Chanticleer Book Reviews

Tag: sci-fi

April is for Aliens! Spring into the Spotlight for the Cygnus Book Awards for Science Fiction
Beam me up, Scotty!

April is the Spotlight Month for the Cygnus Science Fiction Book Awards!

Our favorite newest Star Trek Captain, Michael Burnham. Her catchphrase is “Let’s Fly.”

The Cygnus Awards are one of our original Book Awards here at Chanticleer,

**Don’t miss the ship!**

Beam your work to us by April 30th to enter the 2022 CIBAs!

Science Fiction April 30

Science Fiction often asks the question: What Could Be? At Chanticleer, we seek to discover those strange new worlds, from Space Opera to Alternate History, and Cli-Fi to YA Sci-Fi. Wherever your book lands on the Speculative Fiction spectrum, there’s a good chance that it will fit in here with us!

Let’s take a look at the Hall of Fame for Grand Prize Winners of the Cygnus Awards

The Luna Missile Crisis by Rhett C. Bruno and Jaime Castle.

Will a knockoff weapons salesman end peace between Humans and Vulbathi? Alien tech and a spectacular cast of characters drive The Luna Missile Crisis into high gear and will have readers screaming for more! Highly recommended!

Jaime Castle and Rhett C. Bruno are the Audible #1 bestselling authors of The Buried Goddess Saga (Aethon Books, Audible Studios), and The Luna Missile Crisis, amongst other works. Rhett C. Bruno is also a USA Today Bestselling & Nebula Award nominated Sci-Fi/Fantasy Author.

Don’t miss out on the duo’s next work! You can preorder Cold as Hell, the first book in their new Black Badge Series today.

Insynium by Tim Cole

Appropriate to a novel about time travel, there is considerable time-shifting from chapter to chapter that will require readers to stay on their toes as they work through this 500-page novel. And like any skilled author who plants clues neatly in the text – clues that are keys to resolving the overarching mysteries in the book – Cole does the same. What can we say? Here’s an impressive novel by a major new talent, and one we highly recommend keeping an eye on.

Insynium is Tim Cole’s Debut novel. We are shivering with anticipation and hope at the prospect of something new from him!

The Korpes File by J.I Rogers

An award-winning space opera that’s sure to gather a dedicated audience. One of our favorites! Recommended!

When not writing Award Winning novels, J.I. Rogers writes Award Winning Shorts, having recently won two six-word story challenges. The most recent of which being “Inherited ruin. Forged a new Empire.” Visit Rogers’ website here for even more excellent Sci-Fi! The second book in the series, The Korpes Agenda, is out now, and we’re excitedly waiting for the next book to finish revisions!

The Future’s Dark Past by John Yarrow

“The catastrophic Purge War at the end of the twenty-first century destroys planet Earth, jeopardizing the future for the remnants of humanity. Horrific repercussions roll across the ages until, generations later, a scientific group called the Time Forward Project harnesses a deep-space wormhole in which they can travel through time. They find the portal unstable and shrinking, but they have little choice but to take desperate, drastic measures and journey back to prevent the war.”

Straight from John Yarrow’s website! The Story Plant Publishing company will publish the full trilogy starting with Future’s Dark Past! You can preorder The Future’s Dark Past today, and the sequel, Time Unfolded, is expected to come out in the Summer of 2023!

Over by Sean P. Curley

In a world where the rich obtain immortality, a forbidden love can either bridge the gap of unimaginable inequity or drive the disparaging classes even farther apart. A science-fiction novel with an earthly conscious.

Sean Curley‘s new book, Anika’s Gift is making good progress through the cover design process, and ARCs are being sent out now. Sean is a renaissance man who loves new experiences, diversity, and challenges (though more intellectual than physical). He is also the author of the the 2014 Chaucer Grand Prize for Early Historical Fiction with his book Propositum. Sean will also be at the Chanticleer Authors Conference June 23-26, 2022!

Now that you’re set on your next five reads, what are you waiting for? The only way to join this amazing list of Cygnus Winners is to submit today!

Those who submit and advance will have the chance to win the Overall Grand Prize of the CIBAs and $1000!

Are you a Chanticleer Author who has some good news to share? Let us know! We’re always looking for a reason to crow about Chanticleerians! Here are some recent achievements from our authors:
Reach out with your news to info@ChantiReviews.com

VIRTUAL and IN-Person – June 23 – 26, 2022! Register Today!

