Review: Wandering Star by Teri S. Wood

Title: Wandering Star
Author: Teri S. Wood
Publisher: Dover Publications
Release Date: June 15, 2016
ISBN: 0486801624


As someone who grew up loving indie comics mainstays like ElfQuest and Sandman, I'm honestly surprised that I didn't discover Wandering Star until now, so many years later. It's entirely the type of thing that I would've been into as a teenager, with its moody but strong main character Cassandra and its plethora of other interesting characters. Odds are I would've shipped some of the characters together, regardless of their expressed interest in one another. (Shipping is odd like that.)

This much-praised space drama follows the far-flung adventures of Casandra, daughter of the President of the United Nations and the first terran accepted into the Galactic Academy. Casandra discovers to her woe that Earth isn't the most popular of planets and joins the outcasts working on the Wandering Star, the Alliance's prototypical spaceship. When the Bono Kiro, the Alliance's longtime enemy, makes a sudden reappearance, Casandra and her misfit crew just might turn out to be the galaxy's last hope. 

This is an incredibly ambitious series and I'd be lying if I said that at times it was a little frustrating, given that the overall universe and its stories are so much larger than what we're shown here. To use a modern equivalent, it'd be like if Saga had only covered Hazel's birth rather than its current sweeping goals. It could very easily be expanded upon and Wood has expressed interest in creating a webcomic, which I think would work fairly well nowadays.

The artwork here is well done and has a fresh style that helps showcase the characters' feelings and drives. Characters are equally well designed and I'd have to say that one of my favorites had to have been Mek, who first appears in the comics as a fervently anti-Earth student of the Galactic Academy. To say that he undergoes a lot of changes and problems throughout the series would be an understatement. What's most interesting about this series, however, is how much it applies to today's societies. Prejudice and war are sadly still very much a part of today's world and I think that many will be able to sympathize with Cassandra's plight.

Ultimately this is a series that has gotten far less attention than what it deserves and hopefully Dover's release will help rectify that at least in part. It's one heck of a story and one that would work well as a feature film.

5/5 stars

(ARC provided by Netgalley)

Check it Out: Bill See & Jessica McHugh

Hi everyone! Today I have two very different but equally cool authors to tell you about!


First up is Bill See, band member of Divine Weeks & author of 33 Days, a memoir about the group's life on the road. It's got a rock angle to it but at its core it's a coming of age story that I'm sure will rock your socks off!


For 33 days in the summer of 1987, indie rock band Divine Weeks toured in a beat up old Ford Econoline Van, sleeping on strangers' floors, never sure they'd make enough gas money to get them to the next town. Liberated from alcoholic upbringings and rigid cultural constraints, all they have is their music and each other's friendship. The road is filled with yuppies, brothels, riots, sleeping on floors, spiked drinks, DJs with no pants, and battles with racism. They set out on the road to discovery to drink in all they could and maybe sell a few records. They grew up instead.

If you're curious, 33 Days is available for kindle as well as on smashwords. Curious to find out more about the band? Check out Bill See's facebook entry for the book which includes more about the band as well as glimpses of Bill's creative process for the book! (Click on the band pic to go there!)





Our second author to watch is Jessica McHugh!



Jessica McHugh is an author of speculative fiction that spans the genre from horror and alternate history to epic fantasy. A prolific writer, she has devoted herself to novels, short stories, novellas, and even playwriting. She has had eight books published in three years, including "Song of Eidolons", "The Sky: The World" and the first two installments in her "Tales of Dominhydor" series. (I admit, I took this from her site but hey- I couldn't have written it any better!)

One of her most recent books is Rabbits in the Garden, a tale of family secrets, false accusations, & revenge. It's available in both paperback as well as on the kindle & smashwords! (Click on her picture to go to her personal website!)

At twelve years old, Avery Norton had everything: a boyfriend who was also her best friend, the entirety of Martha's Vineyard as her playground, and her very own garden to tend.

By thirteen, it was all over.

The discovery of a secret crypt in the basement starts the Norton family down many unexpected avenues, including one that leads to Avery's arrest for murder and her subsequent imprisonment in Taunton State Lunatic Asylum.

Set in 1950s Massachusetts, Rabbits in the Garden follows Avery Norton's struggle to prove her innocence and escape Taunton with her mind intact.

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As always, make sure to check out our contest this week where you could win an ebook copy of one of Jim Bernheimer's books! (Click here for info.)

Check it Out: Joel Arnold & Stavrogin!

Hi everyone! I'm back, bringing you two new authors to check out!



The first is Joel Arnold, author of several books including one of his latest, Bedtime Stories for the Apocalypse. You might have seen his work in publications such as Weird Tales or on podcast sites such as Pseudopod.org, where you can download several of his short stories for free! Here's the description of Bedtime Stories for the Apocalypse:

A man journeys with a pregnant stranger, while unseen aliens deal out punishment from above. A priest's skin oozes a healing elixir. A self-absorbed husband monitors the end of his existence over the internet. A teenager digs through a deep crust of waste and bone to win his freedom. These, plus 5 more stories from Joel Arnold, are your perfect companion as the earth falls apart around you.

Joel lives in Minnesota (also home to the MST3K home, for all you MSTies out there) with his wife and two kids, a dog, cat, rat, and three fish. He also makes a mean coffee cake.

