Tag Archives: Science Fiction

May 29, 2025 · 1:00 am

A Review of More Money Than Brains

Title: More Money Than Brains

Author: Rudolph Kohn

Publisher: Self-Published

Publication Date: August 11, 2024

Genres: Science Fiction

Length: 13 pages

Source: I received a free copy from the author.

Rating: 5 Stars

Blurb:

Aric and the Misevelin Salvage crew find themselves in a dangerous situation when they try to rescue a captain with way too much money and not enough brains or common sense. The ship’s abysmal condition is almost entirely due to the captain’s neglect, and his bad habits get everyone into a much more dangerous situation!

A short, free introduction to the Derelict Project universe, a far-future hard science fiction setting that focuses on derelict ships and the people who find and investigate them. “More Money than Brains” is a humorous short story that provides a taste of one of the Derelict Project’s main groups of characters: Aric Misevelin, Verene “Bill” Resteford, and Lewes Otracht.

Content Warning:

Review:

Nothing can be neglected forever.

There’s nothing like walking into a disaster at work that could have been easily prevented if small issues had been taken note of and looked after immediately. No matter what type of job you may have, the frustration of people who must deal with the repercussions of others who refused to pay attention to detail and keep up with basic maintenance and cleanliness is universal. I nodded along as this crew realized the long lists of problems they needed to solve to prevent this ship from destroying itself and tried to prioritize the most urgent needs first while continuing to find even more issues along the way. It made me wish I had their specialized knowledge and could help them get things sorted out faster!

This was a fast-paced, plot-centred work that didn’t require much introspection from the characters in order to get its point across. Still, I did enjoy the little moments that showed how Aric, Bill, and Lewes reacted to the nonsense they were dealing with. The combination of their obvious breadth of knowledge on the topic of ship repair and their humorous responses to everything going to hell in a hand basket was delightful and rang true to the repair people in my own life who have had similar reactions to things they wish had been done properly and maintained steadfastly the first time around.

I also loved the ending of this piece which brought the hard science fiction elements of the storyline even further into the spotlight and made me wonder what might happen next. This is something other readers should discover in detail for themselves, but I liked the way it explored both the technical nature of the work as well as all-too human responses to machines as well as other humans that don’t always do what the experts wish they’d do. Bravo for a job well done, Mr. Kohn!

This is a standalone tale from a series.

More Money Than Brains was perfect.

A Review of Jade Cargo

Title: Jade Cargo

Author: Rudolph Kohn

Publisher: Self-Published

Publication Date: August 18, 2024

Genres: Science Fiction, Horror

Length: 14 pages

Source: I received a free copy from the author.

Rating: 5 Stars

Blurb:

A security officer on a routine patrol finds a small lone ship floating in the middle of nowhere. The ship’s systems tell him that it’s dead–a derelict, fated to float aimlessly until it is pulled into the gravity well of some heavenly body. However, the officer’s investigation turns up strange facts one after another, until he discovers the one fact that explains it all–perhaps too well.

Content Warning: Death.

Review:

Anything can happen in space.

I loved the foreshadowing in this short story. It struck the perfect balance between hinting at what was to come without giving the reader too many clues about why this ship is floating alone in the middle of nowhere. I had a rough idea formed in my mind of what might be going on, but even there I had plenty of opportunities for surprise as the unnamed narrator continued to search the abandoned vessel for possible treasure.

This is one of those cases when readers don’t need to know much about the protagonist in order to empathize with them. Their sex, race, age, and other identifying characteristics were never mentioned because their expertise in this field was what made their observations so valuable. Readers from any demographic group could imagine themselves in this character…and they just might be right! The protagonist knew something was wrong but didn’t have any concrete proof to back up their gut feeling. I both understood why they wanted to gather more information and kept hoping they’d listen to their urge to run away and never come back.

The ending was what convinced me to give this a perfect five star rating. No, of course I won’t spoil it for anyone reading my review. All I can say is that it tied up the loose ends from earlier beautifully while also making me wish for a sequel so I could see how things played out from that point. The horror themes popped out nicely here without ever needing to describe the visceral details of it in order to show the audience why we should be so scared. Now that’s the kind of horror I like to read when I do indulge in the genre!

