Recent Excellent Reads

Tags

Amy Poehler, Andre Dubus, Andre Dubus III, book lover, book lovers, book recommendations, book reviews, goodreads, House of Sand and Fog, Monday Blogs, reading recommendations, Yes Please

There’s been less writing and more reading in my life lately, and I’ve been remiss in recommending some of my recent favorites. If you follow me on Goodreads, you can see all of my ratings and recommendations. Recently I’ve begun reading outside the genres that I write, with growing appreciation for authors who make their craft seem so natural and easy, even if they aren’t writing about aliens, elves, vampires, or alien vampire elves. I’ve even thrown in some non-fiction for good measure.

House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus III

As someone who likes to claim he’s a writer, I read fairly critically. I appreciate well-crafted plots, believable characters, and the artful use of language. With those in mind, please appreciate it when I say that I am, quite frankly, completely in awe of Andre Dubus III’s mastery of all of these and more. In House of Sand and Fog, he creates a plot based around a bureaucratic mistake that unleashes chaos into his characters’ lives. It is these characters, at once strong and frail, who propel this plot through the simple act of believing they are right, from opposite sides of their conflicts. They perceive their weaknesses to be strengths, they act out of passionate emotions: fear, pride, love, hatred. They fluctuate between admirable and deplorable, and this turmoil creates an emotionally gripping and compelling read. Well outside my usual genre reading preferences, I couldn’t put down this novel, and I can’t recommend it enough.

Yes, Please by Amy Poehler

I seldom watched Saturday Night Live during Poehler’s tenure, but I fell in love with her work on Parks and Recreation and have been an enthusiastic fan of her work since. In “Yes, Please”, I was treated to satisfying autobiographical pieces from her childhood through her career highs and lows, and I found myself laughing hysterically and, just as easily, moved by some very emotional points in her life as a comic actor, improviser, and mother. There’s wisdom from what she’s learned, and laughs at her own mistakes. She portrays fame and all the hard work it required with honest, self-deprecating humor that endears her to me and gains my respect for her and other women struggling in the same arena. It’s easy to see why she has become beloved by so many fans and peers.

Even for those unfamiliar with Poehler’s work, I recommend this book as a funny look at comedy, television, motherhood, and growing older in an unforgiving industry. She has earned my respect for her creative vision and determination, and the book is worth reading for those qualities alone.

As someone who loves to read, I always feel like I should dedicate more time to it. Sometimes I have a crushing realization that I won’t have time to read everything that I want in my lifetime. Does this happen to any of you? Leave me a comment and let me know what’s at the top of your “to read” list. Better yet, let me know if you’re on Goodreads, so I can follow you.

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Zero Calorie Comfort Food

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Black Company, Books, comfort food, comfort reading, Dune, Fantasy, Fantasy SciFi, favorite books, First Law, Frank Herbert, Glen Cook, Joe Abercrombie, Monday Blogs, reading, Science Fiction, SciFi

To be honest, right from the start, this post isn’t about food. It’s not about some amazing alternative to delectable, reliable staples that warm our hearts as well as our bellies. It has nothing to do with fried chicken, or mashed potatoes with gravy, or meatloaf, or chicken and dumplings, or… I think I just gained a few pounds.

There are books I read over and over again that give me great comfort. I’ve spent time wondering why I return to them, besides the fact that they are outstanding works of fiction. Why will I turn to them instead of reading something brand new? Why spend hours on secrets that have already been discovered, characters who’ve already revealed their true natures, battles that have already been decided? I do it because I crave the taste of those books like a warm piece of pie.

If an author delivers me a plot with a pace that pulls me and keeps me guessing, characters that seem alive or trick me into sympathizing with them, and vivid scenery that surrounds them, I will gorge myself on it with utter abandon. I haven’t met many other people who do this, but I’m sure I’m not alone. There are books that contain passages so meaningful, humorous, or heart-wrenching that I will flip (or scroll) back to read them again. It’s no wonder it takes me so long to read them.

