I’ve finally taken the plunge and it has only taken my first two stories being published in e-format to do it. I now have an e-reader. It’s a step I’ve wanted to take for a while; I really wanted an iPad, but finances simply don’t allow it. However, I can’t complain about the e-reader I’ve got (we’ll see how I feel after I’ve had it a few months). There have been several hints that I should get an e-reader. Over the past couple years I’ve received a number of books to review/critique in e-format. The problem with this is most of my reading is done away from my computer. So how do I read them? My iPod touch will act […]
Read moreCategory: Books
This section contains new books and reviews of books I’ve read.
Book Review: Evolve, Vampire Stories of the New Undead
Evolve is a different kind of book for me; I usually don’t read either anthologies or vampire fiction. I’m more of a novel reader and while I enjoy vampire fiction the recent trends in that genre haven’t really struck a chord with me. Still, I think I was fated to read this book. When I first opened it to a random page, the story was taking place in Calgary where I live. That doesn’t happen every day so I picked up the book. I read it cover to cover over the course of a week during my daily commute. Evolve has a nice assortment of 24 short stories from a wide-range of authors including Kelly Armstrong and Tanya Huff as […]
Read moreDon’t Be Afraid of Small Steps
For those of you who are hoping/expecting to write something and become overnight sensations, let me be the first to tell you… well, keep dreaming comes immediately to mind. Honestly, I’m not trying to crush your aspirations. It’s just that overnight success usually takes a LOT of work in advance. You might argue that people like JK Rowling, Christopher Paolini and the like were instant successes. To that I would suggest you dig into their publishing journey a little deeper. In both cases (and in dozens more) a lot of rejection and self-sacrifice happened before they hit the big time. The fact that they actually did have such astonishing success is a factor of luck as much as talent (some […]
Read moreBook Review: Imago Book 3 – A Warrior’s Tale
A Warrior’s Tale tells the story of Nayla Treeborn, a half-elf, half-human warrior and her struggles to live in a world that is intolerant of a half-breed. The novel, while the third in the series, is actually a prequel to the first book. It starts and ends at essentially the same point with the meat of the novel consisting of one long flashback. It sounds odd, but it works after the first jolt into the past. The author avoids the bouncing back and forth by writing one continuous flashback at the very start of the story when the protagonist begins to relive the past. Everything else flows back to that very moment of introspection. This story is unique in a […]
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