Jade Cargo was utterly perfect.

2 Comments

Filed under Science Fiction and Fantasy

Tagged as 2020s, Book Reviews, Horror, Rudolph Kohn, Science Fiction, Self-Published

May 8, 2025 · 1:00 am

A Review of Pain Is So Close To Pleasure

Title: Pain Is So Close to Pleasure

Author: Jonathan Antony Strickland

Publisher: Self-Published

Publication Date: October 5, 2012

Genres: Science Fiction, Horror

Length: 5 pages

Source: I received a free copy from the author.

Rating: 3 stars

Blurb:

This is the story “Pain Is So Close To Pleasure”, a short comedy story I wrote several years ago. The story looks at an alien race who has recently come into contact with our own. To learn more about each other, ourselves and the aliens decide to send an exchange student to the others world to spend time there so each race can learn more about the other.

Content Warning: Swearing and death.

Review:

Cultural misunderstandings don’t even begin to cover what happened here.

Mr. Kolmortis truly felt like an alien to me which is not always something that happens when I read science fiction about creatures from other planets. His thought processes were so different from how a human would interpret the same situation that I understood why he was bewildered by our species. We were not at all what he expected to find when he agreed to this exchange student program on behalf of his school.

With that being said, I struggled to believe that either side would agree to this program without getting to know a lot more about each other first. Just because two species can communicate in some way doesn’t mean that what works for one of them will be a good idea for the other one, too. Yes, I know I’m being vague here, but the twist is something best left up to other readers to be surprised by just like I was. If only the protagonist had given more hints about why this decision was made and why the adults in the situation assumed they had all of the information they needed for such a massive step in interspecies relations.

I did appreciate Mr. Kolmortis’ closing paragraphs in his confused letter to Mr. Francis, the human headmaster who had chosen Peter as the representative of humanity for this cultural exchange. He genuinely wanted to get to the bottom of what had recently happened, and he had no idea how readers were going to react to the information he included that didn’t make sense to him. It’s not always easy to write characters like him, so kudos to Mr. Strickland for diving so deeply into this world and imagining what it might really be like to meet a sentient alien species.

Pain Is So Close to Pleasure was a wild ride.

2 Comments

Filed under Science Fiction and Fantasy

Tagged as 2010s, Aliens, Book Reviews, Horror, Jonathan Antony Strickland, Science Fiction, Self-Published, Short Story

April 10, 2025 · 1:00 am

A Review of The Metallurgy of Graham Rhenium

Title: The Metallurgy of Graham Rhenium

Author: Alastor Velazquez

Publisher: Self-Published

Publication Date: August 17, 2024

Genres: Science Fiction

Length: 20 pages

Source: I received a free copy from the author.

Rating: 5 Stars

Blurb:

First there is a spark. When friction converts kinetic energy to thermal. Molecules vibrate at the surface. That spark combusts the air molecules around it, transforming into heat and light. A chemical reaction born from speed faster than sound. When the atoms catch and connect. When the world feels the flame that is made. When it licks at anything and everything it can touch. For it craves life. It craves to keep burning and burning. And burning. And burning.

Content Warning: Grief and terminal cancer.

Review:

Nearly anything is possible with a little elbow grease and science.

The steampunk aesthetic fit Graham’s dilemma perfectly. No, of course I won’t be saying what troubles he was dealing with as figuring out that piece of the puzzle was left until a little later on in the storyline. It’s better for other readers to learn those details when I did and for them have their own opportunities to realize what was going on. What I can say is that his solution made me wish this could be a short film as I would have loved to see how a director would interpret the detailed description of it that was provided in the text. Would it stick to the original themes, lean more heavily into the science of it, or do something else entirely? With steampunk stuff, one never really knows in advance, and that’s half of the reason why it’s so fun.

This short story struck the perfect balance between providing enough details for this reader to understand what was happening while also leaving plenty of room for the audience to fill in the blanks when it came to matters that were interesting but not vital for character or plot development. That is a difficult thing to accomplish, so I must congratulate Mr. Velazquez on not only pulling it off but making eveything seem effortless. While this was my first time reading him, I certainly hope it won’t be my last based on what a good time I had soaking in his polished words.

