Science Fiction:

Meet Strong Arms, leader of the clan.
Predator species have spite hardwired into their behavior.
Killing the competition before it grows up is always a good genetic strategy for any meat-eater.
Now, take one that's smart, adaptive, and a consummate tool-user, and you have the makings for a conflict of monumental proportions.
It's man versus Neanderthal in the mountains of Iberia. Only one will survive. You may be surprised by which.

Don't miss Steven Burgauer's sci-fi adventure series, beginning with THE RAILGUNS OF LUNA. Others in the series include:
·THE BRAZEN RULE -- a viral killer on the loose
·THE LAST AMERICAN -- a country on the brink
·TREACHERY ON THE DARK SIDE -- sex, murder & intrigue at zero-g
·IN THE SHADOW OF OMEN -- Mars at its best
·THE GRANDFATHER PARADOX -- a time-travel story

Available at finer bookstores everywhere, or online at amazon.com

The book was actually quite good. I did not expect it to take half of the book to get to the virus, but the first half was interesting. The had very exciting points and sometimes I had trouble putting the book down. I had thought by the summary that it was about a virus that could attack certain people. In actuality, it is about a virus that is used to attack certain people. Would recommend it to a friend.

"Burgauer's "THE BRAZEN RULE" is tightly plotted, has excellent characters, and shows basic himan nature as it is, a thirst for power. ***Philip Jose Farmer--three time Hugo award winner

A murderous woman on the loose. A sick philosophy spreading across the planet. Abused as a child, tortured as an adult, the evil Cassandra Mubarak plans to take over the world. And the only thing standing in her way? Lieutenant Flix Wenger and his allies from the Special Target Attack & Recon Team. Smart, athletic, daring, and a master of disguise, Flix infiltrates the enemy's stronghold. Like any good soldier, he does what he has to. Only then does he make a horrible discovery, a discovery too horrible to reveal on the back cover of a book. Now join Lieutenant Flix Wenger as he races against time to put a stop to Cassandra Mubarak's evil plans and save the woman he loves from a fate worse than death.

The Railguns Of Luna by Steven Burgauer

Steven Burgauer writes old style science fiction in which heroes and villains are easily identified, the action is fast and furious, and the plot twists and turns uncontrollably. His newest is the story of a crack team of military specialists who discover that the brilliant but warped Cassandra Mubarak is planning to use advanced scientific devices to seize control of the world. To stop her, they must infiltrate her heavily guarded headquarters and rescue the fair maiden in distress. This is action adventure written straightforwardly and not meant to be heavily literary or provide pithy commentary on the state of humanity.

Don D'Ammassa Science Fiction Chronicle June 2001

"Political intrigue, murder, sex, and a country on the brink of disaster. Burgauer combines all the elements in this futuristic story that gets better and better with each page." *** Ken Behrens--WJBC Radio, Bloomington

After reading so many sci-fi books filled with aliens and other weird creatures, it was refreshing to read a sci-fi book about people

Philip Jose Farmer makes an excelent job as always. Farmer known primarily for his Science Fiction, but has produced two Fantasy series World of Tiers and Riverworld, the latter an afterlife fantasy in the tradition of John Kendrick Bangs. Farmer words flow as easy as ever and this novel is a work of art. It aint as sexy or shocking as 'An exorcism: ritual one/two' or as deeply involving as 'The river world saga', but he builds his story up as the SF/horror/fantasy master he is. God fun, and with a nice climax as always.

"A masterfully crafted story based on the universal human conflict between the desire for order and the desire for freedom. Burgauer gives us a heroine whose concern is for the future and a hero who is keenly aware of his own mortality."
-- Loren Logsdon . . . Editor, EUREKA LITERARY MAGAZINE

All in all, plenty of action and adventure !! * * * Neil Walsh, SF Site

I like sci-fi, and I love time travel stories, but ...

With all the flaws tmm2112 noted, I can't believe he still gave 4 stars! I won't reiterate - check tmm's review! I will add that the digressions tmm cited were provided at the expense of key scenes of the story! He expounded on the theory of time travel, then skipped the whole experience!

Worst of all for me was the hideous overuse of the exclamation point! It was painful at first - now I'm afraid I am inured and that it will take several (edited) books before I will again notice the difference between a statement and an exclamatory!

And was that an ending, or was the author interrupted before completing this tale?!

It could have been, if it had an editor to hold the author's feet to the fire. The problem with self-published books like this one, there isn't anyone to tell the author to take this out or expand on the other bit. This could have been a great book, if someone had done so.

A time travel story in which the hero discovers the method to returning to the past, and does so in order to save his grandmother from a fatal genetic disorder. So far, so good.

Burgauer is an excellent writer, his dialog is crisp, his charecters are reasonably believable. But then, despite the superb writing, the whole book is dragged down by its flaws.

The story repeatedly screeches to a halt while Burgauer uses page after page to go off on a tangent, usally in the form of an essay plugged into the body of the story. First, when the hero finds the time travel technique, we have 12 pages of exposition, including charts, on how to do it. Just as dull as it sounds. Six pages about the science of poker, which didn't contribute anything to the story. It was followed by a couple of pages that basically just said "Using her telepathy, the women from the future made a killing in poker". Later, after the hero gets involved in the American Civil War, 18 pages about the Battle of Shiloh, including maps, with nary a mention of our fictional charecters. Now, I'm even a bit of a Civil War buff, but if I wanted this, I'd just go read Shelby Foote. No matter how well paced a book is otherwise, digressions like these just stop the narrative flow dead.

