Shadow OPS: Control Point by Myke Cole

Myke Cole’s initial installment in the SHADOW OPS series is an interesting read. The urban fantasy market is heavily populated with pretty, sassy heroines who are in love with this vampire or that werewolf. In Control Point, Cole takes a completely different approach to adding magic to the world we live in.

Oscar Britton is a conflicted man. His childhood was difficult, and in the Army he seems to have found a place that makes sense for him. Oscar is a junior Officer working with a Special Operations group that supports magically-gifted government agents in their efforts to track down and bring into custody other gifted individuals who are not following the laws about how magic is to be controlled and used. This is a high stress, high risk assignment that demands a lot of Oscar, in terms of both his physical prowess and his mental ... Read More

Reposting to include Marion's new review.

Shadow Ops: Fortress Frontier by Myke Cole

It’s amazing how a main character can spoil a book. Shadow Ops: Fortress Frontier is the second book in the SHADOW OPS series by Myke Cole. I didn’t like the first book, Control Point, very well because I loathed Oscar Britton, the main character. He offended my pride as a soldier. Yet I decided to try the second book and this time I have to give Myke Cole some real credit for giving me a reason not to hate his SHADOW OPS series.... his name is Alan Bookbinder.

Back in a 21st Century world that has experienced the return of magic, the US Army continues to run pretty much like it always has. There are oper... Read More

Shadow Ops: Breach Zone by Myke Cole

If you take the time to look and consider, there are often important lessons you can learn from novels. Sometimes characters exhibit traits and growth that we, ourselves, would do well to emulate. Shadow Ops: Breach Zone contains some of those lessons and role models.

Good people do bad things. We call them mistakes. The hard part about being in a position of real responsibility is that the second and third order effects can greatly exceed even our most jaded expectations. For LTC Jan Thorsson, call-sign Harlequin, those effects manifested themselves when his former lover and the most dangerous woman in the world manages to rip a hole between the Source and downtown New York City to release a flood of goblins and other enemies of humanity.

As a result of having done the right, if not politically expedient thing, recently promoted Brigadier General Bookbinder ... Read More

The Armored Saint by Myke Cole

In Heloise’s land, the foremost rule of the Order is clear: “Suffer no wizard to live.” For the exercise of magical powers, it is said, will open a portal to hell through the eyes of the wizard, allowing devils to come through and wreak destruction among men. But all sixteen year old Heloise can see is the oppression of the religious Order, which allows its Sojourners and Pilgrims to bully and oppress the common people. Anyone even suspected of using magical powers, or protecting those who have such powers, is immediately executed by the flail- and chain-bearing Order members, who act in the name of the Emperor.

Heloise Factor lives with her parents in the small medieval-type village of Hammersdown, where families are named for the father’s profession: Factor, Trapper, Fletcher, Grower, and so forth. Heloise’s best friend Basina Tinker comes from a family of metalworkers, who form metal ox ... Read More

We're always on the lookout for horrible SFF covers that need renaming.

When we tweeted our review for this book last week, author Myke Cole pointed out that this awful cover is really begging to be renamed:

Folks. This cover is crying out for alternate titles. Something more clever than "Behold! My glowing junk!" Please. https://t.co/UKieUzZ2ZO