Tag Archives: Rudolph Kohn

April 3, 2025 · 1:00 am

A Review of The Fifth

Book cover for The Fifth  by Rudolph Kohn. Image on cover shows the Milky Way at night. The sky is starry and feels endless.Title: The Fifth

Author: Rudolph Kohn

Publisher: Self-Published

Publication Date: August 14, 2024

Genres: Science Fiction, Horror

Length: 11 pages

Source: I received a free copy from the author.

Rating: 3 Stars

Blurb:

A team of four astronauts have just left the Solar System, carrying several thousand of their fellow men and women for the first colonization attempt of a relatively habitable planet just a few light-years away. Just as they are getting ready to enter cold sleep themselves, they observe a strange reading on their sensors…

Review:

Was it an ordinary workday? Well, that depends on your definition of those terms.

Some tales work better if they’re plot focused, and this was one of them. Brief, necessary details were shared about the four astronauts who were finishing up a few last chores before putting themselves into cryosleep for their long journey to a faraway habitable planet, but that wasn’t the focus of the plot by any means. Instead, checking off the last few items and being interrupted by a computer alarm were what really mattered here, and I was engaged with every single scene along the way. This is a good story to read for folks who prefer to dive straight into the action and then work their way back to a bit of character development from there.

I struggled with the cliffhanger ending. It felt as though it could have easily gone on for at least a few more chapters in order to explain what was happening and how the twist was going to change the lives of the astronauts and the thousands of people in cryosleep they were protecting. No, I didn’t need to have every loose end tied up, but I would have liked to at least see more of the main characters’ reactions to the final scene and few more hints about what what happened next.

With that being said, that last sentence did grab my attention and make me read it over again a few times. It could be interpreted in more than one way, some of which landed firmly in the horror genre, and I enjoyed the process of coming up with possibilities and trying to determine which one was most likely. If any of my readers end up checking out this short story, I’d love to hear your thoughts about what the sentence meant and which interpretation you chose.

The Fifth made me want more.

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March 20, 2025 · 1:00 am

A Review of The Broken Home

Book cover for The Broken Home by Rudolph Kohn. Image on cover shows part of a stone building with a window in it. Most of the rest of the building has been destroyed. These ruins are set against a cloudy desert background. A few rays of light are poking through and illuminating the scene and the few plants growing in the soil beneath it. Title: The Broken Home

Author: Rudolph Kohn

Publisher: Self-Published

Publication Date: August 12, 2024

Genres: Science Fiction

Length: 16 pages

Source: I received a free copy from the author.

Rating: 3 stars

Blurb:

Over ten thousand years in the future, mankind has spread to the stars… but the Earth Empire was left behind, and the birthplace of mankind was lost–first to tyrants, and then to the obscurity of history. However, when an explorer stumbles onto the once-great planet, not a single person has survived. The planet itself goes up for auction, and the buyer seeks to understand what happened, so long ago. The Broken Home is a short story about the excavation of the greatest fortress the Earth Empire ever built.

Content Warning: References to an ancient war and death.

Review:

Anyone can learn from the past if they listen closely.

Science fiction fans who have been immersed in this genre for a long time will probably be able to figure out what is happening in this tale fairly quickly, but that isn’t a criticism of this piece. Not everything needs  shocking plot twists in order to be worth reading! What mattered more was seeing how Jenkins and Marley reacted to what they discovered about humanity’s past when they returned to Earth to see if there was anything interesting left behind there. I sympathized with the mixture of emotions they experienced as they uncovered something that no living person was aware of. Honestly, I probably would have behaved the same way if I were in their shoes!

As this short story was heavily centred on its plot development, I would have liked to see more attention paid to how humanity evolved over ten thousand years. That is a long period of time in which all sorts of incredible – or terrible – things could have happened, and I found myself wishing for more details about what the characters knew about their recent and distant past. This easily could have been expanded into a novella or full-length novel, and I would have happily read a much longer version of it.

One of the things I liked the most about this piece was how it reacted to the idea of history being something that is always changing as new information is added and old assumptions possibly being reinterpreted by the newest generation. Some things might be lost in the mists of time depending on record keeping and how much current historians know about a specific era, but that doesn’t mean it’s hopeless. There is always the possibility of change as this field develops and new perspectives are considered. I know this paragraph is vague, but I’m trying to avoid spoilers while also sharing the wonder of how quickly our assumptions can shift given the right variables. That is to say, keep an open mind while reading this!

The Broken Home piqued my curiousity.

