Deadline Zombies: The Adventures of Maxi and Moxie
by Teel James Glenn
The Book is Fantasy/ pulp adventure/mystery
Published by BooksForABuck
Blurb:
Chasing a headline is just a job for ace reporter Moxie Donovan, but sometimes those headlines turn on him and bite. Moxie, along with his sexy better half, Maxi (a theater and film actor) face a tiger-sized panther, mechanical gunmen who support the master race, Irish Fae with the urge to pay Moxie back for the loot his grandfather took from them, murder and a hypnotist intent on re-filming Ben Hur.
My Review:
MORE!
And the good thing is I have two more collections of Moxie and Maxi just waiting for me. Book Two: Headline Ghouls, The Further Adventures of Maxi & Moxie; Book Three: Tabloid Terrors, More Adventures of Maxi & Moxie.
When reviewing the reading is always the easiest part. Makes sense, right? The writing of the actual review reads – too much, too bland, or you end up parroting yourself. The funniest thing about all this, is it’s hardest when you fully enjoy and love what you’ve just read. Which is why I’m taking this time to show you how I make my notes during review-reading.
Yes, reading to review is different…at least for me. I am judging the story, there’s no other way to say it. Even though I choose to not judge the technical writing aspect of any story sent to me. Never really sure if I’ve received an advanced final edited copy. This is why I take notes during my reading and here they are for DEADLINE ZOMBIES…
history of news people, journalist at beginning set the mood
want more, only at page 9
time and character voice dead on for time period – Teel has a knack for it
think Hepburn and Tracy
think Saturday matinees from years ago
touch of dark old fashion horror movies…of course, Bela makes an appearance
collection of short stories…want a full length novel with these characters one day
think of Nightstalker series…Darren McGavin
add in time period of War and Nazis…nice mixing
Oh WOW, did not expect that…nice.
Well folks, there you have it. The reasons I enjoyed DEADLINE ZOMBIES, it fits right in with my faves for total escapism.
Teel…about that full length novel…
Headline Ghouls: The further adventures of Maxi and Moxie
by Teel James Glenn
The Book is Fantasy/ pulp adventure/mystery
Published by BooksForABuck
Blurb:
Reporter Moxie Donnovan has followed his actor-wife to Hollywood and taken a job as a studio flack, but he hasn’t lost his eye for a story… and Hollywood is full of stories. It’s 1938, Hitler rules Germany and is supporting U.S. Nazi groups, the studio system is in full force, America still suffers from the Great Depression, and hard-boiled reporter heroes are the order of the day. HEADLINE GHOULS follows Moxie, along with his hard-dancing, hard-drinking wife Maxi, as they confront Hollywood blackmailers, Nazi cells, occult Nazi gangs who use human sacrifice, New Orleans voodoo, and Germany’s attempts to infiltrate Hollywood. Moxie and Maxi play off against each other with quick dialogue, an assembly of interesting friends, and the glamour of the studio system in its heyday.
To find Teel:
Review:
Pulp magazines. We need them back. We need their dark innocence escape. A side benefit to this genre is Teel’s sharing of the history and feel to these pages and the, if not, magic, the release from reality’s binds to no holding back.
At the time these stories were written produced at a rapid speed, but lack nothing in the details or adventure. Heroes and heroines went into danger and lived…a bit battered but triumphal.
Maybe I’m sexist, chauvinistic – yes we women can be that, but I like female characters who are dames. Strong, confident, and sexy as all hell. Hey, strong and confident are needed for truly sexy male characters, too. Hmm, what’s the opposite of dame? Bogart had it. Tracy had it. Sam Elliott has it. Fictional characters like Mike Hammer and JR Ewing have it. Adding here Teel’s naming of Sam Spade and Phillip Marlow.
Never are these characters – female or male – attempting to be equals; however, their differences, in the end, make them equal. Differences together making each side of the coin.
Throw all this in with a touch of other worldness and you are back in Maxi and Moxie’s world. I will add, I really don’t want to leave their world. It’s too much fun. Although, Maxie might appreciate his own escape from everything.
Yes, I recommend this ebook and its mates…I’m forcing myself to finish the next one only because I don’t want it to end.
And I just have to add:
When’s a morgue not a morgue, but still a morgue? Ask Maxie.
