Proxy by P.S. Power

Link to Proxy on Amazon

Brian Yi is a college drop-out, couch potato, and video-gamer.  In his world, there are people called the Infected, who have superpowers but are afflicted with psychological drawbacks. One day Brian teleports, taking the place of a woman who is about to be murdered. The Infected thug trying to kill her beats Brian, who reappears in his apartment only for his roommate’s girlfriend to call the police, who take him away.

I love that the main character is a couch potato in the beginning of the book. He’s not good-looking, he’s overweight, he failed his over-achieving Asian parents… he’s just an average guy. His “superpower” is terrifying. He doesn’t have super-strength or anything to help him out, but he keeps getting thrown into situations where people are trying to kill him.  The fact that every superpower comes with some kind of psychological disorder makes a lot of sense to me.

There are a lot of really wonderful things about this book, and a lot of flaws, too.  The first part of the book was really strong, and I was going to give it a rating of 4 cupcakes, but I had to bring it down for several reasons. The first reason is the spelling and grammar mistakes. Some of them were just typos, such as using the word “grim” instead of the word “grime”. The author also makes grammatical errors, such as “your” instead of “you’re”. It kind of broke my heart. This book has so much potential! Why isn’t it proof-read properly?

The second reason is that this book is just too long-winded. There was a point when I thought the story was neatly wrapped up and coming to a close, and then I noticed I was only 26% into the book. I don’t have anything against long books,  but in this case it didn’t work. There are long sections in which Brian is just working out, and he spends about half of the book in the hospital. I really like that the author includes these things, so that he doesn’t just instantly get into shape or never gets hurt, but it’s too much. This book seems like a lot of shorter stories and problems put in a row, instead of one long story arc. The author could probably split it in two or even three separate books.

With more proof-reading and some careful editing down, this could be fantastic.

This eBook is currently 99 cents!

Under the Stairs by John G. Stockmyer

Link to Under the Stairs on Amazon

John (the main character’s name, as well as the author’s) is an English professor with no family and few friends. He buys a run down house and restores it, only to find out that his house is considered haunted, and that cats have a habit of disappearing if they get inside. When his cat, Cream, disappears into the storage area under the stairs, he comes to the  conclusion that she has crossed into another dimension. So what does he do? He decides to rescue her, of course. (Have you ever heard of better character motivation? I would follow my cats to another dimension to rescue them, too.) So John ends up in Stil-de-grain, a country of magic where he is mistaken as a powerful mage.

I could tell immediately from the first page that Stockmyer was a good writer, but I was in suspense to see if the story would be good too. The one thing that I did notice was that he really likes exclamation points! For instance, he will write a whole paragraph where every sentence ends in an exclamation point!

So my conclusion? This is a pretty good book, though not the most original. The story of a regular person stumbling into another world or dimension where they become somehow powerful is not a new one. I was reminded strongly of L.E. Modesitt’s Spellsong Cycle, which is a great series, though there are countless other examples. What I did like about this book was the sci-fi aspects of it. The magic comes from light and static electricity, and the world is build out of “bands’ of color. I won’t be reading the next book in the series, mainly because while John himself is a likable character, there just weren’t any characters in Stil-de-grain that he had any kind of connection with. Even John himself doesn’t really care which world he’s in.

This eBook is currently free to download. At the end of this book the author offers the second book for free as well.

Hmm. Two and a half cupcakes? No, I’ll round up to three.

Incarnate by Jodi Meadows

Link to Incarnate on Amazon

I finished Incarnate today. I found it last night on the Amazon “100 Books for 3.99 or Less” list for $2.99, but the price will change after February 28th, 2012, and I don’t know how much it will cost then.

In the city of Heart, everybody reincarnates each life with the memories of all their previous lives intact. They have been reincarnating for 5000 years, until one night their temple goes dark and a woman called Ciana dies. When a child is born, they expect it to be Ciana reincarnated, but instead it is somebody else, a Newsoul, who is living for the first time. Her name is Ana, and since everybody in Heart fears that they will be the next one replaced with a Newsoul, they have a hard time accepting her. One person who does accept her is Sam, who saves her life when her own mother betrays her trust.

The best thing about this book is the interactions between the people who have been reincarnating together for so many lives. Some of them have love that lasts from life to life, no matter what gender they are born into. Ana is ostracized because she hasn’t been part of this 5000 year history that they share.

There is a sequel, Asunder, and more to come. I liked Incarnate, but I don’t really feel the need to read the sequel (especially since it’s full price). It was f un read, though!

Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea by J.L. Murray

Link to Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea on Amazon

Niki Slobodian can see dead people, but in her world (perhaps our near future) Abnormals like her go onto a government Registry and are not allowed to work or own guns. One day she wanders into a bar, The Deep Blue Sea, and meets a smooth talking man called Sam who offers her a job and her name off the Registry (I bet you can guess who he is). All she has to do in exchange is catch a Dark, an escaped being from Hell.

One thing I did not like about this eBook was the formatting… for some reason the font-size is set much bigger than the eBooks I’m used to, and you can’t set it smaller. It took some getting used to, but that doesn’t change the content of the book. It’s still worth reading.

EBook available for download for 99 cents. F*ckin sweet.

And Oho! What do you know! This is a series, and the next two books in the series are $2.99 and $3.99 (I see what you did there…). I will have to read those and update this review once I have evaluated their awesomeness.

Three Cupcakes!