Robert ReginaldRecensioni

Bought for the Nina stories * but picked out a few others to read.

LAZELLE FAMILY CHRISTMAS, by Nina Kiriki Hoffman 4*
This story is exactly why I love this author. Each member of the family is responsible for a part of Christmas. ie. the youngest that is able finds a tree that is "willing" to be cut down...

THE SANTA TRAP, by Robin Aurelian (* aka NKH) 2*
It was tortuously fun up until the abrupt ending. Santa comes to your house and takes stuff....

THE CHRISTMAS CRAZIES: A GRIFF & FATS STORY, by Gary Lovisi DNF
ut-oh all the Santas are going missing. Salvation Army cauldrons abandoned, Macy's Santa goes on break and never comes back. // Too long, it lost my interest at about the half way point I figure. Detective type story.

CAN'T SEE THE TREE FOR THE FOREST by Skadi meic Beorh DNF
Actually didn't get that started. His writing style didn't match my reading style. The story was about picking out a tree without getting screwed over by the salesman. I think.

THE GIFT, by Marilyn "Mattie" Brahen 2.5* It's a proper, get you in the Christmas spirit story but it wasn't anything special IMO. A man that looks like Santa needs help but wait, is it the real Santa?

THE CHRISTMAS BANE, by S. Clayton Rhodes 4*
A Krampus story. I liked it. iirc a person has to be sacrificed to Krampus but the victim is new to town and is surprised to learn he is the sacrifice>

As I noted in my review of Reginald’s first new Phantom Detective book, the Phantom Detective was an extremely long-running pulp vigilante (a la the Shadow and Doc Savage) whose original adventures were published from 1933-53. Those works are now all in the public domain and being reprinted by Adventure House. A few years ago, John Betancourt of Wildside Books commissioned two all-new Phantom Detective novels, both written by Robert Reginald, and THE NASTY GNOMES is the second of those.

Mild plot spoilers follow.

THE NASTY GNOMES picks up where THE PHANTOM’S PHANTOM left off (note, though, that knowledge of the first novel is not required to enjoy this one). The Phantom Detective, the alter ego of Richard Curtis Van Loan, has nominally retired, but he has recently established a detective bureau on the West Coast to continue his work. Van Loan has returned to his old stomping grounds of New York City, where the city is being plagued by a rash of savage attacks by little people (it’s 1953, so they’re more commonly called dwarfs and midgets), who engage in a campaign of terror by repeatedly robbing, threatening, brutalizing, and extorting citizens before escaping into New York’s network of underground tunnels. Worse, these little guys seem to disappear even after they’ve been shot or otherwise put out of commission. Van Loan realizes he can’t deal with this crime wave alone, and quickly recruits a team of assistants, just as he had in California. The story gets a bit more complicated than that when it becomes apparent that the swarms of evil little people (the eponymous “nasty gnomes,” of course) are actually pawns of a larger conspiracy spearheaded by a crypto-John Birch Society represented in the story by real-life McCarthyite attorney Roy Cohn. The addition of Cohn and allusions to McCarthy and his witch hunts are a nice addition to the novel. (If Wildside had continued with new Phantom Detective novels, I suspect Cohn and this group would have popped up again.)

Just as with THE PHANTOM’S PHANTOM, this novel explores some of the moral dimensions of vigilantism and the effects of violence on a man like Van Loan. Keep in mind that this is a man who, during his active days of crime-fighting, probably killed hundreds of criminals over the years. He obviously enjoyed his work, and perhaps relished the violent side of detective work just a bit too much. Exploring that set of issues adds some richness to the narrative that many similar novels written in the original pulp era mostly lacked.

Though Reginald’s aging Phantom Detective is more of an investigator and strategist than a brawler, this is very much a novel in the pulp tradition, much more so than Reginald’s first Phantom Detective novel. How could it not be, after all, with scores of midgets swarming out of alleys to attack passers-by before escaping into the sewers with their loot? It’s a rollicking good story, and I certainly recommend THE NASTY GNOMES to fans of pulp fiction vigilantes, especially those looking for a bit of an update to the pulp avenger formula.

