Book Review: The Eldridge Conspiracy by Stephen Ames Berry

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Ames Berry clearly wanted to catch his reader by the throat and shake them about a bit from the outset in this novel, as the villain of the piece looked at

" a freckled teenage girl in soft repose, was now a wailing, writhing horror of ochre scales and suppurating sores, it's tentacles battering the lid." 

It worked, the opening sequence introduced us to Doctor Schmidla another 'recovered' Nazi from the 2nd World War by the American government.  Unlike other Nazi's though, where they were, it seems, integrated into a life for good and betterment, Schmidla's purpose, on behalf of the United States Government was to actively seek out (with the aid of the CIA and FBI), experiment on and ultimately murder a select group of US Citizens!

It is difficult to review this book to much without giving away the plot line but if you are old enough, and if you're not check out the Wikipedia page here , you will remember the movie The Philadelphia Experiment, where the US Government attempted to make a US Battleship invisible, during WW2.  The attempt failed!

This book takes us to the present (or at least to the 80's when this book is set and doesn't suffer any for that) and to the fact that while the attempt to make the ship invisible failed, it did do something to the crew.  Whatever it did wasn't manifest in the survivors but in their children and even more so in their grandchildren.... Think X Men II


There are twists and turns everywhere in this book with a plausibility borne from the recent hash of super hero movies, but the real hero is a father who lost a baby daughter only to find that the mad Doctor arranged for her kidnapping (presumed death) over twenty years before..... and he finds a friend in the closing paragraphs wasn't the friend you'd want to have

There are some graphic horror scenes described, particularly when one bad-ass gets his comeuppance at the hands, or rather the mind, of one of the pursued 'Potentials' and I liked what she did with him, even if she herself didn't.

The book is well written and the characters feel real.  All of us by now, have seen far too many shows telling us that Governments are not always the protectors that we would want or believe them to be and  Ames Berry plays on this and turns it into a horrific story suggesting that the people in power for years have been killing citizens for a perceived threat, whether it was real or not and as with his futuristic space borne books he has left the door open in another reality for a come back and I for one , hope there is a sequel....

Editing for Kindle /iPad: 4 out of 5
Reading Enjoyment: 4 out of 5 based on a couple of formatting errors and no page numbers
Page length on kindle /iPad: 279 estimated although the page numbers are not shown on either iPad or Kindle - Come on Mr Ames Berry show the Bl**dy numbers
Plot: 5 out of 5
Overall Rating: 5 out of 5

Book Review - Final Assault by Stephen Ames Berry

I've said it before, I am not a huge science fiction fan but then I read some books by a guy called Michael R Hicks, the In Her Name series.   Through Mr Hicks I found Stephen Ames Berry, who like Mr Hicks had written a small series of space based adventures and I am coming round to be a fan of SyFy alongside all the other genres that I read.  The other thing about these guys are that they are Indie Authors, self published through the various e book formats. And I am fast becoming a HUGE fan of Indie authors, folk who market their own books because they can't get a publishing deal, why the hell not, there are some fine Indie writers out there, and they engage with you, although so do some more established authors as well, Julian Stockwin, a firm favourite, who takes time to respond to you through social media,  but, this is about A Book and not my gripe on publishing agencies, so here goes....


Final Assault by Stephen Ames Berry, last in a quartet of books:

100000 years ago humanoids fled from an other universe to escape the sentient Telens, biofab beings that had created them and used them as slaves.  With the help of the Scotar, an insectoid shape shifting, teleporting race, they establish on new planets setting up their own planetary systems and hierarchical structures.

For 100000 years they lived under an emperors rule; but then the Scotar introduced a new element into the mix. An element that tore the new planetary systems apart in wars that spanned the known universe killing billions. Why? The Scotars knew that the Telens would eventually come for their escaped slaves and determined that over the centuries they had become fat on commerce; lazy and unable to defend themselves against the Telens.  By starting  such a destructive war the Scotars believed that the surviving humans would be better able to defend themselves against what was to come, regardless of the cost in lives and planetary systems.......

