Tracey's Calling by Rob Santana; The Mantis Continuum (The Mantis Gland Series Book 4) by Adam Andrews Johnson and Where The Wave Broke by Robert Rooks, The Travel Man

Tracey's Calling by Rob Santana, The Mantis Continuum (The Mantis Gland Series Book 4) by Adam Andrews Johnson and Where The Wave Broke by Robert Rooks, The Travel Man 

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews 

Tracey's Calling by Rob Santana 

Tracey's Calling by Rob Santana is a tense psychological suspense short novel about trauma and its chilling aftermath on two people, the victim and the perpetrator.

Tracey is left traumatized after being sexually assaulted by Phil, a married husband and father. She is angry and filled with vengeance but she doesn't want to just have him arrested or kill him. She has a more long-term goal. She manipulates her way into his home, befriends his wife, Patsy and daughter, Joy, and blackmails Phil into financially providing her escape from her abusive family.

This book is essentially a two-person story between Phil and Tracey, the abuser and his sexual victim, the blackmailer and her financial victim. They both have plenty of depth and layers in their one-on-one combat.

 Tracey is very methodical in planning and executing her revenge. She decides to become a haunting presence in Phil’s life instead of taking the easy way out and killing him. It's a way of disarming Phil and leaving him as vulnerable and uncertain as he was. She may have been physically underneath him then but she is figuratively on top of him now.

Phil is also an interesting albeit antagonistic character. His memories of that night are filled with the graphic violence that he inflicted and his weak attempts at justifying it. He is not understandable at all here.

However, there are points where the safety of his family is compromised and the Reader's thoughts shift to Patsy and Joy's welfare and how Phil will be affected by their losses. It allows Readers to understand and even be concerned about the husband and father without defending or condoning the violent actions that he did.

Also, Patsy and Joy’s subplots are handled well. Patsy sometimes acts as the comic relief by rehearsing weather girl monologues and being preoccupied with an upcoming job interview at a news TV station. However, she also shows awareness with Tracey’s presence and the circumstances of her arrival by going from empathy, to suspicion towards her, then distrust towards Phil.

Joy is an effective foil to Tracey. She was a sheltered girl thrown into violent catastrophic circumstances which Tracey knew about practically since birth. She acts like a spoiled brat at times, but is also a very realistic teenager with emotions, hormones, and irritation at everyone else around her. She follows Tracey into some dangerous circumstances without thinking of the consequences.

This is a cold calculated tale of revenge in which much is lost and there are very few victors.

 

The Mantis Continuum (The Mantis Gland Series Book 4) by Adam Andrews Johnson 

No matter how an ongoing book series, not every volume is going to be a winner. The first three books of Adam Andrews Johnson’s The Mantis Gland Series told a captivating series about a world where some people called Shits have mutations because of a gland called the Mantis Gland. These people develop extraordinary abilities like flight, telekinesis, elemental control, super strength, impervious skin, or remote viewing.

 The Shifts are targeted by the Messiahs, a religious cult that has a great deal of power and influence. They perform ritualistic murder on the Shifts so they can swallow and absorb the glands. In each volume, the Shifts gather together in Teshon City where they form a resistance aided by a Demifae,a person who studies magic, called The Mystic and others who fight against the Messiah’s influence. The first three volumes tell a streamlined story and introduce new characters with the goal of bringing them together. They have a definite beginning, middle, and end. 

The fourth volume in The Mantis Gland Series, The Mantis Continuum is by far the weakest book in the series. It has some interesting passages of character development that push some forward into new relationships, abilities, positions, and self-awareness. However, there are too many characters and subplots to tell a comprehensible or compelling story. It’s a case of doing way too much at once.

Some of the new characters and subplots aren’t bad. After the murder of their mother, twins Thech and Jzuna flee to Teshon City with an entertainer named Bivon. A trio, Kosephaji, Relliduna, and Pelipi have to escape via boat after Relliduna becomes seriously injured. Meanwhile a group of former Messiahs whose bodies have completely altered into monstrosities by consuming too many Mantis Glands are heading straight for Teshon and they are hungry.