You can check out Joel's book along with several of his other stories on smashwords as well as on amazon.com for the kindle! (Click on the picture above for his amazon page & here for his smashwords page.)

My other author spotlight is a mysterious author known only to me as Stavrogin. Stavrogin's work Ljubljana Witch is a haunting tale of a mystery, dark arts, & zines. There's no way to describe this book any better than the publisher's page does: (click on the picture to be taken to the book's amazon page)

‘Come to Ljubljana. Stay with me forever.

D’

Bermondsey, London: Building sites not building anything, ill-looking grass, five muggings in the same tunnel in the last month. Billy wants out. But how? All he has is a zine that no one reads, and his best friend Jay telling him the harsh reality of things.

But then…an e-mail. From Ljubljana, a place he can’t even spell. ‘Come stay with me forever,’ it tells him.

Weird, but okay, thinks Billy. Why not?

With Jay along for the ride, and others picked up along the way, Billy arrives in Ljubljana and quickly finds that things are a lot stranger than he could’ve possibly imagined. An art commune run by a man in a bear costume. A castle surrounded by continual snow, with ancient gods and 80s board games, famous writers and forbidden rooms.

And Daisy…his beautiful, unpredictable host.

Who is this woman? Why won’t she let him go outside? What’s inside the room at the top of the spiral stairs? And what happens when he can no longer write for her?

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Don't forget that you still have time to enter the ebook giveaway for a chance to win a copy of one of Jim Bernheimer's books! (Click here for more info.)

Lucky Leprechaun Giveaway Hop!

Want to win some great books? Well, grab your four leaf clovers & gather together the luck of the Irish so you can win one of the great books I have up for grabs!

Giveaway #1

The first book is a really awesome self help book called Shift; 13 Exercises to Make You Who You Want to Be by Takumi Yamazaki.

It’s not that you’re lazy, and it’s not that you lack motivation. No—you have plenty of motivation, but it always seems to fade away just when you need it. The problem is not that you don’t have motivation, it’s that that motivation doesn’t stick around long enough. Shift takes knowledge and inspiration from motivation specialists and distills it into something easy to understand. Thirteen exercises and seventeen techniques illustrate points to help you take the steps to keep, bring back, or find the motivation you need to make the shift into who you want to be. A different take to your average business book, Shift is a full of amusing illustrations that bring the narrative to life and practical exercises that readers can use to grab a hold of that motivation to do what they want and become who they want to be.

Giveaway #2

The second offering is an intriguing indie read called Circle of Dishonor by Gwen Mayo.

Obsessed with finding the Knights of the Golden Circle, a secret society responsible for her brother's death, former Pinkerton operative Nessa Donnelly assumed his identity and followed his killers to Lexington. The trail ended there, and fourteen years have gone by. When local prostitute Belle Brezing turns to her for help, Nessa is immersed in a murder case that threatens to expose all of her secrets. She is dealing with more than murder. The KGC is active again in Kentucky and bodies are piling up. If Nessa doesn't find the killer fast, she stands to lose everything-maybe even her life.

Book Giveaway #3 & 4

(Two winners will receive the following ebooks)

Book #4

Book number 3 is an ebook giveaway (so the lucky winner will get their book right away). It's Night & Chaos (The Deva Chronicles) by Naomi Clark! (This book will be a PDF.)

Ryan McCarthy fled Applied Paranormal Theory and Tactics, her father, and her lover six years ago, desperate to build life away from the weird science and supernatural experiments of her childhood. But everything she hoped to escape comes back with a vengeance when she’s kidnapped and tortured by a possessed APTT employee out for revenge on the man responsible for his possession: Ryan’s father.

Now, reunited with the lover she abandoned, Ryan is forced back into a world of danger and darkness she no longer understands, pursued by enemies with powers she can’t fathom. But Ryan’s not entirely powerless herself. She’ll have to use every trick she knows – as well as the mystic gift she hates – to stay ahead of those enemies. And that will be easier said than done.

Book #4

Last but not least is another ebook giveaway by author James Hutchings, who has taken the idea of Twitter to a whole new level by creating a whole book full of stories... all of which fit within 140 characters! (This book will be an epub.)

Thirty mostly humorous stories, including science fiction, fantasy, horror and romance. Each story is less than 140 characters long (the length of a Twitter tweet).


How to Enter

There are three different ways to enter.

1) Sign up via the linky list below.
2) Follow my blog
3) Make a comment below. If you post your email address, make sure to put it along the lines of emailaddress (at) domain (dot) com so nobody can skim your email off with a program or something along those lines. :)

I'll try to pick one winner from each area. The winner has four days to respond, after which I choose the next person on the list.

The books going out through the snail mail will only be going to people in Canada or the USA, but the ebooks can go to anyone in the world. (Sorry- I'm too broke to pay shipping anywhere else!)



I just want to thank the various people who helped make this giveaway so awesome! I want to thank the publishing companies One Peace Books (who has some of the nicest people I've dealt with) & Pill Hill Press (who has some of the coolest titles I've ever seen- you HAVE to join their postcard club!) for donating copies to this giveaway. I also want to thank the two authors who donated ebook copies for this as well, Naomi Clark & James Hutchings.




Enter Here!




Other participating blogs!