Tabloid Terrors: The further adventures of Maxi and Moxie
by Teel James Glenn
The Book is Fantasy/ pulp adventure/mystery
Published by
Blurb:
Sorry, can’t find my notes
To find Teel:
Review:
It’s taken so long to work this review that I’m actually writing it at 5am, March 23, 2018 from my hospital bed. Hey, need something to keep the mind active.
By now you know I enjoy reading these characters. Their style and voice hit me like old movies. Too get a little deep they’re blunt for their time and it’s refreshing instead of being cookie cutter sameness – not that that is a bad or negative thing.
Here’s my notes upon reading, sometimes having more impact than trying to write them all out. Hope you visit Maxie and Moxie.
- Stepping into real world that is Moxie and Maxi’s fiction
- Prologues tend to be long for me – first chapters?
- Keeping secondary, even third, characters add to belonging and atmosphere – want to visit their history
- There’s a perfect line I can’t share because it would give away too much – writers kill me when they do this
- Language can be powerful; however this bring emotional reactions.
Enjoy
Chris
The Horsed Thief
by Teel James Glenn
Blurb:
In the virtual world of Old Basra a thief who loved a Princess learns to see with more than his eyes and changes the real world in the process.
In Old Basra the thief Asad El-baha falls in love at first sight with the beautiful Princess Fatinah, but it is a forbidden love. In the real world the office is a hotbed of bullying and unrequited love. The two worlds collide when the evil wizard-emir who transforms Asad into a horse, and the game goes horribly wrong.
My Review:
Mr. Glenn always tells a swashbuckling tale. High action, fast-paced, and classic-voiced. I know this sounds like a bunch of catch phrases; however, this is what I’ve come to expect when I open one of his books. Why I look forward to opening them.
It’s easy to rewrite the storyline and delve into the nitty-gritty of structures and style. But lately I find myself moving toward a simpler voice. Surprisingly, moving away from the catch phrases and impact words to the plain fact…I enjoy Mr. Glenn’s writing.
I know, I know, even wrote it in another review, just saying I like a book isn’t enough. If it was all my reviews would be ratings and nothing more. Kinda of boring, really.
When I open a book from Mr. Glenn I expect to be swept away. To find myself in another world in the midst of adventure and full make believe. Actually, I think that hits it on the nail…reading Mr. Glenn is very much like playing make believe. I can plant myself in the middle of the story and literally have to pull myself out into reality. This is different from escaping into a book. This is watching a stage play calling me up on stage and taking me along as everything unfolds.
I didn’t know what to expect when I started reading “The Horsed Thief.” I kept thinking the land of Aladdin. Then I would be back in my old office cubicle waiting to escape to my daydreams…my books. Here I wonder if we’re escaping to a time past or future present?
When and how does the virtual become reality and reality, virtual?
I don’t really know, all I do know is I had fun reading “The Horsed Thief.”
THE EXCEPTIONALS: BOOK 1: MEASURE OF A MAN
By Teel James Glenn and Jerry Kokich
To state there is a new type of hero would be too cliché. However, Mr. Glenn and Mr. Kokich introduce us to new heroes who, I believe, satisfy any lover of military/police-based champions.
I am unsure about these characters, right now. Their abilities and personalities seem a little excessive. However, isn’t that what we want in our superheroes?
To quote the book’s description, these men and women are “extraterritorial bio-enhanced bounty hunters, who could go anywhere, do almost anything in the name of the law.” World Governments and the United Nations employ, train, pay, and generally sanction them and all their missions. “The Exceptionals Book 1” follow The Bodyguard, the New York Exceptionals team.
In this first look at The Bodyguard, we witness their skills as would-be-exceptionals-turned-criminals overtake The Bodyguard headquarters. Encounters with Captain Mephisto and his raiding pirates act as comic relief to the serious mission to Cambodia, where more shocks and secrets discovered. Will the team ever be the same? Hey, I had to leave you something.
I still have a few questions about the characters and the action sequences. However, after looking up Mr. Glenn’s resume I am convinced on the fighting skills. I found the quieter information research and discovery, the interactions between the characters, and the secrets made a more compelling read than the action.
“The Exceptionals Book 1” was a slow start, for me; however, I want to what happens next.
THE EXCEPTIONALS BOOK 2: ACROSS THE WASTELAND
By Teel James Glenn
Is it in our future to a step back to tribal times?
“Across the Wasteland” is a much stronger and more involving read. The Exceptionals characters, mostly Lastshot and Skorpion, were easier to believe and accept. They are the new heroes of a very disturbing future.
