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Blog postHey, is 2018 already finished? This time the year passed quickly, perhaps because I was much more busy with projects that have engaged me for several months. And maybe also because I had more fun, especially in the second half.
And so, given that the year is coming to an end, the time has come for my traditional report of the past twelve months.
Let’s start as usual with listing which resolutions of the past year I managed to complete: - I managed to write and publish (30 November) t -
Blog post***** Young Martians
Written by an aerospace engineering student who dreams of becoming an astronaut, “Ad Martem 12” is a little jewel of hard science fiction aimed at a young audience, but that can be appreciated by all ages. Although with some licence and simplification (it is still a book of fiction, not an essay), in a background of plausible technology and science, the author tells the story of the first three children born on the Red Planet, who, reached the age of sixteen, begin to -
Blog post***** Between fantasy and history
As a lover of historical novels set in ancient Egypt I couldn’t resist the temptation to read this book by an Italian author who in this genre stands beside famous authors like Jacq and just like the latter mixes effectively real history with the fantasy shade brought by the ancient Egyptian religion and magic.Like any novel trying to include most of the life of a person, this is affected by its episodic structure. Various events are narrated; each one end -
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Blog postCourtesy of NASA.Today’s guest on my blog is science fiction author Kate Rauner. In this article she tells us about her fascination for the exploration of the Red Planet, which is the setting of her “Colony of Mars” series.
Mars is in the news these days. We’re learning so much from NASA and the European Union, and other countries are joining with their own missions. India, Japan... Mars will be a multi-cultural planet. But what fascinates me is the number of private organizations joining -
Blog postToday’s guest on my blog is author Rae Stoltenkamp. Her books span the genres of fantasy, science fiction and magical realism. She is also a poet. In this article she talks about her experience teaching to a gifted child and how that influenced some of her books.
Before settling down to writing and self-publishing I used to be a full time teacher in an inner city London school. Regardless of the country you teach in, anyone will tell you this is a challenging environment. Very quickly into -
Blog postThe protagonists of the first part of “Saranythia” (sequel to “Amantarra”) return in this second part that leads us into the heart of the story. We had left them while they were slipping, despite themselves, in the middle of a battle between the daemons and the army of the Varton, now in “Saranythia Part 2: The Varton” we find them in the hands of the latter, as they begin to discover the link between the planet where the portal led them and Amantarra’s sister, namely Saranythia. At the sa
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Blog post***** Clash of cultures
In general I try to avoid reading Crichton’s books if I have seen the film taken from them. I prefer to leave them for last, when, alas, there won’t be others left. This time, however, I made an exception, also because it’s been so many years since I saw “Rising Sun” at the theatre. I didn’t exactly remember the plot and it was nice to rediscover it in the pages of this novel, even if some details came to my mind as I went on.I must admit that during the reading I o -
Blog post**** Conspiracy on the Moon
Before reading a novel, it’s spontaneous to look at the cover and, based on the image and the possible slogan, get a vague idea of the plot. And it’s nice that at least in part this idea is respected, otherwise there is the risk of running into something that you didn’t want to read at all. Too bad that what the cover of “Gunpowder Moon” suggests has nothing to do with the content of the book. You can see the helmet of a space suit with a hole on the vi -
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Blog post***** A perfect ending
After several months, I went back to reading the stories of Harry Bosch born from the pen of Michael Connelly and I did it with the fifth book in the series, which is now more than twenty years old.This time Bosch has to solve the murder of a film producer who is found dead in the boot of his car. It looks like a typical mob execution, which is precisely called “Hard Music”, like the title of the book, but the reality will be much more complex than what appears obvio -
Blog post**** Unusual but pleasant
What I like about Matheson is that every time in his books he manages to bring out something original that transcends genres, but at the same time each of them has in common with others a series of elements linked to the style, to the characteristics of the protagonists and to the total unpredictability of the stories, which eschew any cliché.“Other Kingdoms” is a fable that mixes elements of fantasy, romance and history, and that does not develop or end as -
Blog post*** A rushed story
Thinking back to the essential points of the plot, I realise that there is potential, yet I cannot say that the book has impressed me.The plot is indeed linear. The first chapters only serve to present the protagonist, Ross Moran, but nothing important happens until he is sent to a space station and there he is offered a job on another space station called Boreas. Among advanced technologies that clash with others that are antiquated to say the least (the characters trav -
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Blog postA few weeks ago I was interviewed by Bryan Aielloon his podcast called “Origin: Stories on Creativity” and now it is available for you to listen to it.We had a very nice chat that lasted almost an hour and during which I had the chance to talk about many topics related to my books and my activity as an author.
I must say that it is a rare case of an interview done without any special preparation on my side. I didn’t know what Bryan was going to ask me so it was completely spontaneous and I -
Blog post***** A wet, dirty, bad Iceland
Officer Erlendur from the police in Reykjavík is investigating the murder of a lorry driver. It seems a trivial case of robbery attempt gone badly, but the investigations take him farther, in the past of the victim. The image that the author gives of Iceland is disturbing and gloomy. In a dark and rainy autumn, Erlendur and his colleagues gather evidence, interrogate and dig, sometimes literally, until a story of rapes, suicides and deadly diseases em -
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Blog post***** The reader’s journey
Having had the opportunity to read an ARC of this new marketing book for independent authors by David Gaughran, I thought to write a review that is a little different from the usual, which, in addition to talking about the book, could include some of my thoughts on how self-publishing has evolved in the English-speaking market and how such evolution, by its very nature, cannot currently affect smaller markets like the Italian one, for which I primar -
Blog postAs you may have noticed, I love writing reviews of all (or almost all) books I read. The book reviews published on this blog are also submitted on Goodreads, Anobii(another social network for readers) and several Amazon stores, namely the US, UK, CA, AU, NL and of course IT stores.
