Chilli And The Christmas Chihuahuas

Chilli And The Christmas Chihuahuas (Children’s Christmas Story)

Courtney Williamson Milford (Author)

Julie Leiman Weaver (Illustrator)

Independent Publishing Platform

ISBN #978-1522072546

Price $6.99 (Paperback)

Price $1.99 (Kindle)

34 Pages

Rating 4-stars

Chilli and the Chihuahuas are guarding Satan’s workshop against the wolves. They catch one and toss him in jail, but Santa isn’t real pleased that someone is in jail during Christmas. When Chilli and the guards catch another wolf, Santa hears the wolf saying that the pups are crying because their dad is in jail and can’t be with them. This forces Santa to take action. He releases the wolves then talks to Chilli and the Chihuahuas. It’s time they take toys to the wolves’ pups, so they can celebrate Christ’s birth with the rest of them.

This was a cute tale, and will be a favorite to tell to children during the Christmas season from year to year. Plus, it was good story telling, but the illustrations are the highlight of the book. Children will want to look at this book throughout the year as they think about Christmas, and, hopefully, the true meaning of the season, the birth of our Savior. Highly recommended.

Tom Johnson

Author of THE SOUL STEALERS

Love In The Cretaceous

Love in the Cretaceous takes place in a dinosaur park in Oregon a hundred years in the future. Ted Beebe has lost the love of his life and must suddenly find his way alone in old age. He finds young people to take the place of his wife and himself in assuring the survival of Cretaceous World, the park his wife and he created. Global warming has proceeded as predicted, and the fate of Homo sapiens has become obviously uncertain. People come to see the genetically engineered recreations of dinosaurs and are made more aware of humanity’s own vulnerability to extinction. Ted succeeds in creating a new family structure whose three generations will guide the park through the immediate future. He also keeps alive his wife’s memory while coping with the challenges of the uncertain future.

Love In The Cretaceous (SF/Apocalyptic)

By Howard W. Robertson

Anaphora Literary Press https://anaphoraliterary.com

Price $20.00 (Paperback)

127 Pages

Rating 1 Star

“Boring Dinosaur Yarn”

Cretaceous Park in Oregon a hundred years in the future. Ted & Becky Beebe run the dinosaur park like a movie studio, with actors playing their parts. There are nine pairs of genetically created dinosaurs, such as Dorothy & Roger the T-Rex pair, and Bruce & Phyllis the Brontosaurus pair. When Becky dies of Stander’s disease, Ted is left to run the park, and at 68 he needs to find a couple to take their place, and soon.

Unfortunately, I just couldn’t finish this book after buying it on Amazon. The writing is like a teacher explaining everything to students, and the class is bored to death. Even when there is sex you go to sleep. I never thought I would encounter a dinosaur adventure as boring as this. There is nothing about the characters that make you like or remember them, and the dinosaurs come out of a textbook, with the author explaining them like in a classroom. Giving them names didn’t help. I can’t recommend this book, as it put me to sleep.

Tom Johnson

Author of JUR: A STORY OF PRE-DAWN EARTH

Sidhe-Devil

Sidhe-Devil (SF/Fantasy)

By Aaron Allston

BAEN Books

ISBN #0671319930

Price $6.99

500 Pages

Rating 5-Stars

In this second novel in the Doc Sidhe (Sidhe is pronounced She) series, Harris and Gaby are in California for their wedding. Afterwards, they run into a criminal gang from the Fair world looking for Doc. Zeb Watson, Harris’ martial arts/kick boxing trainer is his best man, and he get’s tangled up with the weird looking gangsters. Zeb hears their story about the Fair world and doesn’t believe them, so they take him with them when they go back. They need to make sure Doc is okay.

        

The Fair world is running decades behind the Grim world in time, and this new plot seems to involve their Nazi counterparts, the Reinis, trying to take over their European nations with the white super race. There is also an Olympics type organization, and the Reinis are trying to show the world that they are the best. Zeb is entered, and he’s black, and plans on taking the gold if the white sun god doesn’t kill him first.