While this isn’t what I would label a romance per se, there were romantic elements to the plot that were beautifully written and integral to understanding the characters as individuals. This is one of those cases where I was glad to see a little romance in my science fiction, and I’m saying that as a reader who has far more often not been thrilled by the mixing of these genres to say the least. For me to compliment it is a rare treat and one that the author has earned many times over today. Bravo for making the sum greater than its parts and for convincing this skeptic!

The Metallurgy of Graham Rhenium was a wild ride.

4 Comments

Filed under Science Fiction and Fantasy

Tagged as 2020s, Alastor Velazquez, Book Reviews, Chronic Illness, LGBT, Science Fiction, Self-Published, Short Story, Steampunk

April 3, 2025 · 1:00 am

A Review of The Fifth

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.

2 Comments

Filed under Science Fiction and Fantasy

Tagged as 2020s, Book Reviews, Psychological Horror, Rudolph Kohn, Science Fiction, Self-Published, Short Story

March 27, 2025 · 1:00 am

A Review of Nor Gloom of Night

Title: Nor Gloom of Night

Author: C M Weller

Publisher: Self-Published

Publication Date: August 9, 2012

Genres: Science Fiction

Length: 23 pages

Source: I received a free copy from the author.

Rating: 3 Stars

Blurb:

Paul has been called a “glorified mailman” by his peers, but he sees it as a sacred duty. Now, with the “little problem” of a big rock through half his vessel, he has to do everything he can -including the unthinkable- to deliver. The mail must get through.

Content Warning: Accidental deaths of people and of one pet.

Review:

Being a glorified mailman isn’t half as easy as it may sound.

Paul’s grumpiness and low levels in trust in humanity as a whole was a little irritating to me until I understood where he was coming from, but I appreciated the chance to change my mind about him. Honestly, he had some good points to make about how some companies are willing to cut corners in order to save a few pennies even if they risk their reputations – or, a million times worse, the health and safety of their customers – in the process. It was also interesting to see how the rough portions of his personality were smoothed out by his deep love of his cat, Liz, as well as his wife and child. Of course someone might be grouchy if they were under as much stress as he was when the audience first met him! Getting to know him better was a good thing even if I would have taken a slightly different approach to his dilemma.

I struggled with the plot holes in this short story, especially in the final scene. As much as I wanted to give this one a higher rating, I had too many questions about the logistics of what happened to do so. This was especially true when it came to explaining how cryonic suspension works in this universe and what it was and wasn’t capable of doing for someone medically speaking. Yes, there is a certain suspension of disbelief that needs to occur when reading science fiction, but including more science in this fiction would have encouraged me to bump this one up by at least a star.

With that being said, the ending was fantastic. Science fiction can be a heavy genre at times depending on who one reads, so I was pleasantly surprised by how much hope could be found in this piece. That’s something I always love to discover in speculative fiction, especially these days, and it encourages me to hopefully read more from this author soon.

Nor Gloom of Night made me smile.

A Review of The Broken Home

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.

2 Comments

Filed under Science Fiction and Fantasy

Tagged as 2020s, Book Reviews, Rudolph Kohn, Science Fiction, Self-Published, Short Story

January 9, 2025 · 1:00 am

When Wishes Come True: A Review of Grey Goo Ticky Tack

Book cover for “Grey Goo Ticky Tack” by C M Weller. Image on cover shows several dozen legos piled up on a white surface. One yellow lego is separated from the rest and has a smiling mouth on it. You know, the sort of upwardly bent line you would see on a smiley face but without the two black dots for eyes. Title: Grey Goo Ticky Tack

Author: C M Weller

Publisher: Self-Published

Publication Date: October 5, 2022

Genres: Science Fiction, LGBTQ+

Length: 10 pages

Source: I received a free copy from the author.

Rating: 5 Stars

Blurb:

They thought they had invented a cure for all the world’s problems. It would mean the end of every source of complaint in society. Unfortunately, they were solving the wrong problem. Solving the people seen as the problem is not solving the problem at all.

