Tag: Joel Shepherd

Rando Splicer (Spiral Wars #6) ★★★✬☆

~ Bookstooge ~ 13 Comments

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress, Blogspot, & Librarything by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: Rando Splicer
Series: Spiral Wars #6
Authors: Joel Shepherd
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 475
Words: 176K



Synopsis:

From Fandom.com

Separated from her ship, Major Trace Thakur is stranded on the reeh-occupied world of Rando. The native corbi have suffered beneath reeh tyranny for 800 years, and many have given up hope. But Trace needs the data stored in the reeh’s genetic technology and command center – the Rando Splicer – if she’s to learn how to save humanity from impending disaster, and is planning an assault against overwhelming odds. She’ll need help from the UFS Phoenix, though, which is caught in a ritual medieval battle to change the croma leadership that sees her crew embarking on a perilous journey across a warring desert continent. Should they fail, humanity could be just one of many species to die.

My Thoughts:

Enjoyment-wise, this was a 4star book. But because of the very big issue that I mentioned back in my Currently Reading & Quote Post about this book, I just couldn’t give it more than 3.5stars. Because no matter what I was reading, in the back of my mind was the little voice saying “10 Books. 10 Book. 10 Books!!!”

Thankfully Shepherd IS a good writer and I did enjoy the dual storylines. Unfortunately (for me) there was no “getting the reader up to speed” chapter at the beginning so I just dropped right into things and had to try to remember what had happened in Croma Venture. I actually didn’t try to remember if you want to know. I just read the story and ingested it like a bowl of jello.

Of the two storylines, I much preferred the one that was on Croma dealing with the crew and the “special election” of a new leading party. Elections by battle sounds awesome to me. The storyline following Major Thakur had a lot more emotional navelgazing than I particularly wanted to read about.

I am looking forward to the next book, which I have on tap. With Shepherds output it is going to be at least 3 more years before the series is finished so my interest is definitely tempered. I just hope I can remember not to jump back into this series until it is actually finished.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

Currently Reading & Quote: Rando Splicer

~ Bookstooge ~ 23 Comments

It has been almost 3 years since I read the previous book in this The Spiral Wars series, Croma Venture. Not that’s been 3 years between publication dates, I have to admit that. But when I read Croma Venture I vowed that I wouldn’t read any more until the series was finished. With this book and the next being released, I figured I was pretty close to keeping that promise.

So imagine my surprise when I read the Forward:

Dear Readers

A quick note to let everyone know the current state of my plans for this series.

Some of you may have noticed that the gap between the release dates of each Spiral Wars book has been getting longer. I promise this is not intentional. However, you may also have noticed that the complexity of this world is increasing with each book, and when that happens it becomes harder and harder to resolve all the various plots rapidly.

I make no comment about certain independently published authors who manage to put out a new book every few months, but that’s not how I write. I make no judgement if you prefer those types of books to these, but I think that in independent publishing there should be room for both the books that take a few months to write, and those that take closer to a year. Believe me, this one took a lot of effort, and I’m very pleased with it.

As I’ve written on my twitter and facebook pages, the plan for this series now stands at ten books. If you’d like more information, it can be found on those social media pages. I hope the remaining books of the series will be written more quickly than this one, but I can’t promise it. I can only promise that I’ll do my very best to keep the quality as high, and hopefully higher, than what’s come before, in return for your patience. And, a request that if you like what you read here, and think that it deserves even more success than that which I’ve been fortunate enough to enjoy so far, that you recommend it to friends, family, on social media, or anyone who you think might enjoy it.

Bolding is me. Considering Rando Splicer is only book 6 and even the “new” book is Book 7, I am crap out of luck. Shepherd better do some really good writing with this book! I also hope my attitude changes so I can actually enjoy reading this :-/

Croma Venture (Spiral Wars #5) ★★★★☆

~ Bookstooge ~ 15 Comments

cromaventure (Custom)This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress, Blogspot & Librarything by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission
Title: Croma Venture
Series: Spiral Wars #5
Author: Joel Shepherd
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 477
Format: Digital Edition

 

Synopsis:

