Category Archives: In Books

My comments on books by other people.

Book Review: Generations by Noam Josephides

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My first book review as an Indie Story Geek judge.

In December, I applied to be a judge for the 2024 Indie Ink Awards managed by Indie Story Geek. I’d heard about the contest on Mastodon and thought, why not? I like to read. Maybe this would expose me to some new authors that I would not otherwise find on my own.

To be honest, my reading lately has been mostly a mix of non-fiction thought pieces like Stolen Focus by Johann Hari and Filterworld by Kyle Chayka — both recommended if you think social media and addiction to our mobile devices might be a problem (spoiler alert: they are) — and, believe it or not, novels based in the Star Wars universe, primarily those that are part of the canon. (Yes, folks, there’s more to Star Wars than 11 movies and a handful of TV shows on Disney.) My fiction tastes run to science fiction and mystery, but I’ll also read some fantasy. I don’t like heavy, depressing books that make me sad. What I like to avoid is juvenile writing — either writing meant for kids or “young adults” or books written by authors who write like that.

The Judging Experience

I was very surprised to be selected as a judge. One of the reasons for the surprise was that when I filled out the application form, it asked me what my pronouns were. The pronoun thing doesn’t bother me nearly as much as it bothers crazed conservatives, but it is becoming tiresome. I think that field should be optional on any form. If it matters to you and it’s not the usual he/him for males and she/her for females, by all means, fill it in. But if I identify myself as female — another field on the form — I should be able to skip that question and let you assume I’m a she/her. But the field could not be skipped so I wrote “I’m a straight female and old school; figure it out.” I figured that my sarcasm would disqualify me but it did not. They’re either in the same camp I am about this topic or desperate for judges.

Interestingly, half of the judging categories are related to “Writing the Future We Need,” which relates directly to LGBT, disability, transgender, Asian author, Black author, or a variety of other topics that they want judges to be “qualified” to judge. This is easy for me — I wasn’t qualified for any of them, not having the kind of first hand experiences I think they were looking for. This actually makes sense when you consider their pronoun question. They want to be inclusive, which I think is great. But they also want the judges on these topics to actually have a clue about them. That’s also a good idea.

I was accepted and invited to join in on a Discord forum (or whatever). I signed up and joined in. That’s when I realized that at age 63, I was probably old enough to be the mother or grandmother of most of the other participants in the judging process. Animated emojis are a big thing among my fellow judges. I’m sure their social media feeds are plastered with selfies and memes that include poetry and flowers.

(Do I sound cynical? I hope so. That’s my intent here.)

Anyway, once I got set up with the Judge’s Portal on the Indie Story Geek website, I was able to get to business. The process is pretty simple. You “reserve” a book to judge — you need to read and judge at least 3 over over the next four or five months — and then download it as an EPUB, PDF, or (if available) audiobook. I chose Generations: A Science Fiction Mystery Thriller, which has the following blurb:

WINNER: 1st Prize – 2024 BookFest Award • WINNER: Global Book Awards – Silver Medal • “An epic science fiction noir!” – Publisher Weekly’s BookLife • “Extraordinary… dense and enthralling journey” – Kirkus Review • “An amazing space story of mystery, adventure, and exploration. It’s smart, funny, but above all, endearing” – Reader Views

Are Humanity’s leaders steering them into a trap? And can one woman stand up to power and uncover the conspiracy that had been brewing for generations?

The THETIS is humanity’s last hope: a generation-ship carrying the last remnants of Earth to resettle on a new planet.

But, under the facade of a tolerant and cooperative society built across two centuries of space travel, a deeply-buried secret lies – a secret that puts humanity’s new beginning at risk.

The key to uncovering that conspiracy lies in the hands of SANDRINE LIET, an Archivist introvert who has everything to lose by pitting herself against the most powerful people on the Thetis.

The deeper she digs, the clearer it becomes that there is only one way to save both herself and the rest of her fellow Thetans – and it’s the most horrible choice imaginable…

GENERATIONS is a heart-pounding space mystery, an instant #1 Amazon Science Fiction Bestseller of 2024.

I downloaded the EPUB and imported it into the Books app on my iPad. (I’ve been trying to stay away from Amazon and Kindle these days.) And I started to read.

