After much learning-of-new-skills and tearing-out-of-hair, the new e-Fiction Book Club site has been built and is ready to go.

Our launch date is 1st of December; next Tuesday, which coincides very nicely with Free e-day (support your indie artists!).

And, it turns out that our launch day for the new site is the same as Janoda’s soon to be released e-fiction zine!

December 1st is going to be a great day.

We have a few things planned for the launch:

• Guest post: Living in Exiting Times by science fiction author Graham Storrs;
• Member Karen investigates books vs e-books;
• Publishers and authors will be able to announce their new releases on the site;
• the submission queue will be open again on Dec 1st.

The new site is much more interactive, and we hope a lot more functional!  Much of the old site will remain, mostly due to the discussion threads.

The new site will be linked on twitter and on this site on launch day.  Come along, look around, join in.

And thanks, to everyone, for your continued support and enthusiasm for this project and digital fiction in general.

Entertaining

Gripping

Emotive

Craft

The Philosopher in Arms is a free serialisation of a book originally published in 1991.  This is excellent for readers, as it gives us access to a book that is out of print and probably will never be reprinted.

Philosopher is not an easy read, and I don’t think it will appeal to the casual reader.  It’s heavy going, with very formal prose, and it presents some very heavy, hard-hitting concepts.  That said, if you want to be challenged as a reader, if you like to read stories that make you think, I can recommend this tale.

What I really appreciated as a reader was the worldbuilding.  Instead of creating a society that mimics our current beliefs and ideals, Wehrstein has created a world that is almost alien, with practices that we would consider barbaric.  The true skill in the writing is how this society is portrayed as believable and sympathetic.

The story is written from the point of view of Chevenga, the future semanakraseye (king?) and intimately details his life.  I admit that this style of story is not my cup of tea, so I didn’t enjoy it as much as others might.  I was interested more in the world and the culture than in the character.  Not to say that Chevenga’s struggles aren’t interesting; I just didn’t find them compelling.  What I did enjoy was the almost journal-like tone of the story.  In some places it was like being in a conversation with the main character.

I don’t think I can do this serial justice in a short reading period.  It requires concentration and time to appreciate.  But those are not negatives; Wehrstein has crafted a very strong work.  The prose, while formal, is beautifully done; the characters real.  More than once I had to pause and consider what I had read, how I felt about the actions of the characters from the viewpoint of my own morality.  How I could sympathise with them.  More than once the author made me feel uncomfortable.

I didn’t enjoy it, but I certainly appreciated it.

However.

The announcement is a one-time only event.  If we find people are abusing the feature and using it to flood the site with plugs for their book, we will be forced to stop.

More details after the site launch.

Entertaining

Gripping

Emotive

Craft

I’ve long been a fan of the short story format, and Admonishments is a perfect example of why.  Ideas and concepts that would never make a novel find a home here, and you can create some truly astonishing art along the way.  However, that can make the short story inaccessible to readers who like their heroes sexy, their heroines kick-ass and their plots direct and action packed.  Admonishments is not for the cursory reader.

The main character of Admonishments is Shame, priest of Corrections.  But the story is not told from his point of view.  Each tale is presented from the point of view of those who have come to the temple to be Corrected. Each tale is a mere moment in the life of someone who has sinned.  But those moments are evocative, amusing, painful, beautiful by degrees.  Each tale has a mood, an emotion; grief, anger, fear.  And in each tale, the figure of Shame fills the frame, larger than life, both frightening and comforting.

The true beauty of this collection is the way that the culture is painted in the background as you read.  It’s like sitting in a white room, reading, while behind you brush strokes of colour appear on the blank walls, then you look up and suddenly you’re on an alien world, the journey so subtle that you barely felt the movement.

Subtle is a good word for this collection.  It requires time, attention and thoughtfulness from the reader.  But the investment is worth it.  You could easily use each story as a meditation point; like a mandala, the tales have depth and complexity belied by their length.

A subtle, beautiful piece of art by a very talented writer.

There will be upcoming changes to the club, including moving to our own domain and changing the way we choose books for review.

With that in mind, we’re looking for more members!  If you have a passion for reading, especially for mainstream, romance and paranormal, and are interested in digital fiction and new ways of reading, send an e-mail to info at efictionbookclub.org.

**Added

As Anna pointed out, it might be helpful to know what’s required of members.

1.  A love of reading – we read a lot; every week there is something to read.  But you don’t have to participate in all reading rounds.

