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“Write What You Know”: A Review of Righteous Allegiance by George Yuhasz

(Outskirts Press, 2025). ISBN: 978-1-9772-7562-2 A tried and true adage for first-time novelists is write what you know. Writing novels is a difficult endeavor (as W. Somerset Maugham famously quipped, “There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are”) and the seasoned author controls everything they can. According to George Yuhasz’s back-cover bio, he is a “former US Government special agent, intelligence officer, and contractor. He has also worked in the private sector as an investigator and security consultant.” It is clear he wrote about what he knows in Righteous Allegiance , which takes far-right White Christian Nationalism, especially among former members of the military, as its central subject. Written with the technical expertise of an insider (I mentored a novelist for many years who was a former lieutenant colonel in Army intelligence, and I recognize the signs), Righteous Allegiance is topical and frightening. Yuhasz’s extremists ar...
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“All the Best Tropes”: A Review of The Anvil's Whisper by Jaime Rodríguez

 (Jr Publishing, 2025). ISBN: 9798992173307 I received this book as an ARC and first reviewed it for Reedsy Discovery. The Anvil's Whisper is the story of a humble blacksmith and swordsmith named Yordan whose life is turned upside down through a serious of visions and mysterious encounters that lead him into exploration of his spiritual beliefs as mirrored and amplified by myriad religions and spiritual systems that come into conflict in the world in which he lives. The book employs all of the best fantasy tropes, from the blacksmith as metaphor to symbolic beasts, to ideas of fate and destiny and the juxtaposition of authoritarian rule and the life of the simple farmer and artisan in traditional fantasy times. There’s a spoiled prince, alluring peasant girls and warrior women, and a cast of interesting characters from a broad economic and cultural spectrum. There are scenes of violence and torture and moments of deep philosophy and contemplation and plenty of symbolism enrichi...
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“Beyond Historical Fiction”: A Review of Muzzle the Black Dog by Mike Cobb (2025)

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  Oftentimes, when an author finds success in a particular genre, style of writing, or “voice,” they are content to remain in that level of craft that they have worked so hard to achieve. This is understandable. There are benefits to having your growing and loyal audience know exactly what they are getting when they open one of your books. Many bestselling authors have followed this formula and found it satisfying, lucrative, and essential to their longevity. Lucky for the readers of Mike Cobb’s historical fiction, the author of Dead Beckoning , The Devil You Knew , and You Will Know Me By My Deeds has, with his latest offering (a novella), adjusted ever so slightly, but meaningfully, both his voice and writing style. This cues to his growing audience that there is plenty more to come from this gifted craftsman and storyteller. In interviews with me, and elsewhere, Cobb has stated he primarily follows his characters when deciding where to take the story, without doing a larg...
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A Review of Outbound: Islands in the Void by Richard M. Anderson

 (Precocity Press, 2024). ISBN: 979-8-9898304-6-6 A few months ago, I reviewed Richard M. Anderson’s nonfiction book, The Evolution of Life: Big Bang to Space Colonies (a 2023 Nautilus Silver Award Winner), which is an ambitious and ultimately successful text that encapsulates the evolution of life from the Big Bang 13.8 billion years ago to the present. I encourage you to read that review for details on the far-ranging and fascinating subjects Anderson tackles through his exploration of Earth’s present, past, and future. The final portion of Evolution of Life is devoted to the possibilities and pitfalls of space exploration and colonization. It looks at political, social, environmental, and many other aspects of the endeavor, which tech billionaires like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, along with NASA, see as an inevitable and even preferable part of our future. At least for some of us. Outbound is Anderson’s fictional imagining of what this all might look like. He offers an In...
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A Review of The Evolution of Life: Big Bang to Space Colonies by Richard M. Anderson

 (Precocity Press, 2022). ISBN: 979-8-9851494-6-3 A 2023 Nautilus Silver Award Winner, this ambitious text (apt that it is published by a press called Precocity) encapsulates the evolution of life from the Big Bang 13.8 billion years ago to the present, before postulating at length about the possibilities and pitfalls of colonizing space, the Moon, and, far less likely, Mars. With Space X sending up another rocket as I write this review and Disclosure in the news cycle at an unprecedented, eye-opening level, coinciding with a UAP/drone mystery that held America enrapt through the holidays, the subject of colonizing space is certainly topical and worthy of our attention and consideration. After earning an MA in microbiology, Richard M. Anderson went on to a distinguished career as a clinical laboratory bioanalyst, and he brings considerable knowledge to bear over the course of 326 pages. Armed with Anderson’s table of extinction and evolution events (which has a companion tabl...
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“Beyond Historical Fiction”: A Review of You Will Know Me by My Deeds by Mike Cobb

 (Waterside Productions, 2024). ISBN: 978-1-234567-89-0 Ask anyone from Atlanta about Wayne Williams and the “Atlanta child murders” that claimed 28 lives (children, adolescents, and adults; July 1979 to May 1981) and you’re certain to receive strong responses of fear and uncertainty comparable to those from New Yorkers when asked about the yearlong Son(s) of Sam killings in New York City (July 1976 to July 1977). On the opposite coast, the Night Stalker/Richard Ramirez murders in Los Angeles and San Francisco (April 1984 to August 1985) evoke a similar response. In the latter two cases, it is clear that law enforcement apprehended the “right man” (although Maury Terry’s The Ultimate Evil makes a semi-compelling case that David Berkowitz was one of several Sons of Sam). The same is not the case regarding Wayne Williams. When it comes to the “Atlanta child murders,” there seems to be much we do not know. Enter Mike Cobb, a writer of historical fiction that I have publicly compa...
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Black Rose: A Midsummer Night's Chutzpah (Larkin's Barkin Book 1) by Pete Adams

 (Next Chapter 2021). ASIN: B08VH2Z8GK This is the third book I have reviewed from architect and author Pete Adams. The first two were Dead No More (Rhubarb Papers Book 1) in 2021 and Rite Judgement (DaDa Detective Agency Book 2) in 2022. Although all three books are situated in different series, they are united in a single, whimsical world (the 14-book Hegemon Chronicles, of which 11 are written) where multinational corporations, British police and intelligence agencies, and religious organizations come to brilliant life in Adams’s surrealist, socially conscious, quick-witted world. If you are interested in comparisons, Robert Anton Wilson, James Joyce, William S. Burroughs, and Umberto Eco’s Foucault’s Pendulum and Baudolino immediately come to mind.  Like the authors mentioned above, Adams’s intelligence and facility with history, society, culture, politics, and economics are readily apparent, as is the transdisciplinary nature of his themes. For instance, Rite Judgement ha...
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