Our Author Gang's Favorite Reviews
Book reviews (good or bad) provide important feedback to the authors, and without reviews, a book gets lost in the thousands of other books that are released every month. Every author appreciates and values the opinion of readers, but we’re strongly discouraged from engaging with readers and thanking them for their reviews on publishing sites. The authors of Our Author Gang celebrate and appreciate the readers by posting our favorite reviews between September 10 and 22. Every day a different author of the group will post their books and quotes from their readers’ favorite reviews.
Thank you for your interest in our books and happy reading!
My Favorite Reviews
Mad Shadows: The Weird Tales of Dorgo the Dowser is the winner of the 2017 Golden Book Readers’ Choice Award for Fantasy. I love this review because Dave Brzeski is a well-respected reviewer, and the British Society of Fantasy is a highly-regarded e-magazine.
“Joe Bonadonna is one of the growing number of authors whose work I have been meaning to get around to for quite some time. This particular book has been available since the beginning of 2011. At first sight, it’s classic sword and sorcery, set on a world populated by fighting men, merchants, wizards and a multitude of mythical, non-mythical and just plain made-up beasts. There’s a difference, though, in the style of the storytelling. It’s a first person narrative, executed very much in the style of the hard-boiled private eye genre. I was reminded of Fritz Leiber’s Lankhmar tales, crossed with Chandler’s Philip Marlowe—sort of fantasy-noir. Dorgo Mikawber, himself, is roughly the equivalent of a private detective on this world, as he is a licensed dowser (complete with dowsing rod) of odylic (magical) energy, employed to deal with crimes of a supernatural nature.” — David Brzeski, British Society of Fantasy.
You can read Dave Brzeski’s full review at: http://www.britishfantasysociety.org/reviews/mad-shadows-the-weird-tales-of-dorgo-the-dowser-by-joe-bonadonna-book-review/
“Joe Bonadonna is a heck of a teller of hard-boiled action and adventure tales. After too many years out of the toilsome fields of swords & sorcery, he returned in 2010 with a top-flight collection of short stories about one Dorgo Mikawber, dowser of magic and handy with a saber. I discovered Joe and that book, Mad Shadows (2010) here on the virtual pages of Black Gate, and reviewed it over on my site about four years ago. After another significant hiatus he’s returned with a second collection of Dorgo’s adventures: Mad Shadows II: Dorgo the Dowser and The Order of the Serpent (2017). That’s a lot of title for a book that just crosses the two-hundred page mark, but it gives a nice sense of the pulpy goodness that lies betwixt its covers. Dorgo Mikawber was raised in an orphanage, served in the army, and now makes his living as a magical investigator and finder of lost people.” — Fletcher Vredenburgh, Black Gate online Magazine.
You can read Fletcher Vredenburgh’s complete review at: https://www.blackgate.com/2017/01/24/mad-shadows-ii-dorgo-the-dowser-and-the-order-of-the-serpent-by-joe-bonadonna/
“Bonadonna has constructed an empire and galaxy that largely escapes the looming shadow of Star Wars and Star Trek to exist as an original work in its own right. Three Against The Stars is a rip-roaring adventure ride.” — William Patrick Maynard, Black Gate Magazine, author of The Terror of Fu Manchu, The Destiny of Fu Manchu, and others.
You can read William Patrick Maynard’s full review at: https://www.blackgate.com/2013/01/11/three-against-the-stars-blasts-off-for-intergalactic-adventure/
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