Chuckles Mini Reviews Catchup

I review everything I read, on my blog and on Goodreads. Most reviews are of a decent length but sometimes you don't have much to say about the book because of its length or you DNFed it or various other reasons. In cases like that it makes sense to write a few mini reviews in one post and clear them out your way! So lets catch up with reviews from earlier this year.

1) William Meikle-Infestation (S Squad #1)
It was supposed to be a simple mission. A suspected Russian spy boat is in trouble in Canadian waters. Investigate and report are the orders.

But when Captain John Banks and his squad arrive, it is to find an empty vessel, and a scene of bloody mayhem. Soon they are in a fight for their lives, for there are things in the icy seas off Baffin Island, scuttling, hungry things with a taste for human flesh. They are swarming. And they are growing.  

A special forces team has been sent to discover why there is a Russian boat in Canadian waters but when they arrive on the nearby island they find dead animals and dead people in a scene of carnage. When the Russians illegally drilled into the sea bed they unleashed a swarm of mutant sea creatures intent on killing them all. They have to join forces with a survivor on the boat and hope that rescue will comes before the creatures devour them all.

This is the first book in a series of at least four books about S Squad who are sent on special missions like this one. I liked most of the characters which had me rooting for the team throughout and it was nice to see the British soldiers cooperating with the Russians in order to survive. The book has its share of gore as these creatures are relentless and there are good action scenes first on the island and a few attacks on the boat as they await rescue. These beasties are scary and the book is full of tension as the team await rescue and the next wave of attacks. I also enjoyed the British characters and their banter with each other, especially the Scots. It was fun to hear those familiar words and accents! It was a good solid start to the series and I read on with the second one straight after. (see below)

Read March 2019
3.5 stars

2) William Meikle-Operation Antarctica (S Squad #2) 
When Captain John Banks and his squad are sent to investigate a derelict Nazi base in Antarctica, he expects to find only ice and dead men. But there is something in the domed hangar bay that has been waiting for decades for release.

A weapon was primed many years before. It had been meant to turn the tide of war. Now it stirs under the ice once more. 

The survivors of S Squad are joined by new recruits as they are sent to an underground complex in Antarctica which was used as a secret Nazi base during the war. The men are stunned to see that in the hanger is an alien ship with strange technology and by accident, the men awaken the dead soldiers from their slumber. These strange zombies have a mission to complete and they need the soldiers for it, but S Squad are determined to stop them at any cost as they await backup.

You have to feel sorry for S Squad being send to all these cold brutal environments where strange creatures are trying to kill them. This book has diary flashbacks to the start of the war, alien mind control and a form of mindless Nazi zombies. They are not your typical flesh eating zombies and are a lot harder to destroy as they reform once 'killed', which makes them pretty deadly. I did find the plot of this one a little repetitive as the soldiers seemed to do the same thing over and over-try to shoot their way out of the hanger, kill zombies, zombies reanimate, soldiers back into hanger, try to escape again and so on. The whole alien plot wasn't as interesting to me as the first book with the sea monsters and there were a lot of flashbacks with spells and demons. It was a decent enough plot but it didn't engage me in the way that the first book did. I will probably still read the other novellas at some point though.

Read March 2019.
2.5 stars.

3) Orlando A Sanchez-War Mage (Montague & Strong #0.1) 
Haunted. Despised. Feared.
The Supernaturals are destroying humanity.

Meet Tristan Montague. Leader of the elite group of mages known as the Ordarum. The war against the Supernaturals has raged for years and humanity is losing. When the Ordarum is given a suicide mission to recover an artifact that can end the war and hand victory to humanity-Tristan takes it, knowing it may be his last. Now, together with his squad, they must face an unspeakable enemy, overwhelming odds, and secure an ultimate weapon-or die trying. 

This is the prequel story introducing Tristan before he meets up with Simon and it is a chance to see him at work as a mage in the supernaturals war. He is teamed up with new allies and old enemies to break into a fortress and steal something powerful, an item he would much rather destroy. Discovering that a previous trio of mages tried and were killed on the mission makes it look pretty much like suicide.

I liked Tristan much better than Simon when I read book one and it was fun to see him get top billing in this short story. It is like a heist film with magic and scary creatures thrown in for good measure and once the mission started, it just kept up a steady pace of action as Tristan takes on the task. I liked the various uses of magic and that Tristan was trying to get the job done without magic at times rather than give away his position. It made things interesting. The team dynamic was quite interesting too and I hope we see more of these contacts that Tristan made in later books.

Read April 2019
3 stars.

4) Orlando A Sanchez-No God Is Safe (Montague & Strong #0.5)

Children have gone missing in NYC. A Dangerous Client. An Impossible Case. An Offer He Should’ve Refused.

Detective Simon Strong takes on what he thinks is a routine case-get proof of a spouse’s infidelity. When he digs deeper, he stumbles onto the trail of the missing children, but what he discovers shatters his concepts of reality. Tristan Montague is a mage on the run. Hiding from his sect and banned from the magical societies, he follows a trail of missing children to NYC. Now, together with Simon, they must prevent more abductions and stop those responsible for the disappearances. They will face an enemy unlike any other-hungry for power and willing to destroy anyone who gets in their way. Will they locate the missing children? Will they reveal the power behind the abductions and stop them?
 
Join Montague & Strong in their first case as they risk it all to save those who can’t save themselves!  

Simon thinks that finding out if Shiva's wife is cheating on him will be a simple enough case even if her name being Kali sets off slight alarm bells in his head. He is also asked to look into a case of missing children in the city. Tristan has been following the trail of the kidnapper around the world and tracks them down to the same building that Shiva says Kali is in. Now the two men have to reluctantly team up to save the children from a death ritual.

I liked the Hindu myth storyline for this book as I studied Hinduism at school and have always been fascinated by stories about Kali. Yes I'm also a fan of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom too! It was interesting to see how the men link up for their first case and how Simon gets cursed. I have to say that he was pretty unlucky in getting cursed as he was actually just trying to save some kids. I also love seeing rakshasas as the chosen creatures for the book, as they fascinate me and I'd love to see them in more books I read. Simon was mildly annoying in this book, the way he kept winding up Tristan when they met and I do have concerns that he might get on my nerves as the series progresses. I do very much like Tristan and his magical skills though and I liked the first novel in the series so I will keep reading the books and novellas.

Read April 2019
4 stars. 

5) Matthew Reilly-Roger Ascham and the King's Lost Girl
In this special prequel to Matthew Reilly’s The Tournament, Roger Ascham, the unorthodox tutor of Princess Elizabeth, is charged with tracking down a favourite prostitute of King Henry VIII’s who has gone missing.
  
I've read a bit about Roger Ascham in Tudor fiction and non fiction over the years-the brilliant tutor hired by Henry VIII to educate his children. In this book, Roger has been teaching Henry's daughter Elizabeth a few things that are not exactly accepted learning and when summoned to Henry, he fears he is in trouble. Instead Henry explains that his favourite prostitute has gone missing and he wants her found. Roger agrees to help and sets out on the trail of a kidnapper of women who is not afraid to kill. It is a short but interesting little murder mystery book to give readers a taste of the character. It was a nice short read.

I wasn't sure about reading The Tournament, although I like Tudor fiction and the work of this author, so I decided to try this short prequel. I found that I enjoyed it and liked Roger as a main character so I think it will be fun to read about his adventure with Elizabeth in a full book. 

Read April 2019
3 stars.