The Spiral Effect

Rating:

About the Author:

(Taken from Amazon)

James Gilmartin is the author of multiple short stories, three screen-plays (they'll eventually be movies, I promise), two novels, and a children's books. He has more in the works, and once he finds the time, will have them complete and posted on every e-book publishing site he can find. James Gilmartin also likes to create book covers, attempts blogging, has aspirations to start a podcast, and plans to film short video-films and a web series by the end of summer, 2015. ADD has it's perks and limitations. James lives in Muskogee, OK (ouch) with his wife, Christina, and their two children, Addison and Colin.

Blurb:

99% of the Earth’s population exhibits signs of telepathy and telekinesis. 

99% of the Earth’s population is dying from a mysterious new disease. 

The Collector, unaffected by the virus, has taken it upon himself to search for answers. Pushed by the single command: Find the Cause, Find the Source, Find the Beginning, he traverses through other minds, collecting memories in the hopes of finding a single clue that might lead to a cure. 

But it isn't so easy. Confused and frightened mobs attack hospitals. Jumpers steal bodies from the healthy. And some telepaths set dubious, mental traps. How will The Collector respond? What measures will he take to keep people from killing each other, all the while staying true to his goal? And what trouble lurks within his own mind? 

This is only the beginning. Follow The Collector in his search for The Cause, The Source, and The Beginning, continued each quarter with a new novella.

Review:

This is a very short read, but wow is it fascinating.  The novella is experimental in writing, but every time it does slip into unusual narration, it does so for a reason and plays well into the story itself.

The main character is a man searching minds for information to help cure the world of an illness.  Because he does traverse minds, the readers get setting, action, and dialogue, but it all takes place in people's minds.

Overall, I would highly recommend this story, and I'll be following the rest of the novels set in this universe.

Purchase your copy at Amazon.

Fossilized Gods

Rating: 

Author's Website:   http://majra.org/

Blurb:

Being a god isn't easy. Oh sure, you can crash the super-exclusive club at that hot new pyramid, but one little drought and your worshippers are suddenly burying you neck-deep in scorpions. Samantha never expected to wake from her long sleep. When she came to, mortals were riding around inside big metal cows, shooting invisible info-rays across the sky, and doing amazing things with cake frosting. They took cell phones for granted and thought nothing of a university where Physics stood between Inhumanities and Necro. Now, deep in the great museum, other gods have begun to wake—old gods, terrible gods, gods that would drown the world in suffering. If Samantha can just wake the dead, outwit a huge disembodied brain, and evade the Great Hunter who's after her head, maybe she can do something about it!

Rating:

"All right, all right, you can stop chanting my name! ... If I got any more gigantic and golden, you'd burst into flames just beholding my divine beauty!  Oh, all right, just a little more chanting - but take precautions, will you?  Something fire-retardant.  Spit on each other, maybe."

I had to start with a quote from this book, and could not, for the life of me, decide on which one.  I think the above gives an adequate idea of the type of humor in the book.  It is absurdist humor at it's best.

Because one quote just doesn't do this story much justice:

"What did orphans taste like, anyway?  I mean, say what you will about witches, but anyone who builds a candy house - and doesn't immediately eat it - must be pretty certain it'll bring them something even tastier."

Sammy is a long dormant... god of sorts.  She had worshippers and was well-known in her time, but after people stopped believing in her, Sammy went dormant for thousands of years.  Fast-forward to present day, and some strange power has brought her back to life, along with three of her friends.

Overall, I loved this story.  Every page was amusing to some degree, whether it brought me a pleasant smile or a hearty belly laugh.  Because of this, deciding on a rating wasn't easy.

Four stars:

There are typos throughout the piece.  Also, being the visual reader that I am, there were way too many times when I didn't know what to imagine.  There were some scenes that were fuzzy or I had to force an image or I just moved on not knowing what was supposed to be there.  Now, these things didn't leave me confused about the overall plot or characters, but it did make the reading just a little less enjoyable.

Five stars:

The fact that I couldn't put it down in the beginning, and the fact that I did just move on when something wasn't clear showed how enjoyable the overall novel was for me.  Who cares if those few things were problematic for a moment if the overall journey was incredibly loved?

I finally went with four stars because, IMHO, the story did go on just a tad too long.  I did find it lolling in the middle.

Once again, just because it's four stars doesn't mean this isn't a highly recommended book in my opinion!  If the quotes fit your humor, please read this!  You won't regret it!

Okay, okay... one more quote.

A character talking about the formula for writing romance.

"It's all arithmetic.  Mister A, a lordly B from time period C, D-ly kisses humble lady E, a mere F, on the G, while firmly swatting her H with a leather I.  You know.  Romance."

Purchase your copy at Amazon.