Random Book Haul & Review Oct 2021: The Colors of Justice
1. The Journey
2. The Review
The Journey
211 pages worth of books were published in Sep 2021. From Random.org: 64, 76, 20, 143, 32, 29, 206, 80, 170, 181.
Page 64.
Midwinter at Bhisho (Seasons of War on Abira Book 1 by Earl Roske
Providing aid becomes a fight for survival.
When Imara lands on Abira with the rest of her company, things don’t feel right. And it’s not just the constant, falling snow. Bhisho’s townsfolk are nervous. This makes the Hospitallers wary.
Then, thieves come in the night.
But the thieves aren’t just thieves, they’re citizens of Grabouw, the other town in the valley. The Hospitallers learn that the people of Grabouw are starving, too. Imara and her team are charged with escorting supplies, through the snow, to the other town.
The welcome here is even more chilling.
Imara is certain more is going on than just a shortage of food supplies. A passed note confirms her suspicions. Now, Imara not only has to get her team safely back to Bhisho, but she also needs to report the truth, even if it costs her teams’ lives.
Midwinter on Bhisho is the first story in the Seasons of War on Abira series. Follow Sgt Imara Fermo as she not only deals with her own demons but also struggles to understand the layers of deceptions that drive the civil war on Abira.
Get the book. Get reading. The adventure awaits!
I don’t think there’s anything technically wrong with the description but it just feels really janky. Anyway, I decided to read some of the preview. It starts off with a few characters talking to each other. After a couple of pages, I realised I hadn’t bothered to keep track of who was saying what. There wasn’t a point of view that I could latch on to, so it all just blurred together for me.
Page 76.
Only public domain works here.
Page 20.
There was a USD$15.95 book here, another 1 page book, and the rest were public domain.
Page 143.
The Renascence Odyssey by ANGELO BELL
LIFE BEGINS ANEW AMONGST THE STARS
THE RENASCENCE ODYSSEY (Sci-Fi, action/drama) - in 2165 a widow hires a paramilitary psychic to lead her galactic quest to find the person her twin brother has been reincarnated as. Now she and her two-person crew must go to war among the stars on their trek to places no man has gone before.
After the fifth world war Earth was so polluted with nuclear radiation that we had to make our own Earth. Hundreds of them. Space Stations were erected and sent into orbit around the polluted planet. But that didn’t stop the fighting. World Wars became Galactic Wars. Finally, the major fighting stopped. Some say the Council of Presidents got smart and realized that soon there would be nothing left. But some people know the truth. Infant mortality rates skyrocketed. People died for no apparent reason. Turns out the radiation and man-made viruses used in the wars changed us. Gave us new diseases…and new powers. Earth had a new enemy. We removed everyone who was different.
Then science proved that, to some degree, everyone was affected…everyone. It was in the water. In the air. In our very DNA. And the fighting stopped.
THE RENASCENCE ODYSSEY is the story of PIPER VALERO, a woman so torn by her brother’s disappearance that she cannot let him go. And with good reason. In this new world reincarnation and resurrection aren’t mere biblical tales. It can happen to anyone. And she believes it has .
Unfortunately, this seems to be a screenplay, not a novel.
Wool vs Crust by Adnan Ali
The first Lycanthrope revealed its existence in Egypt of 1213 for a tranquil life among humans. A Pharaoh by the name of Ramses II, claimed to have witnessed the transformation of this creature; the being shifting when the moon has grown full and large then appearing human once daylight broke over the horizon. Blindly, the Pharaoh attacked its kind, drowning with terror and with low knowledge of what this species was cable of
🛑
Besides not knowing what “low knowledge” is supposed to be, the thing that really stopped me was “cable” instead of “capable”.
INTO THE UNEXPLAINED by UMAIR KHAN
Years ago, Earth was attacked unexpectedly. The war lasted for years, and it brought the world together to attack a common enemy. Now however, it was time to take the fight back to them.
I guess the good thing about short descriptions is that there is very little space for mistakes. But there was a line in the first paragraph of the preview that I just could not understand:
His organization became renowned subsequent to saving American Ambassadors who had the option to get before it gone to tidy.
What?!?!?!
Page 32.
Haunebu I & II, Prelude to War by George Brown, Georgene Brown
Flying Saucers, Nazis and Pirates, oh my! Want to know what really happened in New Mexico in the late ’40s. Why are there so many UFO sightings today? How do the UFOs go faster than our military planes, even underwater? Find the answers to these and many more questions.
