Review: I Call Him HIM

I Call Him HIM by Scott W. Kimak
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

Sadly, it is very hard to find quality “Christian” fantasy stories … with many, like this one, focused on imagining the dystopian world of the “Tribulation” coming with the Eschaton (End of the World), they all seem to eschew any true world building and character development in favor of streams of descriptions (info dumps) that overly emphasizes the Mary Sue/Gary Stu nature of the hero with the requisite deus ex machina plot points and the unredeemable evil of the “ultimate” antagonist … complete with a appalling voyeuristic telling of how said evil manifests in the world (presumably for shock value … though frequently it’s gratuitous).  

This book fits neatly into that apocalyptic style … with the added detraction of what appears to be a freshman debut of the writer’s craft.  Conceptually it was pretty interesting, but there is little to no nuance in this extremely derivative story (so many tropes so little time) … and pretty much everything is obvious or otherwise predictable.  While there is a hero … the hero’s journey is nearly unrecognizable and flat.  Character interactions were nearly cartoonish in their simplicity and the humor overly crude … and the POV disciple was almost non-existent (switching between 1st person to various 3rd persons).  The “Big Guy,” aka HIM, apparently doesn’t speak (vow of silence?  to make him darkly mysterious?), so the author adds a narrator and sex crazed “Bill” to provide the needed dialog … until HIM speaks for some unidentified reason (sort of … so not an actual vow?  just being a jerk?) … 

Seriously … this book needs a few trigger warnings (and maybe some bleach).  Also Physics (or pretty much any realism) was apparently only a suggestion (possibly the result of lazy research which seems undermine a significant portion of the book).  Finally, without any connection to the protagonists (I actively disliked them), it was extremely hard not to feel disappointed at the missed opportunity (the flap copy was the best part).  I wanted to like this story … I just couldn’t (almost a dnf).

Unfortunately … where good narration can sometimes improve a marginal story, the narration here had the opposite effect for me.  The cadence and enunciation were so extremely discordant that it gave the whole work an unnatural and amateurish feel that emphasized the shortcomings of the story itself.

I was given this free advance listener copy (ALC) audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

#ICallHimHim  #FreeAudiobooks

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Review: Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community

Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community by Bonnie Kristian
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

In the past decade or so, I have encountered a veritable avalanche of questionable assertions based upon dubious facts (if any) obviously designed to manipulate their target audience. It seems as if people are more gullible than ever and this book tries to identify why we are apparently unable to separate fact from fiction. In fact … given the proliferation of slanted news “opinion” and poorly researched news “entertainment” re-enforced by misleading news “memes” … how to we know what is true and what is not.

The author tries to explain what the problem actually is, how we got here and what we should do about it … the later from a decided Christian perspective … and while I am generally in agreement on pretty much everything she says, I am not as optimistic. Yes … forwarding that “political” meme on facebook designed to falsely enflame the heart against your opponent is decided unchristian and we have an obligation to avoid such evil gossip … but that doesn’t seem to be much of an impediment for many American Christians (including members of my own family who, when forced to acknowledge what they are forwarding/saying was untrue, simply respond by saying they didn’t really mean it … and they just like to stir the pot … before doing the exact same thing again). Unfortunately I typically respond just like the author … with verified sources and debate trying to get them to recognize the error of their ways come back to reason and logic and fairness and christian love. It has taken me awhile to get there, but ultimately I did … you can’t win that argument … so just don’t engage. It is a hard lesson to be sure.

So how did we get to a place where alternative facts and relative truth are the norm? From the constant attribution of ‘fake news” to anything we don’t like to the tribal identity politics that denies any authority to dissenting voices … the media seems like the obvious place to start … and “There is something off here, but it’s generally not intentional, ideologically motivated inaccuracy, as so many American fear.” The optimism here is cute. I used to think this too; but, the battle lines now have been drawn and information is the weapon of choice in this war. While profit is still important, power is the real goal … significantly more than entertainment and speed. Profit here is easy when you have the ability to so easily manipulate your partisans with fear and anger (and Entertainment generally plays on a different set of emotions … or includes such more often than not). How we got here might be chalked up to profit and entertainment initially … but we are well beyond that now.