At the end of the past week I published my review of “Stardance” by Spider & Jeanne Robinson on this blog and on my Italian blog (an Italian version of it). Then, as usual, I started submitting the same revi -
Blog post**** Dancing in the vacuum
The plot of this book certainly doesn’t lack originality, as it attempts to narrate dance, which is already difficult, but above all to do it in a science fiction context. The novel tells the story of Shara, a talented dancer who will never become famous because of her physical peculiarities (she doesn’t have a minute body) and who then invents a new type of dance in zero gravity: a star dance. And in some ways the attempt is also quite good. In the scenes in whi -
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Blog post**** Abuse and madness
“The Missing” wants to be a genre novel, specifically a psychological thriller, but at the same time addresses the issue of abuse on women, which would put it in the so-called literary fiction. The result of this union is not entirely successful. The reader doesn’t exactly know what to expect and in some ways they see their expectations disappointed, but in others they are pleasantly surprised. The risk, however, is to lose them well before the end of the book.I admi -
Blog post***** Even in Iceland people kill
Halfway between crime thriller and mystery, this novel by Michael Ridpath is the first of his series set in Iceland and starring Detective Magnus Jonson (or rather, Ragnarsson).Threatened by the boss of a gang against which he must testify, Magnus, a homicide detective from Boston, is sent to Iceland, which he is originally from, to collaborate for a short time with the local police and at the same time stay safe until the trial. He is thus involved -
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Blog post**** Complex and enjoyable story with a slightly slow start
This novella is the first book in a series of thrillers whose main character is Frank Bowen. Although it is a short text that is often offered for free to encourage the reading of the following one, it is completely self-conclusive and works well as a single book. Furthermore, the text is very good. I haven’t noticed typos or other errors (if there are any, they must be just a few). The story takes place in the 90s in the period b -
Blog post***** An interesting alternative present and future
In 1959, when this book was published for the first time, we had yet to go to the Moon (it would happen ten years later, a few months after the author’s death) and the conquest of space was seen as a normal extension of the so-called Cold War. This far from optimistic scenario is the background to the story of a family of astronauts unravelling for two hundred years.Wyndham’s pessimism, which I had already seen in his post-apocalyptic nov -
Blog post**** Very well structured and enjoyable, but not extraordinary
“Artemis” is a techno-thriller with a well-developed scientific component, as I expected from Weir. If I wanted to make a comparison with the books of other authors, the first name that comes to mind is Crichton (sorry, Master!), for the fact that the whole story is enslaved to the intention to talk to the reader about science. However, any resemblances end here. Crichton’s books, in fact, tended to revolve around a great scien -
Blog postAs usual, at the end of December I find myself taking stock of the year that is coming to an end and setting goals for the next one. Writing this article was relatively easy in the past years, as many of the projects I would undertake depended on factors under my complete control. One year ago, however, I had to limit my resolutions, as I didn’t know if some things that were at stake would have come to completion and therefore I wasn’t able to plan anything specific after the month of May. Now f
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Blog post**** The future of the past
Four years ago I read “Salamander War”, the sequel to this book, and I appreciated it greatly, despite being old-fashioned science fiction. “Colonists of Space” clarifies the previous events, that is, it narrates the journey of the Colonist’s crew to a planet called Bel, with all its difficulties. In my opinion there is a lesser originality than what will be seen in the next book, so much that it suffers more of the passing of time, but it was still a pleasant r -
Blog postWhen “The Mentor” was published two years ago and became an Amazon international bestseller, hitting No. 1 in the Kindle Store in USA, UK and Australia, I was amazed by how many readers had I copy of my book in their Kindle and actually were reading it. More than 170,000 people read my book, which was a lot more than what I hoped when I sold the English translations rights to Amazon Publishing.Now, two years later, my agreement with Amazon Publishing is coming to an end and in about three weeks
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Blog post***** A timeless classic
I always feel a strange emotion in getting into the classics, as they present ways to narrate that would have no room in modern fiction, yet some of them retain the unchanged ability to engage the reader.This is the case of Wells’s “The Time Machine”, where the narrator voice is a secondary character that merely reports what the protagonist tells. This kind of framed structure could create a certain distance between the reader and the events, but this doesn’t happe
Books By Rita Carla Francesca Monticelli
Red Desert - Point of No Return
Jun 24, 2014
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Red Desert - People of Mars
Sep 1, 2014
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$9.99
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Red Desert - Invisible Enemy
Feb 2, 2015
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Red Desert - Back Home
Jul 31, 2015
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Kindred Intentions
Apr 26, 2016
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$3.99
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L’isola di Gaia (Aurora Vol. 2) (Italian Edition)
Nov 27, 2014
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$19.99
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The Mentor
Nov 1, 2015
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$9.94
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Deserto rosso (Aurora Vol. 1) (Italian Edition)
Dec 12, 2013
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$21.57
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