Fire Wolf (Deneb, #1) by Pearson Moore
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Fire Wolf by Pearson Moore is a very interesting tale of Neanderthal humanoids related through a combination of the author’s imagination and academic knowledge. The reader is introduced to Lishi, a girl Seer, who is a member of the Fire Wolf clan, one of many more clans. There is then a succession of many more characters, all with names difficult to attach to either males or females, and with strange terms also difficult to remember by their unfamiliar spelling etc: such as Tosghit, Kammas, Melpok, Girrt and Blegstuk. I found the mixture of the very unfamiliar language construction, strange names and almost staccato-like delivery of various short scenes within the clan, quite disconcerting and hard to accept as a “smooth” introduction to the book.

After about twenty pages or so I decided to glance through the Trogmath Tasfit (Songs) the Poglobt (Glossary) and the anthropology of Fire Wolf at the back of the book to try and get a background “feel” for the story. But this section occupies around a third of the book and took a lot of time even to skim never mind absorb. I’m not sure whether the combination of the simplistic, but hard to grasp, dialogue and the large (in this context) volume of academic information works well enough to make this book accessible to many busy readers. I approached this intriguing prehistoric novel with a real interest in the subject but found my interest rapidly evaporated as the story was too confusing from the beginning, and I did not have time to go through the information in the depth needed to accept the events as they unfolded.

I persisted with reading the book and gradually gathered the gist of the story, though I hesitate to call it a novel in the usual sense, and have to say that, although I found the last couple of chapters exciting and very well written, overall I did not particularly enjoy the experience. Often it was like having a large jigsaw to complete without referring to the picture on the box lid because I could not spare the time. In the end I found that I was far more interested in the anthropology of Fire Wolf and the Neanderthals than the narrative or dialogue of the novel. Not the author’s intention I suspect – or maybe it’s just me!
I received a free copy of this book in return for my honest and non-reciprocal review.


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This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate by Naomi Klein
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I have long been convinced by the science that climate change and global warming is occurring through the effects of human activity. Teaching science for over twenty years, very often organising pupils’ investigations into the “greenhouse effect” left me and my teen age charges in no doubt that the same warming could occur through an accumulation of so-called greenhouse gases over the Earth; carbon dioxide CO2, methane CH4 and water vapour being the principle gases involved. “This Changes Everything” from Naomi Klein is an inspiring and momentous book that should be read by all who care about the environment and future generations. It is written in the most accessible and persuasive fashion, for layman and expert, with comprehensive research and accurate revelations about corporate individuals, possible corruption, and collusion between major organisations – on both sides of the climate change argument. I imagine that I was not the only reader to be surprised to find disclosures in the book about suspicious discredit of scientific proof of climate change by some who stand to benefit from such practices, even financing such apalling behaviour.

Even if the science about climate change causes some people to still doubt that it is indisputable proof that the damage is being caused by human activity, and not just due to natural climate cycling, we must surely still ask is it worth the risk? There is no doubt industry is addicted to using fossil fuels as a source of energy, and that the developed, and developing world, is addicted to its use of electricity, through its ever growing range of devices requiring electrical energy. There could well be an argument to reassess the ways of the capitalist world to free us from our addiction to electricity. But I do not think that is going to happen, notwithstanding some major catastrophe that forces the issue. Changing how we resource the provision of the energy rather than through fossil fuels should be a smaller task than completely changing modern societal living. So changing the behaviour of the big businesses providing the resources and sources that make electricity should be a reasonable thing to expect governments to bring about. Yes? Well maybe it’s not that easy.

Naomi Klein’s most important book illustrates well that this question of changing big business regarding provision of “useful energy” is still deeply involved with politics, and those who claim it has much to lose by changing its practices. Governments which allow themselves to be pushed around by large corporate organisations instead of legislating on the issues that will affect future generations of its citizens are not acting in the best interests of the people. The energy business is intent on continuing to use fossil fuels, which everyone now knows, and this book well demonstrates is detrimental to the Earth and all life, including human, on it now and in the future. The author does not write only about doom and gloom for the future. She relates tale after tale about people around the world who achieved seemingly impossible change using a variety of peaceful methods. Leaders and policy makers everywhere know what the problems are but when will they act rather than procrastinate? To quote from the book:

“It is slowly dawning on a great many of us that no one is going to step in and fix this crisis; that if change is to take place it will only be because leadership bubbled up from below.”