Regardless … while biased news is not really a recent phenomena, the ability of these news outlets to so easily manipulate their audience is (at least for Americans). They are simply taking advantage of the cracks in our society and the author does a very good job at identifying what these are (and even offers advice on how we, as christians, should respond). Ultimately the author provides a few healthy habits and some welcome advice by which we might be able to stem the tide of this “epistemic crisis” by our example … and maybe bring a few of our friends and family back from the brink … I mean, it has got to be better than simply walking away from them right?

I was given this free advance review copy (ARC) ebook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

#Untrustworthy #NetGalley

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Review: A History of War: From Ancient Warfare to the Global Conflicts of the 21st Century

A History of War: From Ancient Warfare to the Global Conflicts of the 21st Century by Chris McNab
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

This was a hugely ambitious effort to summarize the History of War in under 233 pages … that is some 5 thousand years of perhaps the most prominent human activity since we came together in communities to control the natural resources around us. As might be expected, it is frequently overly general in its treatment for many of the pivotal moments in history. That would not have been as much of a problem, except the work also suffers from a confusing organization of what facts are actually presented that the principle question was often left unanswered … and how did this specific fact alter our world (or as the blurb states how did these conflict periodically reshape history). In nearly every battle, we see some combination of foot soldiers, mobile warriors and ranged combatants … but we don’t often see how these actually evolved. 

There is some discussion of a few formations … but there is not so much an explanation of of how one formation had an advantage over another formation and how the weapons and technology influenced that effectiveness. Finally … the early history did not appears to be as well researched as I had expected … example: the claim that Scythian horse archers could hit a SINGLE target from horseback at a gallop is not supported in any of my historical sources outside of myth and legend. Instead, they were known for showing [as a group] “clouds” of arrows back toward their opponents while riding away (which was awesomely effective and very dangerous in its own right without need of exaggeration). There are fewer of these issues as we move more into modern history, so perhaps there is where the author’s specialty is and perhaps that is why the early treatment of war history (in the first half of the book) was not as solid I as wanted … since the modern history from the 19th century on was much better. Over all, I just didn’t get what I wanted to out of this book.

I was given this free advance review copy (ARC) ebook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

#AHistoryOfWar #NetGalley.

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Review: City of Keys

City of Keys by Kat Ross
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Previous Review of City of Storms 

Previous Review of City of Wolves 

This is the third installment of a four (4) book series that moves the story to the City of Nantwich (Emblem of Crossed Keys) … after a very slow start with Malach in the Land of Witches that didn’t really do much for me (although I was pleased to see an Arc of Redemption start to play out for him).  Once we actually get to Nantwich things start to pick up once again … and for the first time we get an undeniable big bad as the powerful nightmage Balaur (revealed in the previous book) gathers his forces under the Banner of the Black Sun to return to power … now that the Void is gone and the Ley restored to the nightmage cities (with secrets and betrayals throughout).  The previous Cold War is now very Hot … perhaps enough to even pull in the mysterious witches.

There is less world building here (still some with the Witch Realm) and once the action gets going, that pulls you through the story quickly as the focus seems to shift to more character building (especially Malach and Nikola); although we do see a few hints as to how the current world came to be and a vague reference to a bound or sleeping dragon.  What I continue to find interesting are the flawed heroes that rise to the occasion to [mostly] carry the day.  The magic system of Marks, Alchemy, Cartomancy,  Lithomancy (Witches) gain a little more definition, but still manage to avoid becoming so over the top that it derails the plot (and I continued to enjoy that as well).  What really drives this part of the series though is the political intrigue that still manages delivers surprises that place ur heroes in a variety of difficult situations.  Although the bloom is off the rose, this is still a fanatic series and this book will join the others on my favorites shelf … looking forward to the conclusion in the City of Dawn (as the story moves to the southern desert).

I was given this free advance review copy (ARC) ebook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

#CityOfKeys #BookSirens

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