The Crew of the Phoenix, with the help of the alien Parren, have found a remaining stronghold of the machine race Drysine. Styx, the last surviving Drysine queen, begins making surreptitious work on the facility and ends up with a new queen. She gives the responsibility of negotiating with the Parren to this new queen, named Layla. Lizbeth Debogande is also the only human currently negotiating with the Parren and she and Layla form a friendship. Lots of politics happen and it turns out that the ruling house of the Parren made a deal with the Deepynines (another machine race that was very hostile to all organic life) and blamed lots of stuff on the currently rising House, the House that Layla is negotiating with. Betrayals happen and it is revealed to all the Parren that 25,000 years of their history was based on a lie. This leads to a huge powershift that allows the House both Layla and Lizbeth are dealing with to become the Head House.

The Tavali, another alien species that Humanity had been at war with, reveal that their whole civilization has been infiltrated by malicious genetic code. Probably by the Deepynine/Alo alliance. Humanity finds itself infiltrated as well. The only species that everyone knows about that can solve a problem of this magnitude are the Rhee. Unfortunately, the Rhee make everyone mentioned so far look like toddlers at a daycare. The Croma are at war with the Rhee and Erik Debogande, captain of the Phoenix, hopes to make contact with the Croma and see if they can get any information on this gene infiltration.

More politics ensue and factions come into play and the Phoenix is used by the Croma and one of their ally species, the Corbi, to further their own ends. This leads to an attack on a gene splicing station in Rhee territory where the Corbi and Croma have told the Phoenix that a huge database exists, which might have the cure for the gene infiltration. Major Trace Thakur is left behind when the Rhee counter-attack with ships just as good if not better than the Phoenix and Styx finds herself outmatched. Turns out the Rhee have gone the route of hybridization and are as much machine race as organic now.

The book ends with the Corbi letting the Phoenix know that they have an operation that can rescue Major Thakur, if Phoenix can get to the Rhee main world and pick her up.

 

My Thoughts:

I did enjoy this book. The action was great and even the politics were edged with action instead of being dry and dusty. I would consider this much closer in tone to the first book than book 4.

That being said, and despite rating it 4stars, I will not be continuing this series until it is finished. Shepherd shows in this book beyond a shadow of a doubt that he has no end-game scenario in play. There is no Final Goal, just the Next Goal. I guess I have more of an issue with the series than this particular book. Shepherd still goes on and on about descriptive scenery that I simply skimmed over. Since I still enjoyed the book, that means that descriptiveness was not at all necessary but a choice on his part.

Once Shepherd decides to get his act together and actually finish this series then I’ll go and read the rest of the books. But until then, I’m done with this series and done with this author. I’ve enjoyed my reads but it is not good enough for me to be willing to keep being strung along.

★★★★☆

 

bookstooge (Custom)

 

 

Defiance (The Spiral Wars #4) ★★★☆½

~ Bookstooge ~ 11 Comments

defiance (Custom)This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress, Blogspot & Librarything by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission
Title: Defiance
Series: The Spiral Wars #4
Author: Joel Shepherd
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Science Fiction
Pages: 475
Format: Digital Edition

 

Synopsis:

Lisbeth Debogande is being held hostage by one Faction of the Parran. This Faction wants to force her brother Erik, star captain gone rogue with a drysine queen on his advance ship, to support them in their bid to become the primary Faction of all Parrans. Lisbeth makes the best of a bad situation and begins learning about the Parran and ends up as the liason between them and the humans on Eric’s ship.

Erik, meanwhile is dealing with a Drysine queen that has a datacore that it wants decoded. And that will lie to get what it wants. A secret moon base (thankfully no ewoks are included!) at the bottom of a gravity well is the only place where Styx, the queen, can decode the datacore they stole in the previous book. It is called Defiance, hence the name of this book.

At the same time the threat of the Deepynines (another machine intelligent race) increases as the Deepynine/Alo/Sard alliance is revealed in attacks on Parran ships and stations, wiping out all lifeforms.

Erik and Crew, along with various Parran military powers, lead the Deepynines to the moon to prevent further genocide of other planet bound Parrens. This gravity well gives the humans and parrans a chance to destroy the deepynines while Styx awakens the moon and its defenses. Huge battle, deepynines defeated, massive death toll among the humans and parrans, lots of secrets revealed which show that most of galactic history is a lie. The Drysines were allied with a LOT of biological races, against most of the other Machine races.