My Thoughts on Generations

First of all, I was not pulled into the book as I hoped I would be. It wasn’t a real page turner — at least not in the beginning. The writing was good, the characterization was good enough, but the plot was a bit slow to take off. The author hinted at backstories for characters here and there and, over time, revealed missing information. Maybe that was supposed to make me want to keep turning pages and learning more? It didn’t. I assumed that important information would be revealed as the book progressed and I wasn’t disappointed.

What the book excelled at was world building. This is so important for science fiction (and fantasy). The author had obviously thought out the world he was writing about in great detail, inventing a spaceship where generations of people would live for a two hundred year journey after the demise of Earth. The description of the ship, Thetis, wasn’t all laid out in a long descriptive passage. Instead, it was revealed little by little, just like the characters’ backstories. And it was believable.

Unfortunately, the plot wandered into a plot device I absolutely detest: protagonist’s name is smeared by people more powerful than her and she’s set up to take the fall for things she didn’t do. Fortunately, this wasn’t the whole book, but was enough of it that I had no trouble putting the book down to do other things.

To make matters worse, an early plot development revealed (at least to me) part of the book’s conclusion. Not only was the “mystery” not much of a mystery to me, but I was frustrated that the protagonist didn’t see what I did. This only got worse when my suspicions turned out to be correct. No, I didn’t solve the entire mystery right at the beginning — that would be impossible since a key piece was not made known until nearly the end. But I knew exactly which way the plot was heading.

But I think the thing that bothered me most was how the protagonist escapes from danger near the end of the book. It was completely unbelievable. I don’t want to spoil the book for readers, but the chances of her succeeding at a certain point were pretty much nil and yet she succeeds. I really wish the author would have gotten her out of that jam in a more believable way.

In re-reading this, it sounds like I hated the book. I didn’t. As I mentioned, the writing was good and the characterization was good enough. The mystery was interesting, despite me seeing the answer coming before it arrived. It wasn’t trite or clichéd. It wasn’t written for children. But the best thing it had going for it was the world-building. When it was over, I was left wishing I could stay on board for when Thetis arrived at its destination and Generation 10 could start developing their new world.

Maybe the author will take all the work he did on building Thetis to take us there? I would read that.

Words of Wisdom from a Graphic Novel

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It can be deeper than you might think.

When I was a kid, I glazed over the comic book phase a lot of kids go through. I don’t think I read more than 10 of them. They just weren’t interesting to me. I preferred regular books.


I read The Watchmen at least 15 years ago.

So it’s understandable that I wouldn’t be too interested in graphic novels. In fact, I didn’t know much at all about the genre until years and years ago when I read The Watchmen. This is before it was made into a TV show on HBO (which I still haven’t seen; I’m not an HBO subscriber). It struck me as interesting, but I didn’t really get much out of it. Maybe because I was reading it the way I read books? Fast to get through the story?

I’m older now and I’m more interested in expanding my horizons. That includes what I read. I generally don’t enjoy the latest bestselling literary fiction; I find it dull: too many long, meandering stories that have no satisfying end. The Goldfinch, although beautifully written, was like that. I read a lot of action fiction (think Jack Reacher and Jack Ryan) and mystery fiction (think Dorothy Sayers, Raymond Chandler, and yes, even some Agatha Christie). I’ll read one book by an author and, if I like it, read five more. (That’s what ruined Robert Ludlum’s work for me: his plots are so totally formulaic, which is obvious when you read five of his books in a row.) I also read Star Wars fiction beyond the movies and television shows. I didn’t realize until a few years ago that there are scores of books in the canon and many more that were written before there was a canon.

Anyway, I was reading a book of Neil Gaiman’s essays, The View from the Cheap Seats, and was enjoying the way it made me stop and think about things I’d never really thought about before. I’d read some of Gaiman’s fiction — Coraline, The Graveyard Book, American Gods, The Ocean at the End of the Lane — heck, I didn’t realize I’d read so much of his work until I drew up this little list — but had little knowledge of his graphic novels. But the Sandman series, which is apparently his magnum opus in that genre, was mentioned in one of the essays and I decided to check it out.

