Tag: vicino

Books, great reads, indie author, Reviews, scifi

Extant by Anthony Vicino

Karen

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Anthony Vicino is quickly becoming one of my favorite authors. So when he sent me this story and asked if I would read it I said of course! then I realized I already owned it..I know, it’s sad when you get a book more than once. Don’t deny it, you know you’ve all fought with Amazon demanding to buy a book that they refuse to let you click on, and then after 10 minutes of you being sure that the whole system is broken and you’re convinced you are going to have to call customer service you finally read what’s on the screen and you realize that it’s been trying to tell you this whole time that you already own the book. No? That’s just me? Okay then moving on…

Let’s start with the blurb, totally snatched from goodreads: Manipulating time always comes at a cost. For Special Agent Kaelyn Kwon, Blinking means living with one foot in the past and one foot in the present. Torn between memories of what was, and what could have been, she must use her power to decide what is yet to be.
A 10,000 word short adventure filled with action, time travel, and intrigue!

It is a shortie, I originally owned it in an anthology called The Time Travel Chronicles but since I still haven’t gotten around to reading the whole thing I’m going to stick to just talking about this story.

What I really liked about this book was the concept. You’ve got this place where people can control time, but it’s limited to 32 seconds (there are reasons for this, reasons I accept) and three different abilities. You have ones who can move forward in time, backwards, or freeze time. My favorite part was when three of them were working together, it was backwards, forward, forward, forward, backwards, stop, forwards, (please don’t quote me on that order I just made it up) but it felt like a rush constant time flipping I felt the craziness of that and loved it. Also as Anthony does so well there was an standard plot rescue mission and then the deeper psychological plot of how time travel effected the traveler.

This story did leave me with many questions about the world and the players within but it was a great read and from what I understand a great set up for the next book to come. It’s on sale now for $0.99 from Amazon, you know what I’ll even be nice and throw up a link for you to go grab it. Support your local indie author today, and read a fun short story, everyone wins!

Books, indie author, Out of the Box Blogs

Do $$$ Effect How We Rate?

Karen

I just finished Time Heist by Anthony Vicino. It’s been on my TBR for awhile, and I got it on sale for $0.99 so it was a steal. I like Anthony’s writing, sometimes a bit overelaborate, I’ll give you an example at one point the helicopter thingy (not his words) is crashing and the windshield cracks. This is what Tom the main character thinks Asphyxiation on account of too much air felt too paradoxical a way to die. Though, in the end, I suppose breathing eventually does us all. I was thinking what would have summed it up better? Oh shit. But that’s me, not a writer. And there are times when the clarity of Anthony’s writing is just stunning to me. Tom is addicted to a drug called Quick Sliver. There is a moment when he is detoxing in the middle of the, well everything honestly, and he really doesn’t have time for it (yeah that’s a pun, time) so his partner gives him a hit. It’s then he thinks this...I pitied the living. The dead were my idols. This drug was my god. I read that and thought Anthony you talented s.o.b.

But that’s not what I’m really talking about, what I do want to know is this, I gave this book 4 stars because for $1 it was quite good. In fact if I liked the ending I would have given it 5 stars and written glowing reviews to high heaven everywhere I could think of. But what if the book cost $7 or $8? Now if the ending was different I would have gone with 4 stars, but if not 2-3 stars. And that got me thinking, should my reviews have price factored in? Is that fair, especially if your dealing with a published author who has no control over the price? I do it because I think I was always raised that, the more you pay for it, the higher standard it must adhere to. But is this a proper additude to have in my book reviewing? I’m feel like it’s almost unconscious for me but I’m curious to hear others thoughts on the matter.

Books, great reads, indie author, Reviews, scifi

Sins of the Father by Anthony Vicino

Karen

About two weeks ago I posted a review on another one of Anthony’s books Parallel. Needless to say I was not happy with the end. So Anthony messaged me and our conversation went like this:

Kar how could you write a review like that on your blog! I’m one of the few people who actually liked something you wrote, think you could throw a little of the love back, sheesh! Here! If you’re going to be so cruel why don’t you just start taking my books!

Sorry, that’s a total lie, he was a completely professional and was really nice. I imagine if I was an author that’s what I would think every time I saw a bad review, of course I’d never say it. Really, I promise. To top off the fact that he seems to be genuinely nice (see I told you most authors are) he was also kind enough to send me this novella so I could give his writing another chance. So that’s how Sins of the Father came into my possession. And let me tell you, this one is a winner.

Background first. The story is about Ricky who is a man is his forties locked in a mental institute for killing his grandmother when he was a child but he can’t remember why. Problem? He thinks he’s still 9 years old and is suppressing the truth. So can the doctors unlock his memories and make him whole again? And will he be able to survive?

This is a completely different story than the first one I read from Vicino, more of a mental mind game scifi than a multi dimensional multi world scifi, but I can appreciate both. I found myself unable to put this book down, constantly curious as too what was coming next in the story. This book really forced me to feel with the characters, which is hard for me, making the end even more impactful. If you want a taste of Vicino’s writing this was a great, quick read. I plan on picking up his full length book, Time Heist, to see if the trend can continue.

Thank you Anthony, redemption successful.

Books, Out of the Box Blogs

So Many Books….

Karen

It all started out so innocently, netgalley actually gave me a book that I requested Bear Meets Girl by Shelly Laurenston. I always found her to be a fun read, not scientific debate winning, but fun. This is the weird part, somehow I snowballed and ended up with a list of books. Not just one or two but five all at the same time. You see I like to have a goal, take The Martian by Andy Weir, haven’t read it yet but promised myself it will happen before October. So it must. These kind of crazy goals is how one ends up spending all night awake reading. Here is my current list of books that I am “involved with” right now.

  1. The Martian by Andy Weir
  2. Queen of Shadows by Sarah Maas
  3. Sins of the Father by Anthony Vicino
  4. Lightness by C.A. Higgins
  5. Bear Meets Girl by Shelly Laurenston

I think I can, I think I can, I think I can…