Seventy by Liana Brooks - review

Seventy
Liana Brooks
SciFi
e-book

*****  five out of six stars

Cover - just .... cool.  I love covers like this, that have a planet, stars, space....love it

This was one of my Kindle reads.  I was happy to find a SciFi by a woman e-book to download.  This is a short story, or novella, but there was quite a bit packed in.

sooo - a bit of background - Humans have been terraforming and colonizing other planets for quite a while. They've got one planet in the works.  Unfortunately, aliens have attacked one of their planets, one they've been living on, and they're given the order to travel to the newly terraformed planet even though things aren't quite ready.  But they're in danger of annihilation if they delay any longer.

Jeff is one of the leaders of this expedition, and they take off for Dauphin despite some of the  colonists' reservations.  Unfortunately there's a problem.  The new planet isn't quite stable and things get very bad very fast...they have to make a decision - take off and live in the terraforming pods - or try to stay on the planet even though they most likely will die there.

The pods can get back out to space, but they don't have enough fuel to travel anywhere.  And they don't have enough food or supplies....But no problem.  Another ship is due to come in 70 days...

I liked this story - even though the ending is kind left up in there, you can judge for yourself how things are going.  One of the scientists at the beginning is so strident and abrasive, hostile even - that it seems that Jeff has an enemy.  But no - she and Jeff end up coming to terms...

The few things that I didn't really like was this female's portrayal and some of the dialogue felt... off.  It just seemed over the top - she's so angry.  It just doesn't match with someone who is supposed to be a scientist who works on potentially dangerous missions like terraforming planets, making sure they're stable etc.  Some of the dialogue was great, but then some of it seemed off to me - such as the way this scientist would yell at Jeff.  

But the story as a whole is pretty cool, making you think about what if?  What if you end up on a planet with no way to communicate, no answers when you try and end up having to make a decision on whether to live out in orbit in pods that were never meant to be permanent houses in orbit?

I looked for other SciFi from Brooks, but didn't see much else that was quite this SciFi - but then I didn't look that hard either. What I found were some work by her that seemed to have a higher concentration of romance to SciFi, and I'm not  that crazy about a Romance/Scifi mix that would be like say...(just to pull a number out of my ass, lol) 70:30 mix of romance:Scifi.  I enjoyed this novel, and one day (when I have more disposable income) I will search out some more from her.

The Drorgan Slayer's Choice by Tahlia Newland

The Drorgon Slayer's Choice

e-book - short story fantasy

Tahlia Newland

I just finished reading an entertaining short story written by Tahlia Newland. Right now it's available on Smashwords as well as Amazon.

Julia is on her break from work, hoping to get some coffee when she bumps her head after a fall. After dusting herself off, she sits down and notices that everything is brighter, she can see and hear better....and oops! Suddenly she's seeing some disturbing things. Like a giant octopus and people fighting this thing. Only no one else seems to notice.

What follows is an entertaining beginning of a romance. Julia follows the fighters to a new location and gets noticed by one of them- a handsome one. The rest is kind of a sweet beginning to a romance. And even though I'm not really into the romance formulaic style of writing, I enjoyed this, because it wasn't too heavy handed with all the romance buzzwords about how hot people are. I found Ms Newland's style of writing easy to read, and the dialog (which can be a deal breaker for me) was fitting. Of course, this being a short story - things move a bit fast, and there's an interesting fantasy twist to the heaven and hell (differing planets).

For the price of a candy bar, you can read this short story yourself, and it's less calories than candy. LOL. Give it a try - Tahlia Newland has a fine writing style and can sure write an entertaining read.

Dirty Little Angels - review

Dirty Little Angels
****

Chris Tusa
(published March 2009)


I received this book from The Library Thing as an early reviewer book. The edition I was given is an e-Book. Because it's an e-book, it did take me quite a while to read this book. I don't do well reading books at my desktop, and I don't have an e-reader ( or what ever they're called) I'm a pretty Low-Tech gal. Anyway, I decided tonight to buckle down and finish reading this book that the author was kind enough to send me.

Dirty Little Angels is about a family that is falling apart. The father has lost his job, the mother has been on leave from her job as an R.N. for quite awhile and suffers from a back injury, depression and a long ago miscarraige. Hailey (the narrator) and her brother Cyrus are suffering from a lack of attention from their parents, who are emotionally unavailable to their children and themselves. There isn't a lot to like about very many of the characters in this book. Thankfully, Hailey has moments of kindness that shine through some of her twisted actions. She has been praying to God to help her family, but things are just getting worse instead of better. The one constant that she seems to have is Verma, an older friend of the family.

Hailey's brother Cyrus and Hailey become involved with an odd, twisted "holy" roller type of minister who is filthy-grimy and has a twisted sense of justice. Hailey is also becoming involved with her friend, Meridian's boyfriend. Meridian doesn't seem like a very nice friend throughout the novel, neither is Chase - Meridian's boyfriend and Hailey's lust interest. Hailey doesn't seem to have much support from anyone but Verma and her brother Cyrus, who is having a hard time himself making decisions and mistakes.

Hailey and Cyrus become involved in something that changes their lives, as well as affecting other lives. Anymore information on this would be a spoiler. Bad things happen to both of them, as well as to Verma - the incidents aren't connected. Other than they are just more horrible things happening to those in Hailey's family and around her in a long line of horrible happenings. Just like in real life, no one in this novel (set in the slums of New Orleans) seems to get a break.

Even though I didn't really care for any of the characters, I did enjoy reading the novel. I didn't care for the characters, because they weren't people that I would have wanted in my life, although they are like some of the people that I've come across. While I couldn't really agree with Hailey's choices I could empathize with why she made some of the choices that she did. She lacks attention, her mother seems to care only for her own self, her father is distant though he does care for his kids. Hailey ends of seeking attention, the worst kind of attention from the wrong people. She ends up paying a price for this. Both Hailey and her brother end up doing some rather horrible things to others. Hailey does a horrible thing to herself.

It was nice, though to see some kindness coming from Hailey to an unexpected person. She befriends an older man dying of cancer in the hospital, the husband of a friend of her father's. There's more to that story, but it's spoilers also. She visits and cares for Verma, who goes in and out of the hospital with complications from diabetes.

This book had some grittyness and at first it seems a little depressing. There isn't much value in life shown by the characters, but in the end there is a ray of hope shining through, even though there is quite a shocking ending.