Bernard R. Assaf, Amazon Customer Review, June 19, 2018
Losing Lanterns:
Well the end is here. That is, I finished the book. But that's also an apt summary of the story itself. But getting there was hard, mind-warping work. I think the key takeaway for me is the clever science fiction idea that spells out what happens to a time traveler when other time travelers alter the timeline.
I admit the early parts of this story are confusing. Fantasy? Science fiction? Betrayal and drama and fast action combine to form a story centered around the quest of Zira, our heroine that sometimes seemed just as confused as the reader! And what will she do at the end once the plot machinations of the antagonists become clear? How about something drastic and at the same time potentially catastrophic!
Kudos from me to the author for spinning a tale that doesn't require knowing the source material to work, but at the same time likely would be of considerable aid to the reader. The writing itself demonstrated literary cleverness, as more than a few times I paused in the reading, impressed with the word choice and sentence construction.
If you are looking for a science fiction story that leaves you wondering what is going on in the world until literally the last pages, then throws out an even more unexpected conclusion, then this is the story for you.
Lyndon Perry, Tangent Online, 19-December-2009
Losing Lanterns:
Well the end is here. That is, I finished the book. But that's also an apt summary of the story itself. But getting there was hard, mind-warping work. I think the key takeaway for me is the clever science fiction idea that spells out what happens to a time traveler when other time travelers alter the timeline.
I admit the early parts of this story are confusing. Fantasy? Science fiction? Betrayal and drama and fast action combine to form a story centered around the quest of Zira, our heroine that sometimes seemed just as confused as the reader! And what will she do at the end once the plot machinations of the antagonists become clear? How about something drastic and at the same time potentially catastrophic!
Kudos from me to the author for spinning a tale that doesn't require knowing the source material to work, but at the same time likely would be of considerable aid to the reader. The writing itself demonstrated literary cleverness, as more than a few times I paused in the reading, impressed with the word choice and sentence construction.
If you are looking for a science fiction story that leaves you wondering what is going on in the world until literally the last pages, then throws out an even more unexpected conclusion, then this is the story for you.
Lyndon Perry, Tangent Online, 19-December-2009
Christina Lea’s "The Man Comes Around" is darker than the opening stories and is more complex in plot and character development. Here the reader is confronted with the nature of good and evil, or at least gets a glimpse at some of the forces that may lie behind order and chaos. These forces are made manifest in gemstone-like beings of light and color and electric power. The godlike entities on either side of the conflict enlist and bond with human beings, transforming them into superhuman fighters that wage their war on earth. I’m making this sound too abstract; the tale is really an interesting origins story of a new crew of superheroes and their foes. The author does a fairly good job at placing something odd and alien into a more familiar setting, and then tying it all together in an engaging and descriptive story of survival.
Andre Kruppa, Goodreads, 21-June-2014
Stars, Specters, and Super-Powers:
This is an interesting series of short stories running the gamut from very futuristic transhumanist science fiction through fantasy to super powered humans changed by and struggling with alien forces. The tales are well written and intriguing with an underlying theme of transformation and grappling with powerful forces beyond human ken. This is a good read and I would recommend it to anyone with an interest in these themes.
Lyndon Perry, Tangent Online, 19-December-2009
Excerpt from POW!erful Tales Review:
In her second story in this collection, Christina Lea offers us in "Mister Blue Sky" a quirky tale of young, arrogant, second-stringers with idiosyncratic monikers and strange powers. Citrus Shocker (named after the soft drink) gained her powers in an electrical mishap and ended up killing a bad apple named Rudy. Rudy comes back to life as an electrified zombie seeking revenge. She and her cohorts – Captain Scrappy, Cloud Goddess, Recycled Man, Firetemple, Starbryte, and Santa Claus (yes this story features a zombie and a Santa!) – all pull together to clean up another crime syndicate and try to earn a little respect from the elders. The fun repartee and oddball antics of this group of super friends make for some light and entertaining reading.
Ken St. Andre, Atroll's Entertainment, 31-August-2013
Qalidar: Resistance RPG:
You would not think from looking at Christina that she would have such a weird imagination. She is an attractive woman with a dry sense of humor, but inside these pages she comes off stranger than Madame Blavatsky. That’s good. I like WEIRD.
Sometimes I wish my imagination was as good as those of my younger friends. Qalidar is a marvelous name for a world, but in Ms. Lea’s hands it is more than a world–it’s a whole multiverse where everything is more than it seems, and GREATER SIGNIFICANCE fairly oozes out of the pages of text.
I have actually read (almost all) of the Resistance rpg book, and I have to say, I’m impressed, intimidated, and confused by it all. Impressed by the concepts, intimidated by the creatures (this seems like a very difficult rpg to survive), and confused by why she would want to stay with the D20 style of game mechanics. I associate D20 with THAT OTHER GAME, and so don’t care for it much. Perhaps she thinks that is its strength. Oh well. I have gamed with Christina in her (sick and twisted) universe, and would be happy to return any time–D20 or not.