The Final Assault is the culmination of that war and to the coming of the Telans.  It brings together all the parts of the previous books, in a fast paced Galaxy and Alternate reality spanning flight and fight and withdrawal to defend Kronar the home planet established after the first flight to safety all those centuries ago.

Spiders webs of intrigue and double dealing start to unravel, the truth of who the Scotars really were are revealed, central characters are revealed to be more than we thought in previous books, and it all makes perfect sense.

It's Science Fiction and it is out of this world, it scans as you read and it is fast paced action from start to finish.

  Ratings:
Editing for Kindle: 4 out of 5
Reading Enjoyment: 5 out of 5
Plot: 5 out of 5
Overall Story: 5 out of 5


Previous Posts:

The Battle for Terra Two
The AI War

The Battle for Terra Two by Stephen Ames Berry

Wow, well that was an unexpected turn of events! There are four books in Ames Berry’s BioFab wars and as usual, numpty that I am I picked them up out of sequence and completely missed No 1! 

I started with the AI War, No 3 in the sequence missing out No 1 The BioFab War and this one, The Battle for Terra Two, the final novel in the quartet being The Final Assault....  The story does follow through in each book so, if you are going to pick them up for reading, can I suggest doing it in the correct order, it is less confusing that way.  Having said that it is less confusing, I still did enjoy the two books that I have read and so have immediately downloaded the last book in the series to my Kindle to finish them off!

As far as I can tell our earth is still stumbling along in a universe that has greatly outpaced us in evolvement and technology, which it seems to an extent we should be grateful for.

While we stumble along other humanoid races, such as the Kronarin and Utrians developed to an extent where they have engineered machines to do almost everything for them up to the point, where we get Terminatoresque Machines deciding that they can do things better than their human creators and spark a war.  It seems to have been complicated by a race of insectoid (Starship Trooperesque) life forms, known as Scotar, that can shape shift and teleport themselves in and out of situations.  A war rages across universes with whole star systems being laid waste and billions of lives lost.

These books follow the war through Commodore Detrelna and his Flag Captain Lawrona and the crew of the battle cruiser Implacable.  

The books were all originally written in the 80’s and reformatted for ebook in recent years, my biggest criticism is not with the stories although there are some small holes in them, but it is rather with the crossover formatting where words are misspelled.  There wasn’t that many to be honest, but you are in the middle of a gripping story and your eyes are racing over the words drinking it in and suddenly your brain disengages from the story to a typographical error and you go back to it to see if it was you or what you were reading that threw you off track.  Just a little disconcerting, and with a little more attention could have been avoided...

Detralna and Lawrona in Implacable are in orbit around Terra, Earth to you and I.  They learn from Guan-Sharick, one of the enemy insectoid, who appears to be ‘friendly’, that one of the Scotars, as the insects are called, has managed to travel to an alternate reality and is ‘growing’ a new breed of insect warriors who will come through a portal and the war will start again, this time with humanoids being completely destroyed.  Guan-Sharick goes on to inform them that the only way to prevent this, is for them to travel to the alternate reality and stop it from happening.

It turns out that in the alternate reality, America switched sides during the 2^nd World War, to fight with Germany against Russia and Japan and that Russia and Germany are the ones who end up with nuclear weapons.  America is largely in ruins and while self governing, it is controlled by the Fourth Reich and under military rule with German Wermacht officers serving on US soil to help control the ‘Gangers’.  Cities are small enclaves of the chosen few, surrounded by gangs controlling the suburbs and fighting back.....  It is a fascinating concept.

The story follows the insertion of agents from ‘our’ reality into the alternate reality in a bid to track down and destroy the Scotar base while the Commodore on Implacable tries to find a way to get his battle cruiser to the alternate reality to make sure another stolen Battleship from his reality is taken out of play.........   It is fast paced from beginning to end and SyFy buffs will, I think love it.

