Your Open Promotion Thread

Have something interesting you’re wanting to talk about?  Something that needs a little more attention maybe?  Be it a book, blog post or other blogging or book-related topic, come on down and talk about it in the comments!  Feel free to interact with other readers as well.  It’s nice to share what we’re all passionate about so I’ll start:

One of my blog posts that needs a little more attention is my Forgotten Figures: Aurelian post.  It’s about Aurelian, one of the best Roman emperors ever but one of the ones very few people ever talk about.  He did such amazing things in only five years and had he not been such a great man, the history of Rome and the world would be very, very different today.

Have fun!

The IX by Andrew P. Weston

The IX by Andrew P. Weston(Cover picture courtesy of Goodreads.)

Soldiers from varying eras and vastly different backgrounds, including the IX Legion of Rome, are snatched away from Earth at the moment of their passing, and transported to the far side of the galaxy. Thinking they have been granted a reprieve, their relief turns to horror when they discover they face a stark ultimatum:
Fight or die.

[Full disclosure: I received a free ebook copy in conjunction with the blog tour in exchange for an honest review.]

One of the things that Roman historians and various scholars debate is what happened to the Ninth Legion.  One day they were flushing out rebellious tribes in Caledonia and the next they’ve vanished into thin air.  Logic would point to their disappearance being caused by a total massacre of the legion and yet no bones have been found.  So what happened to them?  Well, Andrew P. Weston attempts his own little explanation for their disappearance as well as other mysterious warrior disappearances throughout the history of warfare.

While Marcus from the Ninth Legion is one of the characters and the book is called The IX, he’s not the main character.  Instead, Weston chose to follow around 3 distinct voices.  Their stories start when they were all ambushed and things get really interesting when they think they’ve been killed in action only to wake up and be told by extremely tall people that they now have to save an entire ancient civilization.  That really threw me for a loop because the stark ultimatum they find, ‘fight or die’, made me think that we’d be in for a gladiator show.  And that’s really the opposite of what happens.  Marcus and the others, including some of the tribesmen that killed him and his compatriots have to work together to protect the remnants of an ancient civilization from the mysterious Horde.  I can’t go into too much detail or I’ll spoil all of your fun, but needless to say that the Horde is not what it seems.

One of the greatest strengths of Weston’s writing is how much he thought out his world.  He has created an amazing scientific world where science and history combine to great effect.  The only real problem with this world is how we see it.  We see it through the eyes of various peoples, including the people that brought Marcus and the others there but at the same time much of the language is very technical.  You see, in order to fully appreciate Weston’s world I think you have to be a fan of hardcore science fiction.  That’s fine, but I’m generally not a fan of that so I found a lot of the technical explanations either confusing or boring.  But at the same time I think even fans of hardcore science fiction would get bored by some of the monologue explanations for how this or that works.  If Weston had cut down a little on the explanations I also think the narrative would have flowed better.  It was okay as it was, but it still could have been improved.

Overall, The IX is something I’d recommend to hardcore science fiction lovers who happen to know a little history.  Even if you don’t know a little Roman history, you’ll still appreciate and enjoy all of the effort Weston put into creating his world.  Because of that, although this book is quite long by most standards, it will quickly be a page-turner you don’t want to put down.

I give this book 4/5 stars.

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The Dead Days Journal by Sandra R. Campbell

The Dead Days Journal by Sandra R. Campbell(Cover picture courtesy of Goodreads.)

The daughter of a radical doomsday prepper, Leo Marrok spent her entire life preparing for the end. A skilled fighter and perfect marksman, Leo is her father’s second-in-command when Armageddon comes to pass. Together, they lead a group of survivors to a secure bunker deep in the Appalachian Mountains.

Vincent Marrok is willing to take extreme measures to repopulate their broken world. Leo’s refusal marks her as a traitor. With father and daughter at odds for the first time, their frail community is thrust into turmoil. Until the unthinkable happens, a blood-thirsty horde arrives. The impending attack will destroy all that they have worked for.

To protect her home and everything she believes in, Leo puts her faith in the arms of the enemy—a creature only rumored to exist—the one she calls Halloween. An alliance born out of necessity evolves into feelings Leo is ill-equipped to handle.

The Dead Days Journal is a post-apocalyptic story of love and family told through Leo Marrok’s first-hand account and the pages of Vincent’s personal journal, giving two very different perspectives on what it takes to survive.

