Best February Reviews from Readers! What’s going on in the book world this February? Who has reviewed what? Which books stand out from the rest? Let me share with you the best reviews of some great books.
I’ve read a lot of Harmon Cooper and this is the coziest book he’s ever written. Here we have a hardened soldier, Sylus Runewolf, dying as he fought his country’s enemies in a battle. After his death he wakes up in the underworld. What’s more, he has a deed to a pub.
Some of Sylus’ favorite memories are from his boyhood where he helped in his father’s pub, so he’s eager to get the pub up and going. It’s quite the fixer-upper. But he gets a pub cat, Patches, who’s magical and helps him protect the pub from rats–and demons.
The pub is in Ember Hollow which is hard by the Chasm, the hell that is below the underworld. Sometimes demons slip in. Overhead are are Celestial Plains, or heaven, glowing in the sky.
This book is a delight for brewers, fantasy lovers, and RPG lit readers!
This was a fun concept in the super-hero genre, it had everything that I was looking for in this type of book. The characters were interesting and had a great overall feel to this world. I enjoyed what I read and can’t wait for the sequel. Andy Zach has a great writing style and I’m glad I got to read this.
I just re-read this novel after 20 years from my first read. I loved my initial read and I kept remembering inspirational sections of the book, so I had to re-read it.
Ben Fielding, a successful VP with a keen interest in China, leads his company investments there in the 1990s. To promote their Chinese division, Ben decides to spend a couple weeks living with a Chinese family. He decides to contact his old Harvard roommate, Li Quan, who went back to China after graduating with honors.
Ben has mixed emotions about his old friend. They were very close at Harvard, but fell out of touch while Ben got married, had kids, and got divorced. There’s also the awkward fact Ben introduced Quan to Christianity, which Ben no longer practices.
So with mixed emotions Ben drives to meet his old friend, three hours away from Shanghai.
That’s when the novel really begins. Li Quan is the backup pastor for an illegal Chinese house church and is under suspicion by the government. Ben is clueless about Christianity in China. It’s a major threat to the Communist government which persecutes it severely. Ben is forceed to decide between his old friend and his company, which needs the favor of the Chinese government.
The novel holds up well 20 years later. China has become more repressive toward Christianity and Christianity has grown beyond a hundred million people.
Four disabled seventh-graders with superpowers take a vacation at Coaster World. They need a break from fighting criminals. Ever since the beginning of the school year when they acquired their unusual abilities, they’ve been training and using those powers to fight crime in their town.
Little do they know the arch-villain they recently defeated also loves coasters and is vacationing at Coaster World. Worse, the villain wants revenge. Nothing less than turning these teens to a life of crime will satisfy.
Can Jeremy, Dan, Kayla, and Aubrey withstand the villain’s attacks? Or will they become Super Villains?
Accidents happen. Especially around zombie turkeys. Then you add zombie humans, and problems proliferate. Mix in some ill-planned genetic engineering, and things get crazy.
The insanity continues, from the story where zombies are merged with cucumbers to the one where two basement-dwelling nerds gain access to all video content from the past two hundred years—from aliens.
Andy Zach pulls out all the stops on his imagination as he serves up this smorgasbord of silliness. Try it. Laughter is good for your soul
Oops! Short Stories –A queen from long ago
The first mistake is a tragedy–a queen’s husband and son died through drowning.
One queen saw the problem more clearly than anyone else. Her king and prince had both drowned only a short distance from the shore because no one saw them signing for help. The queen sat vigil all night long, and in the morning she sent heralds with large signs in every language to all the humans, elves, dwarves, fairies, leprechauns, and even a dragon. She pled with all to find something that would let creatures communicate without signs or gestures when they couldn’t see each other. She promised she would give whatever was in her power to whoever could accomplish this.
Andy Zach during his doctoral research – on the Phoenix
Where is my mistake in this story? You’ll have to read and find out!
A Phoenix Tale
I left the air-conditioned comfort of the taxi, and the sights, sounds, and smells of the old bazaar in Jeddah assailed me: a robe-clad man on camel plodded by, an adjacent fishmonger added his smell to the fresh dung in the street, and the hawkers yelled their wares.
I could only speak Arabic at a middle school level, but as I strolled through the bazaar, I heard “Fresh dates!”…”Highest quality rugs!”…”Finest gold jewelry!”… “Ancient books! The rarest in Saudi Arabia!”
My head snapped around. A bald, stumpy man in a white caftan saw me look and said, “Books? You want ancient books?”
“Yes.” I spoke carefully, knowing my poor accent. “Can you speak English?” I didn’t have much hope.
