Patrick's Picks

This time out our hero, Zachary Nixon Johnson, Last PI on Earth, finds himself on the island of Lantis, hot on the trail of a queen-killer. His life is so fun! Loads of travel, interesting people, world-saving … oh, and lots of questions, questions, questions:
Will Zach find the killer without getting too stomped on?
Will Zach’s holographic sidekick (Don’t tell him I said that.) ever let Zach get a word in edgewise?
Will Zach start to enjoy his disguise as an Amazon warrior a little too much?
Stay tuned!
Another highly entertaining outing for our boy Zach. Ol’ Zach can never catch a break. Every year brings more super-powered females bent on making Zach’s life just that more interesting. Good thing he has lots of help (and armored underwear).
And me, you ask? (Okay, you didn’t ask, but I’ll tell you anyway.) Why, I’ve been walking around all day with a little smile on my face. Don’t know why, though. Perhaps it has something to do with all those blue (sapphire?) hairs I keep finding in my house, perhaps not. You’d think that such highly superior women (just ask them) would have better hair products.
--PMH

Calorie companies control the world, bio-terrorism and genetic engineering have wreaked merry havoc on a global scale, and humanity is on the brink of an evolutionary precipice that will destroy it completely or change it utterly. We reap what we sow.

Anderson Lake is a stranger in a strange land, AgriGen's "Calorie Man" in Thailand. Disguised as a farang factory manager, Anderson’s actual mission is to obtain (by any means necessary) new foodstuffs to exploit in a world where every calorie counts.

Emiko is the windup girl of the title. She is not exactly human. Creche-grown and designed to satisfy, she scratches out a meager existence in a world that considers her property, a mere plaything to abuse and then throw away like yesterday’s garbage, lowest of the low. She me be artificial, oh yes, but she does dream. She dreams of freedom ... and perhaps of an electric sheep or two.

Together, Anderson and Emiko might just change the world.

Beautifully written with a cast of characters both major and minor who will make it extremely difficult on the reader as to whom to root for, The Windup Girl is an important, perhaps even cautionary tale about a very possible future, set in a Thailand one can almost taste and feel. Plan to see it on many a best-of list and most likely a few award short lists as well. It’s the end of the world as we know it, so eat your Soylent Green and enjoy the show. Dystopia Rules!

--PMH

Think Harry Dresden in an old Richard Stark/Donald Westlake mystery thriller. Then add a bad attitude and the ability to kick some major ass. Then piss him off. Awesome, humorous, and partially insane.

-- PMH

Reality TV show SeaLife, on board the good ship Trident, answers a beacon for help from just about the most remote piece of land on Mother Earth, an island in the South Pacific that’s been isolated from the rest of the world for half a billion years, give or take a week or two. When our intrepid heroes hit the beach, however, they find no one in need of rescue. Instead they find an alien, and quite deadly, environment. Seems evolution’s taken a radically different direction than from that we all know and love ... and the flora and fauna of this continental fragment are decidedly hazardous to one’s continued existence. So dangerous are they, in fact, that if even one member of one species were to escape the island, all of Earth’s other inhabitants, animal, vegetable, and perhaps even mineral, would be in dire jeopardy. Cry havoc ... and let the fun begin. If you like James Rollins or Michael Crichton (with less math), Fragment is for you. While Fahy never scrimps on an explanation for his wonderful weird world, he does that explaining in a fashion that any reader can fathom. A quite enjoyable eco-thriller-page-turner that pushes all the right buttons.

-- PMH

Prepare to have your Epic Fantasy turned on its ear ... and then some. Take your Jordan, your Goodkind, your Martin and Erikson, and then bend the tropes until their tendons pop. You're halfway to Morgan. Add sex of all kinds, a drug or two, and not a small amount of violence. The rest of the journey's yours. Vicious, visceral, oh MG yes.

• Ringil, hero of Gallows Gap, veteran brimming with barely suppressed rage. His childhood and orientation are the main sources of the fury that propels him.
• The Lady Archeth, half-Kiriath, half-human, warrior, magician. Half-Kiriath, yes, but just as abandoned by the Kiriath as the rest of the lands.
• Egar, Dragonbane, barbarian chieftain of the Majak. Top of his game, yes, but bored to tears. How you gonna keep Egar down on the steppe once he's seen the Empire?

Heroes all of the war against the Scaled Folk. Each shaped by the battles they fought and by their Kiriath comrades. To these, and the men and women like them, the lands owe their supposed freedom. The Kiriath are gone though, and our heroes' deeds are all but forgotten in a land of moral and religious righteousness. What's to become of them? What's to become of all when evil returns? And how can they possibly prevail without the Kiriath?

The Kiriath are gone, yes, but their steel remains.

-- PMH

Teenaged Carmen’s on her way to Mars ... the adventure of a lifetime ... with her parents and her annoying little brother. Mars has its moments; it’s kinda cool, sometimes cold, and most of the colonists are nice. Most of them. Okay, all of them, except the Dragon; she’s just mean, mean and jealous. So, to get away for a while, Carmen goes exploring. By herself. Alone on not quite completely airless Mars. Bad idea. Can you say First Contact? Marsbound is like an old-school Heinlein juvenile with a more modern perspective ... and big potato shaped Martians with multiple limbs and a collectedly odd sense of humor.
-- PMH