I watched reviewers working hard through the initial allotment of books to try and find the ones to move forward, and watched as many championed books they discovered in the initial draw that didn’t make it into the next round. Books that had next to no reviews/ratings on GoodReads suddenly started getting attention, and started being blogged about, and started landing on TBRs of folks who aren’t a part of the competition! And that was only the first round! For the record three books I dearly wanted to move past the initial round in my team’s allotment did not, but those three books will be read and reviewed once the dust settles from the SPSFC, along with other books I came across in this competition that weren’t in my team’s draw.

And THAT is the magic of the SPSFC! It doesn’t just spotlight one amazing book, it creates reads and reviews for many books! I know two members of my team have read through most if not all of our initial draw, and are working through all thirty semi finalists, not just the ones we picked up! It is awesome to see. While nothing is perfect and I am sure some books didn’t get reviews out of the initial parts of the competition, many did, and that is something I am so happy about.

Now we come down to just 7 books, and getting to that 7 was tough! There have been a lot of strong attachments developed between readers and the books they love! One that didn’t make it out of my team’s top ten won my favorite book of the year award for 2021! I am telling you, there are some incredible works in this competition, and paring it down to just 7 finalists was tough, as books you love and champion don’t make the cut. However if it wasn’t for the SPSFC I wouldn’t have known about most of the books I’ve read so far, or have left to read!

So a huge and hearty shout out to the teams of judges who have been reading these books and offering their ratings and reviews as I know that takes effort and helps spread awareness of the books! Another loud and heartfelt shoutout to the authors who stepped willingly into the ring and let their novels fly! And a thankful and meaningful shout out to Duncan Swan and Hugh Howey for bringing this competition to life!

We now bring to you the final round of the SPSFC for 2021 and invite each of you to read these works alongside us as we dive into them!

The Winner Of RedStarReviews Favorite Book Of The Year Award For 2020 is…

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That is a super long title for a blog post and for an award! However it is perfect for the goal of the post which is to unveil the winner of this (potentially) highly sought after award! Each year I select one book out of all the books I’ve read that year and crown it as my favorite! I typically leave out rereads, otherwise I might end up with repeat winners as I like rereading my favorites, but my criteria for selecting my favorite book of the year is: It is my favorite book out of all the books I read that year. I really want to get stickers made to stick on the books that win! Maybe one day.

Some of the previous winners

This past year I read 104 books. 20,241 pages according to GoodReads. 2020 was the first year since my children were born that I broke 100 books! It was a great year of reading and there were quite a few books in the running for this award! I’ll share about the runners up later though. This post is about the winner and it is time to tell you what book won!

The winner of 2020’s RedStarReviews Favorite Book Of The Year Award Is:

NOPHEK GLOSS by ESSA HANSEN

Y’all, Nophek Gloss by Essa Hansen is a PAGE TURNER! One of the most unputdownable books you will ever read! The sort you take with you everywhere you go while you are reading it because you really want to keep reading it! It is the opening book to a Space Opera trilogy and it is one that will grab on to you from the start and hold on to you until the very end, and then refuse to let go of you after you have finished it. This book is an overload of your senses. There are scenes in here that you experience every bit as strongly as the characters themselves!

The story is about many things, but one aspect I loved is how it is about finding your people. It is about discovering not only yourself but also your found family. The raw emotional experience this is for the character is incredibly well relayed. This story is one that shows you what SciFi can be! And interestingly enough pairs well with Argyle Park. Seriously! 90’s Industrial Music really fits into so many scenes of this story.

Congratulations to Nophek Gloss by Essa Hansen for winning 2020’s RedStarReviews Favorite Book Of The Year Award! The books that win this award are the ones I really wish I could inspire everyone I know to read them. To help with this goal please check out chapter one shared by the publisher Orbit Books: Chapter One Of Nophek Gloss

A Snippet Of A Space Opera!

