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book reviews |
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Multi-genre, multi-volume author Gary Henson introduces us to the first volume of five of the Adventures of Jake and Arlo, Arlo and Jake Enlist: Jake's retirement consists of beer, brats, watching beach bunnies pass by his patio deck and trading wisecracks with Arlo, his pet chameleon. OK, so it's a one-sided exchange, Jake doesn't mind. That all changes when they are conscripted into service for the Federation of Thirteen Galaxies. (Twelve actually. They lost one of the Galaxies but it's too expensive to change all the letterhead, so there you go.) Book One, 'Arlo and Jake Enlist', follows the adventures of our dippy duo as they are snapped off the beach and into service as ABSs (Able Bodied Spacemen).  Hilarious story! I laughed hard in many parts of this book. The story is very entertaining. Jake is out of his league in more ways than one. Pretty much every situation Jake finds himself in requires medical attention of one kind or another. For an old submariner, he pulls it together at crunch time. I love science fiction; it's my top, favorite genre, and this story does everything right to keep the pole position. I can't say more without revealing spoilers. Read this book! I award 4.8 stars because I am picky about certain things.  You can buy this book:
https://www.amazon.com/Arlo-Jake-Enlist-adventure-begins-ebook https://www.goodreads.com/-arlo-and-jake-enlist https://www.barnesandnoble.com/arlo-and-jake-gary-alan-henson You can follow the author: https://x.com/garyalanhenson http://garyalanhenson.blogspot.com https://bsky.app/profile/mrgort.bsky.social I have reviewed another book by the author: www.wordrefiner.com/book-reviews/auntie-renitas-galactic-motel Copyright © 2025 Mark L. Schultz except for the author’s introduction.
51 Comments
10/13/2025 01:52:11 pm
Thanks for the cool review!
MarkWelcome aboard
10/13/2025 02:19:02 pm
Welcome aboard, Gary. I am glad to hear that Arlo hasn't lost his talent for scintillating conversation. ;-) 10/13/2025 02:49:13 pm
I'm a retired Software Developer and ex US Navy Nuclear Submarine Machinist Mate.
Mark
10/13/2025 02:58:06 pm
Machinist and software developer. With that skill set, you could have invented 3-D printing. 10/13/2025 04:35:06 pm
SciFi and some Fantasy keep me company when I want something to stimulate my Muse or just relax on the patio with a plate of nachos and a cold brew.
Mark
10/13/2025 04:53:11 pm
Doctor Dogbody sounds like a lot of fun to read. The name alone makes me think of Mark Twain's satire. I am not sure why, though. 10/13/2025 05:14:52 pm
I write for the pure pleasure of it.
Mark
10/13/2025 05:37:52 pm
You are not alone when it comes to midnight visits from the muse. You are smart in keeping a pad to write down the ideas. One author told me that her muse visited nearly every night at 2:30 in the morning and sometimes she could even read her notes when she woke up. Another writer bemoaned how the muse visited when she was in the shower. She couldn't get out of the shower fast enough to avoid losing the ideas. I suggested she get a pad or notebook with waterproof paper and a Fischer Space pen. That pen can write underwater. 10/13/2025 06:02:40 pm
Writing has given me a 'purpose' to get up in the morning and do something. I have other interests of course. Hiking, movies, playing cards with a group of friends every week. Social things that I truly enjoy. But writing gives the same satisfaction that writing software for 40+ years gave me in my career days.
Mark
10/13/2025 07:41:22 pm
You have a great wife! She is quite smart, whether she can identify a reason for a decision or not. My wife is like that also. She knows things without knowing how or why she knows them. I have learned to respect her intuition. I have also learned to respect my intuition. 10/13/2025 07:50:42 pm
I've always enjoyed action packed hard SciFi that has a touch of humor, like Guardians of the Galaxy.
Mark
10/14/2025 10:15:38 am
Guardians of the Galaxy was a lot of fun! I enjoyed the excursion through the musical memories and the cassette player reminded me of one I had long ago. 10/14/2025 02:42:42 pm
Wellll... actually.... maybe! ;-)
Mark
10/14/2025 04:02:54 pm
That's a great story! A weather balloon? That was the number one answer for UFOs from Project Blue Book in the air force in the 1960s. Maybe it was a weather balloon. 10/14/2025 05:36:11 pm
Had to google that term.
Mark
10/14/2025 08:48:57 pm
Naked mole rats are pretty weird looking also! So ugly, something only its mother could love. 10/14/2025 09:27:57 pm
Each book was different, I don't have a set rule.
Mark
10/15/2025 09:04:14 am
Your process sounds similar to some other authors. Many authors are pantsers; they have an idea, frequently generated by "what if--" and start writing. Other authors like to create an outline and go from there. I think most authors are a hybrid of the two styles of writing. I heard about one pantser who plotted each chapter after he wrote it, claiming it was much easier to find passages when he wanted. 10/15/2025 02:18:55 pm
I designed the Arlo and Jake covers with some help from my wife. I wanted to have a common theme across the series. I used an early Navy picture of myself for three of the covers.
Mark
10/15/2025 03:00:56 pm
You and your wife made a good cover. 10/15/2025 03:26:13 pm
Pretty easy, actually.
Mark
10/15/2025 04:12:53 pm
I like the title for the very reasons you mentioned. It is simple, and it lets the reader know this is the start of the story. I am beginning to like multi-word titles. Some genres have a lot of one-word titles, and some of them are trying so hard to stand out. I think the search for a one-word title is becoming increasingly challenging for some authors. Many of the good words are taken. 10/15/2025 08:27:11 pm
Jake Jaspers sort of morphed from several other characters in books I've written. I knew I wanted the 'buddy' character to be 'Arlo' because it sounded cool.
