Upstream Reviews Presents…!
Rebooting the book list!
It has been a busy year, readers. But things are finally slowing down a little, so here we go with a few books for Upstreams Reviews Presents…! These are the books we have heard about, seen released, or which interest us but do not necessarily fit our SF/F focus for review. If you want something new to read, watch, or have a project you wish to back (in case of kickstarters), then here is where you will find it.
All right, enough chatter. Let’s dive in!
Non-Fiction
These are some interesting non-fiction books, but I do not recommend reading any of them in the dark!
The Chair and the Valley: A Memoir of Trauma, Healing, and the Outdoors by Banning Lyon
Banning Lyon was an average 15-year-old, living in Dallas, TX. He enjoyed skateboarding, listening to punk rock, and even had a part-time job. But in January 1987 his life quickly changed after a school guidance counselor falsely believed he was suicidal after giving away his skateboard. Days later he was admitted to a psychiatric hospital, and what he was told would be a two-week stay turned into 353 days that would change his life forever.
Banning takes readers through his fraught relationship with his family, the mistreatment he suffered at the hospital, the lawsuit against the owners of the facility, and his desire to make sense of what happened to him. We witness Banning navigate the difficult landscape of trauma and his daily battle to live a normal life. After years of highs and lows that include being adopted by his attorney and mentor, falling in love and grieving the death of his fiancée, and being sued by the same doctors who mistreated him, Banning decides to take control of his life and finds hope in the backcountry of Yosemite National Park, where he discovers new purpose in being a backpacking guide. Through friendship, nature, and eventually giving therapy another chance, Banning summons the courage to keep moving forward.
The Chair and The Valley is a raw, gut-wrenching, and amazing story about healing from trauma and starting over. It is a exploration of the importance of chosen family, the restorative power of nature, and the strength it takes to build a new life in the face of fear and doubt.
In Order to Live: A North Korean Girl's Journey to Freedom by Yeonmi Park (reviewed here)
In In Order to Live, Yeonmi Park shines a light not just into the darkest corners of life in North Korea, describing the deprivation and deception she endured and which millions of North Korean people continue to endure to this day, but also onto her own most painful and difficult memories. She tells with bravery and dignity for the first time the story of how she and her mother were betrayed and sold into sexual slavery in China and forced to suffer terrible psychological and physical hardship before they finally made their way to Seoul, South Korea—and to freedom.
Park confronts her past with a startling resilience. In spite of everything, she has never stopped being proud of where she is from, and never stopped striving for a better life. Indeed, today she is a human rights activist working determinedly to bring attention to the oppression taking place in her home country. Park’s testimony is heartbreaking and unimaginable, but never without hope. This is the human spirit at its most indomitable.
The Last Panther – Slaughter of the Reich – The Halbe Kessel 1945 by Wolfgang Faust
While the Battle of Berlin in 1945 is widely known, the horrific story of the Halbe Kessel remains largely untold.
In April 1945, victorious Soviet forces encircled 80,000 men of the German 9th Army in the Halbe area, South of Berlin, together with many thousands of German women and children. The German troops, desperate to avoid Soviet capture, battled furiously to break out towards the West, where they could surrender to the comparative safety of the Americans. For the German civilians trapped in the Kessel, the quest to escape took on frantic dimensions, as the terror of Red Army brutality spread.
The small town of Halbe became the eye of the hurricane for the breakout, as King Tigers of the SS Panzer Corps led the spearhead to the West, supported by Panthers of the battle-hardened 21st Panzer Division. Panzer by panzer, unit by unit, the breakout forces were cut down – until only a handful of Panthers, other armour, battered infantry units and columns of shattered refugees made a final escape through the rings of fire to the American lines.
This first-hand account by the commander of one of those Panther tanks relates with devastating clarity the conditions inside the Kessel, the ferocity of the breakout attempt through Halbe, and the subsequent running battles between overwhelming Soviet forces and the exhausted Reich troops, who were using their last reserves of fuel, ammunition, strength and hope.
Eloquent German-perspective accounts of World War 2 are surprisingly rare, and the recent reissue of Wolfgang Faust’s 1948 ‘Tiger Tracks’ has fascinated readers around the world with its insight into the Eastern Front. In ‘The Last Panther,’ Faust used his unique knowledge of tank warfare to describe the final collapse of the Third Reich and the murderous combat between the German and Russian armies. He gives us a shocking testament to the cataclysmic final hours of the Reich, and the horrors of this last eruption of violence among the idyllic forests and meadows of Germany.
Sites & Links
We’re adding some kickstarters to our list of links, readers! First up is our very own Declan Finn’s Honeymoon from Hell:
Honeymoon from Hell: the complete urban fantasy series.
A sequel series to the Dragon Award nominated "Love at First Bite." One is a heartless, blood-thirsty monster. The other is a vampire.
The Dragon Award nominated Love at First Bite series had everything Urban Fantasy could want.
Epic battles with vampires, werewolves, and high explosives.
Spies who fought vampires
Spies who were vampires
Supernatural conspiracies
Vatican ninjas
Throwing Stars of David
High tech weapons versus the undead
Vampire assassins
SpecOps Minions and werewolves
Garroting vampires with rosaries
Weaponized sacramentals
Vampires who go to confession
And true love.
