Malasz

Henry is a background kind of guy. He keeps his life simple, eschewing any kind of a career, observing the working-class lives around him. These stories , written in the first or third person, show Henry dealing with his problems, often by trying out roles. His parents both died young; he has them on his mind a great deal. He keeps meeting nasty priests; one comes on to him, and another is observed wearing Henry's late father's shirt, stolen from the donation box. He closely observes some gay men, but does not feel any temptation. Henry's acute sense of color irritates some folks; the grown-up former bully in his neighborhood is incensed by Henry's painting his house in an unusual color scheme, and exacts revenge over and over. The reader begins to feel claustrophobic, but cannot stop reading, having become all too enmeshed in the protagonist's passive-aggressive inner world, where thought equals deed. Finally, Henry lashes out violently at an easy target. Or does h...

We received an email from Midwestern Gothic , the publisher of independent novel award winner This Jealous Earth , that they're going to give copies of the book away in a Twitter contest. Here's the email we received: Hello! Just wanted to pass along a little nugget of This Jealous Earth news that we'd love to offer up to your followers - next week ( Jan 28 - Feb 1 ), we're going to be putting on a Twitter contest. We'll be giving away a signed copy of the book as well as 5 eBooks. All folks need to do is RT the contest tweet from the @mwgothic Twitter account. We'd love it if you shared this with your Twitter followers next week or RT'd the contest tweet at some point. I've included a link to our contest announcement with more information. http://midwestgothic.com/2013/01/this-jealous-earth-twitter-book-giveaway/ If you have any questions or need any more info, let us know! Thanks! Jeff I don't know if we need to bother with a legal disclaimer, bu...

Each year, the reviewers here at the New Podler Review of Books pick the book (or books) which we feel are the very best independently published (or small press) works. The only other requirement is that we reviewed it here on the blog. Here are the winners for 2012. Libby Cone had two picks: "My favorite books of 2012 were Fred Setterberg's Lunch Bucket Paradise and Scott Dominic Carpenter's This Jealous Earth . Both featured excellent writing and interesting characters. Both had something intelligent to say about modern life." Rob Steiner had one pick: "For the second year in a row, I'll have to go with Colin McComb. Oathbreaker Book Two: The Magus's Tale had the beautiful language and vivid world-building I liked from Book One, but with different characters that gave added depth McComb's Empire of Terona. I'm looking forward to Book Three." It was difficult for me to pick the best story for 2012. There were five really good books among t...

On behalf of The New Podler Review of Books, I'd like to welcome Erin Eymard to our review staff. Erin is a mother, geek, and avid reader. She fell in love with First King of Shannara in the seventh grade and has been hooked on sci-fi/fantasy ever since. Among her favorite authors are Terry Brooks, Anne McCaffrey, David Edding, and Dawn Cook (Kim Harrison). When she isn't reading, working, or being a mommy, she enjoys fishing and watching football. Erin runs her own blog, The Bookworm's Fancy , which is a mix of reviews, author interviews, and musings about writing and the publishing industry. Details regarding her reading preferences will be found on our Submission Guidelines page when we're open. Welcome aboard, Erin!

In Strictly Analog , author Richard Levesque introduces us to a future where California has seceded from a dying America. A corporation has been elected governor (Romney's "Corporations are people, my friend" comment taken to its ultimate extension) and isn't letting go. While some freedoms have been curtailed in the name of national security, the secret police won't bust you for smoking marijuana. Fear of being expelled to the surrounding wasteland keeps the population in check. Technological innovation is still alive. Everyone has a pair of iyz , eyeglasses that let you seamlessly connect to the internet (You could say that the initial versions are almost here), essential in a near total digital world. Every facet of people's lives can be recorded and shared with their phriends . If you thought Facebook and You Tube were omnipresent in society today , Levesque shows you the next level. Our guide to this dystopian future is Ted Lomax, private detective. Ted...

Forged in Death , the first of six books in Jim Melvin's Death Wizard Chronicles, starts out with a scene from a claustrophobic's nightmare – Torg, the Death-Knower and king of the Tugars, is imprisoned by the evil wizard Invictus at the bottom of a cold, dark pit bored hundreds of feet into a mountain. He can't stretch out because the pit is too small, and he can't lean against the walls, because they're enchanted with flesh-burning magic. He either has to stand or curl into an uncomfortably tight fetal position. We're only in the prologue, and the book is already giving me the willies. And that's a good thing. Torg eventually escapes the pit and embarks on an Odyssey-like journey back to his desert home to stop Invictus from enslaving the world of Triken. Jim Melvin's world-building was at once fantastic and logical, from the unique human cultures to the strange twists on traditional monsters. It's obvious Melvin put a lot of thought into the...

This Jealous Earth by Scott Dominic Carpenter. Midwestern Gothic Press. It is interesting that one of these sharply written short stories, “The Spirit of the Dog,” takes place in a uranium mine. Instead of looking for sparkly bits of gold, the miners run around with Geiger counters after a preliminary blast, looking for little bursts of radiation. Most of these stories involve connections: their breaking, their forming, their resilience, their failure. Just as the forces binding particles in the atomic nucleus are enormously strong, many of the characters in these pieces are drawn, despite themselves, to their imperfect families, to their treasured pets. The opposite occurs in “The Spirit of the Dog”; the various miners pit themselves against the new, pretty engineer. Their individual stubborn egos form a sort of misogynist hive mind whose evil ideas drive everyone apart. The egos of squabbling or drunk parents get in the way, but their kids band together for mischief or otherwise st...