This story begins with a girl in a wheelchair being transported by accident to–find out below!
The scene was chaos! I knew immediately I was in a different country, judging by the languages I couldn’t understand. I had also determined this was no modern city—I seemed to be on the outskirts of town amid a swarming crowd. Men were shouting and women were crying; meanwhile, I was still trying to figure out how I had gotten there and where exactly I was. Several seconds later, however, that question was answered.
Genetic engineering seems to be the last place to make mistakes. But that’s what Brice Butterworth does.
Now, what was he going to do? Brice Butterworth’s boss just told him to double the productivity of Vegan Inc.’s pickle strain they used for their Kilwowski Pickle brand. That was completely impossible.
But keeping his job required it. Brice was the low man on the genetic engineering totem pole at Vegan Inc., the last one hired and the first one to be fired if another recession hit.
He couldn’t think. He couldn’t face this. So he cruised the internet. “The origin of zombie turkeys? I didn’t know they’d found that. Hmm, a Midley Beacon exclusive, the foremost zombie news source,” he read out loud.
Brice is one of my favorite characters. I’m eager to write a book just about him.
“Whatcha doing, Brice?” asked my boss Wilma O’Reilly after sneaking up behind me.
I jumped. As usual, I was cruising the internet, bored with my job. How awkward.
We worked at Vegan Inc., an agricultural conglomerate. I was their lead geneticist in charge of enhancing the qualities of the corporation’s vegetable products through genetic modification.
Zombie Shift Anthony Jones, warehouse worker and his wifeRaven
In this Oops! Short Story we start with a car accident.
He woke up staring out his windshield at the green grass of the highway median. Dully, Anthony listened to the sound of his car’s engine cooling, ticking like a clock. He didn’t know why he was here or how he got here.
“Hey, are you okay in there?” came a voice from outside the car.
Turning his head toward the sound, he realized he was upside down, supported by his seat belt and his legs, which were strangely numb.
“Uh,” he croaked.
* * *
“We’re going to cast your leg,” said the nurse in the ambulance. Her name tag read Louise Tall, but she didn’t seem tall. “What’s your name?”
“Uh, Anthony. Anthony Jones.”
“Do you know your height and weight, Anthony?”
“Five-eleven. Two ten. I need to lose some weight. Ow!”
Oops! Short Stories – Andy Zach, Revivificationistin Assisted Living
I’m not immune from mistakes. This is how one mistake make my parents into zombies.
I need to tell you about my own zombie story. It’s about how my parents became zombies.
As soon as the zombie turkeys appeared in Illinois, I started cultures of their zombie turkey bacteria in petri dishes. When other animals, squirrels, rabbits, and cows began turning zombie, I added cultures of their bacteria. I sought the ultimate source of animal revivification. It was my PhD thesis and my life’s work.
I’ve always wanted to revive animals from the dead. It seemed the secret was through the special bacteria for each species. Naturally, when humans became zombies, I cultivated their bacteria too.
He was dead. At least, his business was. And without his business, his wife would leave him and take their new baby. Then he might as well be dead.
His dad had run the Elysium Fields Mortuary for thirty years and had made a killing at it. The first and only mortuary in their small town of Hillvale, everyone got buried there. He charged normal prices, he was friendly, and he helped their community. His dad said to him when he was a teen, “Irving, after you get your college degree, go to mortuary school, and when you come out, I’ll hire you and then turn the business over to you. You’ll be set for life.”
Oops! Short Stories – Meet Heather Mallorn, zombie corgi breeder – Her Majesty’s Corgis
What kind of accidents can happen with zombie corgis?
Breeding zombie corgis wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.
Heather Mallorn sighed as she reviewed accounts for Her Majesty’s Corgis in Hanna City, Illinois. Certainly, she made plenty on each zombie corgi she sold. Normally, corgi puppies went for $1,200. She earned double that for zombies. The zombie corgies were invincible guard dogs, and cute too, with bright-red eyes. They were no harder to train than regular corgis, just slightly more aggressive. Well, a lot more aggressive.
What trouble can a pet hamster cause? Find out below!
How fascinating! Dancer thought. This book says there are libraries where hundreds of books live. It also says the fiction books are in order by author name.
Dancer scurried off Your Sixth Year Reader to look at Jeremy Gentle’s bookshelf again. Jeremy was Dancer’s owner and unknowing educator. Ever since he’d taught himself to read by studying the newspapers lining the bottom of his cage, Dancer had craved reading.
