Chrono Spasm...? 

The time table is wide open, with boundless possibilities for them to get back. 

I'd like to see something akin to the 20's or 30's, having the companions battling Al Capone and his thugs. Time travel in the Operation Chronos concept can easily have white coats having gone back in time to place a mat-trans hidden somewhere in Chicago. (Where the original author placed the Chronos project anyway, so it would fit like a glove. See Deathlands: Fury's Pilgrims I believe for that.) 

...But claims to a fallen elk get ugly and Ryan is forced to chill another hunter, the self-proclaimed king of the Granite Highlands, over the meat. Soon the hunters become the hunted as the dead man's widow gives chase, armed with predark tanks and heavy artillery.

Posted By )3az )3aziah on 1/2/2013 7:08:04 AM

...But claims to a fallen elk get ugly and Ryan is forced to chill another hunter, the self-proclaimed king of the Granite Highlands, over the meat. Soon the hunters become the hunted as the dead man's widow gives chase, armed with predark tanks and heavy artillery.

I laughed so much when I read this, I know face and revenge is everything to the bad folk of D/L but to have predark tanks and artillery at your disposal and have to argue over a dead elk...

But... all that stuff would be worthless if you had nothing to eat!  

)3az, LJ could knock off a book in six weeks if he had to, which is why he could handle the number of books the publishing schedule required each year. Other writers aren't as prolific or have commitments to other publishing houses.

GE will keep churning out the books  as long as the series is profitable.

Posted By Wordsmith-reprise on 1/2/2013 1:50:52 PM

...GE will keep churning out the books...

Yep, that just about sums it up:

"sod the quality", just keep churning them out between all those other books you write. the plebs dont care so long as you include big tits, a few gratuitous head shots and half a dozen "fireblasts!!"

Jim

Posted By The Phantom on 1/2/2013 12:07:36 PM

But... all that stuff would be worthless if you had nothing to eat!  

 

Yeah, but if you have enough people to crew the things you must have enough food to feed them...

...or is it a Jesus moment where this baron can feed the whole ville on an elk and 7 bread rolls

Jim

Posted By Wordsmith-reprise on 1/3/2013 7:30:32 AM
Believe it or not, I just edited a DL with nary a "Fireblast!"

Black dust !!

Jim

Posted By )3az )3aziah on 1/3/2013 7:00:35 AM

...or is it a Jesus moment where this baron can feed the whole ville on an elk and 7 bread rolls

Jim

That would be one bread roll. 

And it may have been a big big giant MUTIE elk. 

Posted By )3az )3aziah on 1/3/2013 10:58:53 AM

Posted By Wordsmith-reprise on 1/3/2013 7:30:32 AM
Believe it or not, I just edited a DL with nary a "Fireblast!"

Black dust !!

Jim

I can imagine JB kidding Ryan at the end of the book...

Jb: "Hey Ryan, you never once said-"

Ryan: "Don't say it!!!"

Posted By )3az )3aziah on 1/2/2013 7:08:04 AM

...But claims to a fallen elk get ugly and Ryan is forced to chill another hunter, the self-proclaimed king of the Granite Highlands, over the meat. Soon the hunters become the hunted as the dead man's widow gives chase, armed with predark tanks and heavy artillery.

I laughed so much when I read this, I know face and revenge is everything to the bad folk of D/L but to have predark tanks and artillery at your disposal and have to argue over a dead elk...

Story lines are getting sillier and sillier as time goes on, I think its time to call it a day with this series. Either that or hand it over to one author who can develop a consistent storyline that develops book for book (a la LJ DL or original OL).

Jim

Wait a minute... lava fields... in New Hampshire??? *sigh*

In the series' defense, this is Pollotta we're talking about. 'Nuff said.

They haven't told me this

Jim

Just got my copy today!

But can't get to it until I finish another book....

Have finally managed to get my hands on a copy of pilgrimage to hell, so it will be whatever turns up first.

Posted By silentalbino on 3/8/2013 5:00:36 AM

Have finally managed to get my hands on a copy of pilgrimage to hell, so it will be whatever turns up first.

 

Is it an English or US copy?

Wnglish print has the colour pictures split into two pages whilst the US edition had it as a nice easy to look at fold out!

