Epic Beards of Review: Seven Forges

I'm not sure what's just happened to me.

It's as if I"m just a lonely reviewer on Law & Order: Criminal Intent: Writer's Edition, and I've been quietly stabbed in the back by a would-be assassin.  I'm coughing up blood and my hands are slippery with the warm stuff as they struggle behind me, futilely grasping for the weapon.  Of all the back-handed, double-cross things to've done to a guy.

If I make it out of this alive, I'll gladly offer to be slapped around with the fiction of James A. Moore again.
Seven Forges isn't due out until September 24, but I'm already champing at the bit for the sequel.

What starts out as a seemingly routine trek across the wilderness wasteland of the north turns bleak right quick. What had been plodding for months through the ice and dust of a blasted cataclysmic landscape leads to an attack from mutated hyenas and a save from a barbarian as big as a house.

Oh, and there's a wizard behind all this madness.

Seven Forges is high fantasy like I've never seen--nary and elf, dwarf or dragon to be seen--but makes up for it with that pesky wizard and his harem, a mysterious race and a city hidden in the mountains.  After one character loses the use of his hands one of this mysterious race says something akin to 'Here, put your stumps in this magic box and "presto-change-o" you've got metal hands!'

Weird, yes.  But there's something about the function of this plot point that sings with the essence of the believable.  Moore gives us magic, swordplay and a fine mix of diplomacy that's perfectly well-rounded and doesn't bog the story down.

Seven Forges by James A. Moore is due out in paperback September 24 from Angry Robot Books.

Epic Beards of Review: Time Warp #1 (One Shot) and more!

So, I've been told I should update my blog more often.  Here are a few reasons why:

• Fellow bloggers over at Charlie the Cavalier and The Epoch Life have been wondering where the new stuff is.  Point taken.  I've been traveling abroad in Germany as well as teaching Upward Bound and still holding down the managerial duties here at the coffee shop.  Not to mention some top-secret Traveling Tales projects coming up, there's reasons, but they're more like excuses.

• I was awarded "Blog of the Week" over at NEPA Blogs the week of July 16.  My brother was quick to point out that I really couldn't be awarded with such awesome because I hadn't updated my blog in over two months, and therfore the point was moot.  Lisa over at "Charlie" was kind enough to mention that they film their segments months in advance.  Brother feud is a tie, but he can't even grow a beard.

• I wrote a pretty fun review of Time Warp #1 over at my new friends at Strip Tease.  Not nearly as scathing as it sounds, but a nice review site for comics.  Here's my review.

• I've also been given tons of free books from my friends over at Angry Robot Books!  I've finished sf/spy thriller The Lives of Tao by Wesley Chu, detective novel Cambodian Book of the Dead by Tom Vater and am barreling through the fantasy Seven Forges by James A. Moore.  All SOLID selections, but I've gotten to where I don't expect anything less from them!

 Other than that, there's plenty going on here at the Beard, so don't fret, beardlets!  More to come soon!

A dark day is dawning

Many people would have you think the end of the world is right around the corner, and I can’t say I blame them: Spring is taking too long to get here. As a big fan of post-apocalyptic literature myself, it can sometimes be hard for an author to excite me to the point of gushing. Not this novel.

The aptly described “ecological horror” that is Joseph D’Lacey’s Black Feathers shows us what such a future might look like. Being that it’s only the first volume, there’s more to come.

Gordon Black is born in a snowstorm in mid-October, oddly enough, but it’s the birds and the black feathers that really throw the creep-factor up a notch or three. At this point, Earth is already in the throes of ecological calamity. In the years that follow, Gordon Black and family are hoarding and stockpiling ahead of the imminent crisis.

In the midst of society’s downfall, there comes an uprising of a new world order bent on the subjugation of the Earth and her people. The Ward act as police, military and corporations. They’re on the lookout for a curious being known as The Crowman, one who is said to bring ultimate destruction upon the Earth.

Skewed in every couple of chapters or so is the story of a girl named Megan. Megan is about the age that Gordon was when the Earth was in major upheaval, yet her tale is told plenty of time in the future. The land seems to be somewhat healed at this point, though mystery abounds as to who Megan is and to what her future is. It may just depend on the past. She gets to know a man named Mr. Keeper, her journey as a hero of sorts begins.

I can’t say enough about how chillingly haunting this book was. The end of the world has never been more heartfelt and confusing for our characters. Each step along their respective journeys pulls them farther apart from who they are, but like any good tale, molds them into the people they are to become. 

Black Feathers: The Black Dawn volume 1 by Joseph D’Lacey from Angry Robot Books landed in stores March 26.

This review originally appeared in The Lock Haven Express on 03/28/13.

A love story, from a different point of view.

In all the post-apocalyptic literature I’ve read in the last few years, Cassandra Rose Clarke’s The Mad Scientist’s Daughter has felt the most like home. On a planet that is inundated with people, summers are scorching, winters are wickedly unpredictable and springtime lasts all but two weeks. Sounds a little familiar as of late, no?

Caterina Novak is the namesake daughter of this love story which starts out innocently enough. Raised as an only child, Caterina spends her days tromping around the woods learning through experience. When they feel it is time for their daughter to be taught in a more formalized capacity, they do what any parent in a science fiction story would do: get a robot to teach her.