The First Law Trilogy, by Joe Abercrombie, has moved with me several times. I feel a weight lift from my mind once I unpack and place these books on my bookshelf. This isn’t the first dark fantasy series I’ve read, but it is influenced by others I love, like Glen Cook’s Black Company series. It combines all the elements I mentioned above, along with some dark humor. The protagonists and plot have a foot in the comforting familiar and another firmly in original territory. The first in the trilogy, The Blade Itself, is the first novel I’ve ever read through once and then immediately started over again. They are examples of fantasy that I try to achieve when I write.

Dune, by Frank Herbert, is a benchmark for science fiction I love. While the royal intrigue of the second novel never solidly appealed to me, there was enough of it in the first novel to lend a welcome complexity to the rest of the exciting adventure I love. Part of me just loves the planet that seems like another character, one that presents such a challenge to people who have conquered space and the limits of the human mind. Wicked villains and heroic youths give all the charms of a fairy tale with the alien nature of humanity in the far future, and I want to be there riding sand worms and ‘thopters with them.

The Silver Spike, by Glen Cook (see Black Company above) is part of a longer series that can stand alone. I’ve read it more than any other novel in the series, I think because it magnifies my favorite elements in the other books. The main characters are bad people, but they pale in comparison to the evil working to be reborn into the world. The world contains people who do what they must to survive and always want more after they find what they need. Greed, jealousy, fear, and lust motivate characters that move the plot at a steady pace from one disaster to another, and it’s fun every time I read it.

The novels I mentioned above are those I will talk about to whomever will stand still to listen or find themselves trapped in a car with me. As a writer who has yet to see a novel published, maybe I’m reaching a bit too far when I want to write someone’s comfort food. I would love it every time someone bought one of my novels, but I would LOVE my books to join the dog-eared, underlined, cracked-spined (or the digital equivalent) staples of their regular reading. If my books could compel readers to rant about them to complete strangers at parties, on the bus, or in the supermarket aisle, then I will have written something I believe is truly spectacular.

Do you have some favorite books that satisfy you like comfort food? Let me know about them in a comment below!

The Selection on Sale

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Book promotion, book sale, indie authors, Indie Publishing, Science Fiction, SciFi, the selection, young adult

For a limited time, grab the thrilling young adult scifi adventure novel “The Selection” from author Jason J. Nugent for only .99!

 

Humans colonized the planet Kepler 186f after Earth’s near total global collapse. Soon after, supply missions ended leaving the colonists to themselves, renaming the planet Anastasia and building a new society far different than Earth’s.

As population imbalance threatened stability in the settlements, a horrific and brutal institution known as The Selection was created.

Centuries later, haunted by the screams of his dead older brother, eighteen year-old Eron fears the unknown terror waiting for him and all boys his age in The Selection. He has thirty days to survive to Victory Point and reunite with his crush Mina. He will have to endure brutal circumstances and forge unlikely alliances if he’s to survive The Selection.

Time is short. Threats are constant. Survival means life. Failure means death—or worse.

 

Between June 9th and June 11th, you can get this action-filled story for only .99! Go to mybook.to/the-selection today before time runs out!

 

Jason Nugent was born in Cleveland, OH in 1974. He moved to rural southern Illinois in 1992 and lives there today with his wife, son, and mini-zoo of three cats and two dogs.

Jason is the author of two collections of dark fiction short stories: “(Almost) Average Anthology” and “Moments of Darkness” and the young adult scifi novel “The Selection.”

Jason has written for Sum’n Unique Magazine and game missions for an independently produced video game titled “Status Quo.”

He writes regularly on his blog almostaverageblog.wordpress.com and can be found at jasonjnugent.com.

Reading, Watching, Playing, Writing

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Black Ops 3, Books, Luke Cage, Netflix, Reviews, Role-playing Games, The Fireman, Video Games, Writing

Every once in a while, I like to talk about some of the media I’ve been consuming and enjoying. Now is one of those whiles.

I finished Joe Hill’s The Fireman not long ago, and I have to say it was H-O-T. OK, that was bad. But the novel was great. After reading another of his novels, Horns, I found The Fireman to be much more accessible to a wider audience. I loved Horns, but I could understand if it were a bit weird for a lot of people. I was really surprised that it was made into a movie. The Fireman, on the other hand, begs to be shown on the big screen. IMDB says a movie adaptation is currently in development, so we all have that to anxiously anticipate. I found it to be a wildly fun suspense story written with Hill’s exceptional characters and injected with just the right amount of humor. It does describe what could be the end of humanity, so laughs were welcome. I won’t spoil it. You should read it immediately.