Mark
10/15/2025 08:58:19 pm
Science fiction triumphs again. You can make anything up as long as it makes sense in the story. 10/15/2025 09:13:48 pm
I wrote a couple of short stories for a British compilation of writers a long time ago.
Mark
10/16/2025 09:12:08 am
That's wonderful. Short stories are a good challenge for writers of any level. I have recommended to writers that short story writing contests, especially those that provide feedback from the judges, can help a writer improve their writing skills. I do have a warning, there are a lot of shady contests out there. Some want to extract as much as they can from your wallet, and others want to steal your intellectual property. Here is a copy-and-paste link about those things: Beware Bogus Writing Contests! Look for These 8 Red Flags. https://annerallen.com/2019/05/beware-bogus-writing-contests. You can also use the search box below to find the link. There are other blogs I have links to on my Highly Regarded Blogs page. 10/16/2025 01:06:24 pm
I published several novels before my first short story collection.
Mark
10/16/2025 03:22:03 pm
If a story is interesting with a satisfactory conclusion, the word count is not important to most people. Unless they want to pirate your story for a contest. 10/16/2025 09:27:10 pm
I will occasionally post on my Submarine Facebook sites that I have 10 copes of Arlo and Jake Enlist available for free. All they have to do is send me a message with their email address.
Mark
10/17/2025 09:00:06 am
Knowing your audience is important. Connecting with readers is another matter when they face a constant deluge of published books. I can get lost scrolling through books on Amazon. I feel like the bear standing in a stream watching the salmon swim past, unable to choose one because they all look so good. 10/17/2025 10:55:53 am
I have not done any ghost writing.
Mark
10/17/2025 12:21:53 pm
Most authors are like you, too busy with their own writing to think about writing in another person's voice or style and under their name. A number of blogs have been written about the subject. 10/17/2025 12:52:11 pm
I'm currently writing my first literary fiction story. Not SciFi, adventure, paranormal or fantasy. Just a fictional story based in the Panhandle of Texas where I grew up.
Mark
10/17/2025 03:02:58 pm
Literary fiction is a beast all of its own. People who love that genre appreciate a story with lots of description and thoughtful phrasing. They look for depth in most, if not all, aspects of a story. The balance of description, dialogue and action is different, but the story can still be overwhelmed by unnecessary description of common actions, especially. Laboring on the unusual and particular can bring an author effusive praise in reviews. 10/17/2025 06:04:33 pm
I don't use AI to write my stories, I think it's a cowardly thing to do. No different than ghost writing without acknowledging that you've got someone else doing some or all of your story.
Mark
10/17/2025 06:47:48 pm
Artificial intelligence has been a rich vein of ore for science fiction writers for decades. In the 1930s, H. G. Wells wrote about a world brain even though computers did not exist. We might finally have arrived at the cusp of his vision. 10/18/2025 11:55:41 am
Ages ago, after I published my first book 'Genome', I received a terrible review. It went on and on about how impossible my concepts were and how 'playing God' was despicable.
Mark
10/18/2025 12:56:30 pm
That first bad review is very unsettling for authors. You handled it quite well. At least the person read your book. Many times, a troll won't bother to read the book, and that is obvious to others. I used to tell authors that a bad review among good reviews is a positive thing. It proves that those good reviews are probably genuine and not their mom and her bridge club. Amazon took action years ago to curb the proliferation of trolls and the review farms be requiring that a person has to have spent a minimum of $50.00 before they can leave a review. I haven't heard of many trolls in quite sometime. 10/18/2025 02:40:17 pm
I was a 'Maintenance Engineer' at the original Crossroads Mall in Boulder, CO.
Mark
10/18/2025 03:08:14 pm
Maintenance Engineer is a pretty fancy title. 10/18/2025 06:42:08 pm
No public speaking in the past, present, or future! ;-)
Mark
10/18/2025 07:26:53 pm
You are not alone in that. So many authors struggle with the same issue. I did too for much of my early life. I learned a big secret about public speaking when I took a Dale Carnegie class in Effective Public Speaking. That class helped me cope with my stammering problem, also. 10/19/2025 10:08:55 am
Yes, early on, years ago.
Mark
10/19/2025 10:45:08 am
There are many different writing contests and some are legit and some are not. I am sorry to hear that you got burned a time or two. If all they took was your money, then count yourself lucky. Some of the worst also steal your intellectual property. 10/19/2025 11:26:40 am
One of my nieces wrote a romance mystery years ago. My daughter is also a writer. She has several books either pub'd or WIP. She writes in the dystopian and mystical realism genres. Most of the time I have no idea what her stories are about, but I know that others enjoy them. ;-)
Mark
10/19/2025 02:02:18 pm
How nice to know that literary genes are being passed down in your family. Your mother's book is quite a treasure to pass down to your kids. 10/20/2025 05:39:55 pm
There was one fellow Nuclear Submariner several years back that bought my 'Arlo and Jake' series and enjoyed it enough write me and say that he was motivated to write his own stories. I had told him that if I could do it, then anyone can do it.
Mark
10/20/2025 06:00:00 pm
It's a great feeling when you can help a friend achieve a goal. I was in construction for 20 years as a sheet metal worker and started as an apprentice. I learned so much from the journeymen who started before me. I enjoyed sharing my knowledge with apprentices also. 10/20/2025 07:16:19 pm
I decided to try it to jump start some sales, I'd hoped.
Mark
10/20/2025 07:24:26 pm
From what I have heard from other authors, single books don't fare well on Kindle Unlimited. But multiple books or series do much better. When a reader finds an author they like they want to read all of the author's books. 10/21/2025 04:38:14 pm
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Who am I?An avid reader, typobuster, and the Hyper-Speller. I am a husband, father, and grandfather. Archives
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