another one

 As I said a while ago, I'm trying to get back to posting regularly on this blog. 

There is quite a lot that I could be adding to it just to catch it up to date, but too much at once wouldn't be a good thing. I will say that I have been regularly keeping up my main website, Robby's Books with a full list of my books, and recently, also my book formatting website, Robby's eBook Formatting. I'm hoping to start doing more book design for customers. 

I'll also take this opportunity to call your attention to my most recently published space trilogy, The Rat Queen. 

Very brief description:  

A feral child - a refugee from a doomed planet - now living with the rats on a space station run by hostile aliens. She’s the key to human survival

Longer description:

Aliens have a longer life span and therefore they know: Just because one generation of humans is settled and content, doesn't mean their spoiled brats won’t grow up, undo their progress and repeat the atrocities of previous generations. Since humanity became a space faring species, the pattern hasn’t changed, only the extent of the damage. Now, human survival is in the balance…Enter: the Rat Queen

As I said, it's a trilogy:

 I've been neglecting this blog for quite a while. 

Mid-year resolution: to do more with my blog and keep it active and interesting. 

If I don't have anything compelling to write, I may just add a drawing, or a haiku, or a limerick, or something like that.

I do have a few things I could say, but for now, 

Review of The Definition of Death

The Definition of Death by Eric Wolf

(click the title for the Amazon.com page. Click here for Amazon.co.uk) 

If you're looking for detective fiction where the hero expertly separates the clues from the red herrings while twirling his iron, and always gets his man, this isn't it. Too much real life. Why, Zack even has a fear of actually using his gun! But it's the "real life" that makes this book a winner. 

While the town of Aguas Calientes is fictional, the culture and the social landscape are very real - heavily influenced by Spanish, Mexican and Pueblo culture. It is home to many, has a lot to love about it, but it's dying due to the drug trade, greed and corruption. Eric Wolf writes as one who lives in that part of rural New Mexico, as well as having a background in nursing. 

When we're not following Zack through the sleazy parts of town doing police investigation, or in the double wide mobile home that he shares with his wife, Eric shows us the hospital where Zack's wife, Liz works as a nurse with some of the other characters like Joe, a male nurse, and a doctor of questionable character, Dr Surabian. Quite a lot of the plot unfolds in that hospital, and Eric's nursing experience lends its authenticity. 

Also in the hospital is the comatose Gilbert Garza, maybe suicide victim, maybe murder victim - or not - depending on what's the Definition of Death. Dr Surabian, for reasons of his own, has chosen to keep him going on a ventilator, though he's brain dead. 

Gilbert Garza, who lived next door to the doctor, was a drug dealer, an addict, and a general troublemaker. Any of a number of people could have had a motive to murder him - if he was indeed murdered - and not many are sorry to see him go. But he was found unconscious after an unsuccessful attempt to hang himself, and is in the ICU, brain dead, but being kept alive for whatever reason. Zack and the detective begin by searching his adobe hovel for links to the drug trade, but the case develops into much more. 

In fact, the dead-but-not-dead man in the ICU is the lynchpin to a lot of the bad things happening to that town. There's a lot to love about rural New Mexico, as well as a lot to despair of. Eric Wolf skilfully brings it to the surface.

The Darkling Wind - The Surreal Climax

 The Darkling Wind by S. P. Somtow

It's the last in the series of sequels, but don't fret - still some prequels to go, some yet to be completed. It is quite a climax. The Throne of Madness makes its presence felt in all it's - well - madness, adding a surreal quality, what with a winged boy and other manifestations randomly appearing in various scenes. If you've been keeping up with the series, putti made their appearance in The Throne of Madness, which is also where Kelver comes into union with that side of cosmic reality - the side the other Inquestors choose to ignore - the side that will bring the fall of the Inquest. 

But this is not Kelver's story, as much as it is Jenjen and Zalo's, whom we met in the third installment, Utopia Hunters. Zalo, the playwright, plays a minor role in that one, but here, he takes one of the leading roles, as he leads a planet in resisting the will of the Inquest. The two remain on the front line as more evil is done in the name of good, in the final game of Makrugh to end all Makrugh. 

Besides the Throne of Madness, two other forces to be reckoned with are the mind of the Delphinoid (the brain that drives the ships through the Overcosm) and Shtoma, the sentient sun, who has been maintaining the one Utopia that is the bane of the Inquest. As in every good story, there are also the ultimate "good guys" and ultimate villains - but watch carefully as some of them trade places. 

So, it comes to a climax. I suppose it wouldn't be a spoiler to say the Inquest falls - after all, Davaryush and Varuneh have been saying it since Book One. But is there life after the Inquest? Millenia later scholars doubt there ever was an Inquest.

So… a great climax to a great series. 

Review of Another Avitar

 

Another Avitar by S P Somtow

Not only do Superman, Wonder Woman and Bat Man have secret identities, but so, apparently, do the entire Hindu Pantheon. Krit's identity was unknown even to himself. As far as he knew, he was only an orphan boy living in an orphanage in middle of Klong Toey, Bangkok's largest slum community. Then, fellow deity Ganesh in the guise of his English teacher enlightens him. 

On one hand, he's awakened to some new powers; on the other, he's just a kid, and an orphan one at that, with a propensity for mischief. He fumbles around, enables his fellow orphan to win money in the lottery, and other antics, until the English teacher cum banana-scarfing elephant god begins to teach him a few things, starting him on the path of what promises to be a series of novellas spanning his new career - set in seamy Bangkok, sprinkled with humour and irony. 

Bangkok is a fascinating place, as I can attest as one who has lived there much of my life. I've even worked for a short spell at the children's institution in Klong Toey that sort of inspired the setting. 

I expect great things from this series.