Review copyright © 2013 J. Andrew Byers

I’ve been a fan of the old pulp adventures – Doc Savage, the Shadow, the Spider, etc. – for a long time. We live in a golden age of pulp reprints, so it’s not hard to acquire reasonably priced reprints of these classic adventures. The original stories tended to be in the format of short novels (about 40,000 words or so) produced once a month. Some were decidedly better than others, even within the same series, depending on who the actual author was behind the house name and how inspired they were that month. Quality sometimes suffered. You also have to read them with a solid suspension of disbelief at times, but the over-the-top action is a big part of the attraction. But one of the original pulps hasn’t gotten as much attention as the others in recent years, and that’s a bit surprising. I’m talking about the Phantom Detective (not Lee Falk’s Phantom), which ran for 170 issues (the third longest running title) from 1933-1953. Beginning in February 1933, the Phantom Detective was the second of these pulp heroes to come out (the first was the Shadow, the third was Doc Savage, which began in March 1933).

My understanding is that through some oversight the copyright of the Phantom Detective was never renewed, and all the original stories have now become part of the public domain (oops!). Because of this, a number of publishers have reprinted Phantom Detective stories over the years, and the good folks at Adventure House seem committed to reprinting every single issue of the original Phantom Detective stories, one per month. A few years ago, John Betancourt commissioned two all-new Phantom Detective novels – both written by Robert Reginald – the only new Phantom Detective novels to be written since 1953 to my knowledge. THE PHANTOM’S PHANTOM is the first of these novels.

Mild plot spoilers follow.

THE PHANTOM’S PHANTOM is set in 1953. The Phantom Detective, the alter ego of Richard Curtis Van Loan, has retired. Both the world and Van Loan have changed since the heyday of the Phantom Detective. The Cold War era isn’t as free-wheeling as Depression and WWII era America, or as suited to pulp vigilantes dispensing justice outside the bounds of the law. His old friend from the original pulps, Frank Havens, the wealthy publisher, has died under mysterious circumstances, and Van Loan is asked to look into the matter by Havens’ widow. Though the Phantom Detective operated primarily in New York City, THE PHANTOM’S PHANTOM mostly takes place in San Bernardino, California, a picturesque area Reginald knows well and does a good job describing here. Once there in sunny California, Van Loan realizes that all is not as it seems, unsurprisingly enough. As he tries to solve the apparent murder of his friend, Van Loan is also being stalked by an old enemy, and he unexpectedly finds a love interest. He also gathers a selection of new allies in California and ultimately goes on to found the Phantom Detective Agency under his direction, which will carry on the investigative legacy of the Phantom Detective. It’s a great premise that set up the possibility of a renewed Phantom Detective series. I suspect that sales of these two new Phantom Detective novels did not warrant the further continuation of the series unfortunately.

Never having read any of the original adventures (a little bird told me they’re fairly thin gruel, even as pulps go), I don’t know how a big fan of the originals would react to Reginald’s re-imagining here. THE PHANTOM’S PHANTOM is definitely recommended for fans of the original pulp detective stories, as Reginald has successfully manage to inject new life (and interest) into one of the original but less-known pulp detectives. The shift from third person (in the originals) to first person perspective offers a great deal of potential for humanizing a pulp hero. Van Loan is a man who had solved crimes and dispensed vigilante justice for two decades, sending a couple thousand evil-doers to their deaths. He’s now in his early fifties and ready to move on with his life, assuming his past will let him. I’m unfamiliar with the Phantom Detective’s original modus operandi, but here he seeks to solve the crime through solid detective work, never dons a costume, and only resorts to violence at the climax when other means are exhausted. It’s a low-key adventure in some ways, but it retains plenty of pulp tropes to ensure that it’s still a fun story of a crime-fighting vigilante. It also features an interesting framing narrative of a man inheriting his uncle’s estate and discovering a set of manuscripts that tell of the Phantom Detective’s adventures.

