Chanticleer Book Reviews

Tag: Military Sci-Fi

The Semi-Finalists for the CYGNUS Book Awards for SCI-FI – a division of the 2019 CIBAs
The Cygnus Book Awards recognize emerging new talent and outstanding works in the genre of Science Fiction, Steampunk, Alternative History, and Speculative Fiction. The Cygnus Awards is a genre division of Chanticleer International Book Awards and Novel Competitions (The CIBAs).

Chanticleer International Book Awards is looking for the best books featuring space, time travel, life on other planets, parallel universes, alternate reality, and all the science, technology, major social or environmental changes of the future that author imaginations can dream up for the CYGNUS Book Awards division. Hard Science Fiction, Soft Science Fiction, Apocalyptic Fiction, Cyberpunk, Time Travel, Genetic Modification, Aliens, Super Humans, Interplanetary Travel, and Settlers on the Galactic Frontier, Dystopian, our judges from across North America and the U.K. will put them to the test and choose the best among them.

Congratulations to the 2019 CYGNUS Book Awards for Science Fiction Semi-Finalists! All Semi-Finalists will be recognized at the 2020 Chanticleer Authors Conference and the 2019 CIBA banquet and ceremony.

Presenting the 2019 CYGNUS Book Awards Semi-Finalists:
- Lawrence Brown – David: Savakerrva, Vol. 1
- William X. Adams – Intelligent Things
- Erick Mars & Mike Wood – A Legacy of Wrath
- Richard Mann – Purpose
- Callie Smith and Maura Smith – Fort Snow
- Andrew Lucas McIlroy – Earthling
- Paul Ian Cross – The Lights of Time
- Robert M. Kerns – It Ain’t Over…
- J. I. Rogers – The Korpes Agenda
- Paul Werner – Mustang Bettie
- Mart Sander – The Goddess Of the Devil
- Rey Clark – Titan Code: Dawn of Genesis
- Trever Bierschbach – Embers of Liberty
- Tim Cole – Insynnium
- Sandra J. Jackson – Playing in the Rain
- Samuel Winburn – Ten Directions
- Jacques St-Malo – Cognition
- Timothy S. Johnston – The War Beneath
- Shami Stovall – Star Marque Rising
- Terry Persun – BIOMASS Rewind
- Darrell Lee – The Apotheosis
- David C. Crowther – City of Drowned Angels
- Stephen Martino – The Final Reality
- K.N. Salustro – Light Runner
Good luck to all as your works move on the next rounds of judging for the limited 2019 1st Place Category Positions and the 2019 CYGNUS Book Awards Grand Prize.

The 2019 CYGNUS Grand Prize Winner and the Five First Place Category Position award winners along with the Semi-Finalists will be recognized at the April 18th, 2020 Chanticleer International Book Awards Annual Awards Gala, which takes place at the Chanticleer Authors Conference, Bellingham, Wash.

We are now accepting submissions into the 2020 CYGNUS Awards writing competition. The deadline for submissions is April 30th, 2020. The winners will be announced on April 2021.

Please click here for more information.
October 12, 2019
BREACHING the PARALLEL by MWAnderson – Military Sci-Fi, Alternate History, Time Travel

A one-way trip from the near future to the distant past forces one army unit to adapt to a life they could never have dreamt. Their flight into history will forever change the future that they know. Once there, they discover they are not the first to make the journey, and history as they knew it, has gone far, far off course.

As the story opens, the U.S. 4th Armored Cavalry Regiment is conducting an incursion into North Korea during the Second Korean War – an event that seems all too plausible based on 21st-century tensions between North Korea and the rest of the world. But their journey is interrupted by an explosion that interacts with time and space, instantly transporting the 500 men and women from the 21st century A.D. to sometime between 1,000 and 500 B.C.E. Their world is gone – and there’s no way back.

Their initial contact with a nearby village is peaceful until they are forced to decide whether to attempt to preserve the future, a future they are familiar with, or whether they should integrate themselves into their current circumstances and let future history take care of itself.

A local warlord has been regularly raiding their village and conscripting young men for soldiers. None have ever returned. This time it’s the warlord’s men who don’t make it back to camp. They are wiped out by 21st-century weaponry in a matter of seconds. It comes as no surprise, then, when a more substantial unit arrives on the scene to investigate.

