Review: Off the Grid: The Catalyst by Brian Courtney ★★★★
Off the Grid: The Catalyst by Brian Courtney is the account of a period of the life of Pan, a man self-exiled to a life of filth, often literal as well as social. By choice, he lives “off-the-grid,” waiting in quiet, medicated terror from the corporate horrors at play – as well as those still to come – for the ignorant American masses as terrible conspiracies come to fruition beneath the surface of America, and fray the fabric of free society.
Off the Grid is a staunchly anti-establishment piece of fiction, to the extent of which the author admits can […]
Beauty and Chaos: Essays on Tokyo Life (also subtitled as Slices and Morsels of Tokyo Life; full title 僕、トーキョーの味方です in Japanese) is a collection of writings by Michael Pronko on his experiences of the past 15 years living and working in Tokyo, originally published in Newsweek Japan, collected together here.
Vinson Gant was just another spice trader, forty years old and doing well for it, running a tidy and profitable routine, enjoying a comfortable life high above the dusty smog shroud of Hazhur. That is, until a favor on behalf of a trusted associate in honorable business practices – the safe transport of their 14-year-old daughter – goes off the rails – literally. When his Hak-9 magnetic railed vehicle crashes in the dirt-poor surface districts, a simple job embroils Vinson and his passenger, Qassi Ferenyu, in an ancient, intergalactic, and almost hopeless conflict between humanity and the galaxy’s purification-frenzied “cleaners.” […]
In a dark time of the Fourth Age, in a strange land known as Earth, a child is born. Son of a king, and heir to a throne, he carries in him a darkness that threatens the world as he knows it. Born of betrayal, raised in conflict, he lives when by all means he should not, watched by mighty beings from beyond that seek – finally – to conquer the heavens and destroy their god, Orph, the ultimate entity. As the world threatens to end once more, myth turns to matter in the hands of the eponymous Kalëon, […]
The town of Duraleigh, NC, has had an astonishing turnaround. Once a den of iniquity, with drugs and sex workers on every corner, over a decade of work by county officials and local figures has seen major improvements in every category of crime each year ongoing. Touted as an epitome of what America’s cities can strive for, the movers and shakers of the town have unspoken rules and relationships to maintain their records, and one of them concerns a certain well-renowned home for under-priviledged boys.
The Haunted Trail is the debut horror title by John C Lukegord, telling the tale of a streak of (fictional, or is it?) murders occurring in 1892 along an eponymous “haunted trail” in the backwoods of Dublin, perpetrated by the “crazy” and “inbred” mental patients et al that lurked within. The book covers several of these incidents, along with the actions of the community, a handful of ghosts, and an unfortunate clown. Together, the mystery of the haunted trail begins to unwind, but at what cost?
Timpanogos by Glen R. Stott is the romantic saga of Randal Anderson, beginning as a young boy in the spring of 1958 as he begins to discover the world of dating and the new boundaries and responsibilities of a young adult.
In 2079, technology has advanced enough that machines and mankind are becoming more and more indistinguishable from and indispensable to each other. It’s in Northern California where Carmela Akronfleck – a physicist working on the secrets of time travel – succeeds in surpassing one final gauntlet of science, and transports herself to the year 1936.