Review: In the Orbit of Sirens

In the Orbit of Sirens by T.A. Bruno
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

An intriguing blend of sci-fi and fantasy

In the Orbit of Sirens was an intriguing book with surprising depth and complexity. It's categorized as science fiction on both Audible and Amazon, but Bruno seamlessly blends fantasy elements into the novel.  The story is set on a newly colonized world -- but one already inhabited by intelligent, indigenous lifeforms. The planet has rich mythology that comes to life as the colonists discover the god-like creatures they refer to as Sirens.  The Sirens have powers and abilities that defy scientific explanations, and they are tied to the planet as Gaia-like protective deities. With the plot revolving around the supernatural Sirens, the story deviates from most of your typical sci-fi adventures to be something somewhat unique in the building of genres.

I'll admit that I wasn't that impressed with the book before the various plot elements came together and the narrative started to solidly move forward.  I was about a quarter into the story before becoming hooked on the building suspense and intriguing mix of sci-fi and fantasy.  Besides the unique premise, there was also good dialog and interaction, an interesting cast of characters, and an entertaining plot that was difficult to predict.  While the story does come to a resolution at the end, there were also a few loose, unresolved threads that leave a perfect opening for future books in the series.

The narration in the audiobook version is something of a mixed bag. Some parts of Michael Reimer's performance are excellent. For example, his character voices (especially using a synthesized voice for a marine who uses a cybernetic voice box) are very good and, for the most part, distinctly unique.   It helps that Bruno describes his characters well, making it easy to attribute accents and speech patterns -- and Reimer replicates these well.   However, at the start of the book, Reimer's default narration voice felt flat and monotone and was a bit of a turn-off. The lack of voice inflection was so bothersome that I almost stopped listening after only a few minutes.  However, once character dialogue became prominent and character personalities became more evident in POV text, the issue narrowed to become only a rare and minor annoyance.

Special thanks to T. A. Bruno, who provided me with this book at my request.

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Review: Cleansed

Cleansed by G.S. Scott
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Intriguing world-building, but disappointing and unclear plot

As I finished Cleansed, I had to sit back and wonder what the hell I just read. By the end of the book, I still hadn’t figured out whether there was a plot or if it was just a loosely strung-together series of events and abandoned plot threads. Each time the plot began to build in a direction, it felt like the author changed their mind, ditched it, and decided to go with something new. And it’s not that the story has plot twists frequently tossed in, it just keeps changing its course as if the book is more of a loosely related collection of short stories. 

The book is a coming-of-age story for Dirge, an orphaned son of a prostitute, who apparently is predestined for some sort of greatness (though I’m not sure what exactly it will be as it changes often). As a coming-of-age story, the book spans over two decades, but this also causes additional issues with the plot. Chapters often jumped forward in time by months or even years, which made following the changing narrative even more difficult. Most of the characters and narrative hooks are also fairly cliché, so they didn’t add anything particularly interesting to help the reader keep track of the story.

Though I didn’t care for the overall organization of the book and its rambling plot, I did think individual chapters were well written. When looked at in isolation, parts of the book were interesting and enjoyable to read. I can tell the author has a talent for writing dialog, character interactions, and building suspense. The action in the series was also well done and though there were some pretty graphic descriptions of blood, gore, and unsavory actions, most were included to bring to life the dark and grim setting and show some of the more intriguing cultural aspects of living in a world ruled by chaos. I just wish the plot meshed together better and everything made sense when looking at the book as a whole.

I will also mention a warning - this book examines some primal issues concerning the nature of morality, the fickle definitions of good and evil, and it brings up some pretty existential questions surrounding religion and the worship of deities. Deeply religious people may want to avoid reading this book as they could find some of the comparisons to real-world religions disturbing or distasteful. I’m not turned off by violence either, but as Cleansed has some pretty graphic depictions of blood, gore, and some heinous, despicable acts, those triggered by such should probably avoid it.

I think one saving grace, at least for the audio version of the book, was the performance of the narrator.  The narrator has some talent, able to portray a very wide range of characters with unique voices, accents, and characterizations. As I’ve said before that sometimes a good narrator can save a bad book - and though I wouldn’t say that Cleansed is a bad book, the narration certainly kept me entertained enough to finish it despite my issues with the plot.  I’d certainly recommend looking up other books with the same narrating and giving them a try.

Special thanks to Sean Duregger, who provided me with this book at my request.

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Review: Zombie Crusade: Still Alive Book Eight

Zombie Crusade: Still Alive Book Eight by Javan Bonds
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

New Book, Same Gratuitous Blood and Violence

I love the Still Alive series because it usually has a perfect balance between gratuitous violence, dark humor, and entertaining storylines. However, Zombie Crusade tips in the scale and has a bit more gratuitous blood and gore than previous books; normally, such a thing isn’t an issue, but in this case, it tended to overtake plot development and most of the humor turned out to be more macabre than the usual dark slapstick. But all that violence and gore is still masterfully written and vividly detailed, so if that’s what you’ve come for, you won’t be disappointed. But for me, I enjoyed the great storylines and humor present in the series, so I was sad that about half the book is dedicated more to slasher-type gore and not so much to plot development.

There are two prominent storylines in Zombie Crusade that carry over from the previous books and while they only crawl forward (due to the superfluous descriptions of violence and gore), they were entertaining enough to keep my attention. Through both the Black Hand arc and the escapades of Brother Mike Brown, we meet a few new characters (both heroes and villains) and also continue to follow the frightening evolution of the naked, blue cannibals as their capabilities continue to develop. However, this book (and the last one as well) feel more like a spin-off series than true sequels to the first six books. Though they aren’t bad by any measure, I do patiently (ok, impatiently) await the return to Mo’s journals and the plot involving the group I see as the primary protagonists of Still Alive.

My favorite part of Zombie Crusade wasn’t a part of the actual book, but rather, the bonus short story included at the end. It’s a prequel story about Smokes and what transpired between the advent of the zombie plague and the first meeting between Smokes and Mo. It was fun and reminiscent of the earlier books, and definitely worth reading.

For the audiobook, Salzman continues to be an exceptional narrator for the Still Alive series, but much of Zombie Crusade’s third-person point of view doesn’t give him much of a chance to shine. I think his best work is in the unique voices of the primary group’s characters, so a significant amount of his talent goes unnoticed in this book. However, Salzman does get a chance to rock out some awesome narration in the short story at the end.

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