I am still looking for a good condition (no spine or cover creases) US edition.

Jim

WOW! 

Now this bad boy is a real page turner.  The author did a fantastic job of presenting the points of view of all the character (rather than a few, or just one as we've seen in recent books).  The idea of a chrono malfunction was stellar!  So was how the author moved us through story; hat's off to this effort.   I really felt for the characters while they were slaves--gritty comes to mind.  The chainsaw torch was a nice touch.

You'll like it, I did a lot.

Note to author: JB's shotgun doesn't have a hammer that you can cock--its a modern pump action afterall.

Also, the LeMat is blackpowder so won't fire under water. Even if it could the projectile wouldn't travel more than a few inches before losing all of its energy.  Check out Mythbusters for more details on the physics of this.  Stabbing the baddy was all he could reasonable do with what he had on him.

I wished I felt as enthusiastic as Grantbo about this lastest DL fare.

I just finished it last night, and had to let it sink in. I think this may be one of the hardest DL I could rate.

First off, hats off to Rik Hoskin for writing one of the most seriously written sci-fi stories in this series. The concepts were great, but at times, went a little overboard for me. And I read TONS of sci-fi!

This is far far way better than Rik's other 2 DL books. He seems to have done his homework, having actually read the original author's early books, because this book mentions and has numerous things that point out to that fact.

Again, major kudos go out to Rik for that.

Although Chrono Spasm is by no means a bad book, I still found a lot of little problems as I read the book.                  

Like I mentioned in my earlier post of the first 50 pages, the book started very strong and exciting, even kinda giving me the feeling of the older style Laurence James prose. And I suppose having the companions jumping back into Alaska again had a lot to do with this. Again, Hoskin did a pretty superb job at this here. Much better than a lot of past and current authors.

But this book was chock-full of editorial mistakes. If the editor could have caught what I did, and sent the manuscript back for a slight rewrite here and there, this could have been one of the best all-time classic DL's ever.

Some things that were not caught by the editor: 1: Endless supply of ammo. So many times in the action sequences, whether they had a mere six-shooter or an automatic, endless bullets came out of them. Like a Hollywood movie, there was almost no mention of reloading or even how they could possibly carrying that much ordnance in a captivity situation.

2: The captors had been taking and handling slaves for a seemingly long time, but yet they ignore the fact that Doc is carrying a potential weapon in his cane...? No, no, no...there was no need of such an oversight. These guys were too good to let this happen. This is where Ryan's scarf could have came into play, but it was never mentioned until page 200-and-something I noticed.

3: Why do most authors ignore the fact that Mildred and J. B. are an item? This particular book had the companions in some of the worst captivity they have come across since probably Philipson's awesome Xilbaba duology, and there were scenes where J.B. and Mildred had some action alone time, being away from the rest of the group, and not once did they act intimate, talk intimate, and this the author could have drawn out some great dramatic effect, instead of using way too many cute jokes and sayings, that only undermined the dire straits they were in. Many times that kinda threw me out of the story, making me think the companions feel they were not in THAT much danger.

Now, the bitter cold weather: I loved the author's description and usage of this! I can't recall the last DL book where they have been in bitter, bad weather. Too many perfect weather books in recent years. I hope future books bring it back to unpredictable weather patterns like the older books. I personally don't want a healing Earth in my DL. I read them for the pure escapism for a genre I love. And I want my DL and its world to be NUKED! This book provided that in spades. Again, major kudos to this author in that regard.

But on the other side of the coin, Hoskin made the weather soo bad, that the companions did too much with no food or hot sub-coffee to keep them going. Especially Ryan and Doc. The women got food, but the author never mentioned Ryan and Doc, or Jak and Ricky, ever getting any substance. They were all under-dressed, too. They battled extreme weather much too long with nothing to sustain them. If the editor could have had the author pen some here here and there, with a couple of fires to keep them somewhat warm, this could have come off as that much more believable. Hey, I know this is sci-fi, but utilizing as much realism in basic survival and combat tactics just makes it come off as that much more believable, thus more exciting. 

Now, with all that being written, the good is that an author has FINALLY used one and fresh aspect of the Big Elephant in the Room that could be used for countless and fresh storylines - Operation Chronos! Thank you sir!

