Joey Madia, New Mystics Reviews

“A Light in Darkened Spaces”: A Review of Carbon (Writer, Daniel Boyd; Illustrator, Edi Guedes) (Caliber Comics, 2014, ISBN: 978-0-9857493-3-0) Carbon is a fantastical tale that marries new Creation mythology with the very real coal-mining-culture-at-a-crossroads narrative now happening in southern West Virginia. Daniel Boyd, a three-time Fulbright scholar and Media Studies professor at West Virginia State University, has recently joined the ranks of accomplished filmmakers (he is known for Chillers , among many others) who are utilizing the graphic novel format to tell their stories. Cinematically illustrated by Brazilian Edi Guedes (with great attention to light and dark and mise en sc è ne), Carbon tackles the tough questions and points an unapologetic finger at large Energy Corporations and state-level politicians. Before I go into the characters and story, a little context is called for. Having lived in West Virginia for the past 7 years, I have watched from an outsider’...

by Christian A. Dumais (2014, ISBN: 978-1500538354; available at Amazon.com) I have known the man behind the Drunk Hulk Twitter phenomenon, Christian Dumais, since 2003, when the art and literary website he co-ran, Legion Studios, first began the monthly publication of the strange rants and politico-religious poke-prods of my own alter-ego, Planner Forthright. I reviewed a collection of euphictional anthology, Cover Stories , that he co-edited, and have followed his journey to Poland and into marriage and parenthood and into stand-up humor and his continuing productivity as a writer (ironically, through another social media mechanism, Facebook). I have to admit—although I knew of the Drunk Hulk Twitter account, and followed it—I am Luddite at heart who won’t use a Smart Phone and rarely uses Twitter, doesn’t see its purpose, and follows and is followed in the mid-100s. Nevertheless, the Drunk Hulk phenomenon of the last 5 years (191,000 followers as of this writing) has bee...

(Pensacola, FL: World Castle Publishing, 2014), ISBN: 9781629891163 (print edition) A few months ago I reviewed Ken Hart’s debut novel, Behind the Gem (Gypsy Shadow Publishing, 2010), which I found to be an enjoyable and well-paced science fiction adventure with a heart. In his follow-up, The Eyes Behold Tomorrow , Hart uses a similar setup—a human male transplanted on a planet with a female-dominated, more advanced alien race, a situation that leads to political intrigue as well as a considerable amount of romance—but it is there that the similarities end. The protagonist of The Eyes Behold Tomorrow , namesake of the pirate Edward Teach (“Blackbeard’), has little in common with the former Army Ranger of Behind the Gem . Teach is a playboy genius with sharp business sense and a wild side. When Earth is threatened by aliens, Teach is chosen to enter the pilot training program of a benevolent race called the Feletians. His training, evaluation, and appointment to the Feletian ...

(2014, Homebound Publications, ISBN: 978-1-938846-15-1) In 2009 I had the pleasure of reading and reviewing the first novel in the New Dimensions Trilogy, Journey to the Heart , followed by 2013’s New Dimensions of Being earlier this year. In the third book of the trilogy, Lucina undertakes a classic Hero’s Journey to try and locate her former love, Teleo, whose last contact had been from Guatemala City. No longer content to sit and wait for him to come to her, Lucina follows her heart through the city, the jungle, and on the edge of the ocean to win back his love and once more walk upon the path she had so dearly paved at the start of New Dimensions of Being . Aided as ever by the old wise woman, Señora Labotta, Lucina also enlists the aide of a British shop owner and a jungle guide named Alejandro who functions in a way similar to Carlos Castaneda’s Don Juan or Dan Millman’s Socrates from Way of the Peaceful Warrior , serving as a threshold guardian and mentor as she cr...

  (Gypsy Shadow Publishing, 2010), ISBN: 978-0-9844521-7-0 By Joey Madia Behind the Gem is an entertaining and thought-provoking journey through one man’s experience with an alien race. Solidly sci-fi, but with the kind of sentiment and romance not usually found in the genre, Hart’s tale provides plenty of action, technology, and telepathy as it poses many of the Big Questions.             When a hostile race of aliens called the Baleorans attacks Earth, a group of humans, trapped in a building transplanted on another planet, struggle to make sense of their present and their future. One of their number, a man named Raymond Meinhardt, winds up the captive and soon after the Consort of one of a race of kangaroo–horse hybrid type beings, eight feet tall, called the Draasen. They are a race of telepaths with advanced technology and a feminine-ruled society.           ...

