Category Archives: Small Press Book Reviews

Ice Magic, Fire Magic (Hadley Rille) by Shauna Roberts  Ice Magic, Fire Magic sucked me right in with a unique magical system, and kept surprising me with reversals and twists. Some of it was predictable, but even then the manner … Continue reading →

Decision Points(WordFire Press) Edited by Bryan Thomas Schmidt I’m always a fan of stories that ask, “How would people handle having this new technology, this magical power, this situation? Decision Points asks all of those questions. And it has characters … Continue reading →

The Shiva Syndrome by Alan Joshua (Burst Books) If you think of this book as the literary equivalent of a first-person shooter game you’d be close. Not that that’s necessarily a bad thing. (Add a star if you’re a fan … Continue reading →

Temporally Out of Order  Edited by Joshua Palmatier & Patricia Bray (Zombies Need Brains LLC) This is a themed short story collection about Time travel, but it’s all inadvertent time travel. That makes this collection unique, in my opinion. As … Continue reading →

Three Great Lies by Vanessa MacLellan (Hadley Rille) I cannot tell you how much I enjoyed Three Great Lies by Vanessa MacLellan . It felt like a visit to a real place–a real, vibrant culture–with real people that I won’t … Continue reading →

After the Ruin by Harriet Goodchild (Hadley Rille) After the Ruin is a retelling of the classic boy-meets-girl story. The background for this particular romance is the high fantasy kingdom of Felluria where the immortal (beautiful/tragic) Marwy Ninek rules. Her … Continue reading →

Ghosts of Forgotten Empires Vol 1 by Michael J Foy (Telemachus Press). Right off the bat, the prelude says the millennially ancient warbot that lost power may not have made it to its destination but “other planet-killers made it.” Then … Continue reading →

The Black Trillium by Simon McNeil (Brain Lag) Imagine a post apocalyptic world where swashbuckling meets a good Kung Fu movie meets I Am Legend, in Canada. I hesitate to call this book Sword and Sorcery since the “magic” is … Continue reading →

Recoil by Bonnie Brunish   There is simply not enough far-future science fiction being written, and this novel, first in a series, is a new addition to the subgenre of what may happen to the future human race if we … Continue reading →

Jews Vs. Aliens edited by Lavie Tidhar and Rebecca Levene  (Jurassic London) Jews vs Aliens is a charity anthology supporting Mosac (Greenwich, South London), which provides practical and emotional support to non-abusing parents, carers and families of children who have … Continue reading →