2. A love of community – we want people who can champion books that they love; people who like to talk about books to other readers.

3. It’s nice if you can write reviews, but no longer a requirement.

The current reading schedule will continue while we move.

Almost 3,000 years after a human-made cataclysm reduced both human population and technology back to primitive levels, civilization is rising again slowly.  Here and there, tiny relics and pockets of the old knowledge are left, some useful, some merely intriguing, which their possessors sometimes guard secret, sometimes use and sometimes spread, so that there are all kinds of possibilities.  The different cultures, their values, customs, languages and so on are portrayed in great detail, so as to give the reader a feel of being there.

Fourth Chevenga Shae-Arano-e has to walk through the darkness that every hero does, starting at an extraordinarily young age.  Destined by birth to serve his strictly-democratic people as “the-people-wills-one” and war leader, he has a vision at the age of seven showing him that he will not live past thirty.

Growing up brilliant in war and unlucky in love, Chevenga faces his greatest challenge when his nation is invaded by the same empire that is holding him captive as a gladiator.  Tortured to insanity, healed on the island of healers, he is still key to liberating his people—and then changing defense into conquest, with the aid of an allied people who have secretly retained hang-gliding technology.  He then faces an even greater danger: the deep distrust of his own people for anyone competent with power.

At once heart-wrenching, spiritual, grittily realistic and shot through with humour, The Philosopher in Arms is about war, sacrifice, friendship, loyalty and love, but perhaps more than anything else, the meaning and ethics of power and fate.

The Philosopher in Arms is the massively-revised version of two published fantasy novels, Lion’s Heart and Lion’s Soul (Baen Books, 1991) set in the “Fifth Millennium” world collaboratively created with S.M. Stirling and Shirley Meier.  Click here to read for free in serial form.

Read along with us!

Our members will read the material for this round and post a review by the end of the round. Read along with us, and post your opinion of the book in the comments trail. Or post a review on your own blog, but don’t forget to leave a link to your review so we can find you.

If you’ve already read and reviewed this book, you are welcome to add a link to your review in the comments trail.

About Karen Wehrstein

Karen Wehrstein lives in Muskoka, Ontario, Canada (about two hours drive north of Toronto).  She has published three novels and several short stories in traditional publishing and works as a freelance journalist and as a homeopath.  She is mom to two wonderful sons and can-opener to the requisite writers’ menagerie of dogs and cats (two of each).

Fellow author Shirley Meier is posting a novel set in the same setting and same macro-story, but from the point of view of a different character, entitled Eclipse Court.

The Admonishments of Kherishdar discusses crime and punishment in 25 pieces of flash fiction, and revolves around the figure of Shame, the priest who Corrects those sins and returns people to society.

The Admonishments of Kherishdar is a science fiction short story collection.  It can be read online at Stardancer.org, or you can buy the chapbook at Amazon.

Read along with us!

Our members will read the material for this round and post a review by the end of the round. Read along with us, and post your opinion of the book in the comments trail.  Or post a review on your own blog, but don’t forget to leave a link to your review so we can find you.

If you’ve already read and reviewed this book, you are welcome to add a link to your review in the comments trail.

About M.C.A. Hogarth

My  science fiction and fantasy stories have been published in Strange Horizons, Oceans of the Mind and The Leading Edge. My work has been chosen for the Tiptree reading list, recommended for a Nebula and nominated for a Spectrum; one of my stories won the Strange Horizons’s Reader’s Choice award. I’m also an artist, with my work in dozens of private collections in the US and internationally.

M.C.A Hogarth can be found online at Stardancer, at her blog and on Twitter.

Entertaining

Gripping

Emotive

Craft

I actually read this last weekend, but due to starting NaNoWriMo, hadn’t gotten around to writing my review until now – it’s the first time I’ve written one so long after reading something, so bear with me!

The writing flows easily in this piece, while it was once serialized, the novel is now complete which means all the chapters are there for your perusal which is a wonderful thing in my books. I often get irritated at having to wait til the next week to read a little more, so it was nice to be able to just read through to the end.

That said, I think I would have kept coming back even if it had come up while being serialized, the story is really catchy and got under my skin. I really wanted to know what was going on, and the writer does a great job of peppering subtle hints and mysteries throughout so that the answer is never really revealed until she is ready to show you, and it’s almost too late for the characters involved.