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November 21, 2024 · 1:00 am

The Space Race: A Review of The Paean Project

Book cover for The Paean Project by Rudolph Kohn. Image on cover shows Earth as viewed from the moon. You can see just a sliver of the moon - including moon dust - on the bottom of the page. Then there is a lot of inky blackness of space before the little blue Earth comes into view. It’s a cloudy day there and you can see swirls of large clouds over the ocean. Title: The Paean Project

Author: Rudolph Kohn

Publisher: Self-Published

Publication Date: August 11, 2024

Genres: Science Fiction, Historical

Length: 7 pages

Source: I received a free copy from the author.

Rating: 3 Stars

Blurb:

In this short alternative history science fiction story, we have the journal of a Navy engineer brought into a secret project to continue manned spaceflight trials after the first attempt to reach the moon ended in tragedy. The project drew together some of the best minds of the Navy and the Air Force, as they worked to put a man around the moon. This journal is the only surviving record.

Content Warning:

Review:

If you love epistolary stories, keep reading!

I adored the fact that this was written as a series of journal entries. That’s not a very common style of storytelling these days, but it can work beautifully in certain cases like this one. Let me point out that Mr. Kohn didn’t have a lot of space for plot or character development here, but he used every last sentence to wring out as much of both of them as roughly seven pages would allow for. That is not an easy thing to accomplish, so I will tip my cap to him for making this such a pleasant reading experience overall. By framing everything as journal entries, he pulled this reader into the burning question of what was really happening on this secret project and how much the government may or may not know about the dangers these characters were facing.

As much as I wanted to give this tale a higher rating, the ending made it difficult for me to do that due to how little was resolved in it. This is something I’m saying as a longtime fan of the science fiction genre who doesn’t expect every loose end to be tied up. Some mystery is a fabulous thing in this genre, but in this case I think the plot would have been more satisfying – for me, at least – if the last journal entry or the post script had given some clue about what truly happened to these characters.

With that being said, this was still a positive first impression for me as someone who was brand new to this author’s work. He had a smooth writing style that was easy to sink into as the unnamed protagonist became more unnerved by the strange things occurring during and soon after the manned spaceflight trial. There was a lot of promise here, and I hope he keeps writing. I will definitely be keeping an eye out for more from him.

The Paean Project was thought provoking.

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October 31, 2024 · 1:00 am

A Review of Old Forests and Older Things Within

Book cover for Old Forests and Older Things Within by Rudolph Kohn. Image on cover is a photo taken of a mountain range on a very foggy day. It’s so foggy, in fact, that this looks like a black and white photo! You can see pine forests growing on the smaller mountains (or maybe large hills) in the foreground, but the fog grows thicker as you look up. It’s an overcast day and only thin ribbons of sunlight make it through the clouds overhead. Title: Old Forests and Older Things Within

Author: Rudolph Kohn

Publisher: Self-Published

Publication Date: August 9, 2024

Genres: Science Fiction, Paranormal, Contemporary

Length: 25 pages

Source: I received a free copy from the author.

Rating: 4 stars

Blurb:

Victor Martinez-Silva thought he was going to enjoy a leisurely vacation in Peru with his wife.

As they were hiking up to the ruins of Choquequirao, something happened to his wife, Amy–something Victor couldn’t explain, much less stop.

However, a stranger found them in the nick of time, and he seemed to know exactly what to do.

Enjoy this short story introducing Lawrence G. Samson, hunter of otherworldly monstrosities hiding on our planet, waiting for the opportunity to wreak havoc on humanity!

Content Warning: parasitic infection

Review:

Hikes are supposed to be relaxing, right?

Nature can be a little intimidating at times for some of us, so I appreciated the fact that Mr. Kohn leaned into this fear in order to set the scene. There’s nothing like a character being many miles away from help in an emergency to highlight just how quickly things can go wrong and how much courage it takes to race to safety when the unthinkable happens. If any outdoors readers check this tale out, I’d love to read your takes on the themes here as I’m sure they can be a read differently by experienced hikers and campers.

I would have liked to see a little more time showing the characters’ personalities. Obviously, the fast pacing and short length can’t leave a lot of room for exposition, but I’d struggle to describe the characters if someone asked me what it would be like to meet them other than to say that Lawrence didn’t always give the clearest instructions and Victor didn’t always comprehend what he was asked to do because of how panicked he was about his wife’s condition. This could have easily been expanded upon in a few more paragraphs, and I would have happily gone with a five-star rating if the author had made that choice. Everything else about it was well written.

One of my challenges as a book blogger involves figuring out how to talk about twist endings without giving them away in my reviews. The twist is this tale was something I suspected might be coming, but I’m not the sort of reader who has to be surprised in order to enjoy something. It was still fun to see how it played out once Victor had more information about what was happening. I suspect that he would have figured it out sooner under calmer circumstances as my first impression of him was of someone who is generally capable and smart.

Old Forests and Older Things Within was an atmospheric autumn read.

 

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