FLEXIBLE REGISTRATIONS ARE AVAILABLE for these challenging times.

Seating is Limited. The esteemed WRITER Magazine (founded in 1887) has repeatedly recognized the Chanticleer Authors Conference as one of the best conferences to attend and participate in for North America.

Join us for our 10th annual conference and discover why!

Featuring: International Best Selling Author Cathy Ace along with A+ list film producer Scott Steindorff.
April 14, 2022
RESISTANCE, REVOLUTION and OTHER LOVE STORIES by K. – Short Story Collection, Love Stories, Literary

The Ancient Greeks believed that there were eight different types of love. To the poet Emily Dickinson, “… Love is all there is, Is all we know of Love.” But in the words and stories in this collection, Resistance, Revolution and Other Love Stories by K., love sometimes requires desperate action, whether embraced, resisted, or a combination of the two.

The twelve stories here range from the mythic past to a far-flung future as the author goes back to retell the classic myth of “Orpheus and Eurydice.” In “Automatonomatopoeia,” we reach forward into a future that resembles the harsh authoritarian worldview of Orwell’s classic 1984 until its protagonist learns the truth behind the strict conformism that kept him isolated and alone.

Several of the most poignant stories present as contemporary reflections on the forms of love and the ways that society twists love around.

In “Calamity Jane,” the friendship of two teenaged boys crashes into the rocks of their mutual love for the same beautiful and calamitous girl. A girl who seems to like getting between the two friends more than she loves either one of them – or herself.

Meanwhile, in “Vikings” we meet a protagonist caught between several different types of love. He’s in a situation where the best thing he can do may very well destroy him. What could it be? The only certainty, the only way forward – the only way to preserve what he loves is to leave everything he cherishes behind. Can he do it?

The would-be lovers in “Head Down” face a dilemma made all the more heartbreaking because it feels so very real.

This sad tale speaks of the conflict between love and duty, wrapped around a romance that can never be fulfilled because the lovers have met too late. Both parties have commitments that they cannot or will not break. So, they must break each other’s hearts instead.

As with any collection of short stories, whether by multiple authors or by a singular author, not every story will appeal to every reader. That being said, Resistance, Revolution and Other Love Stories, with its wide range of genres, not only showcases the author’s talent, but is certain to please a vast readership. From myth to historical to romantic to speculative, and its exploration of all the different kinds of love from the altruistic to the romantic to the obsessive, those looking to have their hearts touched and their minds blown in the space of a single, beautifully curated collection need look no further.

In other words, Resistance, Revolution and Other Love Stories by K. tops our list for what to read this summer.

July 5, 2021
The SELAH BRANCH by Ted Neill – African American Science Fiction, African American Thriller/Mystery/Suspense, Time Travel

The Selah Branch combines two surprising stories into one enthralling whole.

It begins with a ripped from the headlines feel, diving deeply into issues of race, class, poverty, and hopelessness in Selah Branch, WV. A town whose brighter future of uplift, integration, opportunity, and prosperity was wiped out one summer night in 1953 when a chemical explosion destroyed the promising university town and replaced it with a hazardous waste site. Like Chernobyl, only with a smaller footprint and chemical residue substituting for nuclear waste. But just as deadly.

The story views Selah Branch through the eyes of Kenia Dezy, an African-American public health student on a summer practicum. She’s to determine if a simple app can steer people towards healthier food choices and better health outcomes in a town empty of jobs, filled with poverty and hopelessness, marooned in the middle of a food desert.

At first, the current state of Selah Branch and its sharp contrast with the hopefulness of its past confuses Kenia. Then she finds herself there, in that past, with the ability to re-write the history that she sees as already written in her present.

A past that contains not the tragic accident that everyone believes destroyed the town, but instead a deliberate act of sabotage designed to eliminate the beacon of hope and integration, Selah Branch. The participants mostly wanted to obliterate a place where blacks and white really were treated equally. Although some wanted to end a centuries-long family feud by murdering the bodies and the dreams of those they despised.

It is up to Kenia to use her un-schedulable, unplannable trips to that past nexus point to change the future. But there are descendants of that past who are just as willing to kill to maintain the status quo. Even if it only brings them death and destruction.

