Girl Genie Gets Her Wish: Review of Stellar Guild Book "Wishing on a Star"

NEW SCIENCE FICTION AND FANTASY REVIEWS

Reviews Of Recently Published Science Fiction And Fantasy Books

Reviewer: Forrest Schultz schultz_forrest@yahoo.com 770-583-3258

Blog Address: http://newsciencefictionandfantasyreviews.blogspot.com/

 

January 7, 2016

 

Girl  Genie  Gets  Her  Wish

 

A Review of a Stellar Guild Series Book:

 

Jody Lynn Nye With Angela Adams Wishing on a Star (Arc Manor, 2015)

                  $14.99    264 pp    ISBN: 978-1-61242-264-0

 

Reviewer:  Forrest W. Schultz                

 

     Like the traditional magic lamp tales, this modern one includes the challenge of exercising wisdom in the selection of what to wish for.  But its focus later shifts to the "genie" -- a teenage girl who needs to mature quickly if she is going to defeat the villain.  The satirizing of show biz in the first part of the story is well deserved but rather old hat.  The fascinating part of the tale is the replacement of the traditional almost robot-like genie with a very human one who becomes the hero.  And, of course, it is very modern in having a female playing a traditionally male role.

 

     Information on this and other Stellar Guild books is available at www.phoenixpick.com 

 

A Wacky Tale About Crosses In Way-Outer-Space: Review of the Stellar Guild Series Book INCI

NEW SCIENCE FICTION AND FANTASY REVIEWS

Reviews Of Recently Published Science Fiction And Fantasy Books

Reviewer: Forrest Schultz schultz_forrest@yahoo.com 770-583-3258

Blog Address: http://newsciencefictionandfantasyreviews.blogspot.com/

 

January 4, 2016

 

A  Wacky  Tale  About  Crosses  In  Way - Outer - Space

 

A Review of This Stellar Guild Series Book:

 

Mike Resnick with Tina Gower INCI (Arc Manor, 2015

                                                  175 pp   $14.99   ISBN: 978-1-61242-266-4

 

Reviewer:  Forrest W. Schultz

 

     This book is set in way-outer-space and so far out into the future that the people there are unaware of any religious sacrifices other than Christ's on the Cross, i.e. they know nothing about pagan religions conducting animal and human sacrifices, nor of Norse mythology in which the god Odin sacrifices himself on a tree.  In the Christianity we know today it is a heresy to believe that any sacrifice other than Christ's is salvifically efficacious, but in the Christianity in the far out future of the book under review heresy is to believe that there even WERE any other sacrifices (!!), so that missionary Joshua Barker is called a heretic when he claims to have evidence that extraterrestrials sacrificed one of their own on a cross, a picture of which is displayed on the front cover, which needs to be seen to really appreciate the humor of this !!  (It is also good for ridiculing the notion of intelligent extraterrestrial life!)

 

     There is also humor in the other main character of the story, the iconoclastic journalist Gar Matthews, who among other things, talks to the computer on his space ship as though it were human, and who provides a dramatic climax to the tale when he is crucified as a martyr, which, by the way, pokes fun at one thing Christianity does regard as a heresy, namely the martyr theory of Christ's crucifixion!

 

     Information on the Stellar Guild series concept is found in Mike Resnick's introduction and also at http://www.phoenixpick.com/