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The Drift Review

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(More customer reviews)Book Title: The Drift
Reviewed by: LottaHoney
Amazon Rating: 5
APOOO Rating: 5
A Tour de Force of A Novel! A Sublime Page-Turner!
There is a rich American tradition of riding the rails. Even I, as a child, had adventurous dreams of running away on a railway and experiencing moonlit campfires and starry-night talks with hobos. John Ridley's The Drift illustrates the flip of the coin and the underbelly of drugs and terror on the turf of today's freight train riding hobos.
Charles Harmon, an upper-middle class Black tax lawyer, resides in Sunny California. Charles is a possessor of the American dream replete with a BMW in the driveway, a palatial suburban home, a gardener, Cayman Island vacations, and a beautiful wife with a new-born baby harboring a crystal blue, 3rd eye in his cheek - disturbing images that his slowly deteriorating, demented mind envisions. He abandons all of the accouterments of the American dream for the beckoning call of The Drift...the magnetic pull of The Drift...the sensation of The Drift, the gentle lull and roll of the trains on the tracks.
The protagonist, Charles Harmon, descends into an underworld of train-hopping hobos with tags such as Frypan Jack and Slow Motion Shorty. Charles discovers, "Freedom. Freedom is what the rails are for". Charles dies and experiences a rebirth as Brain Nigger Charlie and is indoctrinated into the world of steel corridors learning to `catch-out' and ride the rails.
Old and tired Chocolate Walt becomes the mentor to Brain Nigger Charlie and his newly acquired friends - the fierce and loyal George Plimpton and his potent and clinging lady friends, Lady K and Lady E.
The novel's plot heightens as Chocolate Walt engages Brain Nigger Charlie to ride the High Line in search of his wayward, runaway niece Corina Leslie.
The High Line is inhabited and controlled by the Pacific Northwest FTRA - Freight Train Riders of America or the original "F*$^ the Reagan Administration" - a vicious gang of psychopathic, racist, drug-trafficking, train-hopping hobos that have commandeered the freight train of America leaving a trail of corpses in its wake.
Brain Nigger Charlie attempts to redeem himself by valiantly searching for his friend's niece, Corina Leslie. As his search begins, amid many hits and misses, this novel takes you on a roller coaster ride with multiple bends, unexpected twists, and curves. As you succulently savor each page, the suspense is earth shaking, glass breaking, and unsettling... a wonderful and incredible tour de force of images with exact and precise descriptive images.
You are sure to begin a train ride on the Freight Trains of American into Pure Terror - in the capable hands of John Ridley.
Reviewed by LottaHoney
APOOO BookClub

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People of the Thunder (North America's Forgotten Past) Review

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(More customer reviews)By 1300 in an area now known as Alabama and Mississippi, the Sky Hand People rule with an iron fist controlling territory for vast miles from their Split Sky City. Their Chief Flying Hawk is devious and ambitious with plans to expand the tribe's land. His nephew War Chief Smoke Shield is a brilliant merciless strategist, who expedites his uncle's plan. Together they are intelligent, abusive and deadly; complementing one another
They attack their peaceful neighbors the Albaamaha tribe with a blood thirsty assault. The "most dangerous man alive" Old White the prophet, Trader a man with dark bloody secrets and the enigmatic female shaman Two Petals seek peace. To achieve peace in their time, the trio knows they must end the reign of terror of Flying Hawk and Smoke Shield.
This completes the tale first started in THE PEOPLE OF THE WEEPING EYE. As always in the incredible Gear North American Forgotten People saga, readers obtain an insightful look at Native American culture and everyday living inside an exciting action-packed thriller. Although extremely but appropriately graphic with murder, rape, torture and the abuses of war, fans will relish the fifth Mississippian story as the Gear duet bring to life the early fourteenth century through fully developed characters leading to a confrontation that will determine whether peace or war will dominate the region.
Harriet Klausner

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No Smoking 101: Confessions of a Spy in the President's War on Drugs. How to quit using the drug Nicotine in 2013. (Volume 1) Review

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(More customer reviews)This adventure story has something for everyone. Children, teens, and adults will enjoy the science fiction parts. . .religious references, and there are many true sea stories. All the dreams and charters and plots are interwoven with today's smoking of nicotine. Enjoy. . .I did.

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Uglies (Uglies Trilogy, Book 1) Review

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(More customer reviews)I am a middle school English teacher and enjoy reading Young Adult literature. I also have seen the Twilight Zone episode, with a very similar story line, and it was an episode that has lingered hauntingly in my thoughts....so when I heard of this series, I was very eager to read it. I don't frequently write reviews, but I had to react to the negative reviews that I saw on this site. Though the story line may not be original, the author writes beautifully, using specific vocabulary and beautiful similes, without, at least in my opinion, holding back the story line. Tally is a well-developed character, thoughtful and fully understanding the consequences of her actions. I saved this book for a three-day weekend but read it all last night and this morning. I was unable to put it down and am planning to read all three books this week. I highly recommend this book for readers who enjoy thinking about what our future will be like. I plan to share the first chapter with my Junior Great Books class. I think it will be great fodder for intellectual discussion.