During WWII, the German Chancellor daydreamed that a middle Earth Society gave him the plans for anti-gravity ships. He then gave his top generals the plans to implement and use against the Allies. Unfortunately, the ant-gravity craft was too technically complex for the Nazis to construct safely. Eventually, both Nazi prototypes were destroyed, but after the war, the Russians decided to make a quick buck off the German piles of junk. They sold the Nazi flying saucer plans and related junk to a retired Canadian Major General Phillip Rogers. His company Advanced Design and Experimental Aircraft Company built the first flying saucer since WWII. Unfortunately, the Nazis designed their craft small, so Phillip Roger’s had to employ three little people to fly it. Nevertheless, their exploits led them worldwide and eventually ended up at Roswell, New Mexico, in July 1947.
After his first catastrophe, Phillip Rogers builds the Haunebu II. He turns the flight over to active duty United States Army Colonel Ron Steel. During construction and testing, Ron and his crew battle a rogue Nazi unit headed up by General Percy Odenthal. It all concludes in the final battle in the Antarctic. It is now a coalition of countries headed up by Canada and their beautiful Prime Minister, Adrian Barbeau. Follow the United States Navy in an all-out war to rid the world of the 4th Reich.
While the previous book’s description was too short, this one is probably too long, since it seems to give away the entire plot of the book based on what I could see from the table of contents.
Page 29.
The Colors of Justice by Rick A. Mullins
Morgan Sullivan did his time in the Middle East war zones, but now he’s having trouble keeping a job. Then he gets an offer he can’t refuse and finds himself in a magical, parallel world he never imagined outside a science fiction novel. But his adopted world has it’s own problems as he faces corrupt leaders, bigotry and slavery from ‘normal’ humans toward both the Neanderthal natives and child-sized alien dragon folk, as well as monsters on land and at sea. Using the magic he recently learned, he begins to carve a name of Honor for himself as a champion of the weak and oppressed.
There seemed to be a mistake in the first few pages or so:
I did give him a double unicorn salute over my shoulders as he sputtered ineffectually, which got me out loud laughs from several of my former coworkers.
It seems like it should have been: which got me out loud laughs from several of my former coworkers.
But I kept on reading despite this mistake. I just connected with the character.
I read until about the 17% mark and just decided to buy it.
The Review
The Colors of Justice by Rick A. Mullins
I bought this book based on the strength of the first chapter. I instantly connected with Morgan, the main character, and understood what he wanted and why. Since the first chapter was written so well, the rest of the book should be good, right?
Wrong. What follows the first chapter is a long list of things Morgan did, but very little of the why. For example, upon hearing some atrocities that were done to a farmer, he teaches the farmer some magic and gives the farmer some magic items and then continues on his way. Was Morgan indignant or sad? I have no idea as the book never states anything else beyond what Morgan did. I know I feel sad when I compare the rest of the book to the first chapter.
This book also has a problem with its depth, especially when it concerns its world building. For example, it states that magic is like programming, but it never shows or even tells how or why it is like programming. Also, Morgan was a soldier and somehow also a programmer, which is why he is able to be so good at magic, even being able to create new spells. I’m really not sure when or how Morgan worked or studied programming, as the book states that he worked three jobs in six months through a temp agency after coming home from war and implies that he never went to college.
But the biggest issue I have with this book is with its definition of justice, where violence is used as a first resort instead of last. Morgan is someone who cannot stand the slavery of sentient beings but doesn’t seem to have any qualms killing them. For example, when Morgan is called upon to be some sort of mediator, one of the cases he hears was about a wizard trying to cheat some money out of another worker by being a “Karen”. When the wizard is about to lose his case, he attacks Morgan by firing magically-propelled daggers. Morgan then deflects the daggers and responds with lethal force.
Now, think about this for a moment. Morgan, with his overpowered magic, who also has access to magical shields, who therefore would be able to nullify anything the wizard threw at him, who could have magically disarmed or incapacitated the wizard but instead responds with lethal force, is somehow a paragon of justice? What is worse is that he shows no remorse after the fact.
That being said, one of the pros about there being so little characterisation is that I was able to characterise Morgan’s actions any way I pleased. Once I made the mental switch to realise that I was reading about a murderous psychopath who is trying to appear to be virtuous instead of someone who “begins to carve a name of Honor for himself as a champion of the weak and oppressed”, I began to enjoy myself a lot more.
★★★✰✰