Malasz

Reviewed by Erin Eymard. Marcus Antonius Primus began a golden age for humanity when he liberated Roma from Octavian Caesar and became sole Consul. With wisdom from the gods, future Antonii Consuls conquered the world and spawned an interstellar civilization. Three weeks before the millennial anniversary of the Antonii Ascension, star freighter captain Kaeso Aemelius, a blacklisted security agent from Roman rival world Libertus, is asked by his former commanders to help a high-ranking Roman official defect. Kaeso misses his lone wolf espionage days—and its freedom from responsibility for a crew—so he sees the mission as a way back into the spy business. Kaeso sells it to his crew of outcasts as a quick, lucrative contract…without explaining his plan to abandon them for his old job. But Kaeso soon learns the defector’s terrifying secret, one that proves the last thousand years of history was built on a lie. Can Kaeso protect his crew from Roman and Liberti forces, who would l...

Reviewed by Erin Eymard. The final novel wraps up the journey of John Raimey, who, thirty-five years before, became the first bionic soldier ever deployed in the field. He is a giant, a Tank Major, fourteen feet tall and with enough power in his fists to level buildings. He is a legend of war, cursed with a fate where everyone he touches - even in love - dies. Evan Lindo, the father of bionics, now rules the world through his most ingenious creation, The Northern Star. But a war in the Middle East has triggered events that lead to Raimey. And a secret has been unveiled that sets Raimey on one last mission before he finds his place in Hell. Mike Gullickson's The Northern Star: The End is the perfect ending to his The Northern Star trilogy. It brings the series and your favorite characters to satisfying conclusions. I read the book in three days but kept putting writing a review aside because nothing I wrote seemed to do justice to Gullickson's story. One of the things that I ...

Reviewed by The Bookworm's Fancy. Mike Gullickson’s The Northern Star: Civil War picks up with a bang eleven years after the events of The Northern Star: The Beginning . The tentative cooperation between the world government and MindCorp (the company that owns the technology that makes civilization possible in a world drained of oil) has slowly begun to fray. Like its predecessor, Civil War is full of complex characters with interconnecting motives. It is very hard to separate the bulk of the characters into good/bad or black/white. Instead they all (except for Evan Lindo) exist in a state of varying shades of gray. This, in of itself, makes for a compelling read. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let me start with the easy stuff. All too often, we hear horror stories of indie books with bad editing and horrible covers. Not only are Gullickson’s covers amazing, but the editing is spot on. No odd formatting or glaring grammatical errors to break the reader’s immersion in ...

A ribald and irreverent tale from the Italian renaissance - Add a conniving servant and his amoral master; a murderous priest and his equally homicidal sidekick; an odious mother-in-law; a beautiful but barren wife wed to an ancient attorney; and a potion brewed from the root of the Mandragora, a plant alleged to help women conceive, and you have a prescription for pandemonium, especially when Mandragora (known in less reputable circles as “God’s Little Joke”), possesses a fatal flaw: after a woman drinks the potion, her body becomes a temple of poison. The first man to have sex with her will be dead in seven days. What's a man to do? Based on Niccolo Machiavelli’s play, The Mandrake , this is a tongue-in-check story of a rake desperate to sleep with a certain woman, a husband desperate for a child, and a wife desperate for control of her own life. The heart of the novel lies in the question, “Does the end, when a noble one, justify the means, however wicked?” The story starts with...

It is a summer of the Dark Ages when an old vagabond appears in Beewicke offering the parents of the boy, Thaddeus, the promise of a fine education and a trade for their son. Gold exchanges hands and the stranger and the boy go off in the old man's cart, pulled by the sentient mule, Asullus. On the journey, he is joined by two others recruited by their new Master—Anders of Brightfield Manor, a scholar, and Rolland of Fountaindale, a street thief. The three boys are unaware they are all the ultimate descendants of this very same Sorcerer. Silvestrus begins the instruction of his charges by stating that the use of Sorcery is governed by Belief. If one has the inborn talent and the strength of Belief, one’s desires can take form—assuming any size, any shape and for any purpose. But he also warns them that each use of Sorcery shortens a Sorcerer’s life span by an unknowable quantity. The old man pronounces one last requirement—before he or she can command the use of Sorcer...