I finished my Luke Cage binge on Netflix much more quickly than I thought I would. I should have known, from his brief appearances in Jessica Jones, that I would find his own series fantastic. Mike Colter couldn’t have played Power Man better, though I confess to little knowledge of the character from the comics. (I read the only available issue in my orthodontist’s office a dozen times when I was a kid, but my interest at that age was generally monopolized by Iron Fist.) Outstanding performances from Alfre Woodard and Simone Missick made for extremely compelling television. With 13 episodes to pepper with details of origin story and character development, there was a lot to love.

Black Ops 3 surprised me with its excellent game play and gritty realism. I don’t typically like FPS games, but my son loves those he’s been able to try, like Garden Warfare and Destiny. He’s at an age where most FPS games are inappropriate for him due to language and violence. That’s what sold me on Black Ops 3. As a parent, I could opt to blur out mature images and gore, as well as censor objectionable language, in effect keeping a mature-rated game at a PG-13 level. We got all the excellence of a challenging campaign plus additional zombie levels that he loves, and I was able to stick to my parental obligation to limit his exposure to inappropriate content. We can play together in a cooperative, split-screen mode, which makes it even more enjoyable. If you have a kid too old for kids games and too young for more adult games, Black Ops 3 fills the gap much like Destiny and much more enjoyably than I found Star Wars Battlefront.

How do I have time to write when I’ve been reading, watching, and playing all this stuff? I don’t sleep (enough)! Actually I do far less of the others, so I can make time to write. In the past couple of months, I finished the first draft of my very first novel. I wrote nearly all of it in longhand during lunch breaks, so my first round of editing is also my time spent typing it. I also wrote the chronologically second, long short-story featuring my character, Os. The first of these appears in Nonlocal Science Fiction Issue 3. I just recently finished typing that up and look forward to editing it more in the coming months. Already ideas are percolating for the next story in the series, and let me tell you, Os is in for some trouble (again). Finally, I’ve written several new short stories that I’m currently shopping around. No takers, so far, but I’m optimistic after positive reviews from some beta readers. And I’m not about to stop there. Currently I’m writing a fantasy short inspired by Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay sessions with my friends. I’m also in the extreme beginning stage of planning my next novel, using the Snowflake method to hopefully finish it much more quickly than my first.

Have you read, watched, or played any of the above? I’d love to hear your thoughts about those and any other recommendations you have, so please leave me a comment!

Horror Lovers, Unite!

Tags

Books, Burn the Rabbit, Horror, Joe Chianakas, Publishing News, Rabbit in Red, Writing

 

In an earlier blog post, I named Rabbit in Red by Joe Chianakas as one of my favorite reads of 2015. It resonated with me as both a fan of horror movies and a person who has often immersed myself in fictional worlds to avoid life’s stresses and disappointments. Even though I’m a good deal older than the protagonists, the novel successfully transported me back to the awkward years of my life as a closeted geek. It’s memorable characters found faces in my imagination and seemed like people with whom I would’ve shared popcorn and space on my couch in front of the TV.

Now we’re close to the release of Burn the Rabbit, the sequel to Rabbit in Red. Not only am I eager to read the new novel, but I want to help spread the word about this series that struck such a chord with me. On a personal note, I also wanted to support Joe’s writing career. He has promoted this blog and supported my writing dream via social media since I first signed up for Twitter over a year ago.

I encourage you to visit and “like” his Facebook page so we can get the word out about his novels. You’ll be supporting the author, a great guy who has encouraged a lot of others like me to pursue their dreams. I’m currently part of a small group of folks helping with the new novel’s promotion, but I wouldn’t be surprised if his group of fans grows by leaps and bounds once more people learn about him.

Help me help Joe and like his page! Thanks.