 The Battle for Terra Two really does have an intriguing storyline and if I was Mr Ames Berry I would probably look at the whole thing with a view to developing a few stories based on the alternate reality as standalone novels, going back to that point in the war where everything changes.......

               Ratings:

               Editing for Kindle: 4 out of 5

               Reading Enjoyment: 5 out of 5  

   Plot: 4 out of 5

   Overall Story: 5 out of 5

Related Posts:  The AI War by Stephen Ames Berry 

The 0.99pence /0.99cent Kindle Book

I started on twitter about 3 years ago and didn't do too much with it until this year when I started to really find and engage with people on it.  Unlike huge celebrities and some others, I do not (and this is not a blog looking for followers) have a vast following on twitter, but what I do have is around 130 odd followers with a fair number of those people with whom I interact with.

Another quirk in my followers, that's not to say that they are quirky, well some are and you know who you are, is that the vast majority of them are authors and another quirky fact is that 99% of those are Indie authors.

Now, if you do not know what an Indie author is, it is someone who for whatever reason, sometimes by choice, sometimes not, who self publishes their own works, taking on the role of writer, agent, publicist, marketing guru and accountant, and while in many cases, holding down a paid day job or are home makers.

I recently noticed a thread on twitter between a couple of authors with one commenting that,    "$.99 for an ebook increasingly a signal to readers that a book from a writer new to them is dreck. They move on."

Now, I am assuming that most people reading this will know the basics of Twitter and you will know that sometimes you are a bit (if I could meet the person that coined this phrase I'd smack them in the teeth) of a peeping Tom, listening in on a conversation between others, but that is the nature of the medium.  So, anyway, essentially what was going on here was that one author chappie was saying to the other that the $.99 book on E readers was doing him and others like him a disservice as people like me would see a book retailing so cheaply, think it was pretty rubbish and not entertain the thought of reading it!

Well, if you have read my previous blogs, you will know I am not scared to jump in where I am not wanted...so I entered the conversation with the comment that if that was in fact the case I would not have read either of their books and I would not be interacting with them, giving them a piece of my mind, but this got me to thinking about this some more and here it is!

Since I got my Kindle of my wife for Christmas 2010 I have downloaded 42 books that averages out at 4.2 books per month and I have also still bought about 6 books in written form so that takes my monthly average to 4.8 books per month.  Now I do have to confess that while I have a voracious appetite for reading and I can be reading 2 or three books simultaneously there are periods where I will go weeks without picking up Kindle or book, so of the 48 books I have so far purchased this year I have still to read 7 of them but I think that's still pretty good going.

Now here is a snapshot of the books I have bought via my Kindle at a reduced price:

"Cambridge Blue" by Alison Bruce cost £1.00                 "Open Season" by CJ Box cost £1.00

            














"The Bitch Proof Suit" by De Ann Black          "In Her Name: Empire" by Michael R Hicks cost Free
 cost  £0.86

The AI War by Stephen Ames Berry cost £2.14

Now, these are only a few of the 'cheap' books that I have purchased, and prior to buying them I had never heard of any of the authors, not one.  I now proudly own all 7 of Michael R Hicks published offerings and keep giving him a hard time on Twitter to write more.  CJ Box, the same, never heard of the guy but now own 8 of his novels.  De Ann Black, romantic comedy, loved it and bought her next book "The Strife of Reilly".  Allison Bruce, never heard of her, wonderful crime drama set In Cambridge England, scoping out more of her books. Stephen Ames Berry, never heard of him and full on SyFy not usually my cup of tea but a great entertaining read. Samples of other books downloaded and entered on my Amazon wish list to come back to later.