Styx, in the process of decoding the datacore, finds out where the Deepynines might have come from and its square in the middle of unknown territory held by biologicals so scary that they make the race that destroyed the Earth look like puppydogs.

 

My Thoughts:

Unfortunately, almost the exact same issues that I had with Kantovan Vault appear in this book as well. I read that back in August and 7 months later, it would have been REALLY nice to have a character list so when I needed a refresher on who was who I could have it at my finger tips. It isn’t needed for every single character to ever appear, but a list of all the major players, that would just be nice, especially since the ending of this book shows that this is turning into a possibly Never Ending Series kind of series.

My second issue is the author’s fascination with detail. I DON’T need pages of how the Parran political process works and all the cultural ramifications and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It wasn’t badly written mind you, but my goodness, between that and all the descriptive padding, a good editor could have cut out 75 pages. These books need to get a bit leaner. Shepherd is bulking them up unnecessarily and the fast pace bogs right down to almost zero at times.

The things that I did like from the first book are still in place. When Shepherd does his action scenes, whether in space or on the ground, man, it grabs me by the throat and just chokes the living daylights out of me. The last 40% of this book was like that. It was just too bad it took that long to get there. Hence my complaining about the bloat.

I like the characters. Lisbeth is growing up, Erik is coming into his own, even if his ship is destroyed from under him by the end of the book. Other characters are growing or moving away. Trace Thakur took a major departure from the line I was expecting. She and Erik suddenly went all brother/sister feeling instead of the romance that I “thought” was developing. Skah, the little fuzzy alien teddybear child, is getting suckered in by Styx and I’m wondering how Shepherd is going to use that plot line. It better not end in Skah’s subversion to machine or something. Styx shows herself for the lying, genocidal machine bug she really is. Eveyrone is going on about how bad the deepynines are and how they NEED Styx even while acknowleding that Styx is actually a worse threat; she’s just contained. We’ll see how the revelations about the Drysine and biologicals change my outlook, but I’d still put a bullet through her braincase. Machine intelligences are bad, period.

I enjoyed this the same as Kantovan Vault but with the same faults, I can’t give it the same rating. Shepherd didn’t learn anything, so this book is getting knocked down half a star. I just hope the next book improves.

★★★☆½

bookstooge

 

 

Crossover (Cassandra Kresnov #1) ☆☆☆☆½ DNF @45%

~ Bookstooge ~ 7 Comments

crossover (Custom)

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress, Blogspot & Librarything by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission
Title: Crossover
Series: Cassandra Kresnov #1
Author: Joel Shepherd
Rating: 1/2 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 467/Abandoned
Format: Digital edition

 

Synopsis:

DNF @45%

 

My Thoughts:

Due to some of the moral subject matter, I abandoned this book and will not be reading any more in the series.

☆☆☆☆½

 

bookstooge

 

 

Kantovan Vault (The Spiral Wars #3) ★★★★☆

~ Bookstooge ~ 10 Comments

kantovanvault (Custom)

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress, Blogspot & Librarything by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission
Title: Kantovan Vault
Series: The Spiral Wars #3
Author: Joel Shepherd
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 545
Format: Digital Edition

 

Synopsis:

Captain Erik is in the middle of Tavali space, under the protection of a special branch of the Tavali armed forces. They are searching for a data core of an old Drysine Queen so that the queen on board, Styx, can become fully functional and help in the fight against the Alo, who seem to have been suborned by the Deepynines, another supposedly extinct machine race.

The Tavali are even crazier in their politics than humanity and some of their sub-allies are just plain nuts. The long and short is that Erik’s sister is kidnapped, which forces him to mastermind a break-in of the Tavali’s most secret treasure cave, the Kantovan Vault. Within said vault is a journal that will help Styx find the data core and the Tavali military gain the upper hand against their civilian counter parts.

Of course, the Tavali military doesn’t know that Erik has the help of Styx, a Drysine. The Tavali have specially trained units to deal with remnants of Drysine machinery and if they know that Erik has an active Queen, well, he and his crew have as much chance of surviving as I do if I pissed straight into the sun.

