Vincent

Jim Thompson is having a bad year.

Last year; he celebrated his twenty-fifth wedding anniversary, had a good job he liked, and a home for retirement he built himself.

This year, at fifty-four years of age; he is divorced, unemployed, and homeless.

Fortunately, his luck is about to change.

Enter Vincent, an extraterrestrial visitor with a crucial mission to save both our world and his, and a lesson on just how small Jim's place in the universe is.

To help the alien and save two worlds, Jim must overcome his shortcomings to become the hero Vincent so desperately needs.

Vincent (SF/Thriller)

By Jonathan G. Meyer

Independent Publishing Platform

ISBN # 978-1548404987

Price $11.95 (Paperback)

Price $4.99 (Kindle)

240 Pages

Rating 5-Stars

Jim Thompson is living in the back of his pickup truck under a bridge.  At 54 years old, he was married for 25 years, with a good job, a home he had built. Then his world came crashing down when his wife asked for divorce, and she took the house in the settlement. Rummaging through trash in an alley for things he might be able to sell, one day he finds what he thinks is someone’s toy drone, a small silver disk. Dragging it back to his pickup, he is suddenly bathed in a strange blue light and shrinks to the size of a mouse. The portal in the silver disc opens and he’s drawn inside. The disc is a flying saucer, and an AI named Vincent explains that he was responsible for bringing a highly destructive weapon to Earth, and must retrieve it and return it to his own world, Senara. However, being a machine Vincent needs a human to do its fetching. The previous human turned out to be an ex senator named Jack Smith who wants the weapon for himself, and has hired mercenaries to help him. Smith has half the machine hidden away on an island, but needs the second part, a key. Vincent needs Jim to obtain the key for him, then attack the island stronghold of Jack Smith and retrieve the other part of the machine. Jim needs a helper, and along comes Claire Haversham, a widow about his own age.

I loved this story. The writing is smooth, and reads fast, and the characters come alive. There is action from the beginning through the end when a hurricane hits the island as Vincent, Jim and Claire are attempting to steal the part being held by Jack Smith. The island is basically swept away as the winds destroy everything on the island, and Jack Smith captures the little team in his below ground shelter where he holds the alien weapon. Just on the brink of saving two worlds, Senara and Earth, it looks like our heroes have failed. Can help come from another source in time to save them? Highly recommended to SF and Adventure fans.

Tom Johnson

Author of THE JUR SERIES

MIAO-SHAN: The Awakening

Chow Lei is a ten-year-old girl on Hong Kong Island in 1896, who sees her parents murdered. This is the beginning of a sequence of events that leads to her becoming, Miao-Shan, the living Goddess of Justice! 'Miao Shan' book 2, 'Justice For All!', is set to be released for Christmas 2019.

MIAO SHAN: The Awakening (Superhero Fiction)

By G. AM Morris

Independent Publishing Platform

ISBN #978-0620924330

Price $14.99 (Paperback)

Price $2.99 (Kindle)

346 Pages

Rating 4-Stars

Ten-year-old Chow Lei watched as her parents are murdered by the Celestial Body Society Triads, then she went to live with her grandmother Po Po. She dreams of vengeance against the triads, and joins a local kung fu school in Hong Kong, but her quick learning impresses Master Sung and he suggest she should train at the Shaolin Temple in China. So with heavy heart, her grandmother sends her to China and the Shaolin Temple. There she trains until she’s 18, mastering the 18 kung fu fighting styles. She then returns to Hong Kong only to find that the Celestial Body Society Triads have killed her grandmother. Chow Lei now goes by the name of Miao-Shan, the Goddess Guan Yin. She inherits millions of dollars and becomes one of the richest women in Hong Kong, but she is a master of kung fu and wants revenge against the triads. A student of Master Sung tells her where she can purchase a mighty sword and she meets elderly Wang Deshi, a sword maker, and Shaolin Monk, who tells her she is the one they have waited for to bring compassion and judgment to evil men. She must refrain from killing if possible. Miao Shan becomes a beautiful young woman by day, and a black-clad vengeful goddess by night, offering compassion or death to the triads.

The writing flows well, and keeps the reader entertained. This was a multiple faceted novel, however, the first 150 pages being juvenile, especially the dialogue. Thankfully, the rest of the book moves into comic book superhero prose, and a little more mature dialogue. The mighty sword, Whispering Wind gives her immortality, eternal youth, superhuman speed and strength; in other words, she can now leap tall buildings and is faster than a speeding bullet, and has superhuman strength. It also has some similarities to Warren Murphy’s The Destroyer at this point.  In fact, one of the Triad leaders hires a mysterious personage to protect him that reminds the reader of Chiun from that series. Shen has moves like the Korean assassin and trainer of Remo. Shen does kill all her family and friends, but we know he will lose the fight against Miao-Shan. The juvenile dialogue was hard to read at times, but my main complaint is we don’t see good fight scenes. She goes into a Black Fist stance, then a few seconds later two dozen triad warriors lie dead on the floor. She moves so fast you don’t see her kill her foes. And then she just gives the evil eye to a dozen more and they run off in fear. The author is working on the second volume, and I certainly want to read it when it’s ready, but I hope there is more realistic fight scenes, and better dialogue. As it is, I highly recommend this first novel because it introduces a very interesting character in Miao-Shan.

Tom Johnson

Author of THE BLACK SHADOW

HILI

HILI is a science fiction about abduction and contact with intelligent extraterrestrial life. The theme is not new for fans of the genre, but the book also talks about the limits of sanity and what a person is able to do to preserve her life and the existence of her race.