[Full disclosure: I requested and received a free ebook through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.]

One of the things you have to know about The Dead Days Journal is that it’s not a zombie book.  More of a vampire book, to be honest but at the same time it’s nothing like classical YA vampires.  No, the majority of these vampires are hungry, rabid beings who have no higher thought processes at all.  There are of course some notable exceptions but these vampires are part of what makes Sandra R. Campbell’s book quite unique.

Imagine that the world has come to an end as you know it and you’re living in a small community in a cave, scavenging for survival, knowing that at any minute you could be vampire food.  What would you do?  Just survive or try to thrive and take the world back from the rabid vampires?  It’s an interesting question and many of the characters give it very different answers.  Vince Marrok, as you read in the blurb, is willing to take extreme measures to repopulate the world and poor Leo (his own daughter) isn’t even immune.  In fact, their disagreement about having children is part of the reason their safe little community comes to a dramatic end as everything they once knew changes.  I don’t want to give too much away because part of the fun is seeing how the two characters will react to each others’ actions but let’s just say that one or both of them will snap.  Once that veneer of safety is taken away, all bets are off in regards to predicting the behaviour of everyone in the community.

Leo is a very interesting character.  She’s matured in a world that doesn’t forgive weakness and she’s realized that humanity realistically has very little chance of coming back from something like this.  So, understandably, she doesn’t want a physical relationship with any of the men her age and she definitely doesn’t want children.  Why would you want children when you could be devoured by some insane creature at any second of any day?  Things get complicated when Leo decides that she does want a relationship because she does love one of her fellow group members, Ben.  Once her father sees her in a relationship, things get heated between the two and he does something that really breaks up their once trusting relationship.  And that’s when she meets Halloween, an intelligent vampire who tears down a lot of the preconceptions Leo had about his kind.  (Oh, and he’s definitely not a typical vampire either because Campbell made these ones unique.)  When the two start travel together and go through all kinds of hardships together, it’s not hard to see how things could get messy when feelings begin to be involved.

The plot is slow but interesting in the beginning and then it gets both fast-paced and interesting later on.  There’s a lot more interpersonal conflict than action per se but some of the conflicts between people get pretty heated.  It helps that there’s always this undercurrent of tension running throughout the narrative and even when things seem to settle down, they can change very quickly.  Just when Leo thinks she’s safe, she learns that she is far from it, for example.  Or just when she thinks that she’s averted a disaster and saved people, things turn out very differently.  The plot is very unpredictable; Sandra Campbell really does a great job at keeping readers on the edges of their seats.  I know I sure didn’t want to put this book down until I finished it!  And the cliffhanger at the end doesn’t seem forced so you’ll definitely want to read the next book as much as I do.

If you’re looking for some post-apocalyptic fiction but want something that diverges from the regular formula, The Dead Days Journal is a great place to start.  It’s got three dimensional characters, amazing world-building and a plot that just keeps surprising you.  I can’t recommend it enough.

I give this book 5/5 stars.

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My New Profile Picture

Now, normally a new profile picture wouldn’t be news but I’m actually pretty excited about this one because I had it professionally done.  I had to get some serious photos done for other purposes so I decided while I was at a professional photography studio that I’d have a couple of fun pictures done.  And this is the result:

Carrie Book PictureThere!  I don’t ever recall having a flattering picture of myself.  But now I have one that flatters me and strokes my ego.  I’m very pleased with how it turned out and the books I used as props sum up my range of interests, from memoirs to science fiction to historical fiction.

Okay, that was my little vanity indulgence for the day.  Normal, non-ego related posting will resume tomorrow.

Recovery Mode

I haven’t been posting all that regularly since returning from my New York trip in part because I’m still adjusting to my regular life.  Going from a couple feet above sea level to my normal 2000-ish feet above sea level wasn’t even the most challenging part.  No, it was the fact that instead of walking everywhere and taking the metro, now I have to drive everywhere again.  You don’t realize just how much you do adjust to life in a different place in only a week but I am definitely having a harder time than I thought acclimating.  It’s weird sleeping in my own bed and it’s even weirder using my own shower, which has pathetically low pressure compared to the lovely hotel shower.

So I’m still in recovery mode and I hope you guys will stick around until I’m back to my normal.