Reviews of My Favorite 2014 Books (3)

Continuing with the reviews of my favorite books of 2014.

Energize by Thomas R. Manning
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Very readable story.

An interesting character, Daniel Quinn, is trying to make a living as a jack-of-all-trades space jockey. A a traumatic past haunts his dreams, and a vindictive spaceship captain is out to destroy him.

All he's got going for him is his ship, a spit and baling wire clunker, and a unique Artificial Intelligence named Al. Having stolen the AI from the renegade captain, Daniel keeps his head down and just tries to get along.

That is, until he discovers what may be a revolutionary energy source on a distant planet. If he can just get to the planet and take advantage of what might be the discovery of the century, he could put his past behind him. But it's never that easy, is it?

I really enjoyed this book and look forward to the continuing chronicles of Daniel Quinn. I highly recommend this to the hard SF junkies looking for something good to read.


Waiting for Shadow by Eduardo Suastegui
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I'd already read Shadow 7 (book 1 of Tracking Jane) and liked it a lot. Since I already knew most of the information about Jane from reading the other book, this didn't add to my understanding of her. It did, however, reinforce Jane's past a little more. Briefly, Jane was a soldier with the K9 Corps in the middle east wars. When she runs into an IED, she becomes a double amputee and has to leave the military and her beloved dog, Shadow behind. She has done the paperwork to adopt Shadow and awaits his return from the wars. In the meantime, she has trained another dog, Shady, as a search dog.

It also shows how she got into the business of tracking for law enforcement. She reluctantly joins the search for two missing teens. Shady, her tracking dog, takes to the task and succeeds where other dogs don't. Does Shady have mystical powers? No. Shady has the smartest handler, Jane.

There is a mystery involved, but don't want to give out any spoilers. Not just the disappearance of the teens, but exactly how that occurred is related to Jane's new prosthetic legs and the company that developed them.

Since I need a balancing statement, I'll mention the author's need of an editor. There are far too many typos, but I believe Mr. Suastegui is working on that. The errors did not stop me from reading. The story is that good.

Recommended.