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4 out of 5 Stars
Rebel Heart
If George Washington had lost because of both Magic, and bad
press what would the world be like? Rebel Heart is based on an alternate
history where the American Revolution was not only lost but completely
forgotten about by the population as a whole. The English keeps the citizens in
check and under their rule by using magic and generally terrorizing everyone.
Our hero (Calvin) stands up to a few of the local wizards and in return is
kidnapped by “Techromancers” people who oppose the kings run and are using
illegal technology to try and fight back.
The world Author Graham Bradley has written is well thought
out and believable. I enjoyed his tweaks to history which managed to intertwine
his world into ours. The characters are
believable even down the annoying way some characters have an exaggerated
belief in their own importance.
While I did enjoy the book on a whole I did struggle to
understand how Calvin could come to the belief that certain people are evil.
Nothing written in this book points directly to Evil. Yes annoying, controling
and rude, but not evil. Yes trying to keep him away from the girl he fancies,
but not evil.
Overall this is a fast paced book perfect for those who
enjoy the YA Genre, steampunk, and alternate histories. It is clean, the most
sexual content is as an almost kiss. There are a few swear words but mostly
they are British, so if you are American you probably won’t even realise they
are swear words. There is some war violence but again it is not gory or in too
much detail.
I am interested to read the next book and see where this
story goes.
4 out of 5 Stars
Suicide Run
This instalment of the series has more action, is faster
paced and has more characters. The new animals, technologies and magic disciplines
turns a familiar landscape into a more exotic one. It adds to the story and
enhances the depth and scope of the plot line. There are a few times I found
myself thinking “that is really cool” particularly when it comes to some of the
magical ability shown by the main protagonist in this book, the wizard Godfrey.
This story does however starts with Calvin being a total and
complete twat. Like most teenage boys he thinks only of himself and his
immediate needs regardless of everyone else around him. I am afraid it made me
struggle to feel sympathy for his plight a bit later on in the book when he
kind of deserved it. It also plays into my feelings from last book that his
belief of certain people being evil doesn’t quite pan out. Yes it does paint
one or two people as evil but not the majority of the ones he has pegged as
evil.
I did enjoy this story, yes it did irritate me at times, but
that irritation does drive the story forward, and it shows that hero’s do not
always make the correct choices and are not always in the right.
Again I would recommend this book to fans of YA, Steampunk,
Alternate History and fantasy. There is some mild swearing (mostly British
words) and some non-gory war violence.
4.5 out of 5 Stars
Patriots Game
This book starts strong and doesn’t let up through the
entire story. And I am relieved to see that Finally I was able to get the
information needed to understand how Calvin could see someone as evil! It was a
relief to say “Ok, yes he was right”
The whole book is face paced, bringing most of the
characters back together, even the small bit players (at least the ones who are
not dead). You get to see how each
person is able to fit into the whole scheme of things. This is done well so you
don’t feel like the author has gone off on a tangent. Instead they all play a
part in the main conflict and their choices and actions affect the outcome of
the battle. Because of the hints laid
out in the books you will know what would have to happen at the end before you
get halfway through the book, however that knowledge does not curtail the
enjoyment of the scene any.
Author Graham Bradley has a rich imagination that has built
a vivid and believable world that is as reliable as it is uprising. Well done!
Mild swearing, one fairly strong word (only if you
understand British swearing, if you don’t it will completely go over your
head). There is also war violence, more than the last two books but again it
isn’t graphic.
I also recommend you read the whole series in order these
are not meant to be read out of order or as stand alone books.
If you like YA, fantasy, steampunk or alternate history then
this series is one you need to read.
Interview with Author Graham Bradley
1. Describe yourself in 50 words or less.
Irrational dreamer
seeks satisfaction by flogging the English language (and others besides) into a
rough approximation of prose, augmented on the drawing board when words will
not suffice. It has been stated—rather accurately—that I am not a precision instrument.
Also, go Colts!
2. What do you love most in the world?
The easiest answer is
the truest: I love my wife, Schaara. I could drown you in anecdotes and still
fail to paint the right picture of who and what she is to me.
3. What do you fear most?
As a secret
vigilante, it would pretty foolish of me to throw this one out into public.
4. What is your largest unfulfilled dream,
and what are you doing to reach it?
I will write and
illustrate full-time, and make a really good
living off of it. That starts here, at the ground level. I’ll get an agent for
some projects, and others I’ll publish independently, and I’ll get better at my
craft until people like what I do. (Right now I work in demolition for a
living. I like to blow things up, but I do not love to do it.)