This was another fast, action-packed novel of an alternate world, with an alternate Doc Savage and aides fighting evil around the world in the person of Doc Sidhe and his aides. All the aides are present, and even a few gangsters help Doc and team out in beating the white super race. The author was a popular SF writer, but sadly died of a heart attack several years ago, so we won’t see any more stories in this series. However, he proves in these Doc Savage pastiches that he could have written more if he’s had time. The two published novels in the Doc Sidhe series were lots of fun. Highly recommended.

Tom Johnson

Author of THREE GO BACK

Doc Sidhe

Olympic kickboxer Harris Greene's career has just self-destructed, and both his manager and his fiance, Gaby, have dumped him. While looking for Gaby, he interrupts a bizarre trio as they are kidnapping her, and he is hurled into another, very weird, universe. His only hope is Doc Sidhe, this Art Deco universe's greatest champion of justice.

Doc Sidhe (SF/Fantasy/Mystery)

By Aaron Allston

BAEN

Price $5.99

337 Pages

Rating 5-Stars

Our world is the Grim World, the alternate world is the Fair world (where once our fairy tales came from); in this Fair world magic still exist, as do non-humans. Doctor Desmond MeqqRee runs the Sidhe Foundations, and his friends call him Doc. He designs building and bridges, and fights crime with his aides. He is the Fair world’s Doc Savage; in this case he’s Doc Sidhe.

Harris Greene is a kick boxer, trained in tae kwon do. The night he loses his latest fight his manager drops him, then his girlfriend Gaby Donohue dumps him. He gets drunk and wants to make up with her; when he sees men abducting her, he follows and attacks the men giving Gaby time to escape, and then he finds himself in an alternate world.

Gab Donohue is gifted, and Duncan Blackletter wants to study her. He needs to take her to the Fair world to do that. But then Harris Greene and his new friend, Doc shows up to rescue her again, and she ends up in the Fair world where strangely she feels at home.

         The author even gives credit to Lester Dent and Walter Gibson, two giants of the pulp universe from which he drew his characters for this book. The story was a lot of fun, with excitement on every page. Although maybe patterned after Doc Savage, Doc Sidhe was much different. He’s vulnerable, his people kill, and they die in battle; something Doc’s aides never did. But this new universe isn’t supposed to be a rip off of Doc Savage and his aides; these are great characters in their own right. But if you love the Doc Savage adventures, you’ll definitely like Doc Sidhe and his adventure in this fast-paced yarn. Highly recommended.

Tom Johnson

Author of COLD WAR HEROES

Agent Nine, G-Man Action

Agent Nine #1: “Agent Nine Solves His First Case” by Graham M. Dean. In this first story of the series, Bob Houston and Tully Ross work as clerks in the archive division of the War Department. Their uncles, Merritt Hughes and Condon Adams are federal agents in the Department of Justice, under Waldo Edgar who is head of the department. Director Edgar calls Bob and Tully into his office, with their uncles. Foreign spies are after new secrets concerning radio that are stored in the War Department, and the Director wants inside men acting as agents of his office. He makes the young men special agents and they are to help Hughes and Adams catch the spies before secret material can be compromised. A nice little mystery that takes place mostly in the archive division of the War Department.

Agent Nine #2: “Agent Nine And The Jewel Mystery” by Graham M. Dean. In this second novel in the series, young FBI Agents Bob Houston (Agent Nine) and Tully Ross are assigned to jewel smuggling case in Florida. Agent 9 is sent to Atelissa, while Tully is sent to Nira, where they are supposed to uncover the operation. Most of the story takes place on train, the Limited, with a few stops along the way. In fact, Tully never makes his destination, being thrown from the train and ending up in the hospital. Agent Nine does make it to his destination in the last fifty pages of this 252-page novel, where a local sheriff helps in rescuing Agent Nine’s uncle, Federal Agent Merritt Hughes, and stopping the gem smugglers. Over all, it was a good story that moved well, though the writing was aimed at young adult boys. Bob Houston and Tully Ross act like two teenagers in competition with each other, instead of mature federal agents. Sadly, the publisher used the same cover on both hardbacks. The author wrote a lot of juvenile series for boys in the 1930s, and was a decent writer. He could have easily turned his hand to pulp stories and contributed to G-Men Detective with more mature action. Still, these are fun and easy reads.