We can only hope that the leader emerges and the change occurs before too long, before 2017 ideally, or else we may have another serious bubble bursting over us all sometime soon. I heartily recommend that all who care about the future of the Earth and our children read this book.


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Pets and Masters in Space: Part 1: The First Voyage by Elfa Todari
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

When I began reading this space adventure book for children I was quite quickly drawn in by the intriguing ideas portrayed within the first few pages: extremely tall aliens with telepathic powers, a humanoid employee/pet, Antaska, accompanied by her own pet cat, called Potat, and all on a journey through space to an unknown planet. The story goes on to describe the various events and new activities, experienced by Antaska on board the spaceship, with great imagination and skill from the author.

I hesitate to describe her experiences, many rather domestic but novel in nature, as I want to avoid spoilers.
However, she has several rather violent physical encounters with a pair of physically “perfect” humans that verge on romantic infatuation and jealousy. This leads to an interesting climax that could have occurred in many a rom-com but has the different arbitration to affairs from the aliens that the reader hopes for at this point!

I have no doubt that this story will appeal to readers aged from 10 to 15 but does require some editing throughout for typos and spelling errors, eg. “relived” for relieved. While, as an English reader, I could accept many of the US English spellings like “center” and so on, I found the (increasingly common) use of “less” for “fewer” rather jarring – as in “less people” when it should be fewer people. Apart from this I would have liked more technical sci-fi and adventure in the story, too mundane in its space-ship domesticity for me.

The main criticism I have is for its ending, which is abrupt and inexplicable. There seems to be no warning in an introduction or explanation later that this is “Part One” presumably of a series. Once again, as in other similar book-series I felt cheated at the end. Perhaps younger readers than this one will not mind – but I doubt it.
I received a free copy of this book in return for my honest and non-reciprocal review.


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Silent Circle by Cassandra Larsen
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I quite liked the beginning of Silent Circle when Emerson is waking up on her seventeenth birthday and her day is about to get worse. She is entering into a world that she was previously unaware of, a world of witches, covens and werewolves. I found Silent Circle to be very well written, with realistic dialogue between Emerson and her school friends, as well as her conversations with various supernatural characters. Some of these characters prove to be friendly and seek to protect her while she advances her magical powers, but others only cause to harm Emerson. While there were good descriptive passages in the first few pages, when Emerson first appears causing me to turn the pages for more, later the pace slows down a little when there were a few long conversations. This became necessary as a sinister situation concerning Emerson’s deceased mother required constant explanation, bit by bit. Enough said as I want to avoid any hint of a spoiler.

The story is about witchcraft and the training of novices and occasionally there are long stretches before we see magic but when it is done it is vivid and exciting. There are complicated and dysfunctional relationships with conflict that the author describes skilfully and well. I feel certain that younger readers could probably identify with some of the schoolroom situations that the main character has to endure. The tale is told in the first person and Cassandra Larsen does really well to allow the reader to get inside this bubbly but troubled, typical teenager’s head. Her emotions and reactions around boys and rival girls had even this oldie rooting for her right to the end! We have a thrilling encounter with werewolves – sinister, threatening and particularly well done.


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Chasing Through the Dreamtime by Barbara Land
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This easy to read novel is very well written with plenty of believable dialogue for Kate, Charlie and Tina, the main characters, though I found some of Aidan’s appearances a little wooden and unreal. The beginning of this curious tale of metaphysical and spiritual events took too long to get going for this reader. As a trained physicist I wanted to be convinced that such things could have any credibility but too much time was taken over daily details, like making breakfast and gardening etc. However, I did wonder how there was time to look after the farm animals and write a novel with all that seemed to be happening to Kate and Aidan.

The novel that Kate feels compelled to write is about her long deceased aunt, and the voice that tells her to write the book appears to come to her through “dreamtime”. Chasing Through the Dreamtime is a tale about Kate’s discovery of disturbing family secrets and about her new acquaintances persuading her to “understand” reincarnation, together with various ideologies and beliefs that conflict with Kate’s Catholic upbringing. There is much discussion throughout Barbara Land’s book and story about metaphysics, reincarnation and philosophical comparisons with religion and Kate’s Catholicism. What came across as rather strange to me was how her husband, Aidan, and daughter, Charlie, did not think that communication with the dead was just a bit weird and maybe merited a visit to a psychiatrist rather than attend a séance.