Other flaws. The depiction of Samuel Clemens, an important part of the last part of the book. The majority of Clemens' dialog seems to have been cut-and-pasted from his "Life on the Mississippi" and "Roughing It". Burgauer demonstrated in the rest of the book he could write good dialog, I do think he could have put something more original in the voice of Mark Twain for the story. A faintly ridiculous sex scene, basically beautiful female triplets who have never seen a male before our hero... Future villians drawn as the kind of bigoted buffoons you expect to find in the KKK.

If only a good editor had gotten ahold of this book, slashed the chaff away without mercy, browbeat Burgauer into expanding on the interplay between the two main charecters and everyone else, and maybe made the future bad guys a little less two dimensional. This book might have been a contender for an award.

A fun read
by tmm2112 Jul 28 '02 (Updated Jul 29 '02)

Pros: A fun time/space travel romp with dashes of American history thrown in
Cons: Too wordy in places, too little info in others

The Bottom Line: If you like light-hearted SF space travel and time travel stories, read it.

Recommended: Yes

This was my first time to read a book by Steven Burgauer, and it was not a disappointment. Long a fan of science fiction and historical fiction, I found this book to satisfy both desires. Steven clearly has a good grasp of space travel and time travel theories and puts them to good use as his protagonists traverse the galaxy and the time stream to reach their goals.

This is not a cyberpunk novel. You'll find no computer controlled society of people with cybernetic implants. No Matrix and no Terminators. It's more reminiscent of SF from the 60's and 70's, light-hearted with adventure and fun at its core.

The protagonist is Andu, a former Afghan freedom fighter and spaceship propulsion inventor who has a dark family secret; there's a defect in his DNA that has befuddled even modern (25th century) medical science. So his only hope is to travel back in time and retrieve a donor in his family line who does not have the defect. Would you believe he has to travel all the way back to the American Civil War? But wait a minute, even in the 25th century, time travel is only a theory. No one's ever actually done it. But the theory was developed by a rebellious religious faction who migrated away from earth long ago. Who were they? Why, the Mormons, of course. Only, they got lost in space and have never been heard from since, and the secret to time travel was lost with them.

The title is slightly misleading, if you are familiar with the term "the grandfather paradox" as it relates to time travel. It implies that the paradox plays a significant role in the story and it does not. It does not detract from this rousing tale, but I would have recommended a title emphasizing the role of the missing gene or the Tachyon Drive.

Andu is a survivor and encounters obstacles from crew members, aliens, nature and his own heart to complete his mission. We don't meet his main companion until almost halfway through the book, but once we do the chemistry is fantastic. The book strikes a nice balance between characterization and action. The surreal nature of the adventure itself and some of the creatures Andu encounters along the way give the book a feel not unlike the work of Piers Anthony in some of his older SF work (Macroscope, Cthon and Orn). But the detailed discussions of time travel theory and gravity wells (complete with graphs) better resemble the hard science fiction of Isaac Asimov. The juxtaposition of the two styles is curiously entertaining which gave me the feel of wild adventure and a physics lesson in the same book.

One of the two faults the novel has is the extraneous exposition Steven divulges at times. The appearance of a young Sam Clemens is charming, that is until he's told you one too many of his tall tales and expounded on the human condition a little too often. And their ultimate clash with the American Civil War was tastefully handled except for the vast amount of detail Steven indulges in. Most of this exposition was at a birds eye view to the reader and did not directly affect the protagonist. Though it was clear that Steven knows a little about the Civil War, perhaps a better place to demonstrate it would be in a true historical fiction tale based in that era. And I would be glad to give it a try.

Some plot details were strangely missing or glossed over with the wave of a hand. The characters get from point A to point B with the simple turning of a page. These missing plot steps would have been more interesting to read than the many pages of war maneuvers by Union and Rebel troops that I did read. I also found the ending to be particularly abrupt and unsatisfying. There should have been numerous questions raised by their sudden appearance

Overall I enjoyed the book and will probably read another work of his. It was a good SF romp through time and space in the tradition of Isaac Asimov and Piers Anthony.
Mark
Columbus, MS

If I could have given a zero-star review for this book, I would have. This is dreck on the level of Newt Gingrich's "1945". Mr. Burgauer should hire a good copy editor, at the very least. At the most, he should stick to his business books.

Congratulations Mr. Burgauer, you just got the first one star review I've ever given! Thank you for the excellent recipe for llama sausage given in such exhausting detail mid-book! Thank you for revealing, showing, and writing down the contents of your thesaures at every chance, opportunity, or possibility! Thank you for so clearly illustrating the endless literary uses of the generally underused exclamation point! Thank you for the multitude of sex scenes in which portions of the female anatomy are proved to not only have independant motion, but apparently minds of their own! Think of the endless fun I've been missing by not knowing such little tidbits about my own anatomy!

In all seriousness, the plot might be interesting, but it's not worth the endless dreck.

A masterfully crafted story based on the universal human conflict between the desire for order and the desire for freedom. Burgauer gives us a heroine whose concern is for the future, and a hero who is keenly aware of his own mortality. --Loren Logsdon... Editor, Eureka Literary Magazine