Yeah, no chance.

 

My Thoughts:

This was almost as good as the previous two books. I hadn’t realized it had been just over a year since I read book 2 though. Which leads me into my first issue.

Names. There was not a glossary or character list at the beginning of the book. Usually I don’t care about that, but when single names get tossed about, with a military designation, it would be nice to know WHO that person is. It wouldn’t be an issue if this was a completed series and I was reading them every month or two, but with a year between reads, it would have been nice to have a character list. And a sum-up of the previous book, even 2-3 paragraphs to remind me what has gone on.

Second, and final issue, was that things seemed a bit dragged out. I found myself skipping descriptions of “whatever” and sometimes even conversations if they didn’t seem 100% on point to the plot. I suspect Shepherd would have gotten a “what a simplistic book” if he HADN’T added all those extra bits, so maybe he just can’t win? But drag is something to be aware of.

The battles, once again, were the high point. All ground force fights, ranging everywhere from remote mountain tops to a subway system with mecha. The Tavali military calls up some of its retirees to help out Erik and Co on a planet and man, that was awesome. Pitched battles in slum’y areas. Buildings toppling, explosions, etc, etc. It was glorious.

While I know that the Drysines are needed in the fight against the Deepynines, I’m still rooting for someone on board Erik’s ship to blow Styx to kingdom come and back. It feels like having Skynet on board; it’s just waiting to turn on you and kill you. Brrrrrr. I don’t care if Styx becomes a hero, I’ll think of it as a badguy to the bitter end of the series.

Another thing I liked was that no one came across as stupid. Sometimes you’ll get a lazy author who makes the characters act in such a way, to propel the story onward, that you wonder if the character is an idiot. None of that here. Professionals all around and acting like the adults they are written as. Bravo to Shepherd for that!

★★★★☆

bookstooge

 

  1. Drysine Legacy (Book 2)
  2. Renegade (Book 1)

Petrodor (A Trial of Blood and Steel #2)

~ Bookstooge ~ 17 Comments

dae8e278bcbd46022d129a47a302af4e

This review is written with a GPL 3.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress, Blogspot, Booklikes & Librarything by  Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission.

 

 

Title: Petrodor

Series: A Trial of Blood and Steel #2

Author: Joel Shepherd

Rating: 2 of 5 Stars

Genre: SFF

Pages: 525

Format: Kindle Digital Edition

 

Synopsis:

Sasha is now in the city of Petrodor. Various political factions are vying for the role of leading a new army against the Serrin. The Serrin in Petrodor are playing their own game, unfortunately for them, they don’t understand humanity nearly as well as they think. And the humans allied with the Serrin are split as well. Then once the Priesthood gets involved, all bets are off.

Sasha must navigate allies, enemies and some who are both at the same time.

 

My Thoughts:

I’ve given this series 2 books worth of my time. I simply didn’t like this one either.

Narrowed it down to the fact that I don’t like one single character. The story was intriguing, the political, religious and species aspect of things were well done and complex and the fighting was fun to read about.

But without even one character to like or root for, it wasn’t worth it. So I’m dropping this. I’m kind of hesitant about trying his Cassandra Kresnov series now. Sure glad I discovered him with his Spiral Wars series and not this.

star20full-custom

Sasha (A Trial of Blood and Steel #1)

~ Bookstooge ~ 7 Comments

701adf87b5b9282a4c9c20926707b818This review is written with a GPL 3.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at Bookstooge.booklikes.blogspot. wordpress.com by  Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission.

Title: Sasha

Series: A Trial of Blood and Steel

Author: Joel Shepherd

Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars

Genre: SFF

Pages: 426

Format: Kindle digital edition

 

Synopsis:

Sasha is a princess. A princess who gave up her family rights to become the apprentice of the greatest swordsman and tactician of the country. Now her country is being torn apart by politics and religion and Sasha must decide what course to take.

Seeing ancient accords broken, Sasha must defy her family and the most powerful houses of the nation but in doing so she will unleash civil war and tear apart what she is trying to preserve. But when your own brother is trying to kill you to further his own power, does national unity matter?

 

My Thoughts:

I was expecting something a bit more from Shepherd. After reading his Drysine Legacy series I was prepared for full frontal fantasy awesomeness.