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Y’all know I love a good Space Opera! The galaxy wide themes, everything living at stake, huge empires colliding, all of it makes for very dramatic stories! However in the midst of those mighty Space Operas it is easy to miss out on all the little side stories that would combine together into the greater tale. That’s what reading The Long Lost War by Jeff Walker brought to my mind!

This brief SciFi story is cinematic in nature! It felt like something that would easily translate to the big screen, and dealt with deep questions while not slowing down the ever moving plot line!

It is a short SciFi story that features clones and warring forces, and one clone who seeks to question everything going on around them. One who needs to know the why of things. Is there a purpose to this war? How long has it been fought? What are the goals? Can it be stopped? Why isn’t anyone else asking these questions?

This story delivers. It pushes you to think and leaves you wondering. Really fun, quick to read, I recommend giving this SciFi a read!

Ninth Of Nine: Galaxy In Flames

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We have reached the end of nine straight days in a row making posts! Wooohooo! This has been a lot of fun and it has encouraged me to post snd engage more regularly so I think overall this has been a positive experience! I hope you’ve enjoyed it too! Thank you for reading along! All the exclamation points!!!!!

Today’s book is Galaxy In Flames which is the third book of the Horus Heresy and it is written by Ben Counter. So that is the third author so far in three books. What is up with that you might ask? Well the Horus Heresy is over fifty books long as a series, with another 18 book prequel series, and the climactic battle at the end has been made into a sequel series which is already four books long and growing! This truly is the neverending series and the only way they have been able to pull this off is to have a team of authors who work together. So multiple authors have joined together for this adventure and each author brings something worthwhile to the tale.

This book brings the opening trilogy to an intense and destructive close. In the first two books you have gotten to know Horus and several other key characters. You have such hopes for humanity! This book reminds you that this is a GrimDark Military SciFi series and those normally are books that will break your heart…

This series is amazing. It is long and drawn out, that is true, but honestly I am loving working my way through it and not eager to reach the end of it. These first three books have taken you on a fast paced linear story and after this book the story will soon go sideways, forwards, backwards, and all over as it starts to show the width and depth of the galactic civil war it covers. The scope of this series is amazing!

As for Horus…. you will have to read to see what becomes of Horus. But maybe after you do you might also come to understand Horus a little better. You might not! But just maybe you might.

Thank you for joining with me on thus journey of nine posts in nine days!! I am already prepping for more posts soon so hopefully I’ll be sharing quality content with y’all now on the regular!

Book 36 Of ?

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I’ve just completed reading the 36 book of The Horus Heresy and I really enjoyed it a lot!

The Path Of Heaven by Chris Wraight features the White Scars who are an interesting Legion to follow. Based off of a Mongal Horde sort of group their Legion cherishes speed as one of their primary traits, and they feel like outsiders from the very Imperium they’ve fought to expand and protect. This outsider mindset plays heavily into their decisions on which factor to support in the Galactic Civil War.

The book started a little slow, ironically as speed is so cherished by this Legion, but I think the slowness was primarily a result of over focusing on the enemies in this book, and setting up the deception that warfare brings with it. That said once this book started rolling it really drew me right into it and didn’t let go until the very end! One of the better books in the series.

So let’s talk about this series a bit! This is book number 36 of…. well right now 56 I think m, but as the series is still ongoing who really knows? And that is honestly something that I’m really enjoying about this series, the fact that it just keeps on going and growing. I’ll admit I was a bit frustrated with how sideways everything went early on after a quick start out of the gate with the first few books, but now I know I’d rather the series be this sprawling and wide ranging. The Heresy itself is supposedly only a ten year period of time but the series has jumped around to ten or forty or two hundred years before the “present” time. Each jump deepens the story and increases the build up! The best analogy I can think of is if you ever watched Dragonball Z and you remember how they’d spend like three episodes building up energy for one powerful punch, that’s similar to what the authors are doing here! If they’re going to tell a story of galactic civil war they’re going to truly make it as epic as the galaxy itself!