With many surprises and twists throughout the narrative, HILI begins with the traditional method of abduction. Madison DeMarco, a former top model, disappears from her mountain cabin after spotting a strange light in the sky. Madison wakes up in a metallic room and with her is a man who, although attractive, has an almost inhuman appearance.

After the initial shock, Madison learns why she is in that spaceship, and where she is going. Besides been taken from her planet, she later discovers that things are not exactly as they seem and she will have to face a great danger in the ship to survive.

Hili (SF)

By Lu Evans

Independent Publishing Platform

ISBN # 978-1979848831

Price $6,99 (Paperback)

Price $0.99 (Kindle)

145 Pages

Rating 4-Stars

Madison  DeMarco’s husband has just asked her for divorce, and she is angry and heading for her cabin in the hills. Madison is a famous model, and drives a Ferrari GT4, and she’s burning up the road. Arriving at the cabin she no sooner settles in than a bright light appears overhead and she blacks out. When she awakens, Madison discovers a space alien has abducted her and they are headed for his world where she will become the queen of the world, and mate of the alien.

The alien is the last of his kind. For the last five thousand years or so, he has been cloning his body until he is now the perfect specimen of man – large, muscular, and extremely handsome. He is known as Etana – or more exactly, Lord Etana. He claims to be the only person on the ship, and calls her by the pet name of Hili, but Madison senses another creature in the shadows, one that is small and thin, and knows that Lord Etana has been lying to her. But what could be at the bottom of those lies?

This was a wonderful and unique tale. Madison talks to herself, which is quite humorous at times. Plus Etana also abducted her Ferrari and added AI to it, so the car can now talk to her. She does discover the thing in the shadows is a female robot named Hili, which causes more problems between her and Lord Etana, since the robot has been Etana’s companion for thousands of years. Etana is a cyborg, half man, half machine, and she may not be the only Earth woman he has abducted. Things spiral out of control for both Madison and Etana, and drastic measure must be taken.

The writing was extremely odd, as if English is not the first language of the author. Words are missing from sentences. The use of “on” and “in” is often at odds with what it should be. And “being” usually comes in as “been”. I would say it was poorly edited, but a lot of more advanced words are okay. Either English is a second language for the author, or she used an interpreter who is not proficient in English. Whatever the case, the story is still good, and I highly recommend it for SF readers.

Tom Johnson

Author of THESE ALIEN SKIES

The Legend of Black Dove

An African orphan raised as the protege of a right-wing vigilante in the 80s, returns to New York City twenty years after a supernatural entity killed his mentor, to help the daughter of a slain hero cop track a faceless killer.

The Legend of Black Dove (Superhero Prose)

By Mallon Khan

Independent Publishing Platform

ISBN #978-1720331063

Price $12.95 (Paperback)

182 Pages

Rating 3-Stars

In this confusing tale nothing is as it seems. The story begins as two heroes, White Falcon and Black Dove invade what they believe is a Satanist group performing the sacrifice of a beautiful girl to bring a Demon among them. A monster does appear and kills White Falcon, Black Dove’s mentor. Black Dove attempts to save the girl, but instead it’s she that saves him. Dubbed the DOB (Disciples of Baphomet) Murders, a local cop, Detective Victor Rodriquez is also killed. Two decades later, his daughter, Cynthia Rodriquez is now a detective, and when the killings start again, she wants to investigate the murders, but her lieutenant, Greg Wells, says no. She will investigate on her own to bring closure to her dead father. Black Dove returns to the scene after spending time in Nigeria, as he wants to help Cynthia.

The story is confusing, and names change for no reason. A group of killers appear in the current time targeting the original nine masked villains at the beginning of the story. Their leader is called Levy, sometimes Ze, and is from the past. With Levy there is a giant and a midget, and a Japanese girl name Hisa, and they are after the Disciples of Baphomet. Or how about this: He heard the sound of a six-shooter and knew six rounds had been fired? Really? Rounds go pop, pop, pop, and he could distinguish a six-shooter from another gun? Amazing.

Spoiler Alert: In the end, we are told the truth and the confusion is replaced with chaos. There were no Satanists. Just rich bankers who had bought an alien monster from the Army. They knew White Falcon thought himself an arm of God, and would crash an organization worshiping Satan, so set the fake party up to trap White Falcon, then bring their alien monster in to kill the hero. Levy is the young prostitute they were torturing (her name is Jessica Morris). She almost died in the resulting fire, but lived and plotted the deaths of the nine DOB members. In the end, everyone dies, except Cynthia Rodriquez who wasn’t around in the final confrontation. The alien monster took over Black Dove’s body and merged with him, and they live beneath the ground, away from military control and everyone else.

Personally, I thought this novel wasn’t worth three stars. It was too confusing throughout the story. A drug addict gives Cynthia a clue, a Monarch butterfly. It appears the DOB nine want to go by the name Monarch for some reason. The clue was as dumb as most of the story. And truthfully, Cynthia could have been left out of the story and she wouldn’t have been missed. At one point Black Dove calls Lt. Wells, Sparrow, which makes him a behind the scenes hero, I guess. And Edmund White’s (White Falcon) chauffeur and man servant, Nasir Dajani (Muslim) is Gray Crow, another hero. Black Dove is black, of course. Did I mention all the profanity? This is a comic book prose novel, and leaves the story open for a sequel, in which we will learn if Black Dove will remain a hero, or be a villain now that he is merged with the alien creature. There is no way I can recommend this book, it just wasn’t worth it.

Tom Johnson

Author of THESE ALIEN SKIES