Review copyright © 2013 J. Andrew Byers

We are all going to die. Everyone you have ever met, everyone you have ever cared about, and you yourself are all going to die. Sooner or later, we must each come to that realization and deal with it. How we deal with it and how we allow death to affect life – I think – matters. Robert Reginald is a man who has wrestled with, and come to terms with, these issues, particularly his own mortality. TRILOBITE DREAMS, OR, THE AUTODIDACT'S TALE: A ROMANCE OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY is an autobiographical account, not just of Reginald’s near-fatal heart attack, but also his life as an editor, publisher, writer of genre fiction, librarian, and academic.

Like most people, I suspect, I have never personally faced a life-threatening health crisis. I’ve almost died on a handful of occasions, but those were each spontaneous, catastrophic events that came close to ending my life but just as quickly passed without doing so. There was no time to reflect, ponder, or worry, except afterwards, when it was all too easy to dismiss the possibility of near-death. Not so Reginald. In 2003, and on a couple occasions after that, he came perilously close to dying. As his health crises were happening, he was conscious of exactly what was going on, and how close he was to dying. That has to change a person. His recovery was long and painful, offering more than enough time for reflection, and physically he’s probably not quite the same man he was a decade ago. I don’t think he’s the same psychologically either – he’s seen too much, experienced too much, and has had to deal with painful truths, the kind that inevitably change people.

Having said all that, none of us wants a life that is defined by death, and Reginald has not written a mopey, morbid account of his health woes and crises. Chapters about his brushes with death are interspersed with chapters about the rest of his life. Before going any further, in case you’re unfamiliar with Robert Reginald, I should briefly try to summarize his life in very broad terms. Reginald, with his wife Mary, founded and ran the Borgo Press, a prolific and long-running small press publisher of a wide variety of fiction and non-fiction that ran from 1975-1998. Eventually the company got to be more trouble than it was worth, so the Borgo Press folded. Fortunately for the rest of us, John Betancourt of Wildside Books eventually acquired the remnants of the Borgo Press – and Reginald’s services – so it still operates as an imprint of Wildside. While running Borgo, until his retirement in 2010, Reginald also served as an academic librarian and university official at California State University, San Bernardino for decades. That doesn’t begin to do his life justice, but hey, you should read the autobiography not just my summary of it!

There’s a great deal of interest here on the history of the science fiction and fantasy genres, the trials and tribulations of being both the owner/operator of a publishing venture and an author, and the politics and petty-mindedness of life as an academic. In the interest of full disclosure, I should note that I know Robert Reginald and consider him a friend. I was interested in reading his thoughts on life, death, and everything in between. Your mileage will necessarily vary. But I think that Reginald has a lot to say that’s of value for a general audience, and writers specifically. TRILOBITE DREAMS is a quick read, and one I found riveting. I recommend it for readers interested in the story of someone who has come close to dying, but survived to tell us about it. It is also a fascinating account of a man who spent decades not only as an academic librarian and university official but also as a prolific editor and founder of a small publishing imprint and writer of science fiction, fantasy, and mystery novels.

Review copyright © 2013 J. Andrew Byers½

The concluding book in the trilogy of the author's modern retelling of Wells's War of the Worlds. Like the middle volume, this is also more original and contains more modern science fiction ideas. Indeed, it is probably the best of the three, though that isn't saying overmuch in my view; much of the dialogue is banal and fairly dull, though a number of the human characters are better developed here than in the earlier books. The development of the alien way of thinking of the Martians is again well handled. 3.5/5½

This sequel to the author's modern retelling of Wells's War of the Worlds has the merit of being more original and started really well. However it became largely rather predictable with the usual "peace-loving scientists v warmongering soldiers who want to blow everything up" paradigm. This would be okay if the author had created three dimensional characters, but only the central character, Alex Smith approaches this, the rest being two dimensional cliches. Large parts of this read like a film script; on the plus side, there were some interesting reflections on what a truly alien way of thinking could be like. 3/5

When I read books like THE CRACKS IN THE AETHER, I become increasingly convinced that the only difference between a blockbuster hit and a terrific book that few will ever read is a big marketing budget. This a genuinely funny, smart fantasy novel with engaging characters, snappy dialogue, and an interesting, well-developed setting. There’s absolutely no reason why this couldn’t be as big of a hit as, say, Robert Asprin’s Myth Adventures series or much of Alan Dean Foster’s or Craig Shaw Gardner’s work. (And I intend those comparisons to be extremely complimentary, as those are genuinely funny books that were big hits in their day.)

