Science Fiction

Progress, and a Review of “Red Queen: the Substrate Wars”
Red Queen: The Substrate Wars

Red Queen: The Substrate Wars

I’ve been plowing through the sequel and I’m about two-thirds done, but that means I’ve been neglecting the web site and keeping readers updated on progress. I hope they forgive me when the next one comes out faster as a result!

In the meantime, a new Amazon review of Red Queen: The Substrate Wars caught my attention. I can now start telling people to read the first book now because the second will be out in a few weeks….

5.0 out of 5 stars
Great Beginning of a Series!
By Joseph F. Collins (Davenport, Iowa, USA)
(REAL NAME)
Verified Purchase(What’s this?)

I just sort of tumbled into this buying it because it looked interesting. I write and read books about government shattered futures and it looked quite different than many of the badly written, horribly plotted and generally horrid screeds.

I almost couldn’t put it down. Dystopian future, young people trying to make a difference, heavy handed government, college politics and stupidity, really cool science (I’m not a physics nerd but can hum along with the tune once in a while), all within a believable world filled with complex, realistic, fully developed characters told in excellent writing. The author knows his stuff yet doesn’t do an info dump but bringing it to the reader gently and with enough information to make everything hang together right.

I honestly believe that Mr. Kinnison is a writer that we should all be watching to see what he will be doing in the future as it sure looks to be interesting!

“I Felt Like Penny in Big Bang Theory…” – “Red Queen: the Substrate Wars”
Red Queen: The Substrate Wars

Red Queen: The Substrate Wars

A new Amazon review of Red Queen: The Substrate Wars gives it the lowest rating so far, 3 out of 5 stars. But it’s pretty funny, and while the reviewer felt the high-level physics content was too much, he or she does seem to have enjoyed it. Which brings up the interesting question about high-level hard science fiction: are sales of fantasy and standard space opera better because all of the elements are familiar to mainstream audiences, and if you want lots of readers, do you have to dumb it down?

It’s long so I edited it down:

3.0 out of 5 stars
I felt like Penny in Big Bang Theory…. No clue what the guys were talking about, February 3, 2015

…The language is highly technical, way too much complex for a fiction book and you need to be well versed in the field of Physics or rather quantum physics to understand the things being talked about. I suspect even then you would not be able to understand the logic as it starts at the toughest level and never lowers itself to make the readers grasp the basic string of the story.

I guess what they say about geniuses is true. Talking to them is tough because even their lowest level of communication is way too alien for the average brain and for someone like me it would be a complete catastrophe

Now the good part

It was by the middle that the author explained what is Red Queen Effect and that was when i actually started appreciating the basic theme of the book. I think it was a brilliant theme to tackle in form of fiction and the basic story was actually pretty brainy but i guess that is where it went wrong… Being too brainy.

for the sake of people like me… Red Queen effect is when one organism is required to step up their game in order to stay in the competition. The author itself uses a brilliant example of this in our modern world where each country is acquiring weapons in order to have an edge over other countries and this tug of war is basically Red Queen Effect

The idea and the concept is brilliant and there are actually so many powerful elements that are discussed about the world we live in, a whole new set of ideologies are brought forward and the book gets its pace only towards its last run. The satirical mirror of our governing bodies and the countries around, pointed out in the book was good too.

Unfortunately you require a higher functioning of brain and patience to sit through and brush everything else to find out the deeper good

The Book is not for everybody as its not even fiction and more on the lines of Science journal and that is why i say that this book is for those who are connoisseurs in the field of quantum physics or whatever field the book was based on (see i am dumb even to know which field it was talking about). The language is pure science. The whole theme and concept was brilliant but i wish the author had stooped down to our levels to make us understand what he meant to say as he definitely had a lot of wonderful concepts to share which got lost somewhere in the science land.

Somebody needs to explain this book to me

More Reviews of “Red Queen: the Substrate Wars”
Red Queen: The Substrate Wars

Red Queen: The Substrate Wars

More reviews of Red Queen: The Substrate Wars.