 

Review: Double Dead by Chuck Wendig

Tags

Books, Chuck Wendig, Double Dead, Horror, Reviews, Vampires, Zombie Apocalypse, Zombies

I’ve had a long love affair with vampire fiction, starting with some great movies I watched as a kid. They certainly provided their share of nightmare fuel and vampires continued to be my favorite monsters for much of my childhood. Naturally I wanted to read about them, too. I quickly learned there were many different interpretations of the source material made popular by Bram Stoker. I talk about some of my favorites in this entry.

Chuck Wendig’s novels have been available for years, but I only started reading his works a few months ago. Had I known about Double Dead earlier, I surely would have added it to my list of favorite vampire novels in my previous blog post. Its premise alone was enough to excite me. I even bought it at a brick-and-mortar Barnes and Noble, something this here cheapskate almost never does. It’s my hope that one day, should he venture to my vicinity for a signing, I can get him to autograph it.

Double Dead’s main character, Coburn, is a vampire. And he’s a jerk. And he’s completely unapologetic about it. That’s what happens when a guy gets used to taking anything he wants, whenever he wants it, without any consequences. But when we meet Coburn, he’s in a bad way, having only a nebulous memory of how he nearly ceased to exist. No problem for him, as soon as he sinks his fangs into an unsuspecting victim. Except there aren’t any human snacks to be enjoyed. He soon learns that human society has collapsed beneath the weight of an apocalyptic event, and now zombies roam the streets. And they taste terrible. Coburn’s only hope for survival is to find human survivors and protect them like prized cows on a farm besieged by wolves. The vampire, a perfect predator, has his weaknesses, and soon he and his charges are on the run from something even scarier than he is.

There’s a lot to like in Wendig’s tale. The characters are lovingly crafted, even those easy to hate. There’s not a Navy SEAL or Green Beret among them. The presence of elite soldiers is all too common in a lot of zombie fiction, and it always seems too convenient for me. Double Dead’s characters are regular folks with familiar motivations and faults. Coburn is kind enough to remind them just how weak and vulnerable they are, if not for his protection, at first anyway. Is there something in Coburn worth redeeming? I think the story would have been far too depressing if there weren’t. The vampire was once human, as little as he cares to admit it, and his character grows despite his best attempts to remain a remorseless killer. There are other characters equally set in their ways, and they were reminders that change is difficult for anyone, not just undead bloodsuckers.

Double Dead’s pacing is flawless. Wendig kept the tension high, even during some of the tamer segments. Most of this seemed effortless because the characters were so detailed and believable that their fears and reactions felt real without being completely predictable. Add that to increasingly worrying threats from the zombies and other enemies, and it made for a joyride of the imagination. Plot twists came when least expected and delivered a page-turning thriller.

Throw in a vivid and varied landscape of ruin and harried survivors, add a dash of hope for a cure to the zombie plague, and Double Dead’s world came completely alive in my mind as I read. The characters are desperate, as they should be to ally themselves with someone like Coburn, and without hope the story likely would have bogged down like so many other zombie apocalypse yarns I’ve read. Double Dead never grew stale. Despite knowing its secrets, I’ll read it again for the character interactions alone.

The novel’s probably not for everyone, but I couldn’t have asked for something better in this genre. I like my vampires savage and sunburned, not romantic and sparkly. It might not be bleak enough for some zombie apocalypse fans, but I think Wendig’s tone, as experienced through his characters, is just hopeful enough to keep them looking for something better and clinging to each other. It’s all colored with dark humor, mostly that from Coburn’s irreverent point of view, that wraps all the elements up together into something spectacular.

Give Double Dead a try and let me know what you think by leaving me a comment here or via Twitter. You can find me @AaronLHamilton.

 

 

The First Time

Tags

Books, Fantasy, Inspiration, Science Fiction, SciFi, Writing

I was 13. Some of you might think that’s kind of young. Others might have experienced this even earlier. But I’ll never forget it, and I’d wager that’s a familiar sentiment among us all. I actually have my cousin to thank. Everyone remembers their first time…

…reading science fiction and fantasy! What? You thought I was going to say something else? Sheesh, minds out of the gutter, guys. Come on, we’re all adults here. Well, actually, my love for these genres is probably responsible for my refusal to completely grow up. And it might have made my first time doing…that other thing…take so long to ever happen.