When the book slows down, it captures some pretty decent moments. Thech and Jzuna have a loving sibling relationship. The sweet but dim Thech is the more physical one while the bright eloquent Jzuna provides the brainpower. Jzuna is a maternal influence on her brother’s life while Thecha brings out her more empathetic side. 

Another winning relationship is that of Kosephjai and Relliduna. As their lives are in danger, they evolve from best friends to lovers. With the constant threats to their lives and feeling out of focus because of the suspicion towards Shifts, there are very few people that they and Pelipi can rely on. These stressful situations bring out their most vulnerable emotions, cause them to evaluate their feelings towards each other, and move their relationship forward. 

The problems occur when the action moves to Teshon City where the new characters meet the old ones. There are way too many characters to focus on and it’s hard to remember who is whom, what their significance is, which book they debuted in, or even their powers. 

If you notice in my previous paragraphs, I mentioned some of the character developments that I liked but not their powers, it's because I don't remember them. There wasn't anything that made their abilities stand out or differentiate from the older characters.

There are times when the chapters read like one giant roll call by showing brief scenes of characters in their current setting but don’t do anything important with them. It was almost like Johnson said, “See this character? Yeah they are still alive. Move along.” With that many introductions or reintroductions, it takes a long time for them to actually do anything.

Even an interesting plot point that was introduced in the previous book of Messiahs whose bodies have become distorted by their addictive consumption of the Mantis Gland, isn't as compelling as it was in the previous book. They leave a creepy disturbing presence, enter Teshon City with unending appetites, kill a few Shifts, and anticlimactically meet their end. They were much more intimidating as a cult.

Perhaps Johnson should have ended the series at Book Three or, as much as I like the new characters, just developed the original ones instead of inserting new ones. This book shows that there is a time to write and build on a new series but there is also a time that it should end. There is a fifth book, The Mantis Synchronicity. Here's hoping that it's better.

Where The Wave Broke by Robert Rooks, The Travel Man 

This review is also on Reedsy Discovery.

Where The Wave Broke by Robert Rooks is a short novel about a touring music group that is long on atmosphere but not on plot or thankfully music group cliches.

Two years after they break up, the band Borrowed Light has re-formed to go on a tour of several European cities. Drummer Giada, bassist Julian, and the guitarist Narrator endure long days going from one place to another, long nights of performing, playing at various clubs, and facing fans, owners, executives, on and on.

Let's explain what this book doesn't have. No love triangles though they had some romantic entanglements in the past. No drug addiction fights or onstage meltdowns. No slow climb to success followed by a rapid fall thanks to personnel disputes and the soulless music industry. No internal conflict between the member who is full of themselves and the others. Not much of the usual music tropes, which actually makes this a great short novel.

The biggest strength in the book is the atmosphere. The opening describes the trio’s travels as “The map matters only because sound behaves differently from where you stand. Amsterdam’s wood, Paris’ velvet, Brussels’ take, Montreux’s morning light, Valencia’s warm air, Stockholm’s clean edge, those spaces shaped our tempos more than adrenaline ever could.” 

The book is a constant stream of wearying movement, travel, faces running together, frustration with last minute changes and bookings, the exhilaration of a performing high, and the languid exhaustion afterwards. 

The clubs are filled with smoky air, tight compacted space, argumentative organizers and club owners, and customers either enraptured by the music or bored with life. Only faces and names change. The music draws the band, their listeners, and club employees for one moment before it ends and they trudge along to their separate lives.