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TobakkoNacht - The Story Review

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(More customer reviews)i would like to see this author.s other work available on kindle. thje anti smokers brain.

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On one dark night in 1938, just days after Adolf Hitler consolidated his hold on the German Reichstag, twelve hours of terror descended upon the Jewish population of Berlin and other large German cities. Jewish ghetto districts saw entire blocks of store windows smashed, synagogues burned to the ground, hundreds of Jewish men killed with thousands more arrested for defending their families and properties, and Jewish women and children raped and battered. Hitler's Aryan gangs intended to teach the 'vermin' a lesson they'd never forget. That night has come down in history to us as "The Night of Broken Glass" . . . Kristallnacht. TobakkoNacht -The Story! is not meant in any way to detract from the horror of that night. On the contrary, while writing it and sharing it with others I discovered how sadly Kristallnacht itself has been forgotten by far too many. Perhaps this story will help remind some of that history. TobakkoNacht! is divided into six short parts spaced over 10,000 years. Each part is very different not only in content but also in writing style. This is deliberate and will hopefully prove to be as enjoyable to read as it was chilling to write. Note: this Kindle edition consists of a 7,500 word political science fiction novelette, a postscript, and “bonus materials" consisting of a much shorter science fiction piece, “Breathers," and three chapters (“Hate," “The True Costs," and “Truth, Lies, and Ice Cream") from my previous full-length non-fiction book, "Dissecting Antismokers Brains." It is not a full-length book but at 20,000 words it is a respectable and thought-provoking read.

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Her Smoke Rose Up Forever Review

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(More customer reviews)In 508 pages we get 18 short stories by James Tiptree, Jr. Original publication dates range from 1969 to 1981. Time has overtaken many of the tales in a strange way, that makes one wish Tiptree were still around to appreciate developments. For instance, in "The Girl Who Was Plugged In," the world breathlessly watches the real-time antics of young, beautiful wealthy girls... who are actually brainless synthetic creations animated by what amount to brains in jars in an underground lab. What would Tiptree make of the Parises, Nicoles, Lindsays and Brittanies of our own day, who appear to have no brains located anywhere?
Tiptree really got rolling in 1973, when she published her three best-known stories, "The Girl...," along with "Love is the plan the plan is death," and "The Women Men Don't See." Along with 1976's "Houston, Houston, do you read?" these are the quintessential Tiptree tales. "Love is the plan..." is my favorite science fiction short story, and one of the best short stories of any kind ever written. It has not a single human character, and depicts the unbearably touching efforts of a gigantic, heavily-armored, multi-limbed alien to tackle and solve three deadly problems faced by his species, two internal--- stemming from instinctively programmed behavior--- and one external, a global climate change. That he will fail, and why he will fail, is evident early on from many clues fairly planted within the narrative. But he does his level best, which is indeed far better than you and I could hope to do, and like most Tiptree aliens, he is totally charming and lovable throughout his hopeless task. Our own species is currently failing completely to deal with a global climate change, and we are neither charming nor lovable in our miserably conflicted efforts.
"A Momentary Taste of Being" is another quintessential Tiptree story; an expedition of interstellar exploration inadvertently discovers the true purpose of human existence... a purpose which reveals all human effort, achievement and aspiration to be utterly pointless and futile. "With Delicate Mad Hands" is a key story, from 1981, that catches Tiptree in transition from symbolic War of the Sexes tales to space-operatic adventure. Almost all her stories from 1981 to her death in 1987 were space adventures set in the distant future.
Several tales here were completely new to me, particularly "Slow Music," from 1980, in which a chance (?) encounter of the earth with some alien stream of disembodied consciousness has made suicide so irresistibly attractive that there are only a handful of living humans. This story seems to contain a sly self-portrait of Tiptree herself, as the dying ancient human wreck that the two main characters discover on their way to see "The River," as the stream is called.
There's not a bad or mediocre story in the volume. And, alas, this is probably the only collection of Tiptree fiction currently in print in the US. Get it while it's still available.