I really want to talk about the two series that started my path into the scifi and fantasy genres. The initial books in both series were gifts from my cousin, and I devoured them, only to spend my allowance on the rest of the installments in each.

The first was the Apprentice Adept series by Piers Anthony. While I might have read some science fiction before this, it wasn’t science fiction aimed at an adult audience. Mostly it had been stuff like The Tripods series and A Wrinkle in Time. Anthony’s works were unknown to me, up to that point, and the content was more mature in its character complexities and plot twists than books I had read earlier. Bouncing back and forth between humanity’s oppressive future and a world of powerful magic, this series strummed all the right nerd chords that made my heart sing. I’d never read anything like it before. There were familiar themes of Good vs. Evil and the triumphant underdog that helped me make the transition to the more intricate stories I enjoyed when I was older. Although I tried out some of Piers Anthony’s other series, none brought me the same imaginative experiences as Apprentice Adept. It will always hold a place in my heart as my “first”, even if I’ve read superior works since. If I had time to go back and read the series again, 30 years later, I don’t know that they would possess the same meaning for me, so I’ll let them stand on the pedestal they’ve occupied all this time.

The Spellsinger series, by Allan Dean Foster, was my first foray into more mature fantasy. Tolkien’s beautiful prose and imagery would take me many attempts to appreciate, since I liked novels with quicker paces at that age. This series practically flew in comparison. I remember feeling that the cover was a bit silly and gave the impression that I’d be reading something like Wind in the Willows meets a Grimm’s fairy tale. What I got once I began reading was something entirely different. There were dark undertones mixed with humor. The anthropomorphic critters were far from their Disney equivalents. It’s an impressive series that spans many novels, and I read nearly all of them. The early books left the greatest impressions on me. While they weren’t as dark as the fantasy I would come to love as an adult, they were stepping stones into my Glen Cook years. They were also some of the first books to make me appreciate how difficult it would be to write a decent fantasy novel. Allan Dean Foster didn’t seem to take any shortcuts when he developed complex plots and memorable characters, and this inspired me to strive for those critical elements in my own writing, as challenging as it is. I went on to read other page-turners by Allan Dean Foster, including Splinter of the Mind’s Eye, one of my favorite Star Wars novels.

In my tenure working at various libraries, I’ve had opportunities to recommend these series to many fantasy and scifi lovers. Most people had already read them, but they always talked about them with the same kind of reverence I felt. A few were younger readers and hadn’t heard of them, even though both authors wrote prolifically. It’s easy to imagine, in today’s much expanded book market, that they were overlooked. I think it’s safe to call both series classics at this point. Maybe that makes me old, but I hope it also puts me in a good place to guide apprentice nerds on their paths to reading great science fiction and fantasy. Maybe they’ll write in these genres someday, too.

Favorite Reads from 2015

Tags

Benevolence Archives, Books, Fantasy, Horror, Joe Chianakas, Luther Siler, Rabbit in Red, Science Fiction, SciFi

I don’t have as much time to read as I used to, and that makes me pretty careful with my reading choices. I’m more apt to shelve or abandon a book that doesn’t seem likely to pay off, whether because I can’t get interested, the characters are weakly developed or the prose seems clunky. That said, here were some of my favorite reads from the last year. All were memorable, entertaining and compelled me to turn pages far past my bedtime.

Rabbit in Red, by Joe Chianakas, catered to both my love of horror and appreciation for original storytelling. The quick pace and suspenseful plot could have been enough to satisfy my craving for a thrilling novel. In addition, Rabbit in Red introduced protagonists with whom horror fans could easily identify. In our time of online friendships and rivalries, this novel is a modern tale that felt genuine when describing the bonds quickly formed around common interests. I enjoyed the thrills of the main plot line, but the tangible struggle of the young characters to identify their purposes and places in the world always stood out itself as an integral and equally interesting story. I’m looking forward to the second installment in the series.

The Benevolence Archives, by Luther Siler, quickly found themselves among my favorite reads of 2015. After reading the first volume, I immediately downloaded the second installment. If I tried to describe these tales in general, I would quickly run out of room. Every specific detail I mentioned would have to be expanded upon to convey all of the wahoo I felt while reading them, and somehow Siler packed all of it into two quick reads that still leave me marveling months later. I’ll generalize instead, saying that both the short stories in BA 1 and the novel in BA 2 were chock full of scifi adventure, intrigue and belly laughs. Treat yourself to all of the fun details as soon as you can.