From Amazon, a random reader says:

5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent!, January 30, 2015
By A. Shibley (Philadelphia)
Verified Purchase

I bought this Kindle book on a whim after seeing it on Instapundit. It was really a fun read! Too often, independent books like this are poorly edited, clumsily written, and hardly thought out. This is not one of those books. Indeed, I recently read a “big name” series (not Hunger Games) that was objectively less well-written and entertaining. Looking forward to the next one.

Also from Amazon:

5.0 out of 5 stars
A good read which is hard to put down, January 28, 2015
By John Stephens (Guerneville, CA USA)
Verified Purchase

I really enjoyed this book; I read it on vacation and I didn’t want to stop reading it. There were a couple of sections where the dialog was a bit stilted and it was reminiscent of Neal Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon in being somewhat didactic, but that’s just nit-picking – it had engaging characters and the plot moved along quickly. I liked the emerging universe he created and feel that the stage has been well set for a good series. I actually thought Samantha was going to be a government agent but happy to be disappointed 😉

I look forward to book number 2!

Like didactic is a bad thing! And “stilted dialog?” — argh! 😉

Book blogger Christina DeVries (whose native language is Norwegian, so bear that in mind) has a review at Geek Heaven:

4 stars out of 5
This is a science fiction thriller set in the US in the not too distant future. The country is run by a Unity Party, combining the worst of both the Democrats and the Republicans. The Bill of Rights is being ignored and people are being monitored by the government. Terrorist attacks results in more restrictions on people’s freedom and privacy.

The story follows a group of young people who are tired of their countries censor, stagnant economy and no jobs for young educated people. And when one of their favored professors suddenly disappears after being contacted by Homeland Security who suspects that he’s staying in touch with a former student who now runs a rebel group.

These young students discovers a new kind of technology that could ever free mankind or be the ultimate weapon to control or destroy us if it falls into the wrong hands. What are they to do with it? And they have to work fast before Homeland Security arrests them all and get their hands on the technology. Who can they trust? How do they know that they’re not being watched already?

***

I was very intrigued by the synopsis when I was contacted about this book and it did not disappoint me. It was fast-paced and exciting. The characters were really well made but I would have loved to have gotten to know them a little bit better. In the beginning of the story some of the writing could get a bit too technical for my taste, but it definitely picked up and got easier to follow as the story progressed.

I can’t say that I’ve read anything quite like this before so I went into this with a very open mind and was definitely pleasantly surprised!

I’m really looking forward to seeing where this series goes and I definitely recommend this if you like political thrillers and science fiction.

Title IX Totalitarianism is Gender-Neutral
Phall-o-meter, Intersex Society of North America

Phall-o-meter, Intersex Society of North America

From the beyond-the-Onion department:

CUNY’s Graduate Center now believes the use of gendered salutations like “Mr.” and “Mrs.” might offend some students. What’s more, administrators think federal non-discrimination law requires the university to prevent its faculty from inadvertently giving offense. Therefore, professors have been instructed to wipe the contentious words from their memories and cease using them in any and all forms of communication.

Full Reason story here.

Some young reviewers of Red Queen: The Substrate Wars think it portrays some unlikely future thought-control state. It’s actually about RIGHT NOW in many universities, which is why it bugs me I can’t get a conventional publisher to look at it in less than a year.

Death by HR: How Affirmative Action Cripples OrganizationsDeath by HR: How Affirmative Action Cripples Organizations

[From Death by HR: How Affirmative Action Cripples Organizations,  available now in Kindle and trade paperback.]

The first review is in: by Elmer T. Jones, author of The Employment Game. Here’s the condensed version; view the entire review here.

Corporate HR Scrambles to Halt Publication of “Death by HR”

Nobody gets a job through HR. The purpose of HR is to protect their parent organization against lawsuits for running afoul of the government’s diversity extortion bureaus. HR kills companies by blanketing industry with onerous gender and race labor compliance rules and forcing companies to hire useless HR staff to process the associated paperwork… a tour de force… carefully explains to CEOs how HR poisons their companies and what steps they may take to marginalize this threat… It is time to turn the tide against this madness, and Death by HR is an important research tool… All CEOs should read this book. If you are a mere worker drone but care about your company, you should forward an anonymous copy to him.