So my point is, that if I hadn't bought these 'cheap' books I would never have gone on to read even more of the wonderful books that the author has published.  And before you think that all I do is purchase the cheaper end of the market, that is also not the case.  Julian Stockwin, Harry Sidebottom, Conn Iggulden, Lee Child, Alexander McCall-Smith and of course CJ Box, Mark Beaumont, all fit into this category, all non Indie Authors, whose books are rarely discounted, have all been bought through Kindle or on hardback in the last year, so there is no discrimination there.

The wonderful thing about the Kindle is that it also allows us, the reader, to download a sample of authors book with a few chapters in it, read it, see if we like it and then purchase or discard it.  That's how I found most of my Indie Authors.  But the bottom line is, if I liked it, I bought it, I didn't worry too much about the price.

I suppose the bottom line and the difference between my Indie Authors and my Established Authors is: The established ones have the publishing houses behind them and normally have a following that is willing to pay the price, and sometimes, since discovering Indie Authors I do find myself muttering about the cost of the Established Authors when I am reading a book with a flowing and compelling storyline every bit as good as 'Publishing House' authors.

So, while I can understand the frustration that Indie Authors must have at the pricing disparity, and I have no answer for it here, I have to say that you are not doing your readers a disservice by producing the truly wonderful books that you do.  I am sorry that you are not receiving the accolades or reaping the financial gains of others, but I for one am delighted with all my purchases of my £0.99 pence books which have lead to many enjoyable reading hours with the addedd benefit of making many wonderful Twitter friends in those authors I am reading, and even some I haven't quite got round to yet. Mr Halstead.

The AI War - Stephen Ames Berry

"Space, the Final Frontier" Well not if you are a Science Fiction Writer, apparently.  Space seems to have no end to the amount of stories that can be set up there and, in many time lines, or, as in the words of Buzz Lightyear, "To Infinity and Beyond".

Science Fiction in book form has not been something that has really interested me since I read the E.E. Doc Smith 'Lensman' Books way back in the early 70's and even then those books had been around for about 40 years prior to that.  All that changed a couple of months ago when I picked up, on Kindle, the In Her Name series of books by Michael R Hicks.  Even my wife has picked up a science fiction novel (!) recently by some chirpy chappie called Jason Halsted, and by all accounts, has thoroughly enjoyed it Ramblings of an Old Bird!


I then picked up The AI War by Stephen Ames Berry 

To summarise,  the battle cruiser Implacable is in Orbit over Terra when the Commodore is attacked in his quarters while sleeping.  As he begins to question the intruder two shots ring out and he, the intruder falls dead.

The shooter turns out to be a Special Ops Intelligence Colonel, who, it turns out later on,  is also something much more dangerous.  He goes on to inform the Commodore that as the assassination attempt has failed Fleet Ops will be issuing orders for his arrest on treason and that the orders are being issued by AI Lifeforms that have infiltrated fleet.

The Commodore and his battle fleet were due too leave on a mission that Fleet Ops wants scrapped but Special Ops Intelligence wants to succeed and so the Colonel convinces him to leave for the mission immediately...

Thus begins the last AI war in the quadrant and this universe, as the Commodore and his crew find that they are placed on a 'destroy on site list', and they become the only ones to know that the vanquished AI's of centuries past who they have chased into an alternate universe have been rebuilding and re-arming while looking for a way to establish a 'worm hole' back to their mortal enemy to take their final revenge!

The book got a bit techy in places but if you are a fan of science fiction movies, nothing in the book was outside the realms of, or as unbelievable, as what happens on a cinema or TV screen.  Over all it was a fast paced thriller as the the Commodore and his crew are chased across the galaxy by both 'friend and foe' trying not to kill their friends but desperately trying to find a way to save the galaxy from the invasion that is coming.

Lots of intrigue with plenty of twists and turns.  It slowed down in places and some of the parts seemed to end abruptly as it jumped to another scene, but from a slow start, bearing in mind I am 'new' to the genre, I thoroughly enjoyed it and have downloaded a sample of his next book to look at, since completing the AI War.

I give it a 4 out of 5 rating for keeping my interest piqued

Good reading