Some plot spoilers follow, but I promise not to ruin your enjoyment of the story.

This is the first volume in the Hypatomancer’s Tale trilogy that tells the story of a court mage, Morpheus, who has the misfortune/opportunity to live in a time of great crisis and change. He is the eponymous hypatomancer, a mage who possesses the gift of fortunetelling, in addition to his other arcane abilities. Morpheus, seemingly by sheer happenstance, hears a cry for help from a woman trapped somewhere in the Otherworlds, the collective name for the network of various alternative timelines/universes to Nova Europa (I suppose that our own Earth is one of these).

Several plots and sub-plots soon unfold: it quickly becomes apparent that the kingdom of Korynthia in Nova Europa (Morpheus’ world) serves faces a time of great change. Indeed, the very kingdom may soon collapse into civil war. Morpheus soon resigns his position in Korynthia and leaves his responsibilities to travel through the Otherworlds to rescue a woman he has never met and hasn’t even seen her face. Now that’s a true romantic!

Much of the book involves scenes of witty banter between our protagonist and his familiar, a wherret, which seems to be a sentient ferret-like creature with a nicely alien mindset and vast knowledge of all things magical. Dialogue and humor are the real strengths of THE CRACKS IN THE AETHER. Reginald uses an ever-so-slightly archaic tone in his dialogue and exposition, and this seems to work well in establishing the tone that (1) this is a fantasy setting and (2) this is not our world.

I should also note that I would dearly love to see a map of Nova Europa. I don’t know if such a graphic exists, but I’m always a sucker for cool, interesting maps in fantasy novels, so let me put in a request for one now. I would also like to hear more about Nova Europa as a setting, as the vague hints and allusions to it in THE CRACKS IN THE AETHER are intriguing. When exactly did it begin diverging from our own history? Has magic always been available to its inhabitants? It’s become clear that the next book (and possibly the third) will move away from Nova Europa and to the Otherworlds, but I would also like to see Morpheus return to Korynthia and see if he can help resolve that poor kingdom’s troubles. I grew to like that place and its queen while Morpheus was there and I’d like to know what’s going to happen to it.

If you like fun, light-hearted, but still smart fantasy novels, than look no further than THE CRACKS IN THE AETHER. I recommend it highly. This trilogy is apparently part of a larger, twelve-volume sequence of tales set in Nova Europa. I have not yet read those first nine volumes, but their existence certainly presented no difficulties when I plunged into THE CRACKS IN THE AETHER.

Review copyright 2012 J. Andrew Byers½

This is the final book in the light-hearted fantasy trilogy, The Hypatomancer’s Tale, by Robert Reginald.

Some plot spoilers follow, but reading the rest of this review won’t ruin your enjoyment of the story.

Once again, we follow the adventures of the hypatomancer (a fortune-telling wizard, though the predictions of the future are mostly moved off-stage here) Morpheus, who still has an uncompleted quest to rescue a woman he’s never met who is held prisoner in another dimension. Morpheus and his companions must travel a long way through a series of alternate dimensions where things get stranger and stranger. But before he can continue his quest, Morpheus feels morally obligated to do what he can to repair the dying ecosystem of a world that has been afflicted with a man-made disaster beyond the control of its inhabitants. Inevitably, Morpheus’ quest does not turn out at all the way he (or the reader most likely) expected, but that’s all part of the fun. There are plenty of unexpected twists, turns, and betrayals along the way. The job of a savior of the universe is never an easy one.

As with many (all?) of Reginald’s fiction, this is a journey of self-discovery as much as it is a quest to save the universe. Morpheus’ internal development is at least as important as the development of the plot and the quest as a whole. Like all too many of us, Morpheus begins the trilogy fairly self-oriented. He is embroiled with his own personal concerns, mostly to the exclusion of caring about other people and situations all around him. He has never really forged meaningful personal relationships – familial, romantic, or platonic – and has come to realize that without these connections, his own life is meaningless. The trilogy does a good job of showcasing Morpheus’ personal transformation and journey as he realizes that he needs other people as much as they need him.