As she grows up, this artificial intelligence becomes more a friend than tutor. Yet as life progresses, Caterina’s budding sexuality does as well, and with it an unhealthy interesting in the one that is not programmed to teach her of the birds and the bees. It isn’t until she kissed him (the robot, as he is referred to throughout Daughter) she accidentally (literally) turns him off.

What follows as Caterina matures into adulthood is a lonely sexual journey. A cold, empty woman emerges through romance and an on-again/off-again affair with the robot. She runs her own scientific experiments as the artificial intelligence of the robot learns to live his life through more feeling.

Digging deeper into the novel, the reality of robot emancipation mirrors a seriousness akin to real-life issues of immigration reform, race relations and even same-sex marriage. The inherent subtleties only exacerbate the problems at hand, giving them much stronger legs on which to stand.

The style and substance of Clarke’s world-building catapults this story above and beyond my hopes for it. The Mad Scientist’s Daughter is a deep, dark tale of passion that fills the emptiness with the same lies and rationalities we tell ourselves to make us feel better about the choices we make. I was hoping for some sort of robotic craziness when all I needed was a little love of my own.

Books with Your Barista featured in the Lock Haven Express, 02/14/13.

An "Empire State" of Mind

I'm not one to primp my own beard, but I can scarcely believe I made it this far into Monday without mentioning the sheer awesome that slapped me upside the head Friday evening.

Still new to this whole blog thing, I finally figured how to track just where my hits were coming from.  Turns out my REVIEW of Adam Christopher's Seven Wonders is up on his site!

So, not only did this make my weekend, but he's also got a sequel to Empire State coming out in March called The Age Atomic.  Just like in my review Empire State of Mind, Eagle Eye 04/26/12, you can't judge a book by its cover, but boy-howdy did they do a bang-up job.  Reminds me a lot of Metropolis, Sky Captain or The Day the Earth Stood Still.

Hunting things that hunt you in the night...

Future vampires, sexy vampires, teen angst vampires. 

Now there’s even Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter.

The market these days is dripping in vampiric and supernatural literature. And while I’m never one to shirk the ghosts and goblins, especially around Halloween, I don’t really know the nitty gritty about most things that go bump in the night.

Not to worry.  Lee Collins’ debut novel The Dead of Winter takes care of that for us.

This dark fantasy novel set in the wild west follows the adventures of a team of “monster hunters.” What makes this band of heroes unique is the husband-and-wife team of Cora and Ben Oglesby. She’s a boozin’, gamblin’ lady with a hair-trigger temper. Ben does the book learnin’ and doesn’t talk much.

The story opens in the mining town of Leadville, Colorado, that has a problem with a pesky creature called a wendigo. After a few harrowing encounters, Cora regroups to her priest confidant in Denver to get the skinny of the baddie. In short order, she returns to dispose of the beastie and collect the bounty.

I can’t gush quite enough as to how well this book holds up. The vampires and gunslinging are all well and good, but where the light really breaks through the clouds is the attention to character detail. Collins subtly weaves backstory with plotlines and introduces characters whom are ripe for exploration in further installments.

This is another offering of Angry Robot Books who even as a smaller publisher of fantasy and science fiction excel at their craft. I’ve had the opportunity to read half a dozen titles, and they only get better.

The Dead of Winter is scheduled for an October 30 release.  Just in time to scare the socks off you.

http://angryrobotbooks.com/books/the-dead-of-winter-by-lee-collins/

BUY IT HERE!

(Originally published in The Lock Haven Express as Books with your Barista, 10/25/12)

Counting more than seven wonders

Books With Your Barista

Jared A. Conti

Counting more than seven wonders

  

I may never get to be the superhero I long to in my own mind: the sting of bullets bouncing off my torso, the rising temperature behind my eyes before heat vision kicks in, losing my breath running at mach speeds, or my absolute favorite, just seeing what this great city looks like from above, under the powers of flight.

No longer. Adam Christopher has taken care of that for me.

Christopher’s first outing turned detective noir fiction on its ear, bending and breaking where he saw fit with alternate realities gone awry in Empire State, a tough mystery at best. His second novel Seven Wonders, however, plays superheroes straight, and it reads like any good comic should.

From the get-go, we’re thrown into the action—our “hero” is just beginning to realize the extent of his newly-begotten powers and foiling (with little grace) San Ventura’s one and only remaining villain. Seven Wonders throws a new spin on the arch-nemesis, and I use hero loosely, because face it: sometimes learning how to use your newfound skill set is just as important as what you do with it.

A wildly imaginative cast is introduced in the super team, police force and the villain that for some reason they can’t seem to put down. At one point during the novel’s climax, Christopher spends a page or two listing off a roster of ancillary characters whom not only sound impressive in name, but even more fun comes from deciphering what their powers might be according to their codenames.

Seven Wonders keeps you guessing until the very end, as twists and turns abound amid the action. The story jumps out of comic panels with more excitement better than the latest issue of your favorite hero…or summer blockbuster.

Seven Wonders by Adam Christopher landed in stores August 28.

http://angryrobotbooks.com/our-authors/adam-christopher/seven-wonders-adam-christopher/ 

Click Here to Buy!

Jared A. Conti is a local writer, blogger and Lock Haven University graduate who spends his work time as a barista at Avenue 209 Coffee House. He would love to hear your suggestions on great books, movies or comics to review. He can be reached at jaredaconti@gmail.com.