Looking for some historical insights? Tea at Trianon has you covered:
https://teaattrianon.blogspot.com/2019/08/louis-xvi-and-tuberculosis.html
Looking for some prep ideas? Laughing Wolf is a good place to stop off:
https://www.laughingwolf.net/
If you want an honest British perspective, try this site:
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/
And here is another fundraiser you may wish to check out:
Seeking opinions on art? Then you might want to try The Remodern Art Review:
https://remodernreview.wordpress.com/
Short Stories
We all know that the holidays are coming and that things will speed up soon. Here are a few shorts to read in-between tasks as the holidays approach:
Noah and the Great Flood: A Poem in Alliterative Verse by Timothy Witchazel
A retelling of the story of Noah and the Ark in the style of Anglo-Saxon Alliterative Verse.
The Great Explosion: The comedy scifi libertarian classic by Eric Frank Russell
The invention of the Blieder Drive opened the galaxy to humanity, and humanity exploded out into it. Every group of like-minded individuals, from religious groups to nudists, got together and took off to their very own planet. Without bothering to ask anybody's permission.
Four hundred years later, the bureaucrats of Autocratic Earth and its government have decided that enough is quite enough, and are mounting an expedition to return the Children of Earth back to the fold of good, right, proper, and highly controlled government.
Eric Frank Russell's The Great Explosion is a science fiction comedy that explores the purpose and necessity of government with his typical wit. In 1985 it was inducted into the Prometheus Hall of Fame, an honor reserved for classic libertarian fiction.
This iktaPOP Media edition includes a new introduction and afterword giving genre, historical, and economic context to the novel
Whirlwind of Stars (Mythic Roads Book 1) by Heather Strickler
Some worlds end in Fire
Some in Ice.
A whirlwind swept Karsus away.
Sarah Macaran survived. Kidnapped, struggling with strange powers. She stowed away in the Toto's cargo hold, but Scarcrow and the Toto's crew have other worries: Dorothy vanished.
Can Sarah unravel the mysteries before the Wind finds her? Or the Witches of the Galaxy take matters into their own hands?
YA/Middle Grade Works
Looking for something to encourage your child to read? Try these books!
The Timeless by Richard Paolinelli and Gibson Buffa
Earth's Past Is Under Attack!
In the far distant future, with the galaxy locked in an area of dark space where electronics will not work, Little John Singapore sits in a prison cell on Pluto awaiting execution. Singapore is the First Mate of the pirate ship, the Timeless. As he awaits his fate he agrees to tell a young author one story each day about his ship and his Captain, Rock Congo.
Singapore tells how the Governor of the Sol system Garabaldi enlisted the ship and her crew to pursue Duchess Moran. Moran is an infamous interstellar thief tired of her plans being interfered with by the Earth-led Alliance. She has stolen the Amulet of Geraint, allowing her to travel through time at will. Her target is ancient Greece, where she plans to prevent democracy from ever taking hold by stopping King Leonidas from reaching the famed Battle of Thermopylae. By changing Earth's past she hopes to prevent the Alliance from ever forming.
The Timeless, a ship that can sail through space, air and water with equal ease, is the only ship capable of time travel, and Earth's only hope to save its past, present and future. Despite being crewed by pirates, Garabaldi sends them through time in pursuit of Moran.
When the Timeless arrives in ancient Sparta, the find Moran has already been there and has kidnapped Leonidas and his Queen. Now they have just a matter of days to find her and the King to keep his appointment with King Xerxes of Persia and preserve Earth's history.
The first book of the Timeless series, a middle grade/YA science fiction/steampunk hybrid, is sure to be a hit with readers of all ages. As well as fans of historical fiction as the Timeless and her crew will be very busy in Earth's storied past in future books in the series.
Tom Swift and His Flying Lab by Victor Appleton II
Tom Swift – boy genius – outsmarts evil scientists, solves confounding mysteries, and builds incredible rocket ships, atomic energy plants, submarines, airplanes, robots, and mind-boggling inventions for the good of mankind!
Join Tom as he journeys to the unknown and faces new challenges in -
TOM SWIFT AND HIS FLYING LAB
SECRETS: The Truth Will Out (The HIDDEN Series) by Verity Lucia
Perfect looks. Perfect boyfriend. Perfect image. High schooler, Elise Thames, has it all under control until one late night and two little pink lines change everything.
After fleeing to Chicago to erase the life growing inside her, Elise begins hearing voices and seeing visions that thrust her into the minds of others. Her newfound telepathy draws out grim insecurities buried within, and Elise’s identity as one of the most popular girls at Jefferson High shatters. When news of her pregnancy spreads, Elise must face the truth about who she is—and make a choice.
SECRETS: The Truth Will Out
A desperate girl.
A supernatural bracelet.
A choice that will change everything.
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Like Unplanned? Love Lila Rose? Or simply looking for a way to reach a teen with the truth that life begins at conception? Then this resource is for you. Learn more at www.VerityLuciaBooks.com
And there you have, readers! We’ll be back with more, so enjoy the items on this list while you can. There are more where these came from!