last reads

As 2016 comes to a close it is time to look back on my favorite books of the year. I read quite a few books but only a few of them were actually written during the year of 2016 and so here are my favorites published this year. My Top 5: # 5 War God Rising Tim Marquitz takes a different approach this time around and goes for a more humorous look at fantasy by giving us a dimwit who is attempting to become the new God of War. I still think that Tim is very under-appreciated and overlooked when it comes to his ability to reinvent himself time and time again with his books and this one is no exception as he veers away from his normal Urban Fantasy niche and successfully tries his hand at humorous fantasy. My original review here . Overall score 8/10 Amazon # 4 The Art of Star Wars: The Force Awakens by Phil Szostak A absolute must have for fans of the series as it provides a glimpse behind the scenes at how the visuals were created and modified to bring the movie to life. If you buy one co...

Mort(e) by Robert Repino Publishing information: Hardcover; 358pgs Publisher: Soho Press; 1 Jan 2014 ISBN: 9781616954277 Series: War with No Name #1 Copy: Out of Pocket Reviewer: Tyson Amazon Synopsis: "After the “war with no name” a cat assassin searches for his lost love in Repino’s strange, moving sci-fi epic that channels both Homeward Bound and A Canticle for Lebowitz. The “war with no name” has begun, with human extinction as its goal. The instigator of this war is the Colony, a race of intelligent ants who, for thousands of years, have been silently building an army that would forever eradicate the destructive, oppressive humans. Under the Colony's watchful eye, this utopia will be free of the humans' penchant for violence, exploitation and religious superstition. As a final step in the war effort, the Colony uses its strange technology to transform the surface animals into high-functioning two-legged beings who rise up to kill their masters. Former housecat turned ...

Zero World by Jason M. Hough Publishing information: Hardback; 592 pgs Publisher: Del Rey; 18 Aug 2015 ISBN: 978-0553391268 Standalone Copy: Provided by Publisher Reviewer: Tyson Amazon Synopsis: "Published in rapid succession, Jason M. Hough’s first three novels, The Darwin Elevator, The Exodus Towers, and The Plague Forge, earned mountains of praise and comparisons to such authors as James S. A. Corey and John Scalzi. Now Hough returns with a riveting near-future spy thriller that combines the adrenaline of a high-octane James Bond adventure with mind-blowing sci-fi speculations worthy of Christopher Nolan’s Inception. Technologically enhanced superspy Peter Caswell has been dispatched on a top-secret assignment unlike any he’s ever faced. A spaceship that vanished years ago has been found, along with the bodies of its murdered crew—save one. Peter’s mission is to find the missing crew member, who fled through what appears to be a tear in the fabric of space. Beyond this mysteri...

A Wretched and Precarious Situation: In Search of the Last Arctic Frontier by David Welky New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2017 [2016]. Reviewed by Kenn Harper In late June of 1906 Robert Peary stood on a mountain top on Ellesmere Island and surveyed Nansen Sound, still ice-covered, to the west, and beyond it a land that he called Jesup’s Land, which we know today as Axel Heiberg Island. And to the northwest? Much later he wrote, “… northwest it was with a thrill that my glasses revealed the faint white summits of a distant land…” A few days later, having crossed Nansen Sound with his two guides, Iggiannguaq and Ulloriaq, he climbed Cape Thomas Hubbard. From there, he later wrote, “… with the glasses I could make out apparently a little more distinctly, the snow-clad summits of the distant land in the north-west, above the ice horizon…. in fancy I trod its shores and climbed its summits, even though I knew that that pleasure could be only for another in another season.” Thus, on R...

Meg by Steve Alten Publishing information: Kindle Publisher: Gere Donovan Press; 2.2 edition 17 Aug 2011 ISBN: 978-1943957019 Series: Meg #1 Copy: out of pocket Reviewer: Tyson Amazon Synopsis: "REVISED EDITION! Updated by the author himself, and now including the full text of ORIGINS — the prequel to the MEG blockbuster novel. Seven years ago, and seven miles below the surface of the Pacific Ocean, Dr. Jonas Taylor encountered something that changed the course of his life. Once a Navy deep-sea submersible pilot, now a marine paleontologist, Taylor is convinced that a remnant population of Carcharodon megalodon—prehistoric sharks growing up to 70 feet long, that subsisted on whales—lurks at the bottom of the Mariana Trench. When offered the opportunity to return to those crushing depths in search of the Megs, Taylor leaps at the chance… but the quest for scientific knowledge (and personal vindication) becomes a desperate fight for survival, when the most vicious predator that the...

Star Wars: Ahsoka by E K Johnston Publishing info: Kindle Publisher: Disney Lucasfilm Press; 11 Oct 2016 ASIN: B01EMJ2VYC Series Copy: Out of pocket Reviewer: Tyson Amazon Synopsis: "Fans have long wondered what happened to Ahsoka after she left the Jedi Order near the end of the Clone Wars, and before she re-appeared as the mysterious Rebel operative Fulcrum in Rebels. Finally, her story will begin to be told. Following her experiences with the Jedi and the devastation of Order 66, Ahsoka is unsure she can be part of a larger whole ever again. But her desire to fight the evils of the Empire and protect those who need it will lead her right to Bail Organa, and the Rebel Alliance..." First I have to come clean and say that I haven't watched the entire Clone Wars series or kept up with new series, Rebels. With that said, I do enjoy the character of Ahsoka and I also wanted to know more about her and I feel as if this book does a fairly good job of filling in the blanks for ...