Book Reviews | Self-Publishing Review

Review: Intelligent Design II: Apocalypse by J.M. Erickson ★★★★

Taking place in the years following the events of Intelligent Design: Revelations, the earthlike society of Terra – nestled, shrouded by technology, in our very solar system – prepares for disaster. As the people of Earth have only now come to realize, Jupiter is about to ignite into a star, destroying all life on its surrounding planets. As former MIT-turned-Terran Andrea Perez tries to hide Terra from Earth with her supreme knowledge of technology, Martian Master Architect Janus calculates the trajectory of disaster, and German Christine Reich prepares her all-female squad of Epsilon Team Six to save the people […]

James Grimsby2018-03-16T09:56:27+02:00January 13th, 2016|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: Science Fiction Book Reviews|

Review: Embracing the Wild in Your Dog by Bryan Bailey

★★★★½ Embracing the Wild in Your Dog by Bryan Bailey

Embracing the Wild in Your Dog by Bryan Bailey teaches the important and eye-opening lesson that dogs are, and will always be, part wolf. Though owners may anthropomorphize dogs and see them like little humans, they have inherent wild instincts at the core, and this knowledge will enhance every dog owner’s relationship with their dog, as well as how they approach training.

What makes Embracing the Wild such an engaging book is that it’s not only a book for dog owners. I’m not currently a dog owner myself, and the book is a fascinating look into dogs’ true nature, […]

Henry Baum2019-01-22T15:27:28+02:00January 12th, 2016|Categories: Book Reviews, Lead Story|Tags: Home & Garden Book Reviews, Non-Fiction Book Reviews, Pets Book Reviews, Social Science Book Reviews|

Review: Tales For Your Monkey’s Mind by Steve Michael Reedy ★★★★

Tales For Your Monkey’s Mind by Steve Michael Reedy is a book of fables where everything is not always as it seems. Stories about toy factories, clowns, magical storybooks, witch’s spells, and more each give a different moral about life and what’s most important. It’s an entertaining book for kids that dare to be dark. Overall, it’s an ambitious and imaginative work of children’s fiction.

The book is sort of like the anti-Roald Dahl. In Roald Dahl’s stories, the external world is sinister and depressing, until you start looking at the magic underneath. In Reedy’s stories, the opposite is the […]

Henry Baum2020-04-03T04:21:05+02:00January 12th, 2016|Categories: Book Reviews, Lead Story|Tags: Children's Book Reviews|

Review: Squirrel Days by Dustin Costa ★★★★

Squirrel Days Squirrel Days by Dustin Costa is the hard-to-classify but always-entertaining satire about the so-called US drug war. Renegade disc jockey insults the wrong people on the radio and flees to the marijuana capital of Northern California with his one-legged girlfriend, Juanita. There they find refuge with a wide variety of eccentric characters, each more insane than the last: wizards, an alien, a mad scientist, among others. Harnessing a powerful quantum weapon, this group of misfits thinks they have what it takes to defeat a bloodthirsty drug cartel.

The novel is madcap at times, hardboiled at others, and then absurdist sci-fi […]

SPR2019-01-22T15:39:01+02:00January 11th, 2016|Categories: Book Reviews, Lead Story|Tags: Contemporary Fiction Book Reviews, Humor, Satire Book Reviews|

Review: Weeping Water by J.T. Ruby ★★★★

Weeping Water by JT Ruby is an epic novel about cryonic suspension – freezing something with life-threatening injuries in order to heal them when there are significant advances in medical technology. It follows Annie, who dies in a plane crash in the eighties, and Elliot, who dies in a car accident in the nineties, as they try to piece together their lives after being unfrozen. Spanning many generations and covering cryogenics from every angle, Weeping Water is a fast-paced and thought-provoking read.

Like the best of science fiction, Weeping Water poses a number of interesting questions about advances in technology. […]

SPR2019-01-22T15:38:49+02:00January 8th, 2016|Categories: Book Reviews, Lead Story|Tags: Science Fiction Book Reviews|

Review: Illuminarium by Truth Devour ★★★★

Illuminarium, by Truth Devour, is the creative and thought-provoking first installment in the planned five book Soliloquy’s Labyrinth series.

Harper, a forensic psychologist, discovers a book while hiking in a redwood forest. The book isn’t normal and Harper feels compelled to read it. York, the author of the book, describes the horrors he lived through during his stay in a sanitarium many decades ago. York is struggling between good and evil and Harper is glued to the pages. But is the book only a book or is it more? And why did it present itself to Harper?

This fantasy […]

T B Markinson2016-01-06T05:43:18+02:00January 6th, 2016|Categories: Book Reviews, Lead Story|Tags: Fantasy Book Reviews, Urban Fantasy Book Reviews|

Review: The Healthy Habit Revolution by Derek Doepker

We all have habitual behaviors we wish we could jettison: biting fingernails, interrupting spouses, eating candy bars while watching reality shows. And of course there are many behaviors we don’t have that we wish we did: regular exercise, healthy meals, daily writing, perhaps? Wouldn’t it be wonderful if you could make those desired behaviors as habitual—as easy to do and as hard to avoid—as the troublesome ones?

Well, it’s not exactly easy, but if you follow the program Doepker sets out in this slim but thoroughly packed volume, you’ll almost certainly see changes. Everyone has something they’d like to do […]

Cate Baum2019-02-11T09:28:20+02:00January 6th, 2016|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: Health Book Reviews, Non-Fiction Book Reviews, Self-Help Book Reviews|

Review: The Midnight Land: Part One: The Flight by E.P. Clark ★★★★

The Midnight Land: Part One: The Flight by E.P. Clarke When Krasnoslava Tsarinovna, younger sister to the Empress of Zem’, wishes to be let free to explore the world, her wish is unexpectedly granted when an Imperial soldier approaches the kingdom for support in exploring the Midnight Land; the land beyond the sun-line. The young royal volunteers for the mission, and unexpectedly, is allowed to join. Soon picking up the somewhat more casual moniker “Slava”, Slava and her companions venture into the unknown in The Midnight Land: Part One: The Flight by E.P. Clark.