Tuesday 2 May 2017

Book Review: EATING ROBOTS by Stephen Oram

The future is bright…or is it?
Step into a high-tech vision of the future with the author of Quantum Confessions and Fluence, Stephen Oram.
Featuring health-monitoring mirrors, tele-empathic romances and limb-repossessing bailiffs, Eating Robots explores the collision of utopian dreams and twisted realities in a world where humanity and technology are becoming ever more intertwined.
Sometimes funny, often unsettling, and always with a word of warning, these thirty sci-fi shorts will stay with you long after you’ve turned the final page.

A universal booklinker link that detects which country you're in and links to Eating Robots myBook.to/EatingRobots


Linzé's Review
Each and every story surprised me, some in a good way, some not so good. These surprises are purely based on my personal preferences and reactions to reading them. While I liked some stories more than others, each story was well executed. The author manages in every single instance to draw the reader deep into the story line. The characters are formed quickly in the mind of the reader, and it isn't difficult to empathise with them, irrespective of the details of the plot or the outcome of the story.
Some of the stories have a gruesome subplot and yet the innocence with which the characters are portrayed makes it easy to be drawn into their world where they 'live' their realities and beliefs. As the reader, my reactions were purely based on my own world view, and yet the author did an amazing job of tempering any subjective reactions that someone from our time would have towards the activities that the characters engage in. Science fiction lends itself to a wide base of technological developments in various fields, some of which are more palatable to us than others. By exploring these technologies in the stories portrayed here, our eyes are opened to the practicalities of what these technologies may develop into.
Overall the stories have been written in an exceptional style. Science fiction sometimes makes 'showing, not telling' a difficult thing to accomplish in creative writing, but the author has done so with a high level of skill.
Despite my personal reactions (I grew nauseous while reading Real Meat and Eating Robots, and had to stop reading for a few minutes) the compilation is an excellent example of a collection of stories in the genre.
  
Linzé's rating: 💜💜💜💜

Book Feature: The N Days by John Murray McKay

Synopsis:
Charlotte Corday, an eighteen-year-old junkie, trying to survive on the crime-ridden streets of 1980s New York has a chance encounter with a group of five thugs beating a man to death behind a deli in Brooklyn. Through ways unknown to her yet, she manages to subdue the gang members using unheralded skills in combat and weaponry, killing three in the process. The man whose life she saved turns out to be a low-level enforcer for the New York Mafia. Impressed with her skills, Vince takes care of the injured Charlotte and slowly starts dragging her into a life of crime. He recognizes her potential as an assassin for the mob, digging his claws ever deeper into her. To keep her safe, Vince sends her to live with her two cross-dressing uncles in The Village (who also happens to run a clandestine gun-running operation above their salon.) She tries to live a normal life but her demons would not let her go, the blood on her hands a constant reminder of what she really is: a weapon.
Charlotte eventually goes looking into her past and discovers that she was part of a secret government-sponsored enhanced soldier program called Venom. She is imbued with the powers of legendary female warriors of history, giving her enhanced strength, recovery time and the fighting prowess of generations of deadly women. Unfortunately, this warps her mind and sends her life spiralling out of control in her quest for vengeance.


Determined to find the creators of Venom, Charlotte goes on a blood-soaked journey to find her origins, tearing New York City apart in the process. With the FBI and NYPD closing in on her after drug-fuelled massacre of thirty innocents, Vince offers Charlotte a tantalising proposition: A rooftop meeting between the creator of Venom and the head of the New York Mafia. With her finger on the sniper trigger, Charlotte has to make a decision: end the life of the man that ruined her entire existence or put a bullet through the most powerful Mafioso on the East Coast. She makes her choice but accidentally kills the mafia boss as he runs in front of her bullet. With Vince swearing a blood oath of vengeance on her, Charlotte goes on the run. Book one ends where her uncles smuggle Charlotte out of the country in a shipping container. Destination: Northern Ireland in the middle of the sectarian wars. With the knowledge that she can never go home, Charlotte Corday must forge a new path, one that runs straight through the blood-soaked streets of Belfast.


Story behind the story: 

I originally started a normal road trip novel across America from New York to Los Angeles. Unfortunately, it neversaw the light of day but a little spark was born that eventually became The N Days. I took the concept of a road trip across the USA and married it with the genre of Sci-Fi and Fantasy. The final inspiration was remembering a scene from the TV series' Once upon a time'. I originally planned for only a single volume but when I looked again, a 5 book beast was written. The rest is history.
Buy link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1520228759 


Author Bio: 
I am a Pretoria, South Africa based writer of historical fiction and science fiction. I am currently a teacher in a local primary school. My previous publishing credits include “The N Days” through Night Chaser Ink Publishing in Australia. My second series 'The Venom Protocols' is a Summer Indie awards winner in 2016.

Theme reveal: My A-to-Z blog challenge 2024

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