I very definitely got the impression that I was being educated, so at times it did feel that the author wrote the book in order to teach the reader about metaphysics etc. Having taught science and technology for many years made me feel rather impatient about this since my very pragmatic approach to things will never allow such thoughts to enter my thinking. Narrow it may be but those philosophical thoughts were carefully considered and rejected many years ago. Occasionally I found the book interesting and it had a decent pace, particularly with events towards the end.

But, in fairness to the author, for anyone who is curious about such concepts as spirituality and wants to find out more, the book seems to be extremely efficient in its exposition of them. I’m sure that “believers” would find this book absorbing and full of interest. Unfortunately, it was just not for me.

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How To Make Money Blogging: Essential Guide For Newbie WordPress Bloggers by Keesha Metcalfe
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I found How to Make Money Blogging to be a very useful and well-written guide about blogging in general, and using it to provide an income in particular. The introduction was perhaps a little too long when the author wrote about her own experiences and feelings before and during the process of setting up her blog. Although it made some of the text feel more personal and friendly, especially for those totally new to the concepts covered, Keesha Metcalfe did tend to repeat herself a few times. However, her powers of communication are very good, combining humour, enthusiasm and information in equal measure and she is to be commended for this.

There is a very helpful glossary written in an easily accessible way and compared to a couple of other blog guides I have read it covers much more useful ground with its excellent explanations. I was provided with a mobi copy and then a pdf for this review but neither had a “working” Table of Contents or links to the author’s own blog. I would suggest that both are essential in an e-book of this nature, if only to underline and exemplify that the author really is technically proficient with this format in all necessary areas. Perhaps the published edition of How To Make Money Blogging has corrected these deficiencies since they will provide more confidence to its readers. Unfortunately for this spectacle wearer I was unable to make out the details in many of the diagrams/screenshots, even with my eyes an uncomfortable 8 to 12 inches from the screen. Magnifying just made the images more blurred. These latter reservations prevented me from rating Ms Metcalfe’s excellent guide 5stars, so I hope the Kindle edition now available from Amazon includes the suggested improvements!


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Impulse by Shane Hall
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This book by Shane Hall is meant to be a thriller and does begin with a lot of incidents that resulted in my having plenty of questions requiring answers before the end of the book. This is something that a reader naturally expects when reading a thriller. The book is set in a dystopian future with novel devices, like an innovative glow-ball, and imposed social conditions, like a singing ban, that certainly arouse the curiosity. We are introduced to an autocratic, almost tyrant-like, man known as Jack aka Grand Mogul and want to know – What is going on here?

The main characters, Eric, Will, Winona and Janet are challenged with discovering what happened to a fellow student, the brilliant inventor of the glow-ball, Freyara, when she mysteriously vanishes after a meeting with the Grand Mogul. There are numerous intrigues presented to the reader one after the other, and all within a bewildering, mainly believable scenario. But this reader still wanted more answers to the questions set by the author as the plot grew and developed.

The novel took quite a long time to increase the fast pace that one expects in a thriller. However, the latter part of the story appropriately builds the required suspense for anyone who enjoys the thriller genre - but left me disappointed with an unsatisfactory ending. It felt like a cop-out to be told that I had to read the next book in the series to find out the majority of the answers I’d been seeking. That feeling made me determined not to read any more in this series, since I felt conned. It is not a very long book and thus with the abrupt “finish” felt “unfinished”. Yes, I wanted more but in this book, the one I was reading at the time. I happen to believe that each book in a series can, and probably should, be able to stand on its own as a complete novel in its own right. This novel does not because I could not “get the point” of it.


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WASHINGTON DC: The Sadir Affair by Lavina Giamusso
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I found Washington DC to be a very long and rambling story of secret agents and political intrigue. In many ways it felt rather naively written with many curious expressions and cliches that felt out of place sometimes. The book could probably be shortened by about a third since it contained much verbosity that became annoying after about ten of the 86 chapters.

Lavina Giamusso has included a lot of very interesting “inside” information about Mossad and the CIA which fortunately kept my attention most of the time. I found it quite confusing when on the same, or subsequent pages, there were three characters whose name were so similar that I had to keep going back to check which part in the story they were playing. They were Sam; Samuel and Samir, so when another character called Sadir appeared I became even more frustrated with “who was who?”.

There is much to commend the majority of this thrilling story and I feel sure that with some skilful pruning Ms Giamusso has a successful novel on her word-processor. But for me it was too long and had too many unnecessary explanations and expressions.


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