Wow! Really? What if there is a big mistake found in them?

Is it simply just ignored?

Posted By Maximus on 3/14/2013 3:30:58 PM
<p>Wow! Really? What if there is a big mistake found in them? </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Is it simply just ignored? </p>

So, basically, what I am understanding here is: there is virtually NO editor. That it is almost, if not totally, up to the author to pen a perfect tale...with no one to back them up.

That is really a shame. But it also shows how talented these authors are. 

I hope I didn't beat up Chrono Spasm up too much. It was a pretty darn good book.

And in the last 2 books especially, I see the new character, Ricky, is really just the total replacement of Dean Cawdor. He reminds me exactly of Dean when he was first found and joined the group.

And kudos to Rik Hoskin again for, at the very least, mentioning Ryan missing Dean. This series should now be about Ryan's endless quest to find his lost boy. He is not the type to just forget him, despite the poopy 100th edition.

There are two editors. The senior editor receives the outline and decides whether to go to contract. if the book is contracted, the line editor usually is sent the outline for her input, comments, redirection etc. When the book arrives in-house, the line editor--me, a freelancer--edits the manuscript, following all sorts of criteria. Then a copy editor has a go, and proofreaders. Since before Christmas, Gold Eagle books have been edited on-line, which will remove so many of the typos that creep into the books during the data input stage.

So Maximus, the books are edited.

Halfway through, first half pretty good, second  half-meh. All the characters seem fine. I would imagine Wordy and co edit a shedload of books a month so the odd wee mistake is bound to slip by.

Maximus you are spot on with the issue as to ammo. In the DL world bullets are supposed to be rarer than Hen's teeth but in some of these book's you would think it was a John Woo film. I think it would be better for realism for people in this world to have black powder and bows etc. But then it wouldn't be half as much fun

Baz, was the English version.

Man, all these editors are in place, and yet they let crapola like Salvation Road and Palaces of Light get published. Yeesh!

And Silentalbino: You nailed it on the head. I felt the first half of the book was much stronger, despite my 'First 50 pages...', and you'll find some gems in the latter half, but it just gets too weird for me.

Kinda like the latest OL. Great concept, with strong first half, then a gentle slide downwards for the finish. Moreso with Savage Dawn though then Chrono Spasm.

Posted By )3az )3aziah on 3/21/2013 8:50:44 AM

There have been a few niggles, JB's shotgun having a hammer for example,  

 

I don't know a thing about guns, so things like that don't bother me in the least. 

Oh man, that sucks. I really thought it was going to be something about them all going back in time. That furging blows...

Kerrick, you are absolutely correct! They did count...at times.

But then there would be this big gun battle where the typical bad guys couldn't hit shit in a narrow hallway, but yet anybody in the Cawdor group hardly ever missed! And had endless ammo a lot of times. 

But yes, There was a couple of instances where Jak and Ryan were counted their bullets.

Just wasn't consistent. But hey, I am sure it ain't easy writing these books. I admire this author for at least bringing back stuff from actual extreme cold weather to even Krysty correcting Ryan's verbiage. (When was the last time THAT was done?)  Even Ryan's scarf...albeit too late in the story. Should have been brought up automatically, and used to throttle a guard, instead of Doc's OBVIOUS cane.

I hope this particular author tries again, takes into account what we are saying, use it constructively, because I personally am not wanting to bash ANY writer here, and give us diehard fans an even tighter, better written DL adventure.

Again, you are spot-on in your comments Kerrick.

I thought the same thing. The barrels thing...

I really, really wanted to love this book. The title suggested that FINALLY someone in the cadre of authors were going to get back to a Cerberus time trawl type storyline. But it ended up being way out there for me. (And apparently for others too!)

Although I applaud the author for his obvious solid imagination, but like his recent Outlanders book Genesis Sinister, the sci-fi aspects were just too bizarre for me to swallow or picture firmly in my own over-imaginative reading mind.

Even though this series is now labeled sci-fi, I think there are certain sci-fi lines one should not cross. The 'invisible, floating teeth thingamajigs eating time' was an example. And Andy Boot's last book. Too far out there.

But Alan Philipson's Shadow World is a perfect example of utilizing that sci-fi aspect to fit this particular series.

I found this to be a weak and disappointing story.