"Shapeshifter" b. J.F. Gonzalez

Shapeshifter by J.F. Gonzalez

My review

rating: 2 of 5 stars
Of the many werewolf books that I have read, I have to say that the werewolf in this book is about as Omega as they come. Definitely, not the Alpha male type. The book was okay, but after reading Garton's "Ravenous" I was expecting something a bit more lethal and less cowering. There is the same lack of information though. Gonzalez introduces the main character as being a werewolf from the start, but he never explains how he got that way, which make the ending more than a bit curious. Filled with melodrama and a villain too petty to be believed, the books truly shinning scary moment came within the final pages. One word describes it best: comeuppance. Outside of that however, the rest of the book leans more heavily towards thriller than horror, but then I am really demanding with werewolf books. Also, I like my horror with a little less sap. I want a ratcheted pulse, not a tissue after reading.


View all my reviews.

Aliens: Criminal Minds b. S.D. Perry

Aliens: Criminal Enterprise by S.D. Perry

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
This was a seedy read, filled with all sorts of criminal decadence, drugs, murder, prostitution-- all painted with the background of a hostile planet filled with aliens. I really enjoyed Perry's dive into the psyches of criminals, psychopaths and wounded people driven by lust, greed, revenge and hope, dark hopes though. Off all the Aliens books that I have read, this one comes closest in my bid to see one made into a film. It would certainly have the action!



The book follows two brothers, shanghaied into working for a drugrunner for of course a dealer who keeps his product and labs on an alien infested planet. One innocent and law-abiding and the other hopeless enamored of the fast lane. It also follows the motivations of a lieutenant drug lord and his doped out cherry of a girlfriend who run the facility.



Two forces, one that wants to steal the shipment and the other who wishes to bring all the criminals to justice invade the facility on the same day and saying that all hell breaks loose would be putting it mildly.



Again, this is perhaps the best of the Aliens books that I have read, however, there was something about the ending that I simply could not stand and which nearly ruined my enjoyment of the book. I won't give details other than of all the survivors in the end, one just made me want to hurl.




View all my reviews.

Hamster on a Wheel...

Okay, so I don't have any news about upcoming releases or anything, but I have been working away...wildly I might say. I don't know about other authors but I have been enjoying the writing/story telling process waaaay too much and need to discover where I left my inner editor. Short stories? I have forgotten what those are and things that should be 100 pages jump to nigh three hundred. To say that I get carried away sometimes is putting it mildly.

I will admit that I am no great wordsmith but I do love telling tales. Still I like being a published author too and by all means that entails creating a viable, edited, cohesive tale to readers. So...I have to slow down on starting new projects, which I would say that if I could edit and complete all the projects whose first draft, I have completed I might be able to get out 4 novels this year, but already the itch to move on to other projects is there, burning selfishly bright. There is some hot gargoyle loving, I'm feeling the itch for...waterwhip anyone? Okay...stopping the muse, right now!

Anyway, back to edit 4 of "Embraced by the Sun" and edit 2 of "Heart of Bast," and as for "Forever Guardian" the sequel to "A Guardian's Desire," I am already compiling the outline and notes for it...my other new project.

Ok...backing away from the wheel...

Aliens Book 2: Nightmare Asylum b. Steve Perry

Nightmare Asylum: Aliens Book 2 by Steve Perry

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
This book was a fantastic read...in that a lot of fantastic things occur in it. Sure the heroes, Billie and Wilkes are back from book 1 in the series, are larger than life and luckier than a bum hitting the jackpot but outside of that is the Aliens themselves. The buggers never cease to amaze me in what they can do and how much they can learn. What I enjoyed most, outside of the frequent throwbacks to the movie series, is that nothing ever works out the way the heroes want it to. Sure they manage to get out of some narrow fixes but not they way they plan to. Why? Because the villain in this book is a smart and tricky fiend. General Spears is an insane man and not a person that I would ever want to meet. His idea of a great army is a bit frightening as well...stupid but frightening. Now, I'm anxious to get to the third book in this really good Aliens trilogy (the other one sucks).


View all my reviews.

"Live Girls" b. Ray Garton

Live Girls by Ray Garton

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
What I learned from this book is that garlic is my best bet when encountering vampires, not crosses or bibles or holy water or even stakes. Garlic should do the trick! But seriously, this is my second book by Ray Garton and I enjoyed it so much that I finished it fairly quickly. What I really enjoyed about "Live Girls" is something that I'm hoping appears in all his work, which is the dark, truly horrifying portrayal of any monster that he deals with. This book is about vampires that are beasts, disgusting and seductive and horrifying.



The story is based around a peep-show/club called Live Girls. It is one of two havens for vampires in the book. During the narrative, several people fall victim to its allure and its danger. I found myself breezing through the pages, curious and shocked by every event. One thing I will say about Garton is that I definitely could not guess the ending.



Like "Ravenous" his werewolf novel, I was still left with questions... all involving backstory and details. Don't get me wrong, Garton fleshes his monsters out and gives you exactly what you need to turn the page...but damn...there seemed to be at least 3 types of vampires in the book and I wanted more DETAILS...yeah, I'm greedy.



Great horror read though, definitely!


View all my reviews.

!! !Valentine's Contest !!!

For the answers you need to win, browse these sites:

www.AmandaYoung.org

www.AnneDouglas.com

www.MichelleCary.com

www.LizCraven.com
http://www.myaserotica.com

How DO you spell depression...C.R.A.S.H.

Suffice it to say that this has been a truly bad week for me. My beloved Dell PC of 4 years crashed on monday, after several frightening days of disappearing files and no internet connectivity. On Saturday, the edits I had completed for H.O.B. (70pages worth) just vanished, then the entire folder holding all of my 'Heart of Bast' files disappeared. I was seriously in shock but due to some serious dilligence and searching through temp. /hidden files I managed to retrieve my information but the ominous feeling was still running rampant. I knew that something was wrong. I couldn't get on the net and the system was running slow as hell.

So after a call to Dell Tech on Monday, I was told to do a system restore, after backing up all my data to my External HD. I was able to do the system restore but as my partitions were so corrupted it did nothing but leave me with a black screen. Because Dell didn't ship the O/S boot disks, I have to wait until I recieve them to get a good look at what I managed to salvage...and to get back to work....

Which brings me to my dilemma, without my computer I am going stir crazy and am literally reluctant to go home. It is my connection to the outside world, my passion and obsession and even more it is my drug. Instead of going home to work on my stories, I go home and crochet...even go to be early.

I am due to get the disks between thursday and saturday, but honestly the day can't come soon enough. Apparently, a downloaded spyware program was responsible for my computer 'Godzilla's' lapse into coma-land and I was warned by Dell to stick to my disk installed Norton. I was also commended for having a very large external hard drive, which I will either be crying about or singing praises to very soon... Ahh...just a few more days....can't take much more of this...