Just as the soldiers begin to settle in, building homesteads, relationships, and new lives for themselves, they discover that they are not the first people to travel back in time. Those who have come before are enemies – old enemies.

As the story begins, the circumstances in which the 4th Armored Cavalry finds themselves in are reminiscent of two classic works of alternate history/time travel science fiction, Island in the Sea of Time by S.M. Stirling and 1632 by Eric Flint. In both of those series openers, an unexplained event transports a location, leaving the time travelers to adapt to their changed circumstances and figure out a way to thrive in the past.

The setup is a good basis for a Sci-fi. What makes Breaching the Parallel stand out from the rest is the interesting approach MWAnderson takes, by revealing that our protagonists are not the first to arrive and that people who traveled to the past before them, have become the dominant power in their brave new/old world. Breaching the Parallel sets the characters up for renewed conflict in a future book in this prospective series – a pretty interesting set of characters at that.

Breaching the Parallel is a military sci-fi with a clever twist that both thrills and intrigues. MWAnderson shows his knowledge in detailing how an explicitly military mission would conduct itself in a situation where the mission has changed out of all recognition. Those who love a good military sci-fi need look no further – MWAnderson delivers in spades.

Breaching the Parallel by MWAnderson won 1st Place in the CIBA 2017 Cygnus Awards for Science Fiction.

July 15, 2019
EDEN’S ORE: REVELATIONS by B. V. Bayly

An action-packed, dystopian science fiction series, describing a near-future, energy-starved world saved by the discovery of a crystalline ore with powerful properties. Creating the perfect Eden, however, comes with unexpected and dangerous consequences!

B.V. Bayly has crafted an action-packed story full of mystery and suspense in a near-future, dystopian world. The author has presented an intriguing premise in which an Eden-like Utopian civilization has been created by using an all-powerful ore that replaces depleted energy reserves. However, Eden is an oasis on a planet where many of its inhabitants exist in brutal and barbaric times; human life has little value and savagery runs rampant.

The core of Eden’s government is the Church of Humanity. The Patriarchs, the Church’s leadership, are under increasing pressure from several outside factions who are actively trying to tear apart or infiltrate them. One of the strongest and most dangerous factions is the corrupt and insanely violent Horsemen.

As Revelations – Book 2 in the series – begins, Commander Nate Reinhart of The Church of Humanity must come to terms with his own guilt over watching one of his best men, Gabriel, the hero from Book 1, get caught in one the largest explosions the commander has ever witnessed. The explosion happened at a weapons facility while Gabriel attempted to detonate a shard of black ore.

Now, Nate puts his entire team at risk of attack from the enemy to rescue Gabriel. When they extract Gabriel from the crater caused by the blast, it is still underdetermined if he is alive or dead. As Nate’s team takes Gabriel into the forest for cover, they come upon the remnants of a second team of wounded soldiers who had been stationed outside the weapons facility. One of the few remaining soldiers reveals to Nate that they’ve been attacked by two squads from their own platoon. Soldiers in their own ranks may have betrayed them, becoming their most dangerous enemies.

Given Nate’s growing misgivings from his own dealings with the Church, he must now face the fact that he no longer has any confidence in the Church leaders and suspects that their motives aren’t to be trusted. Gabriel may be in mortal danger and unable to protect himself in his current, comatose state. Nate decides to let the Church leaders believe that Gabriel is dead, turning to his most trusted allies for help in healing and protecting the young man.

As events continue to unfold, Nate realizes that The Horsemen have succeeded in spreading their corruption, infiltrating the leaders of the Church and weakening the Patriarchs. As he waits for Gabriel to awaken, Nate must choose whom he can trust as he battles against the forces of good and evil. Only the Spheres, with their secret sanctuaries and strong desire for independence, can offer an alliance with Nate in this battle for the hearts and souls of humankind. Nate must lead his team into the bowels of the dark and uncivilized zones to find the source of the Horsemen’s power.

Readers will be drawn into the Eden’s Ore series with its engaging characters, complex relationships, nonstop action, and its strange dystopian world with interesting and powerful new twists.

Reviewer’s Note: Reading Eden’s Ore: Revelations is like traveling back to a futuristic world to visit old friends and make new ones. I recommend that readers begin with Eden’s Ore: Secrets, the first in this compelling top shelf series, and have Book Two close at hand for immediate immersion into the sequel.

