david shobin/thatch pond corp

Prozac Prose, November 13, 2012

Talented newcomer M.L. Stedman pens an extremely well-crafted tale of love, life, loss, and redemption. As other reviewers have summarized the plot elsewhere, I won't belabor that but rather point out the author's greatest strength: characterization. Both her protagonists and minor players are thoroughly dissected in autopsy-like detail, revealing their inner guts, motives, strengths, and foibles. It is this emphasis on individual sturm und drang that drives the story: the players' roller-coaster emotional ups and downs are so dramatic that the reader is often left drained and breathless. The characters are relentlessly beaten down and then lifted up, only to fall again in dizzying fashion… Read more

much better than its premise, June 28, 2012

First, take a fatuous premise -- the construction, by the Mayans centuries ago, of a highly lethal armament still capable of deployment today. Then add the ludicrous contemporary sub-plot of its discovery by hell-bent Islamic fundamentalists intent on using this arm as a weapon of mass destruction against Israel and Western powers, plunging the earth into a religious World War Three. Shake, mix well, and you have the elements of a preposterous yarn the reader will discard after the first ten ten pages, no?

Not so. Former Special Forces officer Brad Taylor uses his considerable talents to meld the elements into a fast-moving, compelling, military-style thriller that keeps the… Read more

Like, I know this creature . . ., June 25, 2012

Something about this book was disturbingly familiar.

The tale involves the awakening, a century after its discovery, of a seemingly-comatose, government-caged, Satan-like demon. I instinctively knew what it looked and acted like without even reading the first page, because I've been married to its sister for thirty-seven years. As the story progresses, it turns out that the creature isn't a theological player at all, but something even weirder. Suffice it to say that it's a carnivore with an equal preference for humans or whole sheep. And it's, well, really hungry.

Once "Bub," as the thing is nicknamed, escapes its confines, it displays rather unrefined eating habits… Read more