Upcoming review

The swarm is coming. Corporal Aggar and a unit of Confederation Marines have been ordered to hold back a ravenous tide of insectoid alien attackers. Each attack presses until men to the limit of their physical and mental strength. Aggar as his men fight on, in the face of certain death, as the lines break and their attackers begin to overwhelm them
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Description above by author Chris Wilson

The Ultimate Choice

Vector rating system:

* = Poor

** = Tolerable

*** = Average

**** = Good

***** = Excellent

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The Ultimate Choice

Author: Lisa Hinsley

e-book/Kindle: (405 KB)

Price:

$0.99 e-book/Kindle 

ASIN: B004TXMT80 

Published:
March 2011

Some interesting parallels that I found disturbing with this book: 

 

Lisa Hinsley’s “The Ultimate Choice” (2011):

Plot: Dystopian future involving a game show where people volunteer to put their lives on the line to secure a better future for someone they love. Outcome: Everyone loses.

Game show host: Bobby Love

Main character: Cassie

Stephen King’s “The Running Man” (1982):

Plot: Dystopian future involving a game show where people volunteer to put their lives on the line to secure a better future for someone they love. Outcome: Everyone loses.

Game show host: Bobby Thompson

Minor character: Cassie

 

I think you know what I'm hinting at with this work....it's like tracing paper was put over King's novel and the plot and characters from The Running Man were used as an outline to form this story. 
Example: The opening chapter has the protagonist on a game show in front of a geering audience--much like (what a shock) King's The Running Man. It's a suspiciously familiar scene with the game show's host and beligerant crowd screaming for blood. I should also mention that Hinsley's main character Cassie also goes on the run like King's Ben Richards (again I'm shocked by this discovery).


I'm bypassing a rating and can only recommend that you  read "The Running Man" by Stephen King. At least it's characters and plot are not as shallow/predictable as the dribble in The Ultimate Chioce. Thankfully Hinsley's story was only .99 (and is still overpriced for a cheap carbon copy).  

Ratings for The Ultimate Choice:
no rating

Embedded

Vector rating system:

* = Poor

** = Tolerable

*** = Average

**** = Good

***** = Excellent

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Embedded

Author: Dan Abnett

Paperback: 432 pages
e-book/Kindle: (432 KB)

Price:

$7.99 Paperback

$4.79 e-book/Kindle

 

Published:
March 2011

ISBN-10: 9780857660916

I wonder if there is a trend starting for writers of this sub-genre. This is the second book I've picked up involving a journalist covering a confict in our distant future. The approach Abnett took for this adventure is that a journalist is embedded electronically into the mind of a soldier, and with the aid of a sensory deprivation tank (jung tank) where he physically lies, he lives vicariously through the trooper as the soldier goes into battle.

Sound confusing? It's not. The first hundred pages are a little slow but the story picks-up into a quick read once the journalist (Lex Falk) is chipped into a soldier named Nestor Bloom. Abnett's description of politics, greed, and how human nature hasn't changed much over the centuries is well done, but character development is slow and I never really empathized too much with the protagonist or any of the supporting characters. They all lacked depth in personality and had no dimension to them.

Overall the plot seemed slapped together and I think this was reflected with the way the story ended: anti-climactic, rushed, and no closure as to what the two factions were really fighting over. Don't get me wrong, it's good escape reading, but don't look for anything more out of the tome.
 

Ratings for Embedded:

Recommended: ****

Overall: 4 stars / 5 stars
Plot: 4 stars / 5 stars
Character developement: 3-1/2 stars / 5 stars

Book links:

Kindle
Paperback

Upcoming reviews

In a dystopian near-future, overpopulation has led to a government dedicated to reducing citizen numbers. Suicide is legalised, food is rationed, and reproduction forbidden without permission.

Cassie O’Neil broke the law, she had sex before marriage. She is sentenced to die on the game show, The Ultimate Choice, but when a contestant collapses Cassie takes her chance and runs. Staying alive is hard with no ration card or place to hide. But she is a woman who refuses to die.