I probably don’t need to go into detail about these bestsellers from big-name publishers, since they enjoyed the benefit of more mainstream attention. The Martian, by Andy Weir, was excellent. Its combination of science, adventure and humor will entice me to re-read it before long. The Gentleman Bastards novels, by Scott Lynch, were a breath of fresh air for me in the fantasy genre. I read all of them, one after the other, which I haven’t done in that genre since Joe Abercrombie’s First Law trilogy. I have the highest respect for any author capable of creating truly original work in that genre, and Lynch definitely delivered.

Please feel free to leave me a comment below with some of your favorites from 2015. Great books are priceless treasures we can all share.

Best to everyone and happy reading in 2016!

Hold the Garlic

Tags

Books, Horror, Monsters, Reviews, Vampires

From an early age, I liked monster movies.  I can remember watching some black-and-white classics, starring the greats of the era.  Boris Karloff, Lon Chaney, Jr., and Bela Lugosi were some I remember.  My favorite was Christopher Lee’s Dracula, one of the reasons I was so psyched to see him cast as Saruman in the Lord of the Rings and Count Dooku in Star Wars.  Vampires in particular seemed to occupy my imagination for many years afterward, only to slacken off a bit after my college years until True Blood brought me back to them.  Really, I just watched it because my wife was watching it.  Ok, I’m lying.  I hung in there until the second-to-last season, mainly because the show had a lot of what I like about vampires, for the first several seasons anyway, and skipped much of what I don’t like about vampire fiction.  I appreciate the sensuality of the vampire mystique, but it’s not the selling point for me.  I’m more a fan of the complications of immortality, the moral dilemmas behind their snacking habits, and what basically boils down to superhuman predators disguised as humans.  By and large, the books I’ve read have been superior to all the movies and TV shows I’ve seen.  Here are some of my favorites.

The first vampire novel I ever read that flew in the face of the movies I enjoyed during childhood was “Salem’s Lot” by Stephen King.  I did enjoy the movie, but the book is far superior.  The small-town setting provided a level of familiarity among the characters that caused all kinds of tensions.  There was no way people could avoid confronting the fact that something awful plagued the village, as people they had known for years seemed to disappear.  Characters my age were missing, only to reappear to friends who had attended their funerals.  One of the heroes was a kid like me, who read books and watched monster movies and let his imagination get the best of him.  He and an out-of-town writer made a horrible team of vampire hunters, but that was part of the magic of the story. They were desperate to save the town and the important people in their lives, and there was nobody else to do it.

“Vampire$”, by John Steakley, was eventually made into a movie, starring James Woods as the leader of a secret band of vampire hunters working for the Catholic Church.  I liked the movie, mainly due to Woods’ fine portrayal of the main character, but the book was even better.  It’s a gritty, high-velocity thriller, and the vampires aren’t portrayed as age-weary romantics.  They’re hunters with a plan to take back their rightful place as head of the food chain.  Their main opposition is all too human, fragile despite their best toys and tactics, and not completely up to the task.  It makes for a great read, as the ragtag band comes up against the worst of their fears in a winner-take-all battle for humanity.

Probably my favorite vampire novel of all time is “Necroscope” by Brian Lumley.  It’s really much more of a Cold War spy novel than anything, but vampires were the main draw for me.  The novel involves two competing psychic espionage agencies, setting up the main characters from each faction to face off.  The influence of the vampire is interwoven artfully, with peeks into his history as well as his current ambitions.  The novel is followed by a whole series full of compelling characters, both human and vampire, some of whom seem far more evil than any undead parasite.  There’s no arguing the originality of Lumley’s vampire lore, again deviating from some of the classics and the popular successors to this genre.

Writing about these books makes me want to read them all over again, even though I’ve read each of them multiple times.  I guess it’s time for me to find some new vampire fiction, so if you have any recommendations, please let me know.  Thanks for reading, and I look forward to hearing what you’ve been reading in the comments here, on Facebook, or Goodreads.