 (Finland: Gradient Books, 2014; Barcode: 5-800102-117065) Two years ago I reviewed a precursor to this book, by Eileen R. Tabios and j/j hastain, titled the relational elations of ORPHANED ALGEBRA (New York: Marsh Hawk Press, 2012; ISBN: 978-0-9846353-2-0). The book impressed upon the reader the function to carry forth the work begun in its pages, which I endeavored to do in the review.             147 Million Orphans takes as its basis, not the word problems of the previous title, but a list of words that Tabios’ son was required to learn in the course of a school year. Ever innovative and groundbreaking, Tabios, and her impressive list of guest poets (William Allegrezza, Tom Beckett, John Bloomberg-Rissman, Michael Caylo-Baradi, Patrick James Dunagan, Thomas Fink, jj hastain, Aileen Ibardaloza, Ava Koohbor, Michael Leong, Sheila Murphy and Jean Vengua), used the words to create hay(na)ku [from the back cover: “a hay(n...

  (Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 2014), ISBN: 978-0-8117-1115-9 It’s always a pleasure to read and review a new Rosemary Ellen Guiley book. Not only are they based on interviews and fieldwork coupled with a thorough review of secondary sources; I have also had the privilege of accompanying her on several paranormal investigations, including on the three acres on which I live. Some of the experiences of my family have been chronicled in other of her books (e.g., on Ouija boards), and in this book on West Virginia hauntings, there’s a segment about the arts center my wife and I used to run.             These personal connections aside, as an author who often uses the supernatural in my stories, novels, and plays, my growing collection of Guiley’s books is an indispensible part of my research library.             The Big Book of West Virginia Ghost Stories , broke...

 (2013, Homebound Publications, ISBN: 978-1-938846-11-3) In 2009 I had the pleasure of reading and reviewing the first novel in the New Dimensions Trilogy, Journey to the Heart . Like her main character’s spiritual journey, Nora Caron’s journey as a writer is steadily developing, and I gleaned even more from the follow-up than I did from the original. In Mexico for about a year, Lucina, a Canadian transplant trying to find herself and break from the dysfunctional habits that had so limited her life, is living with Teleo, the medicine man from Journey to the Heart , who is the son of the old wise woman, Señora Labotta. Lucina, although progressing in her journey, is far from over her acerbic, sarcastic tendencies, and even in this new world of spirit and oneness, when in crisis [which is often] she falls back to the advice of her more traditionally based former therapist, Dr. Field. Themes like spirit and matter, love and loss, and life and death course through the ...

 (available in paper format from the publishers or at Calameo.com as e-books) By Joey Madia As Founding Editor of www.newmystics.com , a literary and art site that hosts pages for nearly seventy authors and artists from around the world, I have the opportunity to give the creators of innovative and thought-provoking poetry a forum for their work. As often happens, in cultivating the e-publisher/author relationship, I am asked to review additional work by the author not hosted at New Mystics. In the case of Jack Galmitz, when links to his e-books were provided, I visited Calameo.com and chose three titles— Objects , Yellow Light , and A Semblance —for review. There are several other titles from this author available there as well and you can find more of his writing at Scribd. In our correspondence preparing for the launch of his New Mystics author page in February 2014, Galmitz said that his poetry is based on “the indeterminacy created by ambiguity—sometimes two words tha...

In September of 2012 I wrote a very positive review of the independently published debut novel in this series, Unheard Of . The sequel does not disappoint.             Picking up where the first book left off, The Silent Sound finds the three main characters—Arco, Chastin, and Rachel—setting out to sea with two brothers named Zeke and Zender, a mysterious and doom-prone old fisherman, and a tough as nails female captain in the Imperial Navy after the islands are attacked by a sea-dwelling race of beings known as the demar.             There is plenty of action and conflict among the ship’s disparate group of passengers, complicated by a pair of thought-talking music sticks named Maletalio—the unifying force among the three main characters and the holder of many of the secrets of the Keys.             In the tried and...

(Mythos [Imprint of GMTA Publishing, 2013, fifth anniversary edition), ISBN: 978-0-615754-28-4 We live in an age of flash. An age of CGI and ultra-action in our storytelling that breeds endless comic-book films with flimsy stories and one-dimensional heroes causing brain-jarring explosions.             In many ways, publishing has followed suit, filling the stacks with dark visions of horror and title after title full of violence and sex attempting to keep afloat paper-thin story structure and one-dimensional heroes and heroines.             So it is very refreshing to read a novel like P. S. Bartlett’s Fireflies . A novel that tells, simply and elegantly, the story of a family’s love. Now, don’t get me wrong—there is violence, and sex, and there is even a supernatural series of events involving a 6-year-old boy, Ennis, and his abilities to heal throug...