The latest indie book reviews from Self-Publishing Review
Review: Fortune 69 by David Heath ★★★★
Content warning for depictions of suicide and sexual abuse.
On the Internet, there is a website that caters to every depraved and bizarre interest on the planet, mundane or otherwise. Like the Wild West of old, there are no rules, except that you never let what happens there cross into real life. Here on the anonymized “Fortune 69” dot com, reality is just what you make it.
Fortune 69 is David Heath’s debut novel, previously the writing talent behind Bilateral Comics and contributor to several short story anthologies. Heath describes himself as an author of “transgressive fiction,” which is apparent […]
The delightful, whimsical cover of this book and tongue-in-cheek cover quote (“I am almost certainly going to end up in Hell”) alerts you right away to the fact that you are getting more—far more—than another of the currently popular anti-religion screeds. Boomsliter has tremendous respect, bordering on hero worship, for Richard Dawkins, Dan Dennett, and Sam Harris. But he wisely takes a slightly different tack in this book. Boomsliter, you see, has a sense of humor (in this he owes more to Christopher Hitchens than the triumvirate mentioned above, although Boomsliter’s wit is just a tad less acerbic than Hitchens’). […]
In the middle of the 23rd Century, the foremost military power of Earth – the United States and Nations or “USAN” – has drawn conclusion to World War IV. In the wake of victory, there are events occurring on the single human colony of Mars: there are motions in the small colony for a claim to secede. The move comes at critical time of resumed elections on Earth. Pressure to control the situation escalates circumstances quickly, the Secretary of Defense, Audrey Andrews, moves the president to send their new flagships Otus and Ephialtes to the colony as a show of […]
A Blind Thrust is the term that describes an earthquake that occurs on a fault that is hidden from view – these sorts of earthquakes can be the most destructive – and here Marquis uses this as a metaphor in his thriller mystery of the same name, in the vein of Dan Brown, but instead of religion we get science, and instead of Langdon we meet a protagonist in the form of geologist Joe Higheagle, a man passionate about his work, and the environment.
Set in 1952, Nuclear Affairs is the debut novel of author J. Albert Griffiths that explores the new and terrifying world of early post-nuclear global politics. As the US military struggles to understand and manage its own nuclear research in the first decade of the Cold War, the newly-formed United States Air Force bears numerous burgeoning roles in its struggle for legitimacy.
Living Fulfilled: The Infectious Joy of Serving Others is Lisa Thomas-McMillan’s inspirational memoir about helping the plight of America’s hungry that is equal parts harrowing and uplifting. With a decidedly spiritual message, she tells of her life growing up impoverished in Alabama, settling down in Los Angeles, then traveling back to her hometown to help the plight of the poor. She is also a fierce advocate against the death penalty.
The first book of the Birth of an Assassin series is set on the backdrop of post-war, Soviet Russia. In Moscow, 1947, young Jez Kornfeld, a Jewish citizen, enlists in a military recruitment drive to fulfill his starry-eyed ideals of what it is to be a soldier.