“Across the Wasteland” travels with us to a part of our world turned into a wasteland due to via a massive whole in the ozone layer that we caused. This area “the zone” is a virtual dead man’s land. Nothing electrical works within its ozone free boundaries. The solar radiation can and does kill. Even Lastshot and Skorpion feel this area’s weakening powers.
However, as renegade Exceptional, Rokk, knows, life is always hidden deep inside Mother Earth. Rokk is “a full blood Seneca, a citizen of the Original Nation Confederacy” as well as an Exceptional. Mr. Glenn introduces an interesting future for North America and her Native Peoples.
Rokk knows the Law and Justice are sometimes opposites and, sadly, he has taken the law into his own hands to delivery justice. You will need to judge him for yourself.
The base story of “Across the Wasteland” is the survival of Lastshot and Skorpion as they strive to deliver Rokk to the proper authorities while keeping the civilians, whose plane was commandeered for Rokk’s transportation, alive. Within the Wastelands, our group encounters the locals, who were force to band together into warring tribes, packs of radioactively mutated wolves, and their own internal battles.
I like Lastshot here more than in Book 1 of The Exceptionals. Here he is faced with someone, Rokk, who is very much like Lastshot, but has crossed the very narrow line dividing the legal from the illegal. How Lastshot accepts or doesn’t accept Rokk made for a deeper reading of what is an adventure series.
This time around Mr. Glenn has produced one storyline and has run with it to my satisfaction. So, what’s so great about it being to my satisfaction? I’m no longer going to read Book 3 because I’m curious or because I’ve accepted the review request…I’m reading Book 3 because I want to revisit this series.
Well done, Mr. Glenn.
THE EXCEPTIONALS BOOK 3: ON THE GOOD SHIP CALIGULA
By Teel James Glenn
This is not the Good Ship Lollypop, but their God Emperor Maximus Caligula the Second is a little lolly–as in gone around the bend a few times. Can The Bodyguard save two of their own from Maximus’ gladiator games?
I’m enjoying the escapism Mr. Glenn’s world offers and I’m a little surprised that I am. Mr. Glenn has created over-the-top super human heroes meshing natural abilities with technologies from some modern Six Million Man world and it WORKS. Not my normal reading choices, but I’m now looking forward to each new story.
In this book three of The Exceptionals, a tsunami of ‘27 sent the aircraft carrier, the California, crashing into a small village just north of Columbia. Now called the Republic of Nova Roma and ruled by said Maximus Caligula, who has brought back the life and death (mostly death) games of ancient Rome. Very lucrative games.
Exceptional Temper, Tori Yagyu, was tracking black market nuclear arming triggers when she ran into the games. What connection is there between the games and nuclear missiles?
Undercover, Exceptional Lastshot, Connor Le’Schott, goes in to bring Tori home. Is this the final face off between him and…like I’m going to tell you.
The Exeptionals is pure entertaining escapism. It’s the good guys against the bad guys and let the bodies fall where they will. It’s fantastical over the top situations that could just be a teeniest bit futuristically real.
Yes, I want more.
When RenFairies Attack
By: Teel James Glenn
Publisher: Whiskey Creek Press
Blurb:
Once the Fae and mortal worlds lived side by side, then Queen Morgana became unhappy with a mortal hero and closed the passage between the worlds. For many years the worlds of man and fae could be breached only in dreams or where dreams lived in the daylight: Renaissance Faires!
Then the barriers were opened again and the two worlds became as one—that was when things got interesting!
Now gods and ogres, jinn and demons cross into the world of mortal man with alarming regularity.
In this brave new world, a farmer makes a wish and his deal with a Leprechaun is not what he bargained for; an Englishman attends a party and accepts a terrible gift; a Manhattan bar bouncer throws the wrong little folk out of his pub and an actuary falls in love with a beautiful jinn princess.
Humans beware, when Renfairies attack, danger follows!
My Review:
Here’s where I’m going to redirect you to my review of book one: Queen Morgana and the Renfairies because, really, how do you explain a smooth transfer from the separate realms of fantasy and our reality to one where both live together and no one thinks or behaves like we’ve all lost our minds?
When Renfairies Attack is a continuation of short stories where mortals mix with Fae and the outcome is anything but what we humans expected. We, humans/mortals, really need to be careful about what we wish for, ask for, and out and out think about ourselves. Then again, sometimes the god(s) are on our side, sorta.