I’ll be the first to admit that I avoid buying books these days. It’s embarrassing for a writer to admit, but there it is. I simply read too fast to invest in a book I’m likely to read just once. I’m. not saying I don’t buy books at all — unfortunately, I do. I buy too many books. I have hundreds of books at home, some of which I never even bothered to unpack after my 2013 move from Arizona to Washington. This year, 2022, is the year that I will begin to liquidate my library. (I need to downsize for an upcoming lifestyle change anyway.)

Instead, I use the library where I get books in two formats: ebooks and audio books. I read ebooks in the morning with my coffee and sometimes in the evening before I go to bed. I read audio books while I’m driving or working on jewelry projects in my shop. It’s not unusual for me to be reading two very different kinds of books at the same time. (I’m extremely fond of Random House productions of Star Wars books. Great narrators who voice each character individually and sound effects/music that really dramatize the work.)

I tracked down The Sandman Volume 1 at my library using the Overdrive app and put it on hold. A week later, it was available and I was able to read it on my iPad using a web browser.

I absolutely loved the art that started each chapter in the edition I was reading (which may differ from the edition I linked to above), but really did not like the actual art within the book. But I looked past that and read the story. Or at least tried to. My brain was not accustomed to reading the graphic novel format. I often read things in the wrong order. I found myself missing things because I was too focused on words and not focused enough on the story told in the images that went with them. I got the main gist of the story and enough details to enjoy it — despite the gruesome violence in some parts. But, at the same time, I wasn’t much interested in trying Volume 2 (which my library does not have anyway), especially if the same artists illustrated it in the same style.

The last story in Volume 1 introduced the Sandman’s sister, Death. On a whim, I decided to give Death: The High Cost of Living a try. It was available in my library in a Kindle-compatible format, which turned out to be great for me. This format didn’t show a page at a time unless that’s what you wanted to see. Instead, it used a zoomed in technique to show one or more frames at a time. I’d swipe to expose more frames or zoom to the next frame. It made it impossible for me to read text in the wrong order and it magnified the content so that it was easier for my old eyes to read and enjoy.


Death is portrayed as an attractive goth chick.

I’ll start off by saying that the book is dark. The main character, Death, is portrayed as a friendly, attractive goth girl/woman. (Older than a girl but somehow younger than what you might think as a woman.) The people she meets with in most stories are people who are contemplating suicide or will die shortly or have died or are facing the death of someone else. So the main theme that is explored in various ways is death itself.

As I read, I worried over and over about young people who are contemplating suicide reading this book and thinking its okay. But that’s not the message that comes from it at all.

The book is really about life. That life isn’t always easy. That we make our own lives. That we have to take the bad with the good because the bad helps us see how good the good really is.

The first piece of dialog that really hit me hard is something that I’ve always believed and try so hard to tell other people — especially young people:

… Let me tell you what you get. You get life and breath, a world to walk and a path through the world — and the free will to wander the world as you choose.


Death and Destiny share some good advice with a suicidal teen.

This was said by Death’s brother — I think it was Destiny, although his name was never mentioned — to a teenage boy who had climbed to the top of a Ferris wheel one night to kill himself. He’s depressed because his mom died at the World Trade Center and he blames God for letting it happen. He wants to die so he can ask God why he let it happen. Destiny tells him that God doesn’t answer questions. Later, Death joins them in the panels shown here.

This book is full of stuff like this.

Anyway, I’m enjoying this book a lot more than The Sandman. Part of it is the artwork. Another part is the clear messages it’s sending about life and death.

It’s a quick read for me, especially since I don’t linger much over the artwork. I’m nearly done. But it was on my mind this morning so I thought I’d blog about it.

My Twitter friend Juliana mentioned today how re-reading books at different times of her life bring out different aspects of the books. (I’m paraphrasing a conversation here.) I think she’s right.

I think it’s time to read The Watchmen again, just to see what I missed the first time around.

The Little Prince

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A classic children’s book full of ageless wisdom.

The Little PrinceYesterday, I read The Little Prince a novella by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. According to Wikipedia,

The novella is both the most-read and most-translated book in the French language, and was voted the best book of the 20th century in France. Translated into more than 250 languages and dialects (as well as braille), selling nearly two million copies annually with sales totaling over 140 million copies worldwide, it has become one of the best-selling books ever published.

