Original review posted Tuesday, June 12, 2012

Description: War is the fourth in a series of stand-alone novellas exploring concepts related to the Rare Earth Hypothesis in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence.

The crew of the Rift Valley are being chased through a star cluster by marauding aliens intent on harvesting their genetic diversity. With limited options, being out-gunned and out-paced by the alien warships, the Rift is running out of options.

Review 5 of 5 Stars

At the author’s request, I read the beta of War, the fourth installment of the Galactic Exploration series this past weekend and it is now available for download to your favorite e-reader (just a small plug for a struggling indie author here on the blog lol).  As it is difficult to separate the pieces of the story now that I’ve read them all, this will be kind of an all encompassing review for the project as a whole and as I feel the series was intriguing, enjoyable and well written, I’m giving it 5 stars.

War had more punch and tension than some the previous installments which were more world (so to speak) and character building and I really enjoyed seeing it all come together with the action and more tension than we’ve seen in the previous novellas. War was very descriptive and even some of the portions that weren’t actually action seemed that way, but I’d have to spoil the story to tell you how that was achieved.

All in all, Mr. Cawdron really did an excellent job of bringing the characters together from the other installments and integrating them in this latest novella for a chance to mess with your head a little. For the first time the characters from the previous installments are together (in a manner of speaking) and it was good to see them all struggling and working together for the same goals – survival and freedom. For those who have read the three prior novellas, Anderson, Trixie, Berry and Diana are all present as they encounter what so many yearn to search for and may be afraid to find. War was a good read and I think some of the complaints I’ve seen in reviews from others (and that includes myself) that there wasn’t enough and they were left hanging will easily be resolved by reading the four novellas together.

Original review posted Saturday, April 14, 2012

Description: Trixie & Me is the second in a series of stand-alone novellas exploring alternatives to the Rare Earth Hypothesis in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence.

Trixie and Berry are trapped on an alien space ship. Berry can’t move, but he seems to understand what’s going on. Trixie is confused, she has no recollection of how they ended up in the dark depths of an alien war craft. She struggles to comprehend even the simplest of concepts, struggling to speak, but she is free of her chains, so she is Berry’s only hope. They must escape their captors and warn humanity about this sinister threat coming from the galactic core.

Review 5 of 5 Stars

The author requested that I read/review this book. What a great and unexpected ending. I love a good twist and this one was totally unexpected. Unfortunately, I can’t tell you more than that or it’ll ruin the whole experience.  All in all this was a great story.  It was a little slow at the beginning, but picked up nicely on the way and moved along at a good pace once it got going.  When you get to the end you finally realize what was being built, though at no point in the story did I expect the conclusion to be what it was.  Mr. Cawdron’s writings improve and become more intriguing with each new tale he produces and I look forward to reading the next in this series of novellas exploring the search for intelligent life.  This story was cohesive and intriguing.  The ideas were fresh and well thought out and I truly enjoyed it.  Thus far, I’ve enjoyed Mr. Cawdron’s various stories and look forward to seeing more from this up-and-coming independent author.