These are two great plots that shouldn’t blend well together, and yet they do, as all of the action in both the past and the present is seen through Kenia’s sharp eyes. The reader experiences her despair at the conditions in the 21st century Selah Branch and feels both with and for Kenia as she comes to the depressing conclusion that no matter how much she wants to, there are some things she simply cannot do. The situation they are living in is just too big for one person to even make a dent in, no matter how well-intentioned she might be.

And as a well-educated and relatively affluent black woman in a poverty-stricken, rural, mostly white town, Kenia is confronted with the contradiction of her economic privilege and racial and gendered lack of it at the same time.

The reader feels for Kenia’s hopelessness in the present and is swept away with her into a past where there is one desperate chance to make things better. Kenia’s journey in 1953 becomes a dangerous but determined thrill ride, facing enemies at every turn while finding surprising friends along her fast and furious way.

Readers can’t help but be caught up in Kenia’s there and back again quest to change the past and shift the present, to bring about a hope for a brighter future. Readers will cheer for her and despair with her, but they will desire, more than anything, that she succeeds.

The Selah Branch won 1st Place in the CIBA 2018 CYGNUS Awards for Science Fiction novels.

September 1, 2020
SOLAR REBOOT by Matthew D. Hunt – Post-Apocalyptic Science Fiction, Action/Thriller, Dystopian Fiction

There’s a lot about life on earth that we take for granted. Most of us go about our daily lives, but what would happen if the sun shot out a gigantic solar flare. Would we survive? What would happen to us?

In Solar Reboot, a giant solar flare destroys the world’s power grids, disrupts the Internet, television, and radio communication, and is an all-around nightmare for air traffic controllers. Add tidal waves and gigantic storms to the mix, and it becomes evident that life on earth will change profoundly.

Alex Robinson, his wife Cameron, and daughter Piper get to find out how tough it will become. On a trip to New York City, Alex and Piper expect to be home in Seattle in a few days. For Alex, a park ranger, flying back will be a relief from the hustle and bustle of Manhattan. But when the sky turns purple, power disappears. Internet and broadcast communication all but ceases, and there are multiple reports of planes crashing to earth all over the planet, Alex quickly discovers the only way he’ll be able to return home will be to drive. It turns out that even driving is its own form of hell.

Meanwhile, Cameron in Seattle is also experiencing the effects of the solar flare. An ER nurse with military experience, she’s urged by her husband to pack up and leave the city with as much food and medical supplies as possible. She has indulged Alex’s survivalist leanings with some skepticism, but as tension mounts at home, she wonders if he may not have been right. Finally, she decides to leave for their well-stocked mountain cabin, accompanied by her older next-door neighbor, Bettie, who decides that life in the mountains might be safer than dealing with a frightened, angry citizenry at home.

Life is difficult for both halves of the separated Robinson family. There is no easy way to find a way home for Alex and Piper. Driving becomes undependable. Picking up rides, finding horses, and even back-packing become the only means they have of completing their journey. However, that doesn’t help when blinding rainstorms wash away roads, bridges, and, on more than one occasion, the vehicles they’re using. If that weren’t bad enough, other people whose lives have been disrupted often turn ugly as they forage for food and supplies, hunker down with weapons to protect their hoards and homes.

Of equal importance is Piper’s diabetic condition. It’s not a problem in society as it once was, but what happens when the insulin she and her father carry runs out and pharmacies are virtually all closed?

Cameron’s trip to their mountain cabin community might seem to offer her a more comfortable life. Don’t count on it. When she and Bettie reach the mountains, they find contentious, sometimes dangerous people. Some would love to invade their community and others inside their boundaries, intent on doing things their own way. Some even kill to get what they want. She becomes the de facto leader in the compound and forced to make difficult decisions of life and death.

Hunt has delivered a solid punch to our collective solar plexus. The pressure doesn’t let up as this separated family use their physical and mental resources to reunite, each half fighting against the elements and their fellow human beings to survive until they can be together. While some might consider this a science fiction novel, it is grounded in life as we know it makes it more of a book on survival. Solar Reboot is a testimony to the human spirit under virtually impossible conditions, and a tribute to people’s ability to survive under the most challenging conditions.

Solar Reboot won First Place in the 2018 CIBAs for Science Fiction novels.