5. Now that we've gotten to know each
other, tell me a story. It can be long or short. From your childhood or last
week. Funny, sad, or somewhere in between. Just make sure it's yours. What's
your story?
Oh, now you’ve
stepped in it.
Two days before
Christmas in 2002, my little brother got a call from one of his hoodlum friends,
informing him that a mutual acquaintance of ours was going to haul a car out
into the desert and light it on fire, and would we like to come?
I was 18, my brother
was 15, and most of the young men involved in this soaring display of good
adolescent judgment were in that same range. The car belonged to a guy named
Milan. It was a crappy Peugeot, not worth the $100 he had paid for it, and
since it was broken beyond the value of repairing it, this method of disposal
was of course the most reasonable alternative.
So at 9PM on a
Monday, roughly twenty of us helped rig Milan’s car to the back of someone’s
pickup, and we towed it down a dirt road into the desert south of Mission Hills
in Henderson. Gasoline and road flares soon made short work of the car, and oh,
what a spectacle it was!
In fact, it was such
a spectacle, that the police decided to stop by and check out the party. (I
suspect it was a local, who had seen us towing the car through his neighborhood
at the edge of town, that had made the call.)
We had dilly-dallied
long enough with the car that the police had time to drive one of their fine
Chevy Tahoes down an adjacent desert road and cut off our escape into the nocturnal
wasteland. Once the conflagration was at full power, we noticed an odd
arrangement of headlights bearing down on us from a distance in the darkness,
and it was at this time that someone suggested we get the heck out of there.
We scrambled for the
vehicles that had brought us there. I myself jumped into the back of someone’s
Dodge pickup, and we were soon flying down a desert road at about forty or
fifty miles an hour, in the dark. Let me just say that this road was not
intended for these speeds, as it was not even technically a road, but when you
see those red-and-blues closing in on you in the pitch black December night,
you find that a 4X4 can turn just about anything
into a road.
Me being the stalwart
religious man that I am, I opted at that moment to send a prayer to The Man
Upstairs, promising all manner of future righteous behavior in exchange for
immediate deliverance from this bad decision. I got a busy signal, and a
recorded message to the effect of “God’s not here right now, some boneheaded kids
just got caught burning a car before Christmas, and He’s cheering on the cops.”
The cops—we’ll call
them “Henderson’s Finest”—didn’t become the Finest by being stupid. No sooner
had we thought that we had secured our escape, having returned from the desert
to the edge of town, than did we find ourselves facing a blockade of more
police cars, and a fire engine to boot. Orders were shouted through megaphones,
skies were reached for, vehicles were disembarked from, and suspects were lined
up on the ground.
Motives were
questioned. Names were taken. Profanities were uttered by the Finest, which, I
thought, seemed a little unfair, given that a certain Entity had opted to grant
them their purpose rather than to grant me mine, and even though I’d been party
to vehicular arson, at least I hadn’t
cussed a lot, but I figured I wasn’t in the best position to make a moral
argument on my own behalf.
I looked around for
my brother. He was several suspects away from me in the lineup, but didn’t seem
rattled. That’s my brother for you: the original Honey Badger. I also noticed
that some of our number had escaped capture. These had been members of the high
school’s Cross Country team, and they had wisely chosen to get away on foot,
themselves being no strangers to running across uneven desert terrain.
As Milan explained
his ownership of the vehicle to the Finest, they laughed when he confessed that
it was, in fact, a Peugeot. The tension abated slightly, but the Finest still
had to do their thing, and that included getting everyone’s information. One
officer did all that, starting at my right and working his way down the line.
When he got to me, I told him my name and age. He frowned at his notes and asked
if I had a brother there that night. Yes sir, I did. He informed me that I
wasn’t being a very good example to my brother. This was apparent to me.
The officer informed
me that I should call my parents to come pick us up. Now, you don’t know my
mother, so you don’t understand that this man was—by default—ordering me to
commit suicide. Sighing my resignation, I pulled out my archaic cell phone and
dialed my doom.
Sparing you the
details of the call, my mom and dad got our location and hopped in the car. It
was only then that Officer Judgment (not his actual name) came back to me,
checking his notes, and saying “Oh hey, I just noticed that you’re 18. You
didn’t need to call your parents, you’re of age, I could’ve just let you take
your brother home right now.”
Unspoken cuss words. Lots of them.
In the end, that
night was a turning point for me with regards to the example I wanted to set
for my brother, regardless of whether he heeded it. It also set the tone for
the most awkward Christmas spirit ever, but I suppose I deserved that one.
The moral of the story
is this: take up Cross Country.
The End.
