It’s probably important for anybody relying on my reviews to know a little more about how my subjectivity comes into play. Since Kindle Unlimited came on-line and made it easy to track, I have read no less than 400 books per year, and I have maxed out at just over 600 books the year I was in home health due to a near-fatal gunshot wound. I rarely rate a book above 3 on the 5-star scale. You, as an author, start at a 3 just to recognize the work you put into your book for my entertainment. You rapidly lose points for poor editing, though you can make some of that up with the story. I take into account primarily these things:
- The Story – is it a good story? Does it make sense, is it new or a fresh take on an old tale. Is it engaging, with characters that draw on your emotions as you read? Does it really make you LOL or cry – I don’t care what emotion, I just want it to draw me in so well that the emotion takes by by surprise. If you keep making me break the story immersion by having to reference a map, an appendix, a language or character reference you’re doing it wrong. If the character sheets in a GameLIT/RPG story are optional to telling the story and can be skipped if I don’t want to look through them, then you have done it right because the story should always be the focus and not the stat pages.
- The Editing – Is the editing good enough that I am not dropped out of the experience by spelling or grammar errors. If there are accents written into the text are they natural, consistent, and ADD to the character and the telling of the story. Odd words for alien/magical/new/unique things should not make me stop and try and sound them out and pronounce them – that’s detracting. These things don’t have to be super complex to be recognized that they are different.
Other factors may impact my opinion, the two items above are just my primary movers. So with the quantity of material that I read, I find myself very selective about what books I spend time writing a review on. Really excellent books will get a review on Amazon in addition to the star rating. Things I think belong in the list of items I recommend to others will get a review on this site. So don’t expect to see hundreds of reviews here every year. Usually, I find only a few books each year deserving of the extra time it takes to post here.
- The Day I Became a God (Anime) *****
Ok, so it’s not a book. I don’t care, it’s an excellent story, but only after the reveal. I generally like anime because the Asian culture isn’t afraid to tell a dark story. So much of the western movie scene has to have a happy ending. Anyway, you have to stay with it, or you won’t get why this anime deserves the 5 stars. Before the reveal, it’s only interesting, and I only kept watching it to see where it was going to go. It kept dropping hints that there was something deeper going on. Then it started showing more than hints, but that wasn’t the trick and isn’t what pulled the story together. The art and animation are fine, some of the episodes are quirky. The reveal is excellently done and what really sets the grade of the story, because it’s only in retrospect that you can actually appreciate what’s going on and why.
You can find this show on Funimation, and I think you can see it for free.
- Fledgling God (series) by Michael Taggart *****
I average more than a book a day, and occasionally I find myself looking for something outside my box. Well on 2020-11-30 I went crazy and just selected a book completely based off of the tile and cover art. I got something outside of my norm and also an awesome story that I readily finished and then grabbed the sequal for bedtime reading.
Now since this is a post on a new site you don’t know much about me and wouldn’t know that I am generally not into romance novels, and don’t appreciate explicit sex in my books. So when I started this book and found out that it was a gay urban fantasy romance, you probobaly would have expected me to stop reading and put it down – and that would be a mistake!
I’m hetro and the gay piece doesn’t appeal to me – however, unlike some hetro romances I didn’t find it to be overbearing or especially detracting from the story. This isn’t an erotic novel (and even in book two) the sex scenes are not graphic or extensive and can esily be skimmed over without detracting from the story and relationship building that takes place.
The opening scene is quite unique and will readily draw you in. The main character isn’t OP (like the title suggests) and is easily relatable. There’s excellent humor throughout the story, even when the story needs some dark. The theme of “belonging” has a universal appeal and is well threaded into the story. It was a easy and fun read without the many editing errors that plague so much of the KU content.
- Bobiverse (series) by Dennis E. Taylor *****
So I got hooked on the Bobiverse series back in 2016 when the first book We Are Legion (We Are Bob), by Dennis E. Taylor, first came out. What an awesome space sci-fi ride. Not your typical adventure at all. I am not even sure I can adequately describe it without giving away great parts of the story. Let me just say that if you are looking at selling a company you own for big dollars, you should also look at having your head cryogenically frozen at the time of your death just on the off chance you could be Bob.
The real reason for this post is that recently while browsing http://audible.com for more content to listen to during my daily commute I found that the books in the series were all on Audible and by the same narrator. Normally I don’t overlap between my reading and listening, however, I just had to splurge and use some of my outstanding credits for the series. The narrator, Ray Porter, does an awesome job of bringing the books to life. I highly recommend that you pick up this series – in print, as an audiobook, or both!
- December 2020 (8)
- January 2020 (1)
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