Reginald’s prose flows smoothly and is delightfully clever as always. The secondary characters – Morpheus’ companions for the most part – continue to amuse. If I have one complaint about THE FOURTH ELEPHANT’S EGG, it’s that the threat to the universe that Morpheus must find a way to resolve is almost entirely off-screen. It’s really only clear to us that there is an imbalance in the universe that Morpheus must correct because several wise archmages and other powerful, enigmatic but beneficent figures tell Morpheus this is the case. We never directly see that the very foundations of the multiverse are shaking. Scenes of growing instability in the cosmos might have helped highlight the stakes and ratchet up the tension for Morpheus (and the reader).

Oh and we do finally get a quick glimpse of Nova Europa – Morpheus’ home that appeared in the first volume of the trilogy – and the recent goings-on there. Needless to say, I would very much like to see some additional stories about what happens next on Nova Europa! It’s a neat place.

If you have gotten this far in the series, you owe it to yourself to find out how it all turns out in THE FOURTH ELEPHANT’S EGG. If you’re in the mood for a fun fantasy series that doesn’t take itself too seriously, then you’ll want to pick up the first book in the trilogy, THE CRACKS IN THE AETHER.

Review copyright 2012 J. Andrew Byers

This is the second book in the fantasy Hypatomancer’s Tale trilogy by Robert Reginald. As with the first in the trilogy, this is a relatively light-hearted fantasy adventure, though one with very real stakes for the protagonist, his companions, and his universe.

Some plot spoilers follow, but I promise not to ruin your enjoyment of the story.

This second volume picks up immediately where the first left off: a hypatomancer (a mage with the ability to foretell the future) named Morpheus has given up his sinecure as a court wizard to travel to the Otherworlds and rescue a woman he’s never met. The Otherworlds are a fascinating place: think Stargate’s variety of planets, only they’re reached by magical portals and the inhabitants are a bit stranger. All of the places we see in the Otherworlds are locales where humans, or near-humans, can survive. These aren’t crazy places where the laws of physics work differently (for the most part), but they are inhabited by strange races and cultures. These cultural differences drive a great many of the novels’ plot complications. The problem is that Morpheus has learned that before he can rescue the unknown woman on the far-off world at the other end of the universe, he must repair damage to the universe (the eponymous “cracks in the aether” from the first title in the series). To do this, Morpheus needs to find the Elephant’s four Eggs, powerful magical artifacts of unknown properties, appearance, and origins. He knows only that he needs to make contact with a mysterious alien race called the Pachyderms. And so the journey begins.

As always, Reginald’s dialogue is smooth, natural, fun, and funny. I enjoyed the occasional puns and allusions to a variety of science fiction and fantasy settings and authors – I thought of these as a kind of fun inside jokes for fans. The action and plot flow smoothly and effortlessly from Reginald’s pen.

If you enjoyed THE CRACKS IN THE AETHER, you will certainly enjoy THE PACHYDERMS’ LAMENT! If you’re looking for a fun new fantasy series, then I would suggest starting with THE CRACKS IN THE AETHER.

Review copyright 2012 J. Andrew Byers

This modern reworking of H G Wells's classic novel suffers from having a B movie title (though I am a bit unclear whether Invasion! etc. is an umbrella title for the trilogy of which this is the first part or just the title of this first book as the cover and author's note seem to offer contradictory evidence). Unfortunately it also suffers from awful B movie dialogue, unmemorable and/or unlikeable characters and, in the first part at least, banal description and not much of an effort to create a real atmosphere. Strangely the latter part with its description of the destroyed world is a very much better class of writing (the author's note says that large parts of the book were rewritten more than once). This improved my estimation of the book. But then, hey presto, normality is suddenly restored even more quickly than in Wells's original book, the aliens being defeated in the same way. A worldwide catastrophe is revealed suddenly as quite localised, so why didn't the outside world intervene sooner if they were unaffected? Plot weaknesses that Wells could get away with in 1898 (when this kind of writing was revolutionary) should be tackled a bit differently in 2011, in my view. I am undecided whether to bother with the other two books in the trilogy. 2.5/5½