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The Integral Trees and The Smoke Ring Review

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(More customer reviews)Having read many Sci-Fi books in my life, I can honestly say that none can come close in originality and concept to the books 'Integral Trees' and the sequel, 'The Smoke Ring' by Larry Niven. You will instantly love this book where technology takes a second-hand place to the dynamics of human development and interactivity, and the remnants of human advancements exist as strange, unknown objects, myths, and faded social traditions.
The book takes us into a free-fall environment, the remains of a gaseous planet orbiting a star in a binary system. Life has evolved there, free of the constrains of gravity. Ponds drift about as spheres of water, and multi-kilometer long trees are like small worlds containing lifeforms of numerous bizzare types. Humankind has reverted to tribal structures, the technology that brought them long forgotten. The old ways of Earth have all but dissapeared, existing only as ghosts in the speech patterns of the characters.
Niven has repeatedly written books that encourage us to think differently--to think big. If you liked the awesome strangeness of 'Ringworld,' then you will have an instant favorite in 'Integral Trees.'

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"Niven has come up with an idea about as far out as one can get. . . . This is certainly classic science fiction–the idea is truly the hero." –Asimov's Science Fiction MagazineWhen leaving Earth, the crew of the spaceship Discipline was prepared for a routine assignment. Dispatched by the all-powerful State on a mission of interstellar exploration and colonization, Discipline was aided (and secretly spied upon) by Sharls Davis Kendy, an emotionless computer intelligence programmed to monitor the loyalty and obedience of the crew. But what they weren't prepared for was the smoke ring–an immense gaseous envelope that had formed around a neutron star directly in their path. The Smoke Ring was home to a variety of plant and animal life-forms evolved to thrive in conditions of continual free-fall. When Discipline encountered it, something went wrong. The crew abandoned ship and fled to the unlikely space oasis.Five hundred years later, the descendants of the Discipline crew living on the Smoke Ring no longer remember their origins. Earth is more myth than memory, and no recollection of the State remains. But Kendy remembers. And just outside the Smoke Ring, Discipline waits patiently to make contact with its wayward children.

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Smoke Ring Review

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(More customer reviews)Chances are, when you think of a good Niven book, you don't recall the awe-inspiring plot or earth shattering dialogue exchanges or any of that sissy stuff . . . it's the ideas that hold your attention and make the book worth reading. Which leads to a love or hate relationship with the man . . . if you like your SF "hard" he's about as hard as they come and when he's "on" you'll find yourself dazzled even if you're trying to resist. And then there are those times when he's so in love with his ideas that he forgets to write a story to go along with it. This isn't that bad but it almost comes close. I'll admit the original concept of the Integral Trees was mind boggling, an entire civilization of human beings adapted to a zero gravity environment in a cloud of atmosphere that orbits a neutron star. It's been a few years since I read that book and so forgiveable that I don't quite remember what happened . . . but that concept. Whoa. Niven revisits it here, bringing back some of the people from the first book, adding some newcomers and exploring the world a little bit. The plot, when they bother with it, is fairly straightforward and really doesn't build to any sort of climax or peak, it hovers somewhere around episodic without even congealing into anything memorable. However, the ideas, those are the meat of this book and Niven whips them out on almost every page, taking full advantage of the scenario and running with the ball for all its worth. If you read your SF for the "science" part of it, you're in luck, he gives enough stuff here to keep a generation of physics graduate students busy for quite some time. Thankfully you don't need a doctorate in a higher science to understand all of it but like I said, ideas are basically all this book has. The characters are merely mouthpieces to put forward the ideas, the plot itself is merely a showcase for the ideas . . . it's a textbook with dialogue sometimes. Still, I finished it despite all of that and even if in a week I won't be able to tell you a single thing that happened in it (but boy can I explain the concept) while you're reading it you will probably find it highly entertaining, like I did. So, no it's not a classic but it can be fun. Niven gets points for originality (even if it is a sequel) even if that's all he has here. Try it anyway.

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Trembling Earth Review

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(More customer reviews)In this memorable book, Kim Siegelson carves out her own niche in a growing list of 'Boys in the Okefenokee' stories. See "The Mystery of the Green Swamp" by Marjorie A. Zapf and "Tree Castle Island" by Jean Craighead George. Each stands on its own merit, but "Trembling Earth" is the first I have seen that uses a setting during the Civil War. Siegelson does a admirable job of intertwining southern attitudes about slavery and the war with the unique perspectives of the swamper. Hamp's own inner struggle to determine what is right is poignant and plausible, considering the time and place. Like many residents of the Appalachian mountains during that period, southern swamp dwellers often felt socially and politically estranged from the plantation society. I did feel that Hamp's speech and actions would been more typical of a 13 or 14 year old, rather than 12. Nonetheless, his is a moving story.
I loved the imagery of "...thinnest of roots trailed down through dark water, searching for a place to latch on to..." It was the prelude to a fitting ending and reflects the writer's own affinity with the great swamp. It can be a mysterious and exciting place.
Roy Campbell, author,
"Song of the Jackalope"

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