The tone explains perfectly why this book doesn’t go into the usual tropes and cliches about music groups, It tells the truth about that kind of life. Julian, Giada, and The Narrator don’t fall into those typical hijinks because realistically they don’t have time to. They travel to different places, check into hotels, inspect the clubs, negotiate with owners and executives, put up their instruments, sound check, play a few sets, close, thank everybody, pack up, maybe have a few drinks or talk to customers, stagger off to bed, sleep, wake up the next day, check out, and then go on to the next city. 

Any conflicts that occur between them is not because of rock star ego. It’s because they are tired and snippy from constant travel and are getting on one another’s nerves, 

There is a simplicity within these characters and how they accept the music and travel lifestyle as just a part of their lives. They leave complicated love lives, conflicts with family members, and their own insecurities and self-esteem issues behind to play. Also their personalities mesh well with Giada’s no nonsense leadership and organization skills, Julian’s flash and outgoing personality, and The Narrator’s rationality and poetic observation. 

The band gives them a chance to use their musical talents and personality traits to good use by contributing to their chosen art, openly and honestly expressing their emotions, seeing different places and meeting different people, and despite the hardships having a good time, and making exciting memories to look back on.

In fact their tour isn’t really seen as a means to become discovered and sign on with a bigtime record company. It’s just something that they get to do once in a while as friends and musicians and then return to normal life afterwards. . 

Jack The Bodiless (Galactic Milieu Series Book 2) by Julian May; The Return of an Old Friend

 Jack The Bodiless (Galactic Milieu Series Book 2) by Julian May; The Return of an Old Friend

By Julie Sara Porter 

Bookworm Reviews 

Spoilers: It's an interesting experience to reread a book after many years. In 1997, I read Julian May’s The Galactic Milieu Series. I was new to reading Science Fiction, mostly limited to Ray Bradbury's works. I was curious about this series about The Remillards, a telepathic family, or metapsychic family to use the book's terminology. It left such a large impression on me that Science Fiction became one of my favorite genres to read.

Almost 30 years later, I wondered after almost three decades of reading speculative fiction if The Galactic Milieu Series still holds up. I am glad to report that as far as the second volume in the series and the first that I read, Jack The Bodiless is concerned, it not only held up, it actually improved with age.

The most prominent and influential family is The Remillard Family whose members are highly metapsychic.When patriarch Victor dies, The Remillards receive mental impressions of two monsters, Fury and Hydra who commit a series of murders over the years leaving the family vulnerable. Meanwhile, Paul and Teresa Kendall-Remillard are expecting their fifth child, Jon or Jack, who is genius, self-aware, and could potentially be the most powerful psychic in the family even as an infant.

The Earth that May envisioned has some interesting touches that are both imaginative and thought provoking. When I previously read it, the future was far away and remote. Now that it’s here, the parallels can’t be missed. 

The setting of this book is over 100 years after a time called The Great Intervention (detailed in the first book in the series, Intervention unread by me.). Various alien races made contact with Earth inviting them to join the Galactic Milieu, sort of an intergalactic United Nations. Earthlings received many perks because of this union including long life spans, rejuvenated youth, mental telepathy, other metapsychic abilities, and the ability to travel to the stars. It is an amazing world that May built in which the human mind is invited into a higher consciousness that explores unlimited potential beyond our little blue dot in the vast universe.

However as readers of Science Fiction all know, there is always a catch to what seems to be a great offer and in the case of the Milieu, that catch is Unity. The Milieu wants Earth’s residents to join their minds and consciousness with the other species as a hive mind. Many are on board with this concept, and those who are supportive are granted higher positions in society. 

However, there are plenty of humans who rebelled against the concept like Rogatien “Rogi” Remillard, the cynical and deadpan narrator of the book. Rebels are concerned about the death of individuality, privacy, and human frailties.

 It is a conflict that carries over throughout the series. It’s also open-ended and invites readers to weigh their own opinions about the cost of vast knowledge and power vs. a life of mental subservience and conformity.

