C Gockel Writes

Book Review: City of Storms (Nightmarked Book 1) by Kat Ross

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Featured Fantasy: City of Storms (Nightmarked Book 1) by Kat Ross

FREE as of April 16, 2023
Click for current price: Amazon US, United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, Australia

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C’s review: A delightfully complex blend of action, adventure, and romance in a unique fantasy setting. Think post-magic apocalypse “utopia.” If it has any flaw, it is that it might have been written in a serial style and the author wasn’t quite sure how to put the episodes together. The last 1/3 of the book could have been in book 2–erm, I may have had that issue before! It didn’t keep me from stopping at book 1, and I just bought book 3 last night.

Winner of the 2022 Readers’ Favorite Gold Medal! ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

A city simmering with repressed urges…

A fallen angel bent on chaos…

And a conspiracy that could destroy them all.

Can one woman harness her own psychic power to stop it?

In a world with three layers of ever darker magic, few dare to wield the most dangerous. And those who try can fall prey to violent madness.

The Church keeps a tight leash on its citizens. It tests every child for psychological deviancy.

If you pass, you’re given a Mark. A tattoo that lets you use the ley power—and shields you from your most primal desires.

For the lucky ones, the world is at their feet. The rest suffer a life of menial jobs and hopelessness.

When tarot reader Kasia crosses paths with a young priest who hunts deviants, her own ugly secret is dragged into the light. Will they learn to trust each other in time to stop a greater evil from corrupting their world?

You’ll love the first book in this epic fantasy series because the lush weaving of intrigue, action and slow-burn romance will keep you on the edge of your seat.

Get it now.

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Book Reviews: Doomsday Book by Connie Willis

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Book Reviews: Doomsday Book by Connie Willis

$1.99 as of April 16, 2023 in United States
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(Also available in Canada, Australia, United Kingdom)

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Editor’s Note: This is one of my favorite books of all time. Sometimes darkly humorous, always heartfelt and engaging.

“A tour de force.”—The New York Times Book Review

Connie Willis draws upon her understanding of the universalities of human nature to explore the ageless issues of evil, suffering, and the indomitable will of the human spirit.

For Kivrin, preparing an on-site study of one of the deadliest eras in humanity’s history was as simple as receiving inoculations against the diseases of the fourteenth century and inventing an alibi for a woman traveling alone. For her instructors in the twenty-first century, it meant painstaking calculations and careful monitoring of the rendezvous location where Kivrin would be received.

But a crisis strangely linking past and future strands Kivrin in a bygone age as her fellows try desperately to rescue her. In a time of superstition and fear, Kivrin—barely of age herself—finds she has become an unlikely angel of hope during one of history’s darkest hours.

Book Review: Decision at Doona by Anne McCaffrey

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Book Review: Decision at Doona by Anne McCaffrey

Available at: Amazon US, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia

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This is a book of alien contact that I found charming … and charmingly dated in some ways! In the book the human settlers and members of an alien village get along just fine. Their respective governments, not so much.

Although the setup envisions populations on Earth that will likely never happen, the ennui of “captive” urban populations is prescient. Also, the desire for resources, and the human (and alien!) need for freedom and meaning.

Book Review (with caveats): Rogue Heroes: The History of the SAS, Britains Special Forces Unit That Sabotaged the Nazis and Changed the Nature of War by Ben Macintyre

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Book Review (with caveats): Rogue Heroes: The History of the SAS, Britains Special Forces Unit That Sabotaged the Nazis and Changed the Nature of War by Ben Macintyre

Available at: Amazon US, United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, Australia

Apple, Nook, Kobo, GooglePlay and your Public Library!

This book is greatly flawed with factual inaccuracies that make me want to give some people a stern talking too. It is also entertaining and informative if one reads between the lines.

I first became aware of Rogue Heroes through the BBC docuseries of the same name. It tells the adventures of the Brit’s guerrilla fighting force, the SAS, in the Sahara during WWII. The descriptions of the desert and the characters was very entertaining. However, watching it I was struck by something: the character of “Paddy” Maine the “mad Irishman” seemed to be not of a person, but of a stereotype of an Irish person. (In the U.S. the Irish are very accepted. Not so all over the world.)

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Book Reviews: Seeing Like a State – How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed by James C. Scott

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This was one of the best books I’ve ever read, and yet I’ve hesitated to write a review. It’s a difficult book to the describe, it’s a book that goes beyond being anti-Communist or anti-Capitalist to something much deeper.

States, whether capitalist or communist, want things that are orderly and commodifiable. They want to be able to count things, take those numbers, plug them into an equation and compute worker productivity, GDP, tax rates, or how many grains of food stuff can be grown on one acre of land. They want to know how much each acre of land is worth, each house, each tree, each plot of land, and each person.

This book is a fascinating study of how countries, communist, capitalist, and in the middle try to make things more easily countable–and how that results in famines, environmental destruction, and emotional misery.

It isn’t boring. The book is told with anecdotes of grand failures that result when planners, far away from their planning in both consequence and space really Fuck Things Up–whilst thinking they’re being very smart and scientific. It’s entertaining and troubling. It’s also actionable and can help us build better cities, help our farmers, foresters, and natural habitats.

It’s not exactly hopeful to realize your state sees you as a widget in a giant machine.

But society isn’t a machine and we’re not a widgets. Society is much more like an ecosystem, constantly evolving in response to the environment, and we’re the organisms within it, flowing through the ecosystem based on our needs and wants, and we’re smarter together as a collective than any central planner.

If you know your state wants to widgefy you, you can work with that knowledge, and fight plans that attempt to cement you into widget status and make you poorer, less healthy, and miserable.

I highly recommend this book. It will help you identify the “widgetification” of you, animals, and natural resources. You cannot fight something if you don’t know it is happening.

Other essential readings include: The Intelligence Trap, Free Speech – A History from Socrates to Social Media, and The True Believer

Book Review: Captain of the Guard (The Second Son Book 1) by Ron C. Nieto

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99¢ in US & UK as of January 18, 2024
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This was the best fantasy I read in 2022. It’s a secondary world adventure. There is no magic in this world, but there is action and adventure—some of the best hand to hand combat scenes I’ve read—adventure, realistic romance, and characters who jump off the page and are feel real. If you buy the first one you’ll want to buy the second. It’s even better than the first.

To protect the kingdom, he must prove his worth . . .

Oren Trevaine has never shaken the feeling that he’s not good enough, but he’s determined to avoid the same fate for his men. Oren’s first task as Captain of the Guard is to transform his unruly, undisciplined soldiers into a formidable army—if only they would cooperate.

But Oren will need to act fast because the snow is melting with the budding of spring. Soon, the enemy will be able to traverse the main pass through the imposing Sansford Range and his men must be ready to patrol the mountain.

When Oren rescues Lady Joan and her traveling party from a band of Mirdoni raiders, his worst fears are realized. The enemy has utilized less accessible routes to infiltrate their territory, and an attack is imminent.

Now Oren must not only think like the enemy, but he will need to be one step ahead. With the kingdom relying on him and Lady Joan promising her favor if he returns alive, Oren will need to prove to her and his men that he truly is good enough. Or at the very least, die trying . . .