Retrograde - Peter Cawdron Peter Cawdron’s Retrograde immediately grabbed my attention and kept it. It made me want to finish it. (That’s rare lately.) I read Retrograde over the course of a few hours. It’s well-written, fast-paced, and while not entirely unique still completely interesting. (I can only think of one or two movies that I would liken this too.) The dialogue was believable. The connectedness something I wanted to root for. And the way it was written kept me feeling as isolated as the astronauts actually were.

Retrograde takes a left turn at Albuquerque that leaves the reader scratching their head for a bit. It’s interesting, and ultimately I really liked it, but there were definitely a few minutes of “Wait, what?” involved. The way Peter Cawdron handles it is not how one usually sees the subject approached. That handling (It wasn’t better or worse, just different) is probably a big part of why the happenings threw me off my game for a bit.

There are some sensitive subjects addressed in Retrograde, but they are deftly handled. The disaster on Earth is horrifying, but very little time is spent describing what happens. The action on Mars can get a bit bloody at times, but it’s nothing overly graphic. Death does happen, but the author does not linger on it. In short, even though this has some horrific elements to it, I would not call Retrograde a sci-fi horror novel. More of an exploration of the darker parts of science fiction.

A quick read with a nice twist and an ending that will leave you thinking, Retrograde isn’t your normal science fiction disaster book. Peter Cawdron does a good job of hooking the reader, and keeping them thinking about the book after the last page has been turned. Some of the questions asked are almost as old as science fiction themselves, and yet we still haven’t found satisfactory answers to them. Perhaps we never will.

Well done on Peter Cawdron’s part. Retrograde is a solid stand-alone novel. Can’t wait to read more from him.

Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book from the publisher for review consideration.

A literary classic that should be made into a movie ... wait a moment, wrong book.

Why anyone chooses to write about vampires in 2015 is beyond me, but here we go. Peter Cawdron did, and I read it. I knew it will scare the crap out of me, just by looking at the cover, and I was right about that.

Vampire, with the subtle (I´m being ironic here) subtitle "van Helsing diaries" reads more like a psychological crime thriller than any kind of "real" vampire story, but no worries, nothing that sparkles in any way, shape or form.

Dr Jane Langford, a psychologist, is called to action after a murder in Boise, Idaho to eval the mental state of mind of the murderer, which leads to a suicide investigation and bodies piling up fast.

Jane is the only character that is fully developed IMO while the cast of different characters are sorta there but not more, and she sure gets from all professional to (almost... almost? hard to tell) mentally breaking down. And as the center of the story she should be the one who as I reader can count on. That I can´t is the best thing, as I have to question her as well as Jane has to question what is happening all around her.

The snowy and chilly late autumn setting is marvelous, though, and gives the story this really creepy feeling and made me very feel at unease. There is an urgency here where you know something´s going to happen, and it does. The horror behind the locked bathroom door.

For a novella it sure pulls a lot of punches, but where the real genius is in the mix of Bram Stoker´s Dracula with Cawdron´s own story, where everything´s intertwined without being able to tell where reality ends and insanity begins. This is Cawdron´s strongest point here to use Dracula to not only reinterpret it in a new way (and he probably sees something in it which is not there and was never intended to be there), but to use it is a setting on it´s own, or more like a background to tell his story about.. well, a vampire, as it spelled out as the title of the book already.

But... but... but... I´m not buying it. Not completely anyway.

While the premise of the story itself is crazy fantastic there are several WTF moments. Langford doing a courtsey call to a prison after another psychologist was killed and immediately gets access to a prisoner, and even so immediately knows he is suffering from schizophrenia. Langford carrying a 45 colt in her jacket pocket which she never picked up prior and shooting it 13 times, coz why not? Fiction it is for sure.

It´s creepy as hell, and the paranoia is getting stronger with every page, all true, but I did have a hard time to overlook those inconsistencies and where Cawdron was playing armchair psychologist on his own. So torn on it, damnit. It was a fascinating read, though, and if you´re easily creeped out as I am... *shudder* The ending, however, left me unimpressed as it is really spelled out straight away, and the conclusion pretty obvious. While obvious it came rather fast too, and left the story sorta hanging in the air.

With that said, I need a Tylenol now.

One of my fave anthologies is currently free on Amazon.

Who really killed JFK? What happened in Roswell, New Mexico? Is Elvis still alive? Was the moon landing staged?

In this short story collection, today's top fiction authors pull back the curtain on the biggest conspiracies of all time. Explore the JFK assassination, Area 51, the moon landing, the surveillance state. Meet a French spy posing as Abraham Lincoln, play a video game designed by the CIA, watch "Suicide Mickey." Learn the truth about Adolf Hitler and Elvis Presley.

Twelve short stories, twelve conspiracy theories, twelve twisted rabbit holes.

Hold on to your hats.

Tales Of Tinfoil: Stories Of Paranoia And Conspiracy

With stories by:

Forbes West
Nick Cole
Ernie Lindsay
Wendy Paine Miller
Michael Bunker
Jennifer Ellis
Richard Gleaves
Chris Pourteau
Lucas Bale
Eric Tozzi
Peter Cawdron

Edited by David Gatewood ---> That´s the guy who messes up all the Hugh Howey books. He´s just that good. :-)

When I was recently approached by two Men In Black, about whom I can´t tell you (they didn´t mention not to say anything about their UFOs so I think I´m safe), to read a compilation of past events I jumped on the opportunity. It´s a non-fiction book by twelve alter-egos of the so-called editor, Mr Gatewood, and sold as "conspiracy theories". Which of course is a lie to protect the innocent. Among those are Leonard Nimoy, who faked his own death, and lives with Michael Jackson and Elvis Presley in a bunker in Texas. They are quite happy that way, especially when this cigar rolling bearded man brings them bread and water, coz that´s how he rolls.

To remain undercover, however, the so-called story by Forbes "Medium Talent" West was replaced with a 400-page-document by Edward Snowden, who goes by the name of Forbes West and who is really David Gatewood, and has nothing to do with anything. Pinkie swear. Also those book doesn´t exist, never existed, and won´t exist in the future. Any rumors of the Tales of Tinfoils are slightly exaggerated.

Also no worries that this David Gatewood is wearing an orange jumpsuit, he is doing alright last time I´ve heard. Apologize for the bad pic quality, but apparently it is a YouTube still from his super secret hiding place *cough* in Guantan... Moscow... ahem...Tehran.  Nope, he wasn´t forced to smile by those NSA guys. At all. The guns pointing at his head were photoshopped out of the picture, though. But this could be a rumor. 

Tales Of Tinfoil: Stories of Paranoia and Conspiracy



Blurb: TBA

(apparently) Coming in May 2015