While Earth hasn’t exactly made contact with alien species and psychic abilities are still more theoretical than real, many of the issues that are discussed in this series are still very relevant. In this era of vast technology, social media, surveillance, censorship, and instantaneous connections we humans are made painfully aware of what is at stake.

We are surrounded by conflicts about privacy, the pursuit of vast knowledge, the price of conformity, and the desire to be individuals. May recognized these concerns in the 90’s and inserted them into her imaginary world. Now we are weighing that for ourselves. 

As detailed as May’s futuristic world is, her characters are just as well written. None more so than the large Remillard Family. They are like a fictional futuristic psychic version of the Kennedys, a family that is rich in wealth, power, influence, charisma, and inner turmoil. 

They are enthralling as a family unit and as individuals. They have some great struggles and conflicts that are pulled out of soap opera just as they are out of science fiction. Conflicts like infidelity, divorce, differing viewpoints, child abuse, illness, mental disorders are just as important as the wider conflicts with the Galactic Milieu. The Remillards are a very realistic family that lives in a fanciful universe.

Brothers Marc and Jack Remillards are a pair of stand outs in this intriguing family. Marc is an adolescent who at times acts more mature than his lecherous father and emotional mother. He shares a special bond with Jack even before Jack is born where they communicate telepathically. He also receives visions and mental impressions suggesting that his fate is much larger than he thought.

Jack too is also a brilliant character. He thinks complex thoughts inside the womb. Even after he is born, and suffers tremendous physical pain, his brain is still highly active. His brain practically ascends to a higher plane of existence that doesn’t need to be contained by a corporeal body. The overall impression is a small child who is highly intelligent, otherworldly, and somewhat disconcerting in his otherworldliness.

Surrounding this family are Fury and Hydra terrifying creatures that destroy their victims from within. It is a strange union in which Fury is clearly the dominant leader and Hydra the excitable follower. They conspire to destroy the Remillards from within.

They are like things from nightmares and feed off Remillard Family’s pain, insecurities, fears, and anger. They are unleashed in violent confrontations that are chilling and disturbing.

Jack the Bodiless is highly recommended for readers of science fiction, particularly those who are interested in reading about psychic powers, intergalactic space travel, dysfunctional families, rebellions, utopias, and the potential of expanded human potential, knowledge, and consciousness. 

The North Sea Killer by Dale E. Manolakas; The Mantis Corruption The Mantis Gland Series Book 3 by Adam Andrews Johnson

 The North Sea Killer by Dale E Manolakas 

Dale E. Manolakas’ The North Sea Killer is a short but tight thriller about a rich aristocrat with a very dangerous side. 

Edward Kenworthy is the second son of the Duke of Belford, a prominent British family. Besides being a wealthy playboy, he is a serial killer and his latest conquest is Chloe Bridgeport, an American senator’s daughter. When she goes missing, the trail appears right at Edward’s doorstep and his collection of dead bodies and other activities won’t be hidden for long.

There isn’t a moment in this book that is wasted because of its short length and tense plot. It tells a fascinating Psychological Crime Thriller from beginning to end that takes multiple view points of the murders, the coverups, the investigation, the arrest and trial of Edward’s colleague and cohort, Greg Sterling, the estate gamekeeper’s son, and the eventual accusations and evidence mounting against Edward. 

Edward makes for a charismatic but terrifying killer. He is reminiscent of the type of villain found in old Alfred Hitchcock films who hides his sinister intent underneath a veneer of wealth and privilege. He is the center of a very wide circle of the elite and famous, people who get drunk, take drugs, sleep around, and run wild. 

One of his favorite places to scout for potential victims is the International Edinburgh Festival because it fits both aspects of his personality. It’s a public place to go where he can see and be seen among the fashionable and idle rich elite. It’s also somewhere he can find young female victims far from home, easily attracted to his charm, and who may not be reported missing for while if ever. This location selection reveals that Edward spends just as much time maintaining this entitled surface as he does killing women. It is the surface that allows him to do such nefarious things without getting caught. 

