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book reviews |
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Debut author and air force veteran, Gaylan Wright, introduces us to his memoir, “Slave to the Dream: Forever in Pursuit”: Just because you grow up and do bad things, doesn’t mean you were brought up that way. This book will appeal to readers who are interested in a story about overcoming desperation, achieving personal transformation and the wisdom gained from a life of trials and triumphs.  I enjoyed this memoir quite a bit. It was entertaining and there were a lot of stories from his time in the air force. That resonated with me because my dad was an air force reservist and I was in the Oregon Air Guard also. The author’s years as a child were pretty rough and tumble having 11 siblings. There are many lessons to be learned in his story. I appreciated the author’s candid confession that he made a lot of mistakes, we all do. He demonstrated growth as he sought to improve himself as a human being and a man. I award “Slave to the Dream” a score of 3.3 stars.  You can buy this book:
https://smile.amazon.com/Slave-to-the-Dream-Gaylan-D-Wright https://www.goodreads.com/-slave-to-the-dream https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/slave-to-the-dream-gaylan-d-wright You can follow the author: https://twitter.com/votewright4wyo https://www.facebook.com/votewright4wyo https://www.linkedin.com/in/gaylan-wright-sr Tags: memoir, action, romance, military, air force, drugs, sex Copyright © 2019 Mark L. Schultz except for the author’s introduction
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Multi-genre, multi-volume author, Maggie Plummer introduces us to her wonderful story about living like a hippie in the 70s, “Bell-Bottom Gypsy: A Jessie Morgan Novel”: A wild 1970s ride – an adventurous coming of age journey along America’s back roads. At twenty, Jessie Morgan is fed up with just about everything. It’s September 1971 -- time to drop out, tune in, and turn on. She leaves college and Detroit in the rearview mirror, hitting the road in her 1965 yellow Volkswagen convertible. Wandering byways from Kentucky to Key West to Montana, Jessie is out to experience everything. She didn't count on meeting a man like Twisty. WARNING: BELL-BOTTOM GYPSY is New Adult Fiction recommended for mature readers due to 1970s-era sex, drugs, and cussing.  This story is a lot of fun. I really enjoyed it. I graduated from high school in 1971. Growing up on a small farm in a small town, I didn’t do anything wild. I moved to San Francisco shortly after. I met a lot of hippies and other counterculture types. This story rings with a great deal of truth on many levels. Many young people were abandoning the traditions of their families in various ways and were looking for something to anchor their life to. The scene-setting is marvelous, I could see everything in my mind, the dialogue was quite good also. Action left nothing to be desired. The writing is excellent! This book gives a great snapshot of the journey, one young woman travels, in an interesting period of American history. I award a score of 4.9 stars to “Bell-Bottom Gypsy”.  You can buy this book:
https://smile.amazon.com/bell-bottom-gypsy-by-maggie-plummer https://www.goodreads.com/-bell-bottom-gypsy https://www.amazon.co.uk/Bell-Bottom-Gypsy-Jessie-Morgan-Novel-ebook You can follow the author: https://twitter.com/authormaggiep https://maggieplummerauthor.weebly.com https://www.facebook.com/authormaggieplummer Tags: coming of age, women’s adventure, women’s action, fishing, traveling, rock and roll, drugs, alcohol Copyright © 2019 Mark L. Schultz except for the author’s introduction Debut author, ileso DMC introduces us to his exciting, YA novel about the afterlife, “The Request for Lambency”: The entire world, set in the near future, has changed since the discovery of these ‘requests.’ New businesses and services are created to capture this significant moment after death. All religions are forced to translate what this peaceful, yet unusual occurrence means with the consensus being that their supreme being is allowing one sentimental object to be taken into their afterlife. Social media erupts with new apps to track these request videos as the global public has an addiction to them. Powa is a teenager who partially uploads a request video that creates a social media frenzy. She successfully leaves summer school to escape her pursuers who happen to be an aggressive corporation that is grossly invested in the well-being of the human body. To make matters worse, a government agency whose assignment is to authenticate all request videos, services, and businesses is demanding to view that video in its entirety. Unable to determine friend from foe, she confides in an unacquainted classmate who convinces her to take a journey from her hometown to San Diego’s Comic-Con as they pick up his slightly unusual friends along the way. Along the way, they learn of other cruel measures companies are willing to invest in having their device be the object of ‘the request.’ They soon discovered that to be more difficult than they had anticipated. Only one corporation was the exception to this rule. They believe the final piece to the puzzle lies with Powa even though she is convinced other celestial forces are at play.  I find I really enjoy stories that include some aspect of spirituality, regardless of the genre, and this story does not disappoint me. It blends an earthly perspective of spirituality and science fiction in a pleasing manner. I am committed to no spoilers, but I will say this, some of the action gets very exciting! The dialog of teens and young adults was a lot of fun, the characters were very believable, I laughed out loud many times. Most of the scene-setting was tight, almost too tight at times. A little more description would have improved the movie in my mind. The plot was woven skillfully with plenty left to carry into the next book. I enjoyed this story so much; I award a score of 4.2 stars to “The Request for Lambency”.  You can buy this book:
