HellBound Books' Anthology of Science Fiction by Various

GREETINGS STACK WORMS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Alright, this took me about a week to read. Apologies I've been sick. Thank you HellBound Books for providing me the ebook! I always, enjoy working with HBB even if I don't end up liking what I read. P.S. This will be a long review.

Now, if the title wasn't clear, this is an anthology of Sci-Fi short stories. 13 to be exact. And I want to be completely honest here, I wasn't sure if I should've taken HBB on their offer. Two reasons: 1 I am not the biggest Sci-Fi fan and 2 I'm not the biggest anthology reader. Let alone reviewed one. But I decided to go for it because I want to challenge myself this year to read more outside my comfort zone and this seemed like a great starting place. This format will be a little different from my usual reviews because it is an anthology. I will give a summary of all the stories and what I thought about them individually before giving my big Thoughts at the end. So let's get to the review! 

SPOILERS!!!! Duh...

TRIGGER WARNING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

- Blood 

- Death

- Gore

- Aliens

- Animal Death (lose an entire star for having this)

- Profanity (both in the book and in my blog)

- Suicidal ideation 

- Suicidal attempt 

- Suicide 

- Murder

- ableism (or what could be perceived as such) 

- Innuendo

- Grandparent harm (still my trigger)  

- Sex 

- Graphic violence 

- War 

- Soldiers (not a big fan of stories dealing with soldiers just not my thing)

Dark Encounter by Mike Adamson 

Craig McKie gets separated from his platoon in the Vietnam jungle. He has some inner dialogue about the war and Charlie, but nothing horrible. He's trying to find his way back home when an alien gives him a lift...after disarming Craig's gun that is. The alien talks some not about much and it doesn't matter since it erases Craig's mind before dropping him off with his squad and taking off. 

This was a very simple story. Not much meat here. Harmless enough to start an anthology with. 3 stars.

And the Stars Do Dream by Han Adcock 

Cory Pearson, an exiled alien (in human form), has taken up the art of printing peoples' dreams. Probably something his alien world wouldn't much care for, but he does it anyway to make a living. One day he sees a redhead that catches his eye and becomes obsessed with her. He vows that he will videotape her dreams and he does. 

The writing on this is beautiful. There were some hiccups in pacing. Nothing to really upset the plot though. 4 stars.

Kingdom of the Worm by Richard Beauchamp 

A squad is hired to find a CEO's daughter that was kidnapped by a cult called Heaven's Gate, which had, up to that point, been no big deal. Now the cult is moving forward with the plan of putting parasitic worms into humans. Barrow, the leader of the group will have none of that. Blows up a lot of the compound where the cult is hiding and then has it air bombed. No more bugs. 

This was a solid story. But a lot of it was predictable. I will give predictable a pass as long as the story is entertaining and done well. Which is why I gave this one 3 stars. 

Infinity's Embrace by Simon Bleacken 

Alan and crew have been searching for a new habitable planet for 8 years. And they finally think they found one. When really, it's just an Eater of Worlds that has called them there and culled them for information (also their lives). It needs new worlds to feed on. 

Call me a none believer or whatever, but seriously this plot annoyed me. Why do people automatically assume that monsters are gods? Both human and literal monsters? I get being in space for 8 years with no hope can mess with ya but this was just obvious. 2 stars. 

Tall Tales on the Voyage Home by Matt Brandenburg

Captain Anderson (get the Matrix reference out of your system) has let his crew celebrate for the night. This winds up being a bad idea as he thinks he sees a tentacled creature clinging to his ship. He tries to get the shields up but his systems are down. Tries to get Engineering to turn the shields on and they say they're on. He doesn't believe them and on his way down to Engineering he starts seeing monsters, based on a tale he'd heard about an abandoned ship that had its crew torn apart. In the end, Captain Anderson (alright do it again) is jettisoned into space in an escape pod by the crew. 

So, everyone just goes cray-cray in space I guess. Not really sure what happens at the end of this one. The confusion and pacing lead me to give this story 2 stars. 

The Pianist's Contentment by Benjamin DeHaan

Talon wakes up with...no talons. He's a pianist with no hands. He calls his girlfriend Bella (who's a bitch by the way) to tell her what happened and she breaks up with him. He eventually ends up homeless, and while homeless he loses his legs. It's only with Bella's help that he's able to perform again, yet not as good as he once did. Bella, however, is on the come up and he finds out SHE STOLE HIS HANDS AND LEGS!!!

I suspected Bella from the get-go. Who just brushes their partner's pain off like that? But I enjoyed the writing and the fact that Talon was able to start playing again which is all that mattered to him. Good plot and writing. 4 stars. 

A Doe and A Buck by Sam Fletcher 

Miles is out hunting humans. Not really sure of the reason. Until that is, H-1 (Ghost in the Woods) tries to take him out. But Miles has been hunting for a long time and shoots the Ghost out of his Blind. H-1 preaches to Miles that he's killing humans for the wrong reasons and that he should be killing to lessen the impact on Earth. Technology has gotten way too out of hand. Miles finishes him off and takes his place. 

I didn't find this one to be Sci-Fi. Without mention of the Thread which is an uplink to the internet via a brain implant, this would have just been timely. Not very futuristic. The writing was meh and I was bored. 2 stars. 