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HE'D DO ANYTHING TO GET A STORY. When journalist Lex Falk gets himself chipped into the brain of a combat soldier, he thinks he has the ultimate scoop - a report from the forbidden front line of a distant planetary war, live to the living rooms of Earth. When the soldier is killed, however, Lex has to take over the body and somehow get himself back to safety once more... broadcasting all the way.

100 Days From Home

Vector rating system:

* = Poor

** = Tolerable

*** = Average

**** = Good

***** = Excellent

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100 Days From Home

Author: Anthony Hartig

Paperback: 378 pages
e-book/Kindle: (522 KB)

Price:

$9.72 Paperback

$2.99 e-book/Kindle

 

Published:
April 2005
February 2011

ISBN-10: 1456584545

This is the most unusual book I've read in a while, and reading it was an experience. I finished it in 5 days (and that's fast for a reader like me) because the vignettes always kept my attention. Be warned, the book is filled with military jargon, so it might help to read the glossary in the back beforehand. I’ve read a lot of books of this genre but what I found appealing in this story is that it’s told from the point of view of a combat correspondent (a journalist from Earth named Jacob Frye).

No alien life forms in this story or heavy juggernaut battle stars. The premise is very simple: Frye is a reporter in our distant future who risks life and limb to cover a mass invasion of a city occupied by very human enemies seeking to expand their empire. I was drawn to the main character immediately. He was realistic, funny, and often times out of place. The book is his account of what he saw there, and what he saw were young soldiers far from home fighting a war against a frustratingly elusive and stubborn enemy.

Throughout the story Frye tries to remain unbiased, but the harder he tries to keep his objectivity, the more he gets involved until he is completely emotionally absorbed in his assignment. As a correspondent, Frye has the choice to stay or go, but makes the choice to stay and often times even puts himself in extremely dangerous and intense situations not so much to get the journalistic integrity for his story, but to save another human being.

Brutal, profane, and at times heartbreaking, Hartig seems to have captured the time-space diction and surreal psychology of combat. At times, this is an almost stream of consciousness series of snapshot impressions of what his protagonist’s time on a distant planet meant to him. Hartig makes you take the journey with Frye, and like it or not, the reader’s in for a ride.

Hartig describes this future war as a vertigo-inducing insanity and you will be right there unbalanced by the language, sounds, scenery, smells and, yes, the incoming artillery. There is no escaping the bloody details of dismemberment here, and there is no apology by the author for putting you right there, examining the myriad ways a human body can be pulled apart. You’ll be thrown into a morning patrol with pill-popping foul-mouthed soldiers hacking their way through rain forests; you’ll rub elbows with an insane tank commander, lunatic door gunners on gunships, and be a part of sniper duels in a city on fire.

Where imagery is concerned, the book is rich with description and contrast. Hartig will put you in a landing zone loaded with dead bodies, but describe the sunset reflected off the highrises in the same city. He will give you a vivid description of being shot at in the mud and shivering in the cold rain vs. a press conference by bureaucrats in a posh hotel. And through all this, the body bags are ever present.

Any individual who is not put off by such accounts of violence and who can appreciate and understand Fry's choice to be there will find this book fascinating. In fact, this book blindsided me with some characters one doesn’t usually find in military sci-fi novels: a K-9 division (with genetically enhanced canines) comes to mind first, and a militia composed of the homeless left behind in the city take up arms against the enemy. Interesting mix.

Overall, Hartig's descriptions will stay with you for a long time after you've put the book down. The ending is a real sucker punch too. It can be a heavy read, but to balance-off the drama a lot of the dialogue is hilarious. It's an enjoyable read with some nice sub-plots woven into the story. 

Ratings for 100 Days From Home:


Recommended: ****

Overall: 4 stars / 5 stars
Plot: 4 stars / 5 stars
Character developement: 4 stars / 5 stars

Book links:

Kindle
Paperback