Arms From the Sea by Rich Shapero

   Every year the city of Los Angeles, in the state of California, holds a Book Festival where publishers and self publishers display their books to the public.

   I have a few to review. They are what would be known as self published stories. As a whole, the area of self publication is fine when one author decides his point of view must be released on the public, and he or she is willing to pay-- sometimes dearly-- for the privilege of being out in the market place.

   This first book is in the genre of science fiction. It is set in the future. 

    It opens with an act of defiance. In this city of salt a young man defiles a monument. In order not to be captured he decides to die rather than be caught and imprisoned. So he decides to bite the capsule rather than to  allow the state to capture and terminate him.   This action  moves him from one state of existence to another.

   He is not dead. Or is he? He has passed from one world to another. Will he manage to fit in?

   And when he wants to redeem the world he came from, will he succeed? Can he change it?

   The book ends with him in the hospital. He has been captured. For his crime he has lost his hand.

    I see this as science fiction in the characters used. They are not all human. There are spirits also. In this sense I see it as science fiction but not quite fantasy.

    The author’s use of the parameters of the genre seem, to me, to be handled poorly. There is so much he could have done, but his message—the purpose for his prose, got in the way. He seems to want to say dreams can have the power to change reality.

   He uses the symbol of the sea as the genesis of all dreams and the force of change.

   Does he succeed in proving his thesis, whatever that is?

   I don’t think do.  Each fiction story must have a reason for existence. This book, in my opinion, only could have seen the light of existence because he author found a vanity press to take his money and publish it.

    To contact the author you can go to richshapero.com.

When God Calls by Robert Shipp

   This is a self published book. There is nothing wrong with self publishing when you have a story to tell the nation.  

   It is the story of a young man who grew up in Venice, California in the Hood. In order to survive he had to become a gang member and later leader. His gang was the Venice Shoreline Crips.

   God had a plan for him and it was not to stay in the hood and become the bad dude of Venice. It was to become a Child of His and to be a minister, helping others to become followers of Jesus.

   The writing is erratic and the transitions are poor. This is to be expected of a first book. Shipp has a story to tell with a large panorama and his writing is urgent. The sense I get is that he feels the time is short and the message must be proclaimed.

   He knew the right things to do and how to blend with church people. He could adapt. And one day he heard the way to be rightly related to God. He became a Christian.

   But he still had to make the choice of how he wanted to live. Life didn’t suddenly become easy.

   Shipp moves from the past to the present in the telling of the story. He wants the world to know that he has changed and how they also can be changed.

   This book is a gripping book and it does not sugar coat the struggle.

   I would recommend this book which can be purchased on line. Amazon has it for Kindles also.