After all, Edward could always call a solicitor, one of his father's contacts, crooked and prestigious law enforcement officers, one of the estate’s many employees, or a partygoer and an alibi is provided, money is thrown around, bribes are offered and taken, threats are made, a witness is paid off, a case is dropped, a body is hidden, and Edward is home free and clear. These are resources that Greg doesn’t have so it’s no surprise that when the law comes, they come for him and try him as the killer instead of Edward. Greg is made the fall guy and Edward is all too willing to throw him under the bus so he can continue his private activities. 

To be fair, no one looks particularly good in this book. Many characters reveal a duplicitous nature underneath their surface. Chloe’s friend, Shannon Kelly is a distraught key witness but she is also an aspiring actress who is willing to use her friend’s death as a launchpad to her own career. Her father, Senator Jeffrey Bridgeport, is clearly grieving and wants to see justice done but also knows that he can get sympathy votes that will take him far into politics, perhaps to the White House.

 The prosecution and defense attorneys, Thomas J. Dodd and Penelope Thompson respectively use the case to raise their own standards and those of causes that are important to them. Then there’s Edward’s father, The Duke of Belford, who becomes aware of his son’s violent tendencies, has his own speculation, and has to weigh whether he wants to protect his family name and legacy or provide evidence against his son and give Edward’s victim the justice that she deserves. 

The North Sea Killer is a tense thriller that peeks into various minds in a murder and its aftermath the investigators, the witnesses, the allies, the attorneys, the judge, the court staff, the jury, the observers, the friends, the family members, the victims, and the murderers. 

The Mantis Corruption (The Mantis Gland Series Book 3) by Adam Andrews Johnson 

Now we return to Teshon City and its world of Shifts, people with extraordinary abilities provided by the Mantis Gland and their sworn enemies, The Messiahs, a theocratic powerful religious cult that force Shifts into isolation, imprisonment, and extinction while killing them and feasting on their glands. The first volume, The Mantis Variant introduced us to this Science Fiction world and its protagonists Ilya, a Shift with the ability of flight, Dozi, a human runaway and their new family The Mystic, who has healing abilities, Theolon Mystic’s husband, and Lahari, their Shift daughter. The second volume. The Mantis Equilibrium introduces us to some new characters like Nanyani and Tachma, new Shifts and Auntie Peg, the eccentric leader of the Anti-Messiah resistance. It also makes the series darker by raising the stakes, putting the characters in more violent and destructive situations, and killing off an important cast member.

If possible the third volume, The Mantis Corruption gets even darker by giving us characters with stronger and more chilling powers and severe graphic body modification. It also expands the concept even farther by taking place mostly outside of Teshon City and putting the regular cast in supporting roles towards the end. 

West of Teshon City are the wastelands of Xin. Sumi and Harakin are among the many who were forced into the military from the time that they were children. They are also the only non-humans in their regiment and have abilities that help their destructive commanders. Harakin can manifest light and can create photon blades that emerge from her hands as weapons. Sumi can transport people and objects from one place to another.North of them the village of Kestapoli where a woman named Tisa can create figures out of shadows that do her bidding resides. She encounters a new companion Olona, an organic mechanic who builds prosthetic body parts. The four characters end up ostracized and isolated from the oppressive regimes that surround them. They have to go on the run and into hiding. If only there was a resistance group made up of humans and Shifts, that fight these regimes perhaps in Teshon City. Meanwhile, at Gunge there is a colony that could serve as a warning for the avaricious and cruel Messiah. They absorbed the Mantis Glands and also everything else from the Shifts including their bodies.

This is the volume that is larger, larger in setting, larger in powers, larger in scope, and larger in conflicts and consequences. Instead of focusing on the core characters in and around Teshon City, it focuses on some new characters in new places.