July 17, 2020
The PLACE of QUARANTINE by Vadim Babenko – Astronomy of the Universe, Russian Dramas/Plays, System Theory & Physics, Sci-Fi

Theo awakens to a sound, which he likens to that of a trembling copper string. He finds himself midway up a stairway and realizes that the sound emanates from an ordinary fluorescent tube, about to burn out. He climbs to the next floor, where a door is open. A woman introduces herself as Elsa and welcomes him in.

Not remembering anything, or knowing where he is, Theo asks Elsa. Her answer confounds him. He is in their apartment, in a place called Quarantine. In support of her response, she hands him a laminated paper that reads, “WELCOME. YOU HAVE EXPERIENCED CORPOREAL DEATH FOR THE FIRST TIME. THE DEATH OF THE BODY IS NOT AS SIGNIFICANT AS YOU MIGHT THINK. THERE IS NOTHING TO FEAR.” Really? Theo goes cold. Memories begin to emerge—a gunshot and terrifying pain, a woman in tears, the old streets of Bern. Then it all fades.

Vadim Babenko, Russian-born physicist and businessman, left his former careers behind to become a writer of fiction—in The Place of Quarantine, thought-provoking fiction that begs us to consider what the reality of life truly is. In this effort, he draws on principles from the work of renowned researchers, such as Italian physicist Giuseppe Vitiello, to support the protagonist, Theo’s work, in particular, his concept of “the application of quantum field theory to the modeling of human memory and intelligence.”

Yes, science plays a significant role in this book, but it’s a supportive role, a means to an end: our consideration of the possibilities of life beyond that which we experience on Earth, and of the regeneration of our knowledge and memories, and their further development to benefit the inhabitants of the place of a subsequent life. Theo is assigned an advisor/mentor/friend, called Nestor, to help him with the task of reviving the memories of his renowned, but uncompleted research on Earth. His knowledge and intelligence are needed in Quarantine and perhaps beyond. Since the particular vocabulary of physics and metaphysics is not familiar to many of us, a glossary of the terminology is at the reader’s fingertips.

The science, however, is interwoven with the stories of characters from Theo’s very international first life—in particular, a beautiful young Asian woman, Tina, whom he met and loved in Bangkok and yearns for even in Quarantine; and a Russian businessman named Ivan Brevich, who is consumed with revenging the murder of his beloved wife, Nok. In Quarantine, his roommate Elsa adds a human element to his life, making his breakfast of coffee, fried eggs, and toast, and generally being his companion, although as phantom beings in a world of images. Nestor, who is but a face, with a voice, on the wall screen, is a friend as well as an advisor and research colleague.

As Theo comes to believe in what his research is telling him, he becomes increasingly obsessed with finding Tina, if not in Quarantine, then in whatever life awaits him next, if indeed one does. Can he be satisfied with continuing his work for the benefit of Quarantine, or must he try to prove his belief by taking the chance to move on?

April 16, 2019
KEELIC and the SPACE PIRATES, The Keelic Travers Chronicles Book One by Alexander Edlund – Sci-fi, Space Opera, Y/A

Alexander Edlund’s Keelic and the Space Pirates is a classic coming-of-age in an anything-but-classic environment. Eleven-year-old Keelic Travers wants what most young boys want, adventure and friendship, and he hopes to find both in his new home in Ermol, an “unspoiled oasis.”

Having left his best friend and the overpopulated world-city on Pesfor, Keelic initially finds excitement in the mostly rural world where his family has been sent to work. His award-winning exobiologist father shows Keelic how to properly explore and even allows him to explore on his own, but Keelic’s joy evaporates when he begins attending his new school, where he is constantly bullied. His only refuge is his advanced mathematics classroom, where he is the only student with an instructor who actually listens to him.

He believes he’ll never find a friend until he meets an alien left at his school by military officers. Thotti, a sentient creature who communicates non-verbally with colors and images, becomes Keelic’s constant companion when Keelic’s mother brings the creature home with them. He and Thotti discover a secret hidden deep in the Ermolian forest, a secret which could end up saving the lives of the entire planet.

Keelic is far from perfect. Though extremely smart, his adventurous, impish nature proves his strength and his downfall. Whether collecting specimens for his father or battling imaginary spaceships with Thotti, Keelic loves anything that forces him to use his wits, but at the same time, he’s still the fragile new kid who just wants to be accepted, or better yet, left alone.