May 8, 2015
CYGNUS Grand Prize Winner Lands 3-Book Contract with TITAN

Chanticleer Book Reviews is honored and proud to announce that Bennett R. Coles, CYGNUS Awards 2013 Grand Prize Winner, was contracted by Titan Books for a three book deal for his Astral Saga series.

Titan Books is known for its Doctor Who series, Gregory Benford and Larry Niven collections of Ringworld, Timescape, Shipstar fame, George R.R. Martins & Hugh Howey’s Wasteland series, William C. Dietz of Legion of the Damned series, along with other sci-fi powerhouses. And now Bennett R. Coles, Chanticleer Communty Author, SciFi !

Virtues of War debuts in the Titan Spring 2015 catalog and will be represented by Titan at all the major book trade shows.

The immensely talented Fred Gambino created the cover art for the military science fiction novel from Bennett Coles for Titan.

A sci-fi thriller of physical and psychological combat, Virtues of War sends readers hurtling through space to find that our warlike nature has survived intact into the 26th century. Click here to read the rest of the review.

We are looking forward to reviewing the second book in the Astral Saga Trilogy.

Here is the catalog copy for Virtues of War:

Lieutenant Katja Emmes is a platoon commander who was transferred last-minute to be the leader of the 10-trooper strike team carried aboard the fast-attack craft Rapier. Although fully trained, she has never led troops in real operations before, and she is haunted by the shadow of her war-hero father.

Sublieutenant Jack Mallory is fresh out of pilot school, reluctantly doing his duty in the mysterious world of extra-dimensional warfare while pining for the glamour of a fighter pilot position in the space fleet. Day-dreaming his way through life, Jack is in for a rude awakening.

Lieutenant Commander Thomas Kane is poised for promotion, and he knows that this six-month deployment in command of Rapier is the single, best chance to secure his rise to stardom within the Astral Force. He has already learned that performance alone isn’t enough and actively dabbles in the subtle politics of his professional world, but he will learn that there are far more dangerous foes than the ones he can see.

Set far enough in the future to present a society that has evolved and splintered from our own, Virtues of War is a sci fi novel that reveals the traits common in any age, and ultimately looks at the heart of what makes us human.

Ben Coles, an officer with plus 15-years experience in the Canadian Navy, demonstrates a crisp writing style, an impressive knowledge of military tactics and techno jargon, and an imagination crossed with a study of physics that has produced believable weaponry and space travel of the future. Way to go, Ben!

Here is Ben at the Chanticleer Awards Gala receiving his award. Photo courtesy of Elaine Dillon–all rights reserved.

Whose work will be awarded the next Cygnus Grand Prize Award? You can’t win if you don’t enter!

Click Here for information about the Cygnus Awards for Sci-Fi Writing Competition.

January 24, 2015
CYGNUS AWARDS for SciFi & Speculative Fiction FIRST PLACE Category Winners
Chanticleer Book Reviews is honored to announce the First Place Category Winners for the Cygnus Awards 2014, a genre division of the Chanticleer Blue Ribbon Award Writing Competitions.

The Cygnus Awards recognize emerging new talent and outstanding works in the genre of Fantasy, Science Fiction, Paranormal, Mythological, and Steampunk fiction. The Cygnus Awards is a genre division of Chanticleer Book Reviews Blue Ribbon Awards Writing Competitions.

First Place Category Winners for the Cygnus Awards are:
- Space Opera Sci-Fi Series: Citadel 7, Earth’s Secret: Enemy of Existence by Yuan Jur
- Military Sci-fiction: Betrayal on Triton by Ryan Henry
- Paranormal: The Unbeliever by Zachary Kitchen
- Dark Fantasy/Gamer: Mythborn: Rise of the Adepts by Vijay Lakshman
- Epic Fantasy: Dream of a Vast Blue Cavern by Selah Tay-Song
- Speculative Fiction: The Ariadne Connection by Sara Stamey
- Mythological: The Immortal Game by Joannah Miley
- Sci-Fi: Shadow of the Last Man, Book 1 by J. M. Salyards
- SciFi/Cyperpunk: Legacy: The Biodome Chronicles, Book 1 by Jesikah Sundin
- Time Travel: Timelapse by Lorrie Farrelly
- Lab Lit SciFi: The Borealis Genome by Thomas P. Wise and Nancy Wise
- New Adult Dystopian: The Cloud Seeders by Jamie Zendt
- New Adult Sci-Fi: ISO by H.G. Bleackly
- YA Dystopian: All Is Silence by Robert L. Slater
- Best SciFi Manuscript: Natural Selection by Michael Simon
CONGRATULATIONS!

