October has been one crazy month! There's been a lot going on, and the ole' website has been pushed to the back burner, but I wanted to at least get one post and a couple of pictures up before month's end. Enjoy (and hope for a more website-friendly November!)

House of Wolves
Matt Bronleewe
BOOK
Release date: 08.12.2008
320 pages

Bronleewe returns, as does his main character, book collector turned adventurer August Adams. Through a series of wild events, Adams and his family find themselves at the heart of a centuries-old quest for powerful relics and world domination.

Although some of the story is rooted in historical fact (as Bronleewe explains at the end) there is quite of bit of suspension of disbelief required for some of the situations. And while the body count is very high in this book, there's never really any doubt about who's going to survive and the inevitable outcome.

As a follow up to last year's Illuminated, this book finds Bronleewe growing as a writer, making the dialogue a little less forced and allowing a little suspense to build in some of the subplots. It's a step in the right direction, and I hope Bronleewe continues to work on his craft, but he's not quite there yet. C

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The Dark Foundations
Chris Walley
BOOK
Release date: 10.04.2006
529 pages

The adventures of Merral D'Avanos continue in the far future (AD 13851, to be exact) as he and his friends battle the return of evil to the peaceful Assembly of Worlds. This book, the second in the Lamb Among the Stars trilogy, picks up where book one (reviewed here) left off.

The saga continues with the same main characters but the scope broadens significantly. We get our first glimpse of how events are unfolding on Earth as well as a peek into the heart of the evil Dominion. The stakes are also raised, as many (including one prominent character) are called to sacrifice their lives in defense of their home.

As with the first book in the series, this trilogy remains a compelling look at evil and its often subtle effects on humanity. This remains a first-rate science fiction work, and even at 500+ pages it doesn't suffer from the tediousness that at times plagued the first book.

Since it's the middle part of a larger story, it fails to deliver the same type of climax or closure an independent book might, but it is a highly entertaining (and at times riveting) chapter in this saga. In fact, it's so good that I already find myself a bit disappointed that there's only one book left in this story. A

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