As a reminder, the copy I received to read and review was not a final editing/proofed/ready for publication piece; therefore, structure and overall writing rules and such, well, I’m ignoring. Not that I really comment on those in any review. And, yes, I’m behind but it’s never too late for any review.
Back to Teel’s story. The Fae reality reads real because Teel knows Faires and this translates to his writing. What strikes me more about these stories, and maybe I’m going too deep into the humanity of us all, but I can’t help feel there’s a commentary on us here within these stories.
How would we be seen through another’s eyes? I don’t mean someone human, but one of the wee folk, as my great-granny called them.
How true is the belief – our thoughts will create our reality? Are our lives driven by our fears and worries? Are we seen by how we see and feel inside more than how we show on the outside? What about those gut reactions to some we’ve all experienced? Could we be “seeing” the true person, and in Teel’s words, the decaying monkey that they are.
I’m not saying reading “When Renfairies Attack” will change you as in studying a self-help book might/could if that’s what you’ve been looking for. But, it might make you pause and rethink your next wish – you never know who might be listening.
In the end, I got to visit with a sampling of my great-granny’s wee folk. Smile at some Leprechauns and giggle at the mortals who thought they knew better.
Let alone be reminded of the sayings my granny learned from my great-granny about being careful what you wish for and don’t go fooling around with the little folk…don’t go looking for trouble; biting off more than you can chew. Great-granny knew what she knew when looking in the garden.
Thanks, Teel.
Queen Morgana and the Renfairies
by Teel James Glenn
Genre: Fantasy
Publisher: WhiskeyCreekPress
Winner of the2012 Pulp Ark Award for Best Author
Queen Morgana will not allow free passage between the realms of the Fae and of humans. Because of this, both realms are dying. The only bridge between the worlds is the place where dreams live in the daylight: Renaissance Faires!
A group of humans stumbles through the portal: a cocky movie make-up man who hits on the wrong woman, a Vietnam vet whose nightmares make living a chore, a private detective on the strangest case of his career, a crippled cop and a burger store manager who loves to go LARPing.
One of them has to show the Queen of the Fae what true love is or they will perish in the greater darkness that is growing day by day. Oh, and in the process, they have to try and figure out who the strange guy in the Viking helmet is and why he is giggling all the time…
Review:
I think I’ve finally discovered why it takes me so dang long reading Teel’s stories…I get lost in them, I don’t want them to end. Lame? Oh for sure, specially since he writes more. I have at least four more waiting for me. I have yet to be disappointed in anything written by Teel.
Side trip time…
Oh, on first name basis am I? Why yes. Consider him a cyber-friend met through author-reviewer relationship. So, you’re thinking I won’t say anything negative? Really? Trust is built on honesty…mine to every author and reader who visits my reviews. And their/your trust in me.
However, for the record, here and for majority of those I review, I don’t comment on grammar or put my editor’s hat on (I might fight with it, but that’s because it hits first) only because I forget which eBooks/print books are prior to final publication and which aren’t. Not fair to comment on this area if I’m the one being forgetful.
Onward we go…
I really need to visit a Faire one summer. I’ve wanted to, but have never gotten around to it. I really need to go this year. Although, after reading this collection of neatly tied stories I might want to keep an extra lookout.
Or watch what songs I sing.
First be prepared to not like the first story’s main character, Jack. He’s an ego…and an ass, but I’ll stop there 
With that firmly set in your mind and the opening pages, be prepared to rethink it all. I dare you to tell me you don’t see the ending coming and then tell me you didn’t “ahhhh” over it. Shhh, I admit nothing.
Fine, I’ll admit I did cry at the opening of story two. (There goes my hard-hearted rep)
All-in-all QUEEN MORGANA AND THE RENFAIRIES is a mixed bag of tales revolving around Ren Faires. Curtain crossing to dreamlands and new beginnings.
Enjoyable, fun, sweet-emotionally moving. Would I be shot if I said, delightful?
Look, I’m fully captured by these characters. I smiled throughout the reading. You want to escape to the Sidhe side, here you go, I’ve been shown the doorway.
Yes, I did argue with my editor-hat, but I do that all the time. Frankly, those arguments where over little inconsistencies, refer to my side trip above.
What I didn’t see coming was the finishing touch. Made reaching that last screen page more satisfying. You know the moment when you’re completely content. You close the material, sit back, sigh-smile, and just be.
Always leads to hubby or child (or stranger should I be outside in public) ask “Good book?”
Yeeeahhhhh. (insert your own happy face here)
Need a say more