Content Warning: Homophobia and ableism.

Review:

Just about everyone wants an easier life, but not everyone is willing or able to pay the cost of one.

The beginning caught me off guard due to how quickly people accepted the solution for all the world’s problems. I was expecting there to be more conflict in this section, but I soon understood why the author wrote it that way and thought their reasons made sense given some later plot twists that revealed more information about what the solution entailed and how it affected those who accepted it.

This feeling popped up again once or twice as I moved into the middle portion of the plot when I would normally expect to see conflicts become more pressing and characters more eager to solve their woes. In a world without problems, things must unfold in more creative ways that don’t always strictly adhere to the storytelling stages we’re all accustomed to. As someone who reads a lot of science fiction and speculative fiction, I applaud anyone who is willing to take these sorts of risks with these genres. It’s exactly what we need to keep both new and longtime fans engaged with the sorts of questions and ideas these genres explore.

What catapulted this tale firmly into five star territory for me was the final few sentences. They cleared up my lingering confusion and provided a plot twist that made me reevaluate everything I’d just learned about these characters and the solution to every one of humanity’s problems. If you are also a little confused earlier on, keep reading. That final scene was fantastic and couldn’t have wrapped everything up together in a more satisfying way.

Grey Goo Ticky Tack was an excellent example of why I love short stories so much.

2 Comments

Filed under Science Fiction and Fantasy

Tagged as 2020s, C M Weller, LGBT, Science Fiction, Self-Published, Short Story

November 28, 2024 · 1:00 am

A Review of The World Will Not Miss….

Title: The World Will Not Miss…

Author: C M Weller

Publisher: Self-Published

Publication Date: September 27, 2024

Genres: Science Fiction, Satire

Length: 12 pages

Source: I received a free copy from the author.

Rating: 3 Stars

Blurb:

In a world where branding and algorithms are trusted more than common sense… one trillionaire seeks to break ALL the rules.

Review:

Money makes the world go around, right?

The satirical elements of this story were straightforward and honest, as humorous as that may be to say. They weren’t intended to be difficult to figure out, so don’t worry about that if this isn’t a genre you read regularly. A little bit of pondering should soon bring up a well-known person who exists in real life who acts a lot like the arrogant and impulsive Plutarch Eritruscan. I nodded along as this character’s glaring and sometimes dangerous faults were exposed in all sorts of amusing ways.

It would have been helpful to have more character and plot development in this piece. Everything happened so quickly that I never really had the chance to savor any of it. While I know the narrator wanted to keep things moving briskly along to the end, there was space here for more exploration, and it would have made the final scene an even better payoff if it had been included.

I also liked what this tale had to say about the dangers of wealth. Those of us who are ordinary people will generally be informed if we accidentally say something hurtful or have ideas whose flaws we might not have noticed yet. The wealthy don’t always have these chances to to correct themselves, and it can lead to some of them developing very odd and unhelpful notions about how the world works and how much other people – and in this fictional case even the laws of physics themselves – should bend to accommodate their wacky wishes. It was something of note to think about while Plutarch Eritruscan bumbled around and made everyone’s lives ridiculously harder than they could have been. Yes, it was exaggerated for comedic purposes, but the kernel of truth about the very real psychological, physical, spiritual, and emotional dangers of wealth and power remained.

The World Will Not Miss… tickled my funny bone.

The Space Race: A Review of The Paean Project

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.

2 Comments

Filed under Science Fiction and Fantasy

Tagged as 2020s, Alternate History, Astronauts, Book Reviews, Epistolary, Historical, Rudolph Kohn, Science Fiction, Self-Published, Short Story

Tag Archives: Science Fiction

A Review of More Money Than Brains

A Review of Jade Cargo

A Review of Pain Is So Close To Pleasure

A Review of The Metallurgy of Graham Rhenium

A Review of The Fifth

A Review of Nor Gloom of Night

A Review of The Broken Home

When Wishes Come True: A Review of Grey Goo Ticky Tack

A Review of The World Will Not Miss….

The Space Race: A Review of The Paean Project

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