He hadn’t figured out why he’d started reading. One day he’d noticed patterns in the markings. He saw they repeated themselves in clumps. Then the clumps formed more patterns. He also listened to his owners differently. They also spoke in patterns. “Jeremy” was always called “Jeremy” or “Jeremy Gentle” by his mother, and sometimes by his father.
“Arrrgh! Me hearties, eat hearty!” said a short, stocky pirate with an eye patch and a captain’s hat seemingly copied from Cap’n Crunch. The pirate gestured, with a hook instead of a right hand, toward an enormous banquet table laden with food. The one visible eye gleamed red.
“Arrrgh! Where’s the skilly and duff?” said a refrigerator-sized bald pirate with an enormous mustache. His eyes also shone crimson.
“Arrrgh! That be the tacos and enchiladas,” said a small, beautiful pirate with dark hair bound by a red bandanna and smiling blood-red eyes. She pointed with her cutlass toward the Mexican section of the smorgasbord.
“Arrrgh! You be a Mexican pirate?” said a blond pirate with broad shoulders and a Cockney accent. She wore her hair in a long queue emerging from a bloody headband around her forehead. She also had glowing ruby eyes.
“That’s your problem, isn’t it? Try the local apartments. Look for rooms to rent on the internet. It’s not that hard to find a place in Ohio.”
I could tell by his grim expression he was serious this time. He’d been nagging me for nearly a year to move out and “set up housekeeping” ever since I’d graduated from the state university with my BA in video game art and my minor in computer science. I’d managed to wheedle him out of it and delay the date. Until now.
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David Weber continues his ‘Out of the Dark’ series with this fine entry. Humanity finally goes to Shongar, the planetary system that sent out Thirkirk, the admiral who attacked Earth and killed more than half the world’s population in the first book.
Humanity, with the help of another intelligent species, had been able to defeat the Shongari invaders and take over their ships and technology. They freed another race who had been subjugated by the Shongari.
Studying Shongari history, humanity realized they too were manipulated by the galaxy-spanning Hegemony. They classified all races by vegetarian, carnivorous, or omnivore.
Humanity intended to break the mold.
Best 5 Books For February 2024- The Second
Outstanding humorous progressive fantasy
I finally finished the published chapters, but it was a labor of love. Osborne, Ozzy, the main character grew from a wily gamester to a dominant force within the game.
But the complex plot with never-ending challenges is just half of the joy. There are a plethora of delightful characters, including Suzette, who’s famous for her crepes and her magical abilities. She’s part of Ozzy’s gamer team who take on the new game in town, The Genesis Engine. Ben and Rolly are the other two characters on the team. and they’re totally wacky too.
It’s great they got to be the first players in the game. It’s not so great that they were given nerfed characters locked into a 5-year contract with an evil corporation. But they work within the game’s rules and outfox everyone.
You see, the Genesis Engine responds to players’ efforts. And no one works harder than Ozzy’s team.
I’ve enjoyed every chapter so far. Walrus has the ability to make wonderful characters and give them limitless challenges to overcome. Start reading it now!
Just when you think he can’t top himself, he adds more characters or another race of villains or heroes to the mix. Each person, or rat, or spider is unique and worth reading about.
This book was a crazy ride. Imaging if you will a flock of turkeys which are unstoppable! Of course, they can be stopped if you know the secret way to kill a zombie turkey. The various scenes had me laughing. The scene with Obama and family was quite entertaining. The various traps and way to kill the turkeys had my imagination going. A fun read.
As a first timer it really took me by surprise so it took me a while to understand that even so that it sounds like a children’s book, it’s the moral which counts in the story.
Narration by Luke Castle is beautifully done for each of the characters in this creation.
If you are into comics then I do recommend !
Oded Ostfeld.
What Can Top 5 Books for February?A Bonus Book!
And not only a bonus book, but one on sale for .99, starting Sunday February 18th. Check this out:
A Phoenix that cannot be tranquilized pickles injected with turkey DNA, a hamster that can read… This is just three of the great stories you get in this book.
It makes me wonder what does Andy Zak think while sitting around at his house he must have a vivid, vivid imagination! I’m just glad he shares his madness with the world.
I do want to say I didn’t read the last three stories because it said they were spoilers for his superhero books that I plan on reading next but I absolutely love the author six or seven stories in this anthology and highly recommend them.
Once again the narration was great the stories were entertaining and they had lots of LOL moments! I thoroughly enjoyed this authors books and cannot get enough. I do want to say the talking mouse story is a spoiler for the superhero books so when I say the last three stories or spoilers I mean the absolute last three in the anthology.
The rest or safe to read unless you’ve already read the superhero books. Please forgive any mistakes as I am blind and dictate my review.
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