What I got was a spoiled woman, a self-centered and self-absorbed king/father, siblings who were friends, enemies and allies, sometimes all at the same time. Political powers that were willing to kill off their own heirs, religious leaders willing to lend credence to any act if it furthered their power. In fact, everything in this book seemed to be about power. It wasn’t that pleasant really. The only good thing was the big battle at the end.

I’ll be trying the next book but if it flows in the same vein as this one, I won’t be going farther. It is just odd because I liked his scifi series SO much. Oh well, you can’t win them all.

Drysine Legacy (The Spiral Wars #2)

~ Bookstooge ~ 2 Comments

9874d1187ab3b725d0b1d6bc8d7c74a4This review is written with a GPL 3.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at Bookstooge.booklikes.blogspot. wordpress.com & Bookstooge’s Reviews on the Road Facebook Group by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission.

Title: Drysine Legacy

Series: The Spiral Wars

Author: Joel Shepherd

Rating: 4 of 5 Stars

Genre: SFF

Pages: 471

Format: Kindle digital edition

 

Synopsis:

The Federation starship Phoenix and her crew are on the run. But not on the run from just the Federation it seems. Various alien species are attacking them, for various reasons. Add in the apparent rise of an ancient machine race, and the discovery of their ancient foe on board the Phoenix and it is apparent that Erik Debogande and the rest of the crew are onto something much bigger than they ever thought.

 

My Thoughts:

I enjoyed this just as much as the previous book. Having to face a choice of resurrecting a monster machine race to fight another monster machine race is just “ugh”. Possible subjugation of all biological life or certain subjugation.

The action was awesome. The huge battle at the end between the various Hacksaw forces with the Phoenix kind of dodging between was spectacular. Space Marines [always my favorite] versus horrible alien killing machines that ruled the Universe millennia ago.

I thought that this book wrapped up the series. All major issues were taken care of and while the whole “genocidal machine killers” wasn’t, that aspect was big enough to have its own trilogy or even a series. When looking at the authors website though, it appears that this will be a trilogy. Not sure what the 3rd book will be about and still be a wrapping up point. Oh well, something to look forward to once it actually gets written.

I’ve enjoyed these 2 books enough that I’ll be hunting down others by Shepherd and giving them a go.

Renegade (The Spiral Wars #1)

~ Bookstooge ~ 3 Comments

88ec70731b9e5cae8dc91dd1b1ff5191This review is written with a GPL 3.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at Bookstooge.booklikes.blogspot. wordpress.leafmarks.com & Bookstooge’s Reviews on the Road Facebook Group by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission.

 

 

 

 

Title: Renegade

Series: The Spiral Wars

Author: Joel Shepherd

Rating: 4 of 5 Stars

Genre: SFF

Pages: 451

Format: Kindle digital edition

 

Synopsis:

1000 years ago, Earth was destroyed by a hostile alien race and humanity was on the brink of extinction. With the help and aid of 2 other alien races, humanity began a war of genocide against the killers of earth. We won. They are forever gone. We then moved on to punish the masters of that race. They surrendered after a galaxy wide and protracted war. Their power of the Spiral Arm of the galaxy was broken.

Erik Debogande is a third pilot under a famous Captain. When that Captain disappears and then Erik is framed for his murder, Erik, along with a Marine commander who knows more than she lets on, takes control of the ship and begins a race of survival against an unknown enemy who has plans unimaginable. What the Phoenix and her crew find out will change the History of the Galaxy, and potentially its future.

 

My Thoughts:

Whoooo! This was a thrill a minute book! Several times my adrenaline levels rose and I could feel my heart racing. And it wasn’t because of caffeine or the such. The writing was just good enough to pull me right into the action and make me feel like I was there.

The idea of humanity losing Earth and the such brings me back to the times I’ve watched Titan, A.E. and I still love that movie. This story was about AFTER.  And man, does humanity kick butt. Of course, being a young race, we’re being manipulated and this story is showing how we’ve been manipulated and what we can possibly do about it. Another thing I liked; machine civilizations inimical to biological life. That is just cool.

Overall, this was a great SF book with lots and lots of fighting.