We get to see more of the world that surrounds the entire series and the people who reside in these different locations. Xin for example is a savage militarized wasteland whose residents have to fight for survival. Kestapoli by contrast appears more picaresque, almost reminiscent of a Medieval village but many of its residents are just as cruel and intolerant towards Shifts as the Xinian military are. This focus on surrounding communities reveals that the conflict against the Shifts is a universal one that is seen in several countries, villages, cities, and cultures.

Along with the expansion, this volume emphasizes the darker aspects particularly with the character’s physical and psychological states. The book is very upfront with how child soldiers are formed with the violence, regimentation, and forced executions faced by Sumi and Harakin. Their superiors are intentionally cruel and sadistic as one would expect a militaristic society to be. 

However, there is something just as threatening, maybe even more so from the people of Kestapoli. It doesn’t take much to turn this seemingly normal peaceful community into a bloodthirsty volatile mob that will turn on their own as Tisa discovers with her bigoted parents. We expect nothing resembling empathy or loyalty from Xin so we are not disappointed when none is shown. But the rejection from Tisa’s family hits the soul because these are people who should have loved her but instead do not accept her as she is.

The darkness is also felt in the more physical attributes. In previous books, the Shift’s powers were amazing and would probably be ones that Readers wouldn’t mind having. Who wouldn’t want to fly from one place to another or use superior strength to lift heavy objects? On a hot day wouldn’t it be fun to use your ice giving powers to cool yourself off or use fire on a cold day? Yes the Shifts have the potential to be dangerous but when they are used as weapons, it’s accidentally as Nanyani shows in the last book.

In this volume, the Shift abilities are not only strong but powerful and potentially destructive, facts acknowledged by those who lead them. Sumi and Harakin are forced to use their powers to kill in very graphic ways. In one chilling chapter, Sumi observes various prisoners and obeys her commander’s orders to kill them. She does so by using her transportation abilities to move their hearts and other organs from their bodies and crush them while the remaining body parts explode. Shifts are born with these abilities and can’t always help or control what they do with them but there are those who will exploit those abilities for their own ambitions.

By far the most graphic, stomach churning, and unforgettable aspects of the book are the Gunges. They are creatures from nightmares, are no longer human, and have metamorphosed into complete monsters in body and personality. Some have extra arms and legs growing out from their torsos. Others are covered with eyes that belonged to their victims. Others’ throats retain different voices of those that they absorbed going from low bass to high soprano in one conversation. One character has absorbed so many Mantis Glands that he is a large misshapen gelatinous blob of various body parts merged into one form that can barely move. It’s not a place to let the imagination dwell too much if they don’t want to have trouble sleeping afterwards. 

The expansion and the darkness cover the book so much that when the plot returns to Teshon City and the original characters, the book changes. The original characters and setting are missed and it's great to see them back again. It’s also wonderful that Sumi, Harakin, Olona, and Tisa are in a place with a diverse group of friends and allies that welcome and accept them. 

However there are some concerns. Among them is that the meeting between old and new characters happens so late in the book. We have gotten so used to this new environment that returning to the old one is almost jarring and abrupt. Yes, we expected the groups to meet. That was a given but when it happens it does almost as an anticlimactic afterthought instead of a natural progression. Perhaps they could have just given this book to the newcomers and have them meet the older characters at the very end, during the last couple of chapters. That way their new acquaintanceship can be fully explored in Part Four.

The other issue concerning the meeting of worlds is what happens to the action afterwards. The meeting is abrupt but so are some of the following chapters which deal with many of the fights and battles. The conflicts are anticlimactic and move too fast. This is especially egregious when some of the characters that confront and vie against each other have been around since the beginning. The confrontations have little build up and require more resolution and follow through to make a more gradual approach. Instead it feels like, “That’s all after three books? That’s all there is? What happens in the next two books?” 

The expanded universe, new characters and the darker atmosphere are the best aspects of this volume and the reunion with older characters is a nice return, but the third book probably needed more work to make this volume stand out from the previous two.