Odd that I should live 53 years before managing to squeeze such a famous 98-page read into my busy schedule.

On the surface, this children’s book, which includes simple watercolor illustrations by the author, tells the story of an aviator who has crash-landed in the Sahara Desert. He’s working hard to repair his plane when he meets a small prince who has travelled to earth (and a few other places) from a tiny asteroid. What follows are stories from the little prince’s travels, each of which has an important message that isn’t just for children.

The Fox

Chapter XXI made the biggest impact on me. In that Chapter, the little prince meets a fox who explains to him, in the course of their conversation, the meaning of the word tame:

“It is an act too often neglected,” said the fox. “It means to establish ties.”

“‘To establish ties’?”

“Just that,” said the fox. “To me, you are still nothing more than a little boy who is just like a hundred thousand other little boys. And I have no need of you. And you, on your part, have no need of me. To you, I am nothing more than a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But if you tame me, then we shall need each other. To me, you will be unique in all the world. To you, I shall be unique in all the world…”

Later, the fox adds:

“My life is very monotonous,” the fox said. “I hunt chickens; men hunt me. All the chickens are just alike, and all the men are just alike. And, in consequence, I am a little bored. But if you tame me, it will be as if the sun came to shine on my life. I shall know the sound of a step that will be different from all the others. Other steps send me hurrying back underneath the ground. Yours will call me, like music, out of my burrow. And then look: you see the grain-fields down yonder? I do not eat bread. Wheat is of no use to me. The wheat fields have nothing to say to me. And that is sad. But you have hair that is the color of gold. Think how wonderful that will be when you have tamed me! The grain, which is also golden, will bring me back the thought of you. And I shall love to listen to the wind in the wheat…”

Can you think of a more beautiful way to describe the bond between two people who have come to love and depend upon each other?

There’s more to the story than that, but I’ll let you discover it on your own. I’ll just say this: the end of the story of the fox made me cry when I read it yesterday and it made me cry again today. There’s so much truth in the words. I’m filled with sadness at the knowledge that so few people understand this simple wisdom and how it applies in their lives.

You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed.

Matters of Consequence

Underlying most of the book is the idea of what’s really important in life. Saint-Exupéry refers to this as “matters of consequence.”

In the little prince’s travels, he meets a businessman who is busy counting and doing sums. He’s too busy to relight his cigarette and almost too busy to answer the prince’s questions between counting and adding. He tells the prince that he can’t stop, that he has so much to do, that he is concerned with matters of consequence. Those matters turn out to be counting the stars, which he has claimed ownership of, despite the fact that he’s not even sure, at first, what they’re called. The prince has questions about this:

“And what good does it do you to own the stars?”

“It does me the good of making me rich.”

“And what good does it do you to be rich?”

“It makes it possible for me to buy more stars, if any are discovered.”

Later, the prince asks the man what he does with the stars.

“I administer them,” replied the businessman. “I count them and recount them. It is difficult. But I am a man who is naturally interested in matters of consequence.”

The little prince was still not satisfied.

“If I owned a silk scarf,” he said, “I could put it around my neck and take it away with me. If I owned a flower, I could pluck that flower and take it away with me. But you cannot pluck the stars from heaven…”

“No. But I can put them in the bank.”

It’s that what it’s all about for too many people? Slaving their life away in pursuit of the almighty dollar, neglecting what’s really important in life? All so they can accumulate what they believe is wealth and keep it safe from others?

Later, the little prince is angry with the pilot because the pilot has failed to answer a question the prince thinks is important. He sums up his meeting with the businessman and what it means to him:

“I know a planet where there is a certain red-faced gentleman. He has never smelled a flower. He has never looked at a star. He has never loved any one. He has never done anything in his life but add up figures. And all day he says over and over, just like you: ‘I am busy with matters of consequence!’ And that makes him swell up with pride. But he is not a man — he is a mushroom!”

In my life, I’ve spent far too much time with mushrooms. Indeed, I think I was a mushroom for a time myself.

Read the Book

If you’re more interested in morals and philosophy than what’s on reality TV, celebrity gossip shows, or the business press, do yourself a favor and read the book.

Read it slowly and savor the lessons revealed in the little prince’s travels. I’m sure you’ll take away a lot more than what I’ve shared here — I know I did.