H. G. Wells’ War of the Worlds is an early classic science fiction tale that has been imitated and retold in countless ways, and it’s always been a favorite of mine. Robert Reginald has taken Wells’ basic idea – a surprise, devastating attack by Martians that is only barely stopped, and even then not because of any human action – and expanded it to three novels, setting it in modern-day America. The trilogy was originally published in one great big fat trade paperback by Underwood Books in 2007 (with very nice cover art and interior black and white illustrations by Choi Tae-Young), but didn’t make the popular splash that it deserved, and I’ve only just recently even learned of its existence. I’ve heard from a little bird that the three works that constitute the series thus far will be reprinted as individual books by Wildside Books soon. I hope that a fourth volume continuing the series will soon follow.

Some mild plot spoilers follow.

The first book in the series (War of Two Worlds) is essentially a retelling of the classic Wells story, following the experiences of everyman academic Alex Smith in modern-day California. Smith is a college professor and travels around California witnessing and participating in the violence and devastation that accompanies the Martian invasion. California is an area the author knows intimately, and this certainly comes across as the places the protagonist travels through have a real presence in the story. This first book follows the same essential plot as the original, with Wells’ key events also present here, in modernized format.

The middle and final volumes of the trilogy (Operation Crimson Storm and The Martians Strike Back!, respectively) are entirely new and pick up some years after the initial Martian invasion. Earth has mostly recovered from the onslaught, reengineered some of the Martians’ technology, and built a massive spacefleet in an attempt to bring the war to the Martians’ homeland. Earth is getting pummeled by asteroids the Martians send crashing into Earth (shades of Starship Troopers) and they pretty much have no choice if human civilization is to survive. They land on Mars, set up a couple bases, and start fighting back. Along the way, Alex Smith and his family gain new insights into the truly alien culture (and ecosystem) of the Martians in an effort to learn why the Martians attacked and how the conflict may be stopped. The Martians were very well-crafted – these are not simply Star Trek-style aliens who are essentially humans with antennae – and the trilogy sets up some additional mysteries that I’d love to see resolved in a fourth volume.

As much as I enjoy and respect H. G. Wells’ work, he was a product of the literary and genre conventions of the day, and his style didn’t permit deep characterization or exploration of human psychology. Reginald’s retelling allows him to explore both characterization of individuals and human society much more extensively than the original did, and that’s all to the good. Clearly, one of the themes of the trilogy (and this is present in Reginald’s novel Knack’ Attack as well) is the conflict that can arise from a lack of communication and cultural affinity between societies. That’s a theme that’s well-taken, and adds some additional richness to the novels, making them more than simple military SF tales. At times, Reginald seems a little conflicted though: are the humans making a dumb decision attacking the Martians, succumbing to militaristic impulses, or are they justified in what they’re doing since Mars attacked Earth with very little provocation, killing probably tens of millions of people and wreaking catastrophic damage? It’s hard not to be at least a little sympathetic with even the most militaristic humans in the novels, seeing as how we didn’t start the war, though the Martians (at least some of them) don’t quite see it that way.

I give this one 4.5 stars out of 5. I enjoyed this trilogy immensely and highly recommend it for fans of the original War of the Worlds as well as military science fiction/adventure fans who are looking for more than a simple shoot-‘em-up.

Review copyright 2011 J. Andrew Byers½

This collection’s subtitle describes it as “The Borgo Press Book of Writers Writing about Writing,” and that’s as good a description of it as any I might come up with. The collection contains nineteen essays on writing, plus the introduction and an unusually thorough index. Most of the essays concern themselves with advice from veteran authors on general fiction writing, but there are also essays on poetry, the craft of screenplay writing, translations, collaborations, science fiction writing, and writing sex scenes, among others. This is truly an eclectic collection, to say the least!