As a plus for any considering if they want to dip their toes into The Horus Heresy I can truly say I’m still loving this series 36 books into it and I’m eager for however many more books it will last!

PS: it appears WordPress just changed their App and now instead of writing one long blog post it’s split it into several boxes which is causing me some consternation and throwing me off my blogging game just a little right now, but hopefully it posts ok and I get accustomed to it soon! Hope y’all are all well!

Modern Military SciFi In War Stories!

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Y’all, when Apex Publications asked if reviewers would be interested in reviewing books from their back catalog to help spread the word that in September their entire back catalog would be on sale I jumped at the opportunity to join in! Now I know September is flying past so I’m only now letting you know that their back catalog of books is on sale for 25% off for this month if you use the discount code of SEPTEMBER and I apologize for that lateness BUT when you look at the cost and value of the book I’m reviewing for them I think that even if you read this post at a later date you’ll still want to obtain this book and give it a read! Ok let’s dive into this book now:

First off: it is tricky to get a good photo of an e-book cover! Ha! But this cover is perfect for this book. WAR STORIES is a short story collection of new Military SciFi by a variety of authors and it is hard hitting and thoughtful right from the start! If you’re curious what Military SciFi is then I’ve got a lovely post for you on that topic HERE but the short version would be SciFi that deals with military experience as a central factor rather than a story that just has a conflict/war in it. Military SciFi takes a deep look at humanity and holds a mirror up in front of us to confront us with ourselves and what we as a species do to one another and for what purpose. I love Military SciFi and in reading this short story collection I’ve been hit hard with the stories I’ve read. Well thought out. Very thought provoking. Fiction that feels real and challenges me. This is the type of book that takes me a while to work through because I find myself stopping to reflect after every story I read. Y’all, War Stories is an excellent intro to Military SciFi for those new on the scene and it’s an excellent one to cause lifelong Military SciFi readers to gain new perspective. It’s available HERE on APEX Publication’s website.

While you are there please look around at their entire catalog and even if you can’t take advantage of their September discount I think you’ll find books that will capture your interest!

An Arrogant Tale

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Wolfling by Gordon R Dickson is the first book I completed for this year’s Vintage SciFi Month! It’s a really enjoyable page turner of a book, which places humanity and Earth high up on a pedestal. Mild spoilers to follow the photo below.

The cover itself is excellent! And I have enjoyed reading Gordon R Dickson’s books each January for this special month and this book was a good continuation of that enjoyment! That said it’s really arrogant and human-centric. I doubt seriously if we came in contact with a superior alien race that we’d be able to go toe to toe with them much less outplay them at their own games. Also… some of the terminology and situations were troubling from both a modern perspective and from the age in which GRD wrote this tale too. The plot and primary character is interesting though so overall I enjoyed this tale.

The question what put forth of how these Vintage SciFi books age. Do they stay applicable or get passed by. It’s a tricky question that probably applies to each book differently. I think for the most part GRD’s books don’t stay applicable as they rely so heavily on the author’s outdated philosophies, but the stories remain interesting and there are thought provoking points which are worth mining out of the stories. I don’t want to sound unfair to GRD, I really do think he’s a great author, I just think the more I read of his the more I see his biases shining through.

Vintage SciFi Month 2018 Recap

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As y’all already surely know if you’ve been following me for any amount of time: January is always Vintage SciFi Month and this January’s reading was incredible! Let’s take a look at the three books I read this year.

Tactics Of Mistake by Gordon R Dickson is the fourth book of The Childe Cycle which I’m working my way through bit by bit each January. While it isn’t the best book in the series it is really good! It is a strong addition to an excellent series. If you’ve read Dorsai and wanted to know how the Dorsai became the most badass soldiers in the known universe then this is the book for you! If you’ve never wondered that but you still enjoy Military SciFi combined with Vintage Philosophy then this is still the book for you!

