Malasz

First, let me emphasize that New Podler Review of Books does not and never has charged money for book reviews. The only payment we get is a copy of the books we review. So the following article and questions are simply posted for conversational purposes. The New York Times has a story on the rise and fall of GettingBookReviews.com , a service owned by Todd Rutherford where, for a fee, authors could commission several dozen 5-star reviews and get them posted on Amazon and other online markets. “I was creating reviews that pointed out the positive things, not the negative things,” Mr. Rutherford said. “These were marketing reviews, not editorial reviews.” In essence, they were blurbs, the little puffs on the backs of books in the old days, when all books were physical objects and sold in stores. No one took blurbs very seriously, but books looked naked without them. One of Mr. Rutherford’s clients, who confidently commissioned hundreds of reviews and didn’t even require them to b...

I first heard about Jeremy Robert Johnson (JRJ) from Girl on Demand's POD-dy Mouth blog back in 2006. Her enthusiastic review of his short story collection, Angel Dust Apocalypse , led me to my first indie book purchase. I was not disappointed . After writing two short novels, Siren Promised (co-written with Alan Clark and nominated for a Bram Stoker award) and The Extinction Journals , he focused on his publishing company, Swallowdown Press. Unlike most indie authors who form a publishing company under false pretense of being anything other than a vehicle for the author's own work, JRJ actually publishes the work of other indie authors that he enjoys (Forrest Armstrong, J. David Osborne, and Cody Goodfellow to name a few). We Live Inside You is JRJ's second short story collection, featuring his work published between 2006 and 2011. When I found out that JRJ finally got around to publishing another collection of his short stories, I had to pick up a copy. From the cover...

Poor Jeremy Fade. He lives in Goom, suburb of San Francisco, with his second wife and three kids. He worries. About his wife, about his ex-wife, about his kids, about his job. An engineer-turned-salesperson, his career and peace of mind depend upon the closing of his first sale, that of a huge software package to an unnamed university. But first he has to negotiate all the postmodern everything-is-a-social-construct politics and then kiss up to the Bursar, who decides everything. And he keeps seeing a ghost. The beginning of the book deals with the various characters and their feelings of deserving things: Fade, his sale; the Bursar, deferential behavior; Fade's drug-counselor-wife's patients, her time. All are pursuing their agendas with varying degrees of success. The University faculty is distracted from their usual concerns by the impending visit of a delegation, headed by an Imam Walid, from the Islamic Institute of Wyrigistan. Pakistan has been defeated by India. Its remn...

England experienced a civil war and a Revolution, both in the seventeenth century. Each profoundly affected the English way of life: the civil war through violence, and the Revolution through a change in the power of the monarchy and modification of its succession formula to keep it out of Catholic hands, a change that was in effect until 2011. We do not like to think about it, but most of us with a knowledge of 20 th century and early 21 st century history have an understanding of the fragility of democracy and the strange, cultish, and often violent movements that threaten to replace it. In Helen Smith's dark book, parliamentary democracy has been replaced by an ideology of victimization that has turned strangely upon itself. A rise in global terrorism has resulted in the borders being sealed, and secret police lurking everywhere. Children are kept from unrelated adults (such as teachers) out of fear of pedophilia, and, in a bizarre sort of Stockholm syndrome, women are veiled ...

The Magus’s Tale , book two in Colin McComb’s Oathbreaker series, primarily follows young Alton, a boy plucked from certain death by Magus Underhill to become the elderly magus's apprentice.  Alton spends his childhood and adolescence excelling at powerful magic despite abusive treatment from his master.  Once Alton becomes a magus in his own right, he learns that great power comes with a price—loneliness.  To earn acceptance from his nervous neighbors in the village of Lower Pippen, he uses his magic to cure their ills and protect them from the bitter weather and wild animals that assault their farms. But what seems like a minor encounter with petty brigands blows up into an unimaginably horrible event that releases a terror upon the world that “threatens life itself.” The Magus’s Tale is Alton’s story, but we do learn what the main characters from book one, The Knight’s Tale , have been up to.  Sir Pelagir, General Glasyin, and Princess Caitrona are living a relati...

Trust is the second book in the Trang series. The story picks up two weeks after the first novel ends. The shape-shifting alien known as "The Magic Man" has completed his conquest of the planet of the aggressive Cyclopes. Due to his world's experience with many forms of government, Trang has been tasked by the Magic Man to establish a government for the Cyclopes. Despite queasy feelings about imposing his political views upon another race, Trang reluctantly accepts. If he fails, the Magic Man may perceive that the entire race of Cyclopes are "diseased" and kill them all. Sisson has retained her soft sci-fi feel, but made Trust stronger than its predecessor. While dialogue continues to drive the story, she has added action and built up suspense to avoid lulls in the story's pace. Although this book is just as long as the first one, at no point did I feel it was dragging. While the first novel introduced us to all of the aliens on the space station, the...

Harruq and Qurrah Tun are half-elf/half-orc brothers who've been mocked and beaten their whole lives for their mixed blood. They eke out a living in squalid conditions through odd jobs and thievery, only wanting to be left alone. But trouble always finds them in the form of silent scowls on the street, drunken fools eager for a fight, or corrupt guardsmen tossing them out of the city for being "elfies." One day they meet a mysterious dark mage named Velixar who promises them respect and wealth in exchange for their allegiance. With nothing to lose, the brothers accept the bargain and gain more power then they ever dreamed. Harruq had always desired strength and martial prowess to fight back against those who would bully him and his brother—Velixar grants him two magical swords, magical armor, and thirty extra pounds of muscle. Qurrah had always desired arcane knowledge so he could rule, rather than be ruled—Velixar teaches him to wield dark magic, enabling him to ha...