Several essays by the likes of Ardath Mayhar, Robert Reginald, Victor J. Banis, and Charles Allen Gramlich, among many others, offer anecdotes, discussion, tips, and dispatches from the trenches on how working writers go through the process of churning out coherent, enjoyable, and perhaps most importantly, publishable prose. I don’t want to give a complete run-down on a score of essays – that might test the patience of even the most dedicated review-reader – but I’d like to highlight just a few of the essays that hit particular chords for me.

I found “A Few Words, a Very Few Words, on Writing” by Robert Reginald to be a poignant piece in which he describes an experience he had with systematically deconstructing another author’s body of work for a guide he wrote on that author’s universe (I’m pretty sure I know which one he’s talking about here, but I won’t spoil it here). The exercise of doing this showed him exactly how the stories were constructed, and he’s learned to apply this to other works of film and fiction. In the process, though, it’s spoiled many of them because he can now see where most plots are headed well before they get there. Alas – with wisdom comes a loss of innocence, I suppose. “Love, Anyone? or, How to Write Sex Scenes,” by William Maltese provides what seems to me some excellent advice on writing sex (not romance) scenes through a series of lengthy prose examples. It’s also hilarious, and makes me want to read more by Mr. Maltese. And “Preparing and Writing,” by Charles Allen Gramlich, Y. Du Bois Irvin, and Elliott D. Hammer is an excerpt from their larger book-length work on publishing in academic venues, and echoes some very good advice I’ve encountered elsewhere on time management for writers.

I give this one 4 stars out of 5, with the sheer eclecticism of the collection the only element holding it back from a full five stars, and highly recommend it to fiction writers of all stripes in particular, though there are certainly useful essays here for poets, playwrights, and translators as well.

Review copyright 2011 J. Andrew Byers

Remember the old Ace Doubles, each of which included two novels/novellas printed back-to-back and upside-down, each with its own front cover? I love those, and am happy to report that Wildside Press has started a new series using this concept. Wildside Double #7 includes two science fiction novellas set in the same universe: Slaughterhouse World by Ardath Mayhar and Knack’ Attack by Robert Reginald. Both are fun science fiction tales involving humanity’s battle against an implacable alien race, the Knackers, with whom we cannot effectively communicate and who view humans as a culinary delicacy. I’d consider both works to be in much the same vein as the old Heinlein juveniles, in that they would appeal to teen readers but can still be appreciated by adult readers.

Minor plot spoilers follow.

Slaughterhouse World: Ardath Mayhar’s novella describes the (mis)adventures of an ordinary grunt, Joel Karsh, who is one of the few survivors of a human military unit operating on the eponymous “Slaughterhouse World,” which is a planet the Knackers are using as a processing center and transshipment point for human flesh. Joel just wants to survive and make it back to his rendezvous point, but along the way, he may just find a way to give humanity the edge it needs to win the war.

Knack’ Attack: I was initially concerned about the dialect in which this story is told – it’s a first person account by a fifteen-year old genetically-modified – in what way(s) we’re not sure, though she can’t eat “standard” food – human girl who has lived her entire life on a rural alien world. She speaks in kind of a “folksy” voice with lots of quaint expressions and contractions peppering her dialogue and thoughts, but it didn’t get in the way of my enjoyment of the story as I’d initially feared it might. As I read, I found myself mentally pronouncing each word phonetically and that worked just fine and didn’t slow me down. In any case, this is a coming of age story about a young woman thrust into a situation requiring courage, wisdom, and leadership far beyond her years if she and her fellow settlers are to survive the Knacker invasion of their world. We also learn more about the aliens themselves and what’s going on in the larger war effort.

Despite the fact that the premise of both stories is one involving a pretty horrific situation – humanity is losing a war to an alien race that eats us – these are classic, fun, wholesome military SF tales. Since these are stories of courage, survival, and coming of age, I think they will especially appeal to teen readers.

I enjoyed both novellas very much and recommend them to anyone looking for some fun SF adventures. Don’t expect convoluted plots or hard science. These are rousing adventure stories. I give this duo of novellas a very solid 4 stars out of 5 and am very much looking forward to more tales of the Human-Knacker War

Review copyright 2010 J. Andrew Byers