Book Blog – Page 67 – Robert Raymond’s Blogtorium

June 29, 2025

The Roaring Trumpet (Review)

friend of mine, while talking about books at the train club (hobbies within hobbies) to me how she’d liked the Mathematics of Magic series from back in her youth (her youth being a lot more recent than mine). Well, I did a little searching and found a copy of it up in a used bookstore in Jacksonville. Overjoyed, she ordered it, but when she read it, she was underjoyed. Turns out it wasn’t as good as she’d remembered. Yet, strangely, she decided that since she didn’t like it, she’d give it to me for a go. Kinda an anti-recommendation, sort of. […]

July 6, 2025

Monk and Robot (Review)

kay, so this is a two-fer, two novelettes in one. With this, you get… A psalm for the Wild-Built A prayer for the Crown-Shy These are just two stories that combine into a unified whole, so it’s better to get this collection. So anyway, Dex is a young man in a world that, after ecological instability and the robot rebellion (when Robots walked off their factory jobs and wandered into the wilderness), now lives in a utopia. But guess what – you can live in Utopia and still not be happy. So he quits his first job (kinda a part-time […]

July 13, 2025

Destroyermen 15: Winds of Wrath

nd we’re done! It’s been a long fifteen books about the plucky little destroyer, the USS Walker, chased by the Japanese out of World War Two and into this alternative world where velociraptors and lemors evolved to sentience, where English Indiamen, Spanish conquistadors, a boatload of American artillerymen from the Mexican-American war, a battle group from a fascist Europe and even a Q-ship from World War One came into being. Yes, a long slow slog against baddies so bad they made your teeth hurt. And all through this, I kept waiting to find out that the series had ended prematurely, […]

July 20, 2025

Solo Kill (Review)

o here’s an interesting concept from 1977, an alien world where flying humanoid reptiles have been preying on fish people. And since these fish people can’t fight for shit, they make a contract with the March People (cats, it appears, what with the fur, sliding claws and quick tempers) to fight their wars for them. So these fish somehow figure out how to build nimble biplanes (I’m thinking Newport 11s) and, quickly, dart-driven machine guns to protect everyone. So that’s the set up; cats in planes dogfighting (catfightng) with spear-throwing bats. Author S. Kye Boult (not his real name) produced […]

July 27, 2025

Hammer’s Slammers (Review)

his is one of the classics from the year I left high school, a watermark novel about a futuristic mercenary tank group, their armor no longer obtainable as economies falter (but the need for them growing, for the same reason). So the Slammers move from planet to planet, signing contracts and squishing rebels, militias, and other poorly-armed rabble. The thing is, Drake really did a good job charting out what futuristic combat might turn into (and it’s borne fruit in the half-century since this book’s release). These massive hovertanks are monitored and guided from orbit, swatting down artillery shells with […]

August 3, 2025

Enemy Mine (Review)

friend ranted about this story-set so much he did the ultimate – he ordered a copy of The Enemy Papers, a collection of Barry B. Longyear’s scifi works. Inside is a loose trilogy of Earth (and really, the US) fighting the evil reptilian Dracs. Enemy Mine is the first of the set, and I’ll say this: my friend was right. Okay, a note on the title. “Enemy Mine” does not refer to (as I thought) either an explosive anti-ship bump-n-bang weapon nor a mineral shaft. No, it means “My enemy” in a sort of archaic wording. And well that it should. So […]

August 10, 2025

The Spear cuts through Water (Review)

ne day, I came into Framework Coffee and found all the baristas agitated. They’d discovered a new fantasy novel and were racing through it, eagerly chatting about the crazy and wonderful plot. Jacob and Maddy both were loving it and knowing my own passion for books (I go to that coffee shop more times with a book than my wife, and when I do go with the wife, I bring a book) they implored I read it too. So that day I picked up a copy. And now I have a strong contender for Best Books of 2025. As mentioned, it’s […]

August 16, 2025

Tuesdays with Morrie (Review)

ve read another one of Author Mitch Albom’s books, The Five People You Meet In Heaven, and that was an interesting novel that I really enjoyed (read before I was reviewing everything, like now). Anyway, in this book (with the secondary title of “an old man, a young man, and life’s greatest lesson”) was a curious thing. At the time it made a big splash. A barista at the coffee house told me she cried while reading it. As for me? Well… To start, Morrie Schwartz is an old college professor who discovers he has Lou Gehrig’s disease, a degenerative […]

August 24, 2025

The Tomorrow Testament (Review)

haven’t had the pleasure of reading something so changeable since The Gap Cycle series by Stephen R. Donaldson. There, your usual space opera characters are presented in a scene, yet we follow them before and after that moment, finding out what they really are like, our opinions changing as the story develops. It was flowing in an interesting and adjustable narration. This time, it’s The Tomorrow Testament, a book by Barry Longyear, the second part of The Enemy Papers. This is just a continuation of the war between the Humans and Draks, from the point of view (sic, and you’ll see why) […]

August 31, 2025

The Last World War (Review)

ince I now have $500 in store credit at a used bookstore, I decided I had to start spending, so yes, I got a new (used) book. The Last World War was published in 2003 by Dayton Ward. In it, aliens engaged in a civil war find a portal technology that allows them access to Earth (no messy spaceships or giant Martian guns to muck around with). Just walk on through like a door frame (more on this in a bit). One of the portals pops open in a Marine training base in the midwest, where reservists are engaged in […]