I felt a little like the wrap up of the novel was rushed. It’s an insane situation, one which the main character’s whole life is drastically changed, along with her perception of the world. I was getting close to the end, wondering how on earth everything was going to be tied up before I reached it, and while it was, I think I would have been more satisfied had it taken a little more effort on the part of the main characters, if their actions had actually been the cause of their making out of it alive. While I wouldn’t say it was anti-climatic, I don’t think it was all it could be either.

My main gripe with the story though is the instant obsessive love connection that Azazel has with Jason. From the moment he bursts into her life, he is pretty much all she can think about. One original aspect of this ‘soul connection’ type of romance is that initially she doesn’t realize she’s completely nuts for him, but she soon figures it out and romance ensues – well as much as it can under the circumstances. I think in some ways it’s a staple of romance novels, but it annoys me endlessly, which is probably why I don’t read a lot of romance.

All that aside, it certainly wasn’t enough to make me stop reading. The story was just so intriguing and I HAD to know what it was all about. I wasn’t disappointed either, the subtle hints dropped didn’t mislead, but they certainly didn’t give the game away and when the reality of the situation crashed down on top of Azazel, I felt like I was being hit with it as well which was a nice touch.

If you’re into romance, into suspense, then this one is definitely worth checking out.

Jason races into Azazel’s life–sweaty, tortured, and hunted by covert forces. Even though her football-player boyfriend doesn’t like it, Azazel is drawn to Jason. He’s so complicated. He gets in fistfights, but always wins them–efficiently and thoroughly. He reads Plato and argues with their AP teacher. But he’s also quiet and serious, haunted by a past he won’t talk about. Azazel feels obsessed. She can’t let anything get in the way of finding out Jason’s secrets, not even her boyfriend, her friends, or her parents. Most importantly, no matter how dangerous Jason claims it is for her to be near him, she can’t let him leave.

As menace begins to surface from even the most trusted and familiar places, Azazel finds herself flung into a whirlwind of sinister motives and clandestine proceedings. Though Azazel evades each escalating danger, her feelings for Jason may prove to be the greatest danger of all.

Breathless is a young adult romance/suspense novel.  You can read it online here.

Read along with us!

Our members will read the material for this round and post a review by the end of the round. Read along with us, and post your opinion of the book in the comments trail.  Or post a review on your own blog, but don’t forget to leave a link to your review so we can find you.

If you’ve already read and reviewed this book, you are welcome to add a link to your review in the comments trail.

About Valerie Chambers

V. J. Chambers decided to chuck the mainstream sometime the spring of 2009. Since then, she’s been publishing her YA Romance-Thriller Breathless on her website (http://vjchambers.com).

Since she’s an indie author, she makes a living teaching high school. She is also fond of snakes, cheesecake, her boyfriend Aaron, Stephen King books, Buffy, and corduroy pants (although not exactly in that order).   She lives in Shepherdstown, WV.

Entertaining

Craft

Gripping

Emotive

Summary: Joel, a telephone clerk, is being pressured by his girlfriend to get a “real job” and living an ordinary life until a serious bout of karma interrupts his life and gives him a new calling.

Likes: I don’t typically like blog fiction and superhero stories, so having them put together is something I didn’t think I’d enjoy. I was pleasantly surprised. The premise, while not altogether new, is refreshing to read about. The characters, Joel, seems to have superficial reasons to come to this conclusion about what direction he wants his life to take. His character isn’t instantly likable. I’m not sure what makes this story more interesting in blog format than just reading a first person narrative. The story feels like it could be taking place in real time and it has a context, a place, and allows you to suspend your disbelief about superheros in our world.

One of things that I dislike about blog fiction and something that the author doesn’t make the mistake of falling into is when the “character” writes about the mundane. Some authors try to make the blog so realistic that they write about all the boring things in life. They forget that there is still a story to tell. I started reading this story with the intention of just reading five chapters and writing the review, but it’s interesting because it’s just highlights and details and not a play-by-play of the character’s life.

Dislikes: None of the characters are particularly likable, but they are interesting. There are a few typos and mistakes, but nothing that was glaringly wrong. I did get thrown out of the story a bit when the typos came up, but it wasn’t too bad to get back into the story. It takes a little while for the whole plot to come in to play, but the writing makes up for it.

Overall: I think I might keep reading this story. Most stories, even if they aren’t in my preferred genres can interest me if they have good writing. Take a chance on this story, you won’t be disappointed.