Up next was Philip K Dick’s classic of SciFi: Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep and it was an excellent story! I watched Blade Runner as a kid but I had never made time for the story it was based upon. I am glad I finally did! It was a very subtle story with a slow burn that once lit wouldn’t go out. Very enjoyable and easy to lose yourself in the story.

This January close to fifty people joined me for the #ReadDune Group Read, several of them reading Frank Herbert’s Dune for the first time! The good news is that almost everyone loved it! I mean how could you not love this book? This was either my fourth or fifth time to read it and I enjoyed it yet again! Getting to see everyone’s reaction to it was so much fun. Dune will always be special to me and I’m happy to report that it gets better with each reread!

I hope to see y’all join in on Vintage SciFi Month next January!

Read Dune Weekly Goals

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We recently announced the #ReadDune Group Read and now that we’re only a week away from starting we wanted to share the weekly target reading goals! This is a little tricky as there are so many different editions and each has its own page count. So it makes sense to do this by chapter, right? Right! Only… Frank Herbert didn’t number or name his damn chapters! The NERVE of that author! 😂

So everyone will need to keep count of the chapters they’ve read because we’re going to read a certain number each week. As this can get tricky we have another visual aide: each chapter starts with a section from fictitious history books and we’ll watch for specific chapter openings! This will (hopefully) work!

January week one we will read chapters one through fifteen and stop at the start of chapter sixteen you see pictured here! When you read “Greatness is a transitory experience.” you will have reached stopping point one. Everyone should be here by Saturday January the sixth. Next stopping point:

We will read chapters sixteen through the end of twenty-six and stop at the start of twenty-seven when you read: “At the age of fifteen, he had already learned silence.” This will be the stopping point on Saturday January the 13th. The next stopping point is fun:

That’s right! We stop at Book Three The Prophet! Frank Herbert came through for us on this split! Everyone should strive to be at The Prophet by Saturday January the twentieth.

The last week we shall read to the end of the story. With this pace we will all finish on Saturday January the twenty-seventh and then we’ll all hit play on the cheesy 80’s film adaptation and enjoy!

Read at your own pace but be aware that the conversations will include possible spoilers once we hit a Saturday goal as discussing anything from the week’s reading is fair game on a Saturday and beyond. Above all else please have fun!

Damming The Heresy Or Adding To The Flow?

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When reading a never ending series you realize the only way to reach the end is to never stop reading. That said every so often it’s good to pause and evaluate if you’re enjoying the series. Upon finishing the thirtieth book of The Horus Heresy I decided to do just that.

One of my early complaints about The Heresy was that every few books you’d get a story that didn’t advance the overall storyline. It felt like it would go sideways. This was a way of building up the series, of showing you what was happening all around the Imperium Of Man during The Heresy. The Damnation Of Pythos by David Annandale felt like one of those sideways books and I won’t lie I was a little frustrated by that at the start. Especially considering the previous book actually featured Horus and advanced the story greatly! To go from a book that’s focused on one of the central characters to the Heresy to a book that features a battered and near destroyed company of Space Marines trying to pull themselves together after being almost destroyed in events that took place in the fifth book of the series was a little like changing gears while driving without using a clutch.

However I must admit that as I read on in the book I started to see how this story fits in the overall story, and I was able to appreciate the added depth it brought to series. It’s also an amazing example of GrimDark SciFi such as you often see in the pages of a Warhammer40K book, I say that to say it felt more WH40K than Horus Heresy style and I’m happy with that. This book, whether intentionally or not, started to form more of a bridge between the events of The Horus Heresy and the events of the every day Imperium Of Man in the 40K universe. Less hope and more faith combined with inner struggles and ultimate sacrifices for gains you can’t yet see.

Thirty books into this Heresy and I’m still quite happy with this series and the directions the authors are taking it in. Truth told I’m going to be sad when I reach the end of this never ending series. I’m going to miss it because it has been such a great reading experience.

That said I’m also starting the thirty-first book right now. Because the only way to reach the end of a never ending series is to never stop reading it. Let The Heresy Continue.