Joey Madia, New Mystics Reviews

 (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...

 “Stargate Meets the Mummy”: A Review of Ancient Civilizations (Book 1 of Lamentations and Magic), by Russell Cowdrey (Coppell, TX, USA: RPC Novels, LLC, 2023). ISBN: 978-1-960300-00-3. While standing solidly on its merits as historical fiction, Ancient Civilizations ’ supernatural aspects are what set this book apart. From the opening battle, set in Egypt in 321 BC, the author cues the reader that there is something greater than reality as we know it going on. By the end of the opening, Cowdrey has given us an intriguing JJ Abrams-esque Mystery Box. The narrative quickly shifts to the Louvre. It’s 1883. Educated antiquities expert Louisa Sophia is robbing the exhibit of Ramses III. Louisa is Evelyn Carnahan from The Mummy with very sketchy morals. We again change locations to Mosul Province in the Ottoman Empire to meet the hero—physician turned archaeologist and treasure hunter Ben McGehee. Like Quincy Morris from Dracula , he’s from Texas. From Louisa and Ben’s first meet...

In this age of comic book and tent-pole action film mania (I am listening to the soundtrack of Thor: Ragnarok as I type), it is a given that talented authors who write cinematically with plenty of action and larger than life characters should enjoy increased readership. R.S. Penney and his writing meet these criteria. Desa Kincaid: Bounty Hunter is a fun, action-packed horse-ride from beginning to end. Another area where I am seeing increased traction as a writer and reviewer is in genre-bending and mashups. Desa Kincaid is a Sci-Fi Western (sort of a Cowboys vs. Aliens meets Stephen King’s The Dark Tower ) that succeeds because it employs both its genre Tropes with confidence and effect while smashing to bits just as many. Sci-Fi and the traditional Western, when you deconstruct them, are excellent bedmates. They each traffic in religious and philosophical questions and metaphors and both are driven by Landscape. Vast, unexplored spaces. They pit humans not only against...

(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 ...