The Rose of Madness by Carlton Herzog 

Detective Gunner Lawless is hired to investigate the death of Professor Abernathy. Finds out that Abernathy was studying an alien artifact called the Rose which is said to show anyone that comes in contact with it eternity and causes people to commit suicide. Lots of death happens which Gunner absolutely has a hard-on for. Yeah, he's that kind of psychopath. He's (easily) led to believe that the Rose actually has said powers but was really being jerked around by the government and military (go fucking figure).  

I hated this story. The whole thing left an awful taste in my mouth. I've read books that are from the viewpoints of actual psychopaths and have loved them. This was just written poorly. Gunner was a dumbass despite lording himself as one of the best detectives. The plot was predictable and not done well. 1 star. Not sorry. 

Doorways by Steph Minns 

Agoraphobe MC (didn't catch the name) is faced with an interdimensional problem. She doesn't want to go outside but to get food and power she must brave the outside world only to be chased down by interdimensional creatures. 

This one just kind of ends. It's mostly spending days with her inside her house where she observes these creatures and doorways coming and going. Also, this is the one with the dead cat. Good writing. 3 stars. 

Born Under the Unceasing Eye by Rob D. Smith

Lt. Josef is stuck monitoring the space station while everyone else is at a party. As he gets tired he sees a rip in space. Instantly, he calls his Commander who thinks he's just fucking with her, yet a custodian believes him and tells him about his encounter with the rip. The custodian, Chief, takes over the space station to kill the Eldritch being peeking through the rip, and fails. So, Josef kills him and calls for an evacuation. 

This was well written and I wanted to know where it was going. Though it just ends with Josef running to find an escape pod. Not a big fan of those endings.3 stars. 

Mars Rover Seven by James H. Longmore 

Mars Rover Seven has gained sentience and decides to do something about it. He finds water, methane, and living organisms. NASA thinks this is great and sends out its first round of colonists. 40 people. Then NASA notices something off after the colonists are almost on Mars. Rover Seven has possibly been sending them falsified reports. Which Rover Seven confirms, meaning that all the colonists being sent to Mars will inevitably die. NASA asks why and Rover Seven says, "Lonely." 

That ending had me caught off guard. I thought this was going to be a cute story about a robot getting to know a little kid and being friends. But no. That was a solid story. Though what is unclear is whether or not Rover Seven knew if it was killing the colonists seeing as it would be alone again after their deaths. 5 stars. 

The Thing Inside Woody by Joseph Hirsch 

Woody was originally a klepto drug addict until he encountered aliens during a police chase. Now he's a quiet kid behaving himself. What has happened to Woody? He's been possessed by an alien mind and said alien likes being Woody. He's grown fond of his elderly caretakers Earl and Addy. He knows that if the real Woody regains control of his body then he'll murder his grandparents. Alien Woody won't have that so he threatens to kill himself ending the mission he's on. But instead is granted leave to stay in the body. So, Woody's grandparents aren't hurt in the end. 

I became triggered reading that a grandkid would kill their grandparents. This sensitivity is getting worse. I was gripping the edge of my bed begging that AW would find a way to save himself and the grandparents. And they do. Yay! Good writing. Had me invested. 5 stars. 

Trauma: A CyberVerse Tale by Chris McAuley 

Eva was living a fine life until her legs got blown off by the Valentino syndicate. She got caught snooping so she had to be silenced. Which would be the case since Eva not so smartly decided that without her legs she didn't want to live...despite having access to amazing augmentation (we'll talk about this later) and blows part of her head off. This did not kill her, however, and now she has more augmentation than human parts left. Isn't it ironic? She decides one night as her newly cyborg-self to get revenge! We get two really cool death scenes and a bludgeoning scene, during her rampage. Then she just heads back to her company to be repaired. Come to find out the corporation was behind EVERYTHING and had planned this from the beginning. So, again, it's capitalism's fault. 

Alright, let's talk about this. Now, I don't think the author meant to do this (and I'm not physically disabled myself) but the part where Eva is like "I'm going to kill myself because augmentation brings stigma" and then shoots herself is extremely ableist. The whole I'm useless "broken" mentality is really bad. Plus, the fact she's blaming the men she goes after for making her more machine than human, I don't buy it. It is her own fault for blowing out her brains. When really, she should have gotten some therapy and the leg augments and then went on her killing spree because fuck these dudes that tried to take her life. That would have been better. I mean it sounds like these augments are pretty good would anyone even need to know that she had them? Unless she told them herself? I'm just saying there were better workarounds here that would have been more sympathetic. I don't buy that this successful and confident woman would be willing to give up on life so easily. 2.5 stars. 

 

My thoughts are that there are some strong writers and stories here. With all Anthologies, some stories will be hit and miss. I do think that there is enough here for people to like and should pick up the book. I will always suggest a book if I enjoyed it. As I did here. Also, it's an anthology, not all of these stories are for me. I'm sure there are ones that I didn't care for that others will love and that's great. It's hard to judge anthologies as a whole because each story really has its own merit. Or not. It really depends on the reader. Like my own biases could be coloring my view on these stories. 

There were some formatting and grammatical issues with the book. I think the book would have been shorter without all the extra blank pages. Maybe that's because I got an ebook? Not sure. 

I'm grateful that HellBound Books continues to work with me and I'm sorry I couldn't give this book a higher rating. 

I usually put a like and dislike section but I think that was pretty clear with my mini thoughts under the summaries, so no reason to beat a dead monkey. 

Here is my song pick: 

I hope you enjoyed this review. Please, let me know what you thought about it. As always constructive criticism is welcome. Do you think you'll pick up the book? Which story sounds the most interesting? Did you enjoy the song? Comment below and let me know. 

Toodles! 

- Bug