It’s rare that I get fully engrossed in a fictional political narrative anymore. Sure, the vast number of Tom Clancy novels and movies deliver compelling, high-octane thrill rides, and The Manchurian Candidate (both the 1959 novel as well as the 1962 and 2004 films) still stands as one of the best election stories out there. But, when it comes down to it, the real world of politics (in the United States and elsewhere) is already rife with enough drama, deceit and decadence. Sometimes it’s just so damn tiring—and all of this coming from me, a genuine political junky. (On top of it all, most political stories just aren’t that good.) So, it came as a wonderful surprise when I read Malka Older’s debut novel, Infomocracy, that I found myself invested in a story so distinctly political again.
Cyberpunk
Book Tour: Bloodlines (The Guardian of Empire City #1) by Peter Hartog
Welcome to FanFiAddict’s stop on the book tour for Peter Hartog’s Bloodlines (The Guardian of Empire City #1). We want to thank Justine & Timy @ Storytellers on Tour for letting us be involved and a big shoutout to Peter on the release of his debut!
Mini-Review: Eight Cylinders by Jason Parent
Eight Cylinders is just one of several in the Jason Parent portfolio. Parent has authored books in many genres, including: science fiction, horror, thriller, and speculative fiction, among others. I reviewed another of the author’s books, Apocalypse Strain (a horror/thriller), in 2020 and found it to be quite an interesting read. Eight Cylinders (speculative fiction) is quite different from that book in many ways, though not any less interesting. I have chosen a mini-review format for this book for two reasons: it is a novella (right around 100 pages), and because it is so short almost any pieces of information I will get into spoiler territory; so the less I talk about the book directly, the better.