Gelton isn't the revolutionary type. If you asked him, it would be the last thing he would ever use to describe himself - if you could get the gefling to answer at all. When he gets entangled in events larger than his own story, he finds that he's got more than a few things to learn about himself. Part speculative history, part fantasy, and definitively steampunk , Secrets is the first novel in the Clockwork Skies series. Action packed and full of political intrigue, romance, and richly detailed fantasy settings, Secrets will entice you from the first page and keep you guessing until the last. Clockwork Skies: Secrets starts strong.  The reader is introduced to Gelton, a gefling in the services of a high-ranking Braelish ambassador.  The relationship between Gelton and Ambassador Grayson is charming, paternal, and the most well executed in the whole book.  Grayson both nurtures and skillfully handles Gelton’s childlike wonder and curiosity. Gelton is especially bright ...

The Human Purity movement is growing in power and influence in Denning, attacking dwarf businesses and caravans and inciting popular rebellion against the central government, with the passive or active support of many of the ruling Golds. Opposing them almost alone is the Realmgold, a young man named Determined. His problem is that, even though the Realmgold is meant to be in charge, nobody is paying much attention to him. Victory, who rules neighbouring Koskant, would love to support Determined, but an ancient magical treaty between their realms means she can’t send in her troops, her skyboats or her pressure guns. What she can do, though, is share a new magical communications technology – and her elite corps of Gryphon Clerks… Realmgolds is the first actual steampunk type novel that I can ever remember reading and Reeves-McMillan certainly made a steampunk girl out of me. While the steampunk label may dismay some potential readers, let me assure you that your time will not be waste...

No matter how far you travel, your past is only a step behind you. The above statement illustrates the underlying theme of D.E.M. Emrys's "From Man to Man".  This short story clocks in at barely 40 pages but is enough to whet your appetite for the larger "It Begins with Ashes". "From Man to Man" follows the character of Draven, a retired mercenary as he tries to settle down into a 'normal' life.  It opens up with an almost heartbreaking scene of Draven imagining himself talking to his sleeping wife and telling her how hard he tried and how he is sorry he failed her. This initially led me to believe that Draven was going to be leaving his wife and son and going back to his life before.  Instead you find him at what you learn is yet another odd job trying to earn a living.  You also are treated to the litany of other jobs in the town that he failed at. This story is a well-crafted and engaging look at someone used to living on the outside of soci...

Set in 9th century Britain, Sanctuary follows the journey of almost priest Daniel after a mysterious stranger saves his life during a viking raid. Daniel believes the stranger is a sign from God. The stranger disagrees but Daniel follows anyway as he is desperate to find his faith. Little does Daniel know that he is a pawn in a much larger game, one in which he has caught the attention of a very powerful demon. Off the bat, I must say this is an exceptional debut book. I was fearful at times that it would develop into a travelogue. But Kris Kramer successfully avoids this pitfall and instead we are treated to a wonderful story that I would declare just as interesting and enjoyable as Ken Follet’s Pillars of the Earth though not nearly as daunting. The characters are well written and believable. Though there is a religious nature to Daniel’s quest, the purpose is not to be preachy or overtly religious by rather to provide a background to his struggles. Daniel is a leaf in the wind ...

Reviewed by Erin The year is 2058. The great oil shortage that we have been warned about since the 1970s has finally come to pass, causing the Great Migration, where people began moving from the suburbs and back into the cities. Enter Cynthia Revo who successfully frees the mind from its physical prison. People now live more in cyberspace than in reality. But it is much more than that. Cyberspace is now the new reality. It has become necessary for almost every aspect of society. The economies of countries depend on it. But no one suspects the evil that lurks around the next cyber corner. At first glance, I was prepared to dislike this book. I feared it was going to be a preachy environmental tale hidden behind a story that was part pre- Matrix , part Mechwarrior , and part Ender’s Game . I was delightfully surprised. I was treated to an old school science-fiction romp. The characters are complex creations that grow and evolve throughout the story which, at its core, is a morality tale....