Previously: Introduction Treecat Trilogy Young Honor and Elizabeth Prince Michael rescues and Honor dances Continuing my review of Honor Harrington stories and novels in chronological order: On Basilisk Station by David Weber This first-written novel in the Honor Harrington series, which introduces the character to those who did not read the prequels first, is easily one of the best novels in the series. Part of the reason for this is that it does not rely on any...

Previously: Introduction Treecat Trilogy Young Honor and Elizabeth Continuing my review of Honor Harrington stories and novels in chronological order: The final three prequel stories to the Honor Harrington novels, chronologically speaking, cover the last ten years before the first novel kicks off. Two of these—”Promised Land” and “Ruthless,” both written by Jane Lindskold—concern themselves with Prince Michael, brother of Queen Elizabeth, who was introduced in the story “Queen’s Gambit.” The third—”Let’s Dance” by Weber—depicts Honor just prior to the events of the novel, taking a controversial action that could end her career before it even begins. (Well, theoretically, anyway. The fact that an umpteen-book series...

Previously: Introduction Treecat Trilogy The next three prequel stories move into the “present-day” era of the Honor Harrington setting. In the “Post Diaspora” calendar of the Honorverse setting, they range from 1880 to 1890. The first novel, On Basilisk Station, is set in 1900. There is nothing in particular about these stories that would necessitate reading them before the novels, but nothing in them really spoils the novel story either. A few events brought up in later books are alluded to here, but they’re also covered in those...

Previously: Introduction After writing a number of novels in the Honor Harrington series, David Weber and other writers he invited to participate started writing stories that fit between or before the novels, issued in anthology collections that came out every couple of years. Since I’m rereading the series in chronological order, I’m going to start my reviews by looking at the short stories and novellas that are set before the first novel. In any long series in which some books are written out of chronological order, the question arises: What is...

A couple weeks ago, I posted about reviews of Nick Bilton’s new book, I Live in the Future & Here’s How It Works. After reading the sample chapters, I was intrigued, but I don’t have the money right now to go around buying books just because I want to read them. So I hopped on the web, and a short time later I was reading the book for free. (That is to say, I placed a hold request at my public library’s website, and a few days later picked up the hardcover. Why, what did you think I...

I found this book via a recommendation on another blog; it was described as a contemporary, adult 'choose your own adventure' kind of book where at various points in the story, you are presented with choices and taken in different story directions depending on what you choose. You can read the book multiple times and it will be like a different story each time. I was intrigued; I read these types of books (the original Choose Your Own Adventure series) as a child, and the hyperlink functions of a well-designed ebook system are a natural fit for this type...

I don't usually read fantasy novels, so I was surprised to find myself drawn to the sample for Dragonverse by Doug Farren. In spite of its epic adventure aspirations, it's a fairly simple, sweet little story about a man who is left a house by his absentee uncle and learns that the man is not dead as he thought, but rather has moved permanently to a parallel world in which humans are psychically bound with dragons who spend their lives searching for their intended human half. The protagonist Terry of course follows his uncle over to this other world and...

Neil Crab has started a Smashwords book review site called, appropriately, Smashwords Books Reviewed. Neil is a Smashwords author himself, with a book of short stories, Believable Lies, and is about ready to publish a novel and has a second novel on the way. His first review is The Storm Killer, by Mike Jastrzebski....

Risen is one of a growing genre of 'self-published' books which had previous life as a print release from a traditional publisher. This re-release by the author is under his real name (Pinnacle Books published it under the byline of 'J. Knight') and includes some bonus short stories. 'Risen' a fun, fast horror tale. In a small town called Anderson, a long-suffering woman kills her scumbag husband---quite definitively---and is shocked when he comes back to life again, seemingly fitter and happier than before. But he's not the only one... A reporter and his local cub, a troubled lad named Tom who...

Prestwick by David Hough is decently-written adventure novel. Two planes collide in mid-air---a passenger 747 with 400 people, and a military plane. Neither can land at Prestwick, the nearest airport, because a top-secret experimental vessel is having an emergency too... Hough clearly knows his plane jargon, and he describes the technicalities well for the layperson reader. But the book---well-written though it is---was a tad long for me. I felt like we were witnessing the same conversations over and over again. If I saw one more chapter where the pilot radios his rescue plane, states that he must land at Prestwick and...

Happy weekend, everyone! Time for another Smashwords review. Tied in: The Business, History and Craft of Media Tie-in Writing edited by Lee Goldberg is a non-fiction title I found via a thread on Mobile Read. It's a collection of essays from authors who write media tie-in novels. As someone who has read such novels, mostly of the Star Trek and Buffy sort, some of the names of the contributors were already familiar to me, and I was curious to learn more about how these books get written. As with most anthologies, some of the chapters were better than others. There were...

"A whole person's life is something like a war. After you fight in a war, you can't help but be different in some way, but folks change just from living through hardships and sorrows and angers too. Also, like a war, nobody really wins, but life goes on anyway." ---Radium Halos by Shelley Stout Welcome to my first Smashwords book of the week. Radium Halos by Shelley Stout is a historical fiction novel based on the true story of the Radium Girls---factory workers from the 1920s who were hired to paint the dials of clocks and watches with luminous radium paint to...