The 1st Place Category Winners compete for the CYGNUS AWARDS 2014 GRAND PRIZE position. The 2014 CYGNUS category winner was announced at the Chanticleer Authors Conference and Awards Gala in September 2015. See the Grand Prize Winners.
- The deadline for The Cygnus Awards 2014 was Jan. 31, 2014.
- The deadline for The Cygnus Awards 2015 is Jan. 31, 2015.
GRAND PRIZE Overall Cygnus Awards Winner from 2013:

Bennett R. Coles, Virtues of War.

Titan U.K picked up VoW for a three book deal. Check out the cover reveal from TOR here.

Tor.com is pleased to reveal Fred Gambino’s cover art for Virtues of War, a new military science fiction novel from Bennett R. Coles! Virtues of War is the first book in The Astral Saga trilogy, and will be published in June 2015 by Titan Books.

To view the 2013 CYGNUS Award Winners, please click here.

To compete in the 2015 CYGNUS Awards or for more information, please click here.

THE DEADLINE TO ENTER THE 2015 CYGNUS Novel Writing Competitions is January 31st, 2015.

[fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”yes” overflow=”visible”][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_direction=”left” hide_on_mobile=”no” center_content=”no” min_height=”none”][fusion_button link=”https://www.chantireviews.com/services/#!/Fantasy-and-SciFi-Blue-Ribbon-Awards-Writing-Contest/p/21521218/category=5193080″ color=”default” size=”” type=”flat” shape=”pill” target=”_self” title=”” gradient_colors=”|” gradient_hover_colors=”|” accent_color=”” accent_hover_color=”” bevel_color=”” border_width=”1px” shadow=”” icon=”fa-book” icon_position=”left” icon_divider=”no” modal=”” animation_type=”shake” animation_direction=”left” animation_speed=”1″ alignment=”right” class=”” id=””]Enter Now[/fusion_button]

Chanticleer Book Reviews & Media, L.L.C. retains the right to not declare “default winners.” Winning works are decided upon merit only. Please visit our Contest Details page for more information about our writing contest guidelines.

CBR’s rigorous writing competition standards are why literary agencies seek out our winning manuscripts and self-published novels. Our high standards are also why our reviews are trusted among booksellers and book distributors.

Please do not hesitate to contact Info@ChantiReviews.com about any questions, concerns, or suggestions about CBR writing competitions. Your input and suggestions are important to us.

Thank you for your interest in Chanticleer Book Reviews international writing competitions.[/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]
January 10, 2015
An Editorial Review of “The Starlight Fortress” by Fiona Rawsontile

Courage, love, and loyalty are counterpoised with intrigue, hatred, and betrayal—in settings ranging from intimate dinners to royal banquets, seaside walks to interplanetary voyages and galactic space battles in this highly entertaining and fast moving debut novel by Fiona Rawonstile: The Starlight Fortress.

After reluctantly turning the last page of this mesmerizing and unpredictable tale of love, life, and war, I looked out my window to see the solid shape of a bright quarter moon and the twinkle of the “Evening Star” that is Venus against a deep azure sky. I wished I could see further into the galaxy and find the Renaisun solar systems, with their widely differing planets, countries, and cities—but of course they don’t exist (yet?) except in the pages of The Starlight Fortress.

Spectacular battles in the Stony Band of asteroids, the interstellar pathways, and even on-the- ground maneuvers provide plenty of fast-paced military action, conducted with imaginative space-age techniques, weapons, and ships of all shapes and sizes—the most spectacular being the RA allied forces’ enormous five-armed Starlight Fortress, coveted by Emperor Pompey. Artfully interwoven with the military battles are the interpersonal relations among the royals, the military officers, and ordinary citizens.

