The Sharpshooter 1862-1864-A Winner!

READER VIEWS: The Annual Literary Awards 2012 Winners are in! Honorable Mention The Sharpshooter 1862-1864, All Things That Matter Press Charles Phillips http://www.readerviews.com/ReviewPhillipsTheSharpshooter.html The annual literary awards were established to honor writers who self-published or had their books published by a subsidy publisher, small press, university press, or independent book publisher geared for the North American reading audience.

2ND READERS AWARD FOR ALLNACH

 

 

 

Book Review

Reviewed by Lee Ashford for Readers Favorite

"Remnant" consists of 3 stories, each of which could be titled "Remnant". The first, and the longest, story was 'All the Fallen Angels', a futuristic glimpse of a vacation resort planet, renowned for the innate sense of euphoria experienced by all who visit it. However, the permanent residents of the planet became overwhelmed and disenchanted with the constant euphoria, requiring the Navy to intercede and quell rebellion. The Colonel in charge went a bit overboard, and was convicted of war crimes. Given a choice between death or submitting to experimentation, he chose the latter, never guessing how brutal that would be. Therein lies the story, which alternates between the present time and various periods of flashbacks. The second story was 'Enemy, I Know You Not', which again involved military intervention to quell rebellions, but on many planets, as needed. After a particularly deadly intervention, new recruits were installed to replace the casualties. The entire platoon then entered into a computer simulated training battle - basically a very interactive video game - in which all the senses are involved; when a "sim" gets shot, the actual soldier feels the pain. If killed in the simulation, they merely wake up and remove the game-activating helmet. But a computer glitch traps the platoon in the game, and fatalities in the simulation result in actual deaths of the soldiers. Story three is 'Remnant' in which a global plague kills virtually the entire planet Earth, leaving only 1 in 50,000 to carry on as a remnant population. It focuses on one man who needed to come to terms with the loss of his family, while he, though unworthy, survived.

This entire book was very well-written. The characters were well-developed and seemed like real people. It would be very difficult to read this without feeling a great deal of empathy for the characters. You will smile when good things happen to them, and feel their anxiety when bad things happen. I cannot recommend this book strongly enough; reading it will be an exceptional experience.

READERS FAVORITE AWARD

 

 Book Review

Reviewed by Lee Ashford for Readers Favorite

"Oddities & Entities" by Roland Allnach, categorized as horror fiction, is unlike any other horror fiction I have ever encountered. The book is comprised of 5 stories, each of which is written a cut above the norm. There are no recognizable monsters in these stories, no sophomoric zombies, no evil ancient vampires, and none of the standard fare I have become accustomed to in the horror genre. I do like the usual run of the horror genre, but this book is written with thoughtful intelligence, for an intelligent adult reader. I do not mean to imply sexual situations or coarse language. What I mean is, any intelligent reader, capable of deep thought, will find this book irresistible. The 5 individual stories are as unlike as any 5 stories can be, yet each one is so sufficiently well-written that, if sold as individual short stories, I wouldn't hesitate to award 5 stars to each of them.

To say I like this book is a crass understatement. Each story drew me in and evoked my empathy for various characters. These stories forced me to actually think beyond what I was reading. Each premise was unique, at least in my experience; I have never encountered any other stories that even approach the situations these present with authority and authenticity. If I could boil down my perception of this book into a single word, that word would be WOW! Roland Allnach's first anthology, "Remnant", which I have also read, was placed as a finalist in the Science Fiction category in the 2011 National Indie Excellence Awards. I absolutely expect "Oddities & Entities" to follow suit. If you read only one book this year, make it this one. Be prepared to have your comfort zone challenged.

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