https://smile.amazon.com/Request-Lambency-ileso-DMC-ebook https://www.goodreads.com/-the-request-for-lambency https://www.amazon.co.uk/Request-Lambency-ileso-DMC-ebook You can follow the author: https://www.ilesodmc.com https://twitter.com/DmcIleso https://facebook.com/IlesoDMC https://www.instagram.com/ileso_dmc Tags: conspiracy, science fiction, teens, comic con, Copyright © 2019 Mark L. Schultz except for the author’s introduction Debut author Paul A. Sheppard introduces us to his gritty, fantasy adventure “The Wolf We Feed”: "Set in Amleth, a rugged land divided by decades of bitter strife with a landscape and belief system heavily influenced by my time in Scandinavia. The Wolf We Feed is an action-packed fantasy adventure." Tirith's life is turned upside-down when Drake, her twin brother, abandons her after they were raised and trained in isolation. Unable to live under the perceived tyranny of their grandfather, Drake sets off into the world looking forward to an adventure. Arriving in the dystopian city of Náströnd, Drake finds a new mentor and becomes involved in a bloody coup to eliminate the city's ruling class. Amid plots and counterplots, conflict and betrayal a determined but uncertain young woman undertakes a treacherous journey to meet her father for the first time, overcomes racial bias in a foreign land, and learns the truth about her family's sinister past. What she discovers leaves her with no choice but to find her brother and attempt to save him from the violent life he has chosen. But does he want to be saved? THE WOLF WE FEED, a coming-of-age story about two siblings that face hard truths about where their loyalties lie...  I was ready for a good fantasy story, elves, dwarves, perhaps a dragon and a prince without a kingdom. That is not what I found after reading a few pages in this book. The story starts in the middle of a skills trial that would cause any modern-day, special forces member spend some time in planning, which is what the brother and sister team did to defeat their expert teacher. This story explores so many powerful themes and brings them all to life quite credibly, faithfulness and treachery, family and enemies, acceptance and prejudice among others. I found the writing to be exemplary; the characters really come to life and are filled with plots and schemes. The scene-setting is well done in every environment, the dialogue gave me many chuckles. This story was so much fun, I hope there is going to be more. I award 4.8 stars to “The Wolf We Feed”.  You can buy this book:
https://smile.amazon.com/Wolf-We-Feed-P-Sheppard-ebook https://www.goodreads.com/-the-wolf-we-feed You can follow the author: https://twitter.com/writingnomad999 http://www.paulsheppardwrites.com/ https://www.instagram.com/thewritingnomad999 Tags: action, adventure, war, mountains, desert, swords, bow and arrow, weapons, spies, politics, Copyright © 2019 Mark L. Schultz except for the author’s introduction Multi-volume author, Lawrence Oliver, introduces us to his debut novel, “The Last Marines”: Having been replaced by robots and drones, veterans Ben Corbin and Sam Garrett go into business for themselves towing derelict vessels and space junk out of the shipping lanes around Mars. Business was good, but a couple of malfunctioning service robots forced them to return to Earth for replacements. Aliens attacked the freighter they’d booked passage on, slaughtering and feeding on the crew and passengers. Only Corbin and Garrett managed to hold their own until they could hide in stasis pods. 200 years later Earth and her colonies, governed by the Commonwealth of Nations, are at war with a race of aliens known as the Nineteenth. Not with the Gar Rei Jhi who had attacked Corbin and Garrett so many years past. That war had been fought and humans lost. The Nineteenth is a new alien threat whose origins and motives are unknown. What information humans have on this new enemy comes from the uneasy alliance with the Gar Rei Jhi who’ve been fighting an even longer war with the Nineteenth. Though long ago, Corbin and Garrett’s history with the Gar Rei Jhi hasn’t been forgotten. They are to be ambassadors serving at the pleasure of the same aliens that attacked them. Thrust into a new age of engineered soldiers, interplanetary politics, and self-aware robots, Corbin has to quickly decide who he’s going to trust as he journeys back to the Mars colony. But his search for truth may come at the cost of his life, and the fate of the Commonwealth may rest on his decision.  I didn’t know robots could be so sassy and sarcastic. Some of them are downright funny. Scary robots? No, it’s some of the aliens that are scary. Reading this book was a great pleasure! Sci-fi is my number one favorite genre. The author is not new to writing and his skill shows in this book. He catches the angst of a guy who is 200 years out of his era so effectively. The people around him are quite ably represented also. His characters really seem to be alive. I love the plotting; the pace is perfect and very exciting. The dialogue is very funny at times, and solemn when appropriate. I award a score of 4.8 stars to “The Last Marines”! I really hope the author writes more in this series, prequel and sequel. This is easy to picture as a trilogy and maybe more.  You can buy this book:
https://www.amazon.com/LAST-MARINES-Lawrence-N-Oliver-ebook https://www.goodreads.com/book/-the-last-marines https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-wolf-we-feed-s-a-sheppard You can follow the author: https://twitter.com/Ollie3104 https://www.lawrencenoliver.com https://www.facebook.com/LawrenceNOliver Copyright © 2019 Mark L. Schultz except for the author’s introduction |
Who am I?An avid reader, typobuster, and the Hyper-Speller. I am a husband, father, and grandfather. Archives
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