Despite their future sci-fi existence in the universe, Rawsontile’s characters and their language, lifestyles (with a few tweaks), hopes, and desires—as well as their darker natures of envy, jealousy, hate, prejudice, and war—will resonate with readers. The young Queen Geneva of Sunphere, the primary country on the RA-4 planet of the Renaisun A system, is unlike any queen, past or present, on Earth. Elevated to her post after the untimely death of her father, she would rather go shopping on one of the moon malls with her friends than rule the country, but duty calls and the stakes are high.

Geneva may be queen, but her elders question her judgment when she selects as her military assistant not an experienced officer, but Commander Sterling Presley, on the basis of a speech he delivered at his graduation from Sunphere’s Space Force Academy just four years earlier. However, they are betting that age isn’t everything when it comes to creating new battle strategies.

Sometimes singly, and sometimes together, Geneva, with her chubby cheeks, and Sterling, resembling a junior college professor, face some hard work if they are to earn the respect of Sunphere’s citizens and Space Force—not to mention that of their allies of Renaisun A, as well as their enemy Emperor Pompey with his colonial forces of Renaisun B.

Joining Geneva and Sterling is a full cast of colorful, multifaceted characters—Sir Lloyd, Geneva’s uncle and Secretary of Defense; the handsome, aristocratic, young officer Charlie Swinburne of Rainprus; Prince Edwards of the neutral Renaisun C, who could be a good ally; military diamond-in-the-rough; and more, all artfully crafted by Rawsontile.

Dangerous, sticky, and amorous situations intensify as hostilities mount and battle fleets are amassed. Be sure to strap in, hang on tightly, and enjoy Rawsontile’s exhilarating ride into the future. This reviewer really didn’t want the story to end. Please, Fiona, give us a sequel to The Starlight Fortress!

November 17, 2013
An Editorial Review of “Darklight II: Conflagration” by John Wells

Five years after the publication of the military sci-fi thriller Darklight I: The Substance of Shadows, comes the second installment in the series, Darklight II: Conflagration, the continuation of the conflicts between human and Matarin rebels and the genocidal Cren Empire.

The stakes have considerably risen since mathematician and rebel fighter Crash Tyson first encountered the billions-year-old Cren Empire in the battle against the equally ancient ESOG Empire. The remaining freedom fighters seek a new sanctuary where they can rebuild their fleet and enhance the Spatial Exclusion Wave technology that Tyson created. They find safe haven with the Skarr, a species that had battled the Luin—the telepathic race controlling the Cren Empire—many eons ago.

The Skarr hold an advantage: the Luin believe them extinct, along with the Sargen and the Valm, two species that had fought alongside the Skarr. Tyson, however, has the distinct disadvantage of being the Cren Empire’s sole focus, with his capture worth the destruction of billions of their own warriors.

What warrants such galactic wastage? Tyson is the Progenitor Being, the model human that P-Quan, the Cren governor, created as an experiment in accelerating human genetic evolution in order to generate someone capable of solving The Great Problem. It is with this experiment that Wells compels us to consider the purpose of sentient life in the Universe. The nature of that problem serves as a teaser until late in the game, when the conflict escalates into a war of multi-dimensional magnitude.

The depiction of intergalactic war and its futuristic weaponry is where author Wells excels. The astrophysics and engineering of such advanced technology is at once mind-boggling and wholly believable. As E.E. Smith’s works (1890 – 1965) that explored the universe outside of our solar system with fictional technologies, extra-dimensional beings, and time travel before NASA, string theory, or the Hubble Telescope, the Darklight series take readers beyond the confines of the known universe and into mind-boggling technologies that venture into multi-dimensional applications of universal cataclysmic potential.

Warfare comprises much of the story, with telepathic and directed-energy combat filling the gaps between massive, planet-destroying battles. Brisk pacing keeps readers enthralled as other ancient species join the fight, and each apparent victory sees a new threat emerge—none more so than the thousand-mile-long rift in space created by the increasingly powerful weaponry used on both sides.

Wells explores the connection of life with the ultimate fate of the universe itself and sentient life’s connection to that fate in his Darklight series. When the godlike being that dwells on the other side of the rift raises the stakes to an unfathomable level, the stage is set for the next Darklight installment.

If you enjoy E.E. Smith’s space operas that influenced the first generation of computer war games, and (some say) the authors of Earthlight, Star Wars, Babylon 5, and Superman, then venture forth into the Darklight series to expand your universe.

August 20, 2013