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Book Review: I Know What UFO Did Last Summer by Kevin Garone

cover art for I Know What UFO Did Last Summer

I Know What UFO Did Last Summer by Kevin Garone

Temor Press, April 2025 (not yet released)

ISBN: 9798991328401

Available: Paperback, Kindle edition

Buy: Bookshop.org

 

Part adventure, part sci-fi, and all childlike charm, this book is for young readers, but perfect for young-at-heart adults.  With its irresistible characters, it’s a reminder of a time when you were young and could believe in anything with all your heart, no matter how outlandish it might have been.  Simply put, this is magic.

 

It’s the three pre-teen lead characters, Marvin (code name: Gold Leader), Jace (code name: Baller One) and Nora (code name: Space Cadet) that make the story such a joy.  The author clearly knows kids and how to write them. His insights are so good, you’ll wonder if the book was written by a teen with advanced writing skills.  The main character, Marvin, truly believes aliens will one day infiltrate the earth, so he spends his spare time searching and preparing for them, along with his less enthusiastic friends.  Jace and Nora don’t really buy into Marvin’s obsession, but searching the night sky during campouts and building an anti-UFO catapult is fun for them.  That’s what buddies do: go along with the ideas of each other, in the name of friendship.

 

Things change when the three of them do find something unusual in the woods. It isn’t actual aliens, but it does somewhat fit into Marvin’s beliefs.  The author wisely doesn’t hide the fact that it isn’t an extraterrestrial invasion, but he has Marvin play his role to the end, and that’s where a lot of the story’s charm comes from.  It’s hilarious when adults in the book occasionally ask “what’s wrong with this kid?”” when Marvin accuses them of being from another planet.  The answer is, nothing at all.  He isn’t written as crazy or stupid, but as a kid who believes, wholeheartedly, in aliens coming to earth.  It makes the character interactions between the three kids more powerful than a laser bolt from Han Solo’s blaster, as Jace and Nora are perfect foils to Marvin.  Jace has fun with the whole alien thing, but would rather play basketball, while Nora is new and town and just needs a friend.

 

The storyline is quite good: call it sci-fi light.  There are a few weird creatures and a bit of teleporting, plus, of course, an EEEEVIL mastermind behind it all.  There are some stock elements, but they are used extremely well.  A few characters do get chomped by something, but nothing messy.  This book is perfect for grades four through seven, roughly. (I’m basing that on my teaching experience)

 

However, since this review is mainly for adults, the bottom line is, this is perfect for those who haven’t let the world dampen the joy of imagination.  It’s a good reminder that magic of a sort still does exist, if you still believe.  Often, that magic is found in the friendships you make, as the book’s characters discover during their adventure.   Most definitely recommended!

 

Reviewed by Murray Samuelson

 

 

Posted on January 19, 2025 by , Reply

Book Review: Eynhallow by Tim McGregor

cover art for Eynhallow by TIm McGregor

Eynhallow by Tim McGregor

Raw Dog Screaming Press, 2024

Available: Hardcover, Paperback, Kindle edition

Buy: Bookshop.org  |  Amazon.com

 

 

Tim McGregor’s writing evokes the ghosts of 19th century English writers who captured the mystery of human beings and the wild forces of nature that remain untamed around us and in us. His latest book, Eynhallow, is an irresistible mix of science fiction and horror, with a twist of Gothic terror and a dash of old legends.

 

This story about an unusual, hardy woman opens in 1797 in the nearly deserted Orkney Islands, where four families are struggling to survive. Agnes, a devoted mother, has always acted out of necessity, the only reason she married and stays with her abusive husband. She now cooks and delivers meals to their new, wealthy neighbor, for a price. Her days revolve around family life, and occasionally helping to bring a neighbor’s child into the world. It is a monotonous existence, but Agnes has a curious and active mind that is constantly evaluating and analyzing everything and everyone around her. She also has many questions she feels she must answer about herself, what she wants, and whether she can have what she most desires.

 

As she pursues these answers, Tim McGregor’s atmospheric descriptions of the weather, vegetation, houses, characters, and even the church and food take on a life of their own, putting the reader into a state of growing uneasiness about Agnes’s safety and security. Slowly but surely, we discover that she has a role to play in another story, a famous one about a monster created from dead human body parts, who is now alive. McGregor brings the two stories together in surprising ways, reminding us of what we already know about Victor Frankenstein and his Creature, and filling in new details about the challenges of dealing with the monster’s demands and the unforeseen consequences of what Frankenstein dreamed would be the greatest scientific achievement of all time.

 

In the end, Eynhallow, meaning holy island, is far from it. It is a place of violence, pain, torture, and death. Just as Mary Shelley made her audience consider the boundaries between God and man, the spiritual and the scientific, and life and death, so too does Tim McGregor, but with an important difference. McGregor’s audience has had a much greater chance to explore these boundaries and observe their crossing. It is in that context, one of greater understanding, that we can truly see an earlier horror story becoming a contemporary one… and a permanent nightmare.

 

 

Reviewed by Nova Hadley

Posted on March 19, 2024 by , Reply

Book Review: Kiranis: Secrets of the Universe (Kiranis #3) by Ronald A. Geobey

Cover art for Kiranis #3 by Ronald A. Geobey

Kiranis: Secrets of the Universe, by Ronald A. Geobey

Temple Dark Books, 2023

ISBN: 9781739749248

Available: Paperback, Kindle edition

Buy:  Amazon.com

 

 

The saga continues…

The third volume in the Kiranis series, Secrets of the Universe continues the far-reaching galactic odyssey.

 

As in the previous two books, it is staggering in scope, and takes place in an entirely new era, with a new slate of characters.  However, while the series is still a very good read, it’s starting to feel like the foundation may be trembling a bit. Adding more detailed explanations to certain parts would certainly help shore the story up.

 

The basic idea still revolves around the hidden planet Kiranis and the fate of Earth, although the Garran race and their planet, Sieltor, play a part also.  A couple of the characters from previous books do play a part, Cassandra Messina being one, and as always, the prophet Naveen flits in and out of the story.  Having a new cast of characters is good and bad in this case: lt allows for a whole new dynamic group of characters, unfortunately just as we got used to the last batch (it’s a shame Sam Vawter didn’t make it back in, he was one of the best characters). At face value, the story is excellent, and as always, adds new items that play a crucial part of the story.  In this case, this includes the Barrier as one of the big ones, and the new spaceship drive that appears to be powered by the sun.  There’s a lot of dialogue in the book, but also a number of large space battles: the author certainly has a flair for creating them with a lot of ships, and a lot of destruction.

 

As good as the story is, it might be getting to be too much for some readers, I’ve never read a series with a scope as large as this one.  It would help to explain a few things a bit more: the author tends to insert new things from his imagination (and they are well-imagined), but they just appear without narrative paragraphs to really clear them up.  While things start to make sense as the story progresses, it would help to offer more details up front.  The Fate Lines are a prime example, I’m still not really sure how those work, and how the characters use them.  The Barrier is another example: it was not in the other two books, and some background would have helped, as it is such a big part of the story.  There is a lot of mental, psy-type material in the book, it’s tougher to grasp than tangible things.  Clearing these areas up would help propel the story to the next level.

 

Bottom line?  It’s still very good and worth the read for fans of the series, but could use a few tweaks at this point for clarification, so readers don’t get totally blown out of the water.  Recommended.

 

Reviewed by Murray Samuelson

 

Posted on March 12, 2024 by , Reply
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