TWO BOOK REVIEWS

CyberWizard Productions (1205 N. Saginaw Blvd, #D, PMB 224 Saginaw TX 76179) sent me two poetry collection titles from their Diminuendo Press imprint sent me two of their titles ,A MINSTREL'S TALES ( 2009, ISBN 978-0-9821352-9-7, pb, $8.00) by Sarah Ashwood and NIGHTSHIP TO NEVER ( 2009, ISBN 978-0-9821352-3-5,pb, $8.00 ) by David C. Kopaska-Merkel and Kendall Evans .

I did not like the Ashwood collection at all.  First let me say that this was a general collection that happen to have a lot of poems in the high fantasy and historical genres.  No matter what genre the poems gush with word and letter I.  I have the sense that the poet is a new writer and she should have waited until her work matured but there are making of a good poet beneath all the purple prose.  There are better collection in her future.  After all Mike Resnick survived RED BEARD and that awful book he did on sf collecting for House of Collectibles.

Now on the other hand the Kopaska-Merkel/Evans collection is a terrific group of long hard sf narrative poems.  I normally do not have the patience to read poems of more than thirty or forty lines.  I sat down last night to read the collection and did not stop until I finished it.  I cannot conceive higher praise.  I wont single out a particular poem because they were all so good.