This spunky fighter has a heart of gold and begins to question very grown-up concepts like self-awareness and free-will before the novel’s end. Dreaming of a war that occurred over two hundred years ago, Keelic sees only the glory of being a war hero until he must face real death at the arrival of the space pirates. This dynamic protagonist learns that life isn’t a game, and defending yourself often means less than defending others. His emotional growth isn’t linear; he often spins in moral circles, much like the real world.

Hardcore space opera fans of all ages will appreciate how seamlessly the author integrates the technical jargon of the novel. Readers will be fully immersed in a world three-hundred-years in the future, where humans are only one species of many, and small details create a believable environment that is such an intricate part of excellent science fiction.

Please click here to enjoy Keelic and the Space Pirates book trailer.

February 1, 2019
WIZZY WIG: THANATOS RISING, BOOK 2 by Tiffany Pitts – Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Humor
Have you ever wondered what might happen if you unknowingly ripped a hole in the space-time continuum? Jake and Kix find out firsthand just how much madness can ensue when this exact conundrum befalls them in Wizzy Wig: Thanatos Rising Book Two by Tiffany Pitts, a fun and quirky Sci-Fi romp that fans of Terry Pratchett and Douglas Adams are sure to enjoy.

The evening begins innocently enough when Jake invites Kix over with a pizza to help him solve a wave function experiment. While Kix relaxes on the couch, Jake turns his attention to an experiment he’s come up with based on the idea of Schrödinger’s cat, except instead of a cat in a box, Jake’s version uses a pizza in a box. For those unfamiliar with the concept of Schrödinger’s cat, this thought experiment posits that an unobservable cat in a box is simultaneously alive and dead—essentially the cat can exist in any or no state at all. Jake hypothesizes that an unobservable pizza in a box is inherently similar—it could exist in any state as well—and thus can have its toppings changed if one knows the right math—which he does.

Jake turns his attention to his computer and does his best not to be distracted by Kix’s (striped) tights and his massive crush on her while he attempts to alter the toppings on the unseen pizza in the box. He succeeds. And the world as they know it is altered in incredible, yet difficult to see ways. Soon, Kix is on the run for her life from the genuinely creepy and disturbing Brad, a far more sinister version of her neighbor Thad, who has crossed over from another version of reality.

Enter Thanatos, Dark Lord of the Underworld, otherwise known as Toesy. Toesy is not your normal housecat. Firstly he is part demon, secondly, he has thumbs that help him open doors (a souvenir from a previous experiment of Jake’s in book one) and lastly, he’s got Executive Wartime Consigliore Steve…the voice inside his head who helps him strategize his battles. As a cat, Toesy is a natural ‘boundary walker’ and quickly realizes what the other characters do not—that the hole Jake ripped in the space-time continuum by solving his wave experiment has caused the distinct versions of the multiverse to overlap and merge in terrifying ways.

Wizzy Wig is told through the shifting perspectives of its diverse cast of characters, some of whom are alternate versions of each other. Multiple storylines that may at first be confusing come together in the end to create a complex story set in the heart of modern Seattle. Readers should note that this isn’t the type of novel one can halfway pay attention to. Wizzy Wig requires all of a reader’s attention. We are dealing with the space-time continuum after all and characters do not only cross from one reality to another in easily tracked ways. The realities themselves overlap and merge at times, and characters may appear as one or the other version of themselves or even change personalities altogether.

Pitts has crafted a fun, complex, modern Sci-Fi novel in which nothing is off limits. Multiverses exist, murderous banana spiders find their way into apartment buildings, sugar gliders seek their freedom, readers find themselves in the mind of a sociopath, and the boy who just may get the girl, if they can both survive long enough. Wizzy Wig: Thanatos Rising is an entertaining and quirky Sci-Fi novel, and while there are some punctuation errors throughout, it doesn’t detract from the story. Readers will find clever and resourceful heroes worth cheering for in this second installment of the Thanatos Rising series.
February 27, 2018
The FREEZER: The Tanner Sequence, Book 2 by Timothy S. Johnston – Mystery/Thriller, Sci-Fi, Space Colonization

There are mysteries to solve and ticking time bombs to defuse in Timothy Johnston’s second book in The Tanner Sequence. Readers, grab onto your seats for richly crafted, multi-genre novel in a world set 400 years into the future.

