Book Review: The Collapse

What else could the dead rising be other than a sick joke? Karen Gallagher is a mother, a wife, and a scientist, and her past is catching up to her. As the world falls victim to a viral pandemic, Karen struggles to keep her daughter safe, forced to turn to the people who burned her all while harboring an awful secret. Modern science is meant to progress humanity, and scientists dare to cross boundaries seemingly impassable, but when Anne White's unethical and immoral experiment to cure the incurable goes awry and is shut down, Clinical Pathologist Frank Eastman secretly takes the project into his own hands, accidentally releasing a bioengineered chimera virus that not only spreads like wildfire and kills its victims, it reanimates them, turning them into voracious flesh-eating husks of their former selves. Karen Gallagher only wants to do right by her family, and when horrible news and videos air of crazed people attacking others, her husband convinces her they have nothing to worry about, but what else is she supposed to think when a man who was shot multiple times gets up, unfazed by his wounds, to attack the officers who gunned him down? Karen knows all too well there's more to this story, and her only goal now is to keep her seven-year-old daughter safe. Told from dual perspectives, The Collapse follows the how of a zombie outbreak, taking you on a heart-wrenching journey of familial love.

Book Review: Welcome to Opine

Nine billion years into the future, the rogue planet Earth is captured by a blue dwarf star in another galaxy, eventually culminating in the rise of Homo Sapiens 2.0. Imagine a member of the ancient humans had buried deep in the earth a quantum computer containing a vast, digitized compendium of humankind’s history and achievements, all preserved within petabytes of quantum memory. This new human civilization, calling their planet Opine and themselves the Opinions, the first “i” pronounced with a long vowel, were granted the valuable benefit of hindsight. After spending decades studying “Ancient” history, the Opinions endeavored to expunge selfishness from the human genome through a genetic therapy called the Self Suppressor. But what happens when one person develops a natural resistance to the therapy? Would he then represent a threat to the gene pool? Will the Opinions be able to correct this genetic anomaly, or perhaps adapt it, in the interest of regaining a sacrificed part of their humanity? One voice may know the answer. The voice of the man who originally buried the quantum computer billions of years ago…

Book Review: Snail’s Pace

A young woman in 1884 doesn't have many options ... But Susannah did not expect to be tutoring an alien snail child while aboard a ship sailing in space ... Who will get the real education? Orphaned and penniless in Hong Kong in 1884 - what's a young gentlewoman to do? Impulsive, adventurous, and self-confident, Susannah accepts an offer to become the governess to a young foreigner on a ship. She does not expect the ship to be in space, or the foreign child to be an alien who looks like a giant snail. Nevertheless, she throws herself into the job of bringing Victorian decorum to the natives. But when she is accused of spying and put on trial in an alien court, Susannah has to challenge the law of the aliens to save herself - and her young and slimy student.

Book Review: Genesis

In a world ravaged by climate change, social inequality and dwindling natural resources there’s only one solution: abandon the planet and terraform a new home. When Dylan Lomax - an emotionally disconnected empath, running from the memory of his past - joins Operation Genesis, he soon discovers not all is as it seems. The mission to bring life to a barren planet has a terrible secret. One which threatens to bring humanity to the brink of extinction.

Book Review: Email From the Future: Notes from 2084

It’s 2084, and Aldus, an elderly robot repairman, is writing the history of the 21st century for his grandson, Luca. Born in 2010, Aldus lived through it all—the War on the Warming, the repair of the planet, the rise of true artificial intelligence, automation everywhere and much more. “I was but a foot soldier,” Aldus tells his grandson, “but there is value in that perspective.

Aldus also fears his time is short. Unlucky members of his generation sometimes experience long-delayed side effects from childhood infection with the early century virus COVID. Aldus could be among them, and so his writing may have a literal deadline.

Book Review: The Outlands

In the ruins of the world that was lies the city of Dios, a haven protected from the hostile environment known as The Outlands. Ruled by an oppressive Patriarch, the people of Dios are conditioned in fear. The smallest infraction could result in banishment to the Outlands, a fate worse than death. With his make-shift family of “Undesirables”, Jett Lasting struggles to find his place in a world where drawing attention to yourself can get you killed. His very existence is considered a crime. To survive, he must avoid guards, beggar gangs, and an ever-growing tension that could drag the whole city into chaos. Jett unwittingly becomes entwined in a plot to overthrow the government where his choices could lead to freedom or the death of everyone he’s ever known or cared about.

Book Review: Banshee

Welcome to the Enlightened States of America. WARNING! All illegals, outcasts and mutts will be turned away. Any who attempt to illegally cross our border, whether entering or exiting, will be shot on sight. The United States is gone, overthrown by a corporation known only as “the Orange.” Candor is an outcast, surviving on the outskirts of a society that has devolved into corporate tyranny. When an unexplainable entity assassinates all of the high-ranking federal officials, the struggling country is thrown deeper into a fervor of chaos. Candor comes forward to help and during the course of a government interview, he tells his story about his relationship with Banshee, an outcast like himself with some serious rage issues and some seriously strange abilities. While it is clear that Candor loves Banshee it becomes apparent that his love will never be enough to contain her.

Book Review: Spooky Action at a Distance

Lt. Naiche Decker has finally found a place to call home--complete with the father she never knew--on the ship he commands. Now her new home is going on a rescue mission to the farthest reaches of known space to look for a missing scientific expedition. Did the odd phenomena they were researching claim them or are they still lingering out there, just waiting for help to come? This sequel to We Have Met the Enemy continues Lt. Decker's story as well as those who also serve about the Lovelace.

Book Review: We Have Met the Enemy

Naiche Decker, a woman with deep roots in the "old world" (aka around our century) workings such as 21st century medicine, technology, etc., is on a mission to kill as many Eternals as possible, and hopefully put an end to this war. She's already lost her mother and almost her entire military team on the frontlines--now she's given a chance to work with her best friend to go straight to the source and see if they can't discover the beginnings of the Eternal species. The only glitch is that not only is it a highly dangerous mission, but she also has to share the ship with Ricci, a man she's had some sort of tense relationship with since she was a rookie. Will their mission be successful? Or will the web of relationships get in the way?

Book Review: The Earth is My Prison

The novel is divided into 3 parts, each following Tag as he goes on an adventure. The first part is dedicated to his life in the prison where he was born, the second to a kind of virtual family he finds after leaving the prison, and the third is when he ends up going back to the prison for something. Through it all, he is finding out who he is as a person, and what he wants in life.