Malasz

Barnes & Noble announced today that they're getting out of the manufacturing business. It is their intent that in order to cut losses, they won't make any more Nooks. They'll design them, make apps for them, support them with their catalog, but won't build them without outside help. Here's the original text: The company plans to significantly reduce losses in the NOOK segment by limiting risks associated with manufacturing. Going forward, the company intends to continue to design eReading devices and reading platforms, while creating a partnership model for manufacturing in the competitive color tablet market. Thus, the widely popular lines of Simple Touch™ and Glowlight™ products will continue to be developed in house, and the company’s tablet line will be co-branded with yet to be announced third party manufacturers of consumer electronics products. At the same time, the company intends to continue to build its digital catalog, adding thousands of eBooks e...

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...

Anne Charnock's first novel, A Calculated Life , offers a glimpse into late 21st Century England. It isn't glamorous, nor is it horrific. It's a dystopia where government and corporations control a pacified populace. The population has been divided into augmented professionals, who live in wonderful neighborhoods with all the trappings of upper middle class life we see today, and organics , who are crowded together in enclaves outside the city. The enclaves aren't filthy hellholes, but rather subsidized housing where their residents make use of everything to scrape up extra money to take the edge off of their spartan existence. The story is told from the POV of a young woman named Jayna. She works for a successful analytical firm that studies global trends; seeking signals in the noise of everyday life, like whether or not wind direction affects reports of violence. We realize at the outset that Jayna is different, even from the augmented managers she works for. As the ...

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 ...

Roger North and Lewis Spender, students and friends in the early Twentieth Century, are on a mission. In order to win acceptance into a club of rational thinkers, they must solve a seemingly paranormal mystery. Spender has chosen the case of the insane playwright, Adelard Odd. One person reading Odd's writings was struck blind, and three other people disappeared while in his room at the Quartersoake asylum. Once at the asylum grounds, the two men find out soon enough that Odd's door , a door ostensibly leading to nothing, is an axis mundi that involves those entering in a myriad of shifting universes. North and Spender are soon separated; Spender is held up as a king in the civilization he happens upon. North reappears with one eye colored silver; he is now able to see past and future and is also gifted with sight in the subjunctive mood. They reunite and contend with multiple realities, described with a Douglas Adamsesque matter-of-factness. Trying to escape from a land run b...

For those who don't already know, Smashwords is an all-in-one platform for authors to publish and distribute their e-books. It has its pros and cons for both writers and readers, which I don't have the time to go into right now, but it is very popular in the indie community. Authors who publish with them are able to track their sales and story sample downloads to gauge how well their works are faring on Smashwords. There's also aggregate reports of daily sales on other platforms that Smashwords distributes your work. But last year, Smashwords began collating all of that data to see if any patterns can be discerned from it or if its random noise. Every indie author should read the findings for themselves . The data regarding price point, title length, length of book, and sales are definitely very interesting and something to be taken into account when an author publishes their work. Anyone wishing to discuss it in the comments section, please go ahead! I've always had ...

Embustero is the follow up to Cleveland's Pale Boundaries , which I reviewed here . As there may be people who haven't read the first book, I'll try to keep the spoilers to a minimum in this review. Terson Reilly leaves Nivia via his reluctant rescuers. As he's a potential witness to their illicit activities, he's given a choice to join the crew or spend his time in the brig until they can drop him off someplace safe. He ultimately decides that a working passage is better than going stir crazy in the brig, but he soon finds that fitting in on the ship, the Embustero , isn't much better than Nivia. Meanwhile, the situation on Nivia has come to a boiling point for Halsor Tennisor. He's given the order by his mother, the head of the crime syndicate, to shut down the Family's operation and eliminate the Minzoku —the original settlers of Nivia who have been in hiding on a continent-sized wilderness preserve—including his mistress, Dayuki. But Tennisor isn...