Homicide Detective Lieutenant Kyle Tanner has been diverted from a trip to Pluto with his soul mate (Shaheen) to investigate a murder at Ceres, a base on the largest asteroid in The Belt. A doctor is dead, one of three that had recently transferred from a research station called The Freezer on Europa, a moon of Jupiter. An autopsy reveals the doctor died of an aneurysm of his aorta – natural causes. The case is solved almost before it starts, and Tanner can catch the next shuttle to Pluto to join his love. Then word comes that Shaheen is dead, having just suffered a catastrophic aneurysm of her aorta.

One death by a rare medical condition is unlucky. Two within days is more than suspicious.

Tanner orders a new autopsy on the doctor. Remnants of an exploded nano-bot are discovered. The death was not natural; it was murder. And the murderer has also taken his love, Shaheen. (Or was she collateral damage from an attempt on his life?) He orders a medical scan on himself. Inside his aorta, next to his heart, a nano-bot slowly saws at the walls of his largest artery. Doctors tell him he has four days left. Four days to find a killer. Four days to find a way to disable the bot systematically killing him (ticking time bomb.)

He suspects the two colleagues of the slain doctor from The Freezer. And he suspects the answers he seeks are linked to their time at the research facility on Europa. Once at Europa, with his two suspects in tow, Tanner finds resistance, hostility, and secrets no one wants to be revealed.

All the while his time is running out.

The Freezer is well written, and the characters are fleshed out in a world where claustrophobia and a constant chill from living on a frozen, hostile world dependent on airlocks and environmental suits for survival, are routine. For science fiction lovers, the new world of the future is masterfully crafted, and the reader is there, in Tanner’s shoes half a solar system away. For mystery lovers, there are plot twists, lies, misdirection to wade through, and secrets to be revealed in pursuit of the truth. So many secrets. For thriller lovers, the clock is ticking. Tanner has four days to unravel the truth hidden in The Freezer to solve the crime and save his own life.

Just when you think you have everything figured out, Johnston piles on more, and more, and more.

January 11, 2018
CHASING VICTORY: The Winter Sisters, Book One by Joanne Jaytanie – Romance, Thriller, Sci-Fi, Psychics

Greed, power, and genetics combine with a steamy love story to stir up an action-packed, hot read in Joanne Jaytanie’s Chasing Victory: The Winters Sisters, Book One.

Responding to a cryptic phone call from an old college classmate, Victory Winters, veterinarian and geneticist, makes her way through the foothills of the Olympic Mountains to the agreed upon meeting point. Spotting him from a distance, Victory’s excitement quickly turns to dread when shots ring out.

To make matters worse, Victory observes a local police detective at the scene – and not in a law-enforcement capacity, either. She can’t go to the cops, and she’s terrified the killers know she witnessed the murder. Needing a safe space to retreat to, Victory flees to her sister, Payton, who is residing in a motorhome at the San Francisco Fairground for a dog show.

Author Joanne Jaytanie is off and running with a tension-driven novel, opening with a gripping scene. Jaytanie sets the stage for her story by featuring Victory—a vet who combines telepathy with acupuncture to heal dogs. Victory is also close to finding “a genetic link between the canine world and the human world,” an endeavor that has promising potential to cure diseases in humans. This work of hers makes her a hot commodity – so hot, in fact, others will go to great lengths to gain control of her and her work.

Two entities are indeed keeping track of our heroine. One, Tristan Farraday, a special ops hunk from the U.S. military sent to protect Victory. And second, a nefarious group headed by the malicious Lawrence Braxton, a genetics corporation. Of course, our gal doesn’t know about Braxton’s intentions when he sends her a rather flattering job offer which is where the proverbial screws tighten, and the story takes flight.

Jaytanie shifts character POVs which increases tension gives her the opportunity to develop her characters and drives the story forward. There are some proofreading errors, but on the whole, this book is a good start for the first in the series. Jaytanie adds chapter cliffhangers, sprinkles in romance and everything sinister, and proves her worth through rich descriptions and excellent dialogue all to produce a flurry of narrative twists to make a fast, fun read.

April 26, 2017
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