Brian Rush

Brian Rush has been writing compulsively in one form or another for many years. He has been a student (one is always a student) of the occult for just as long, and has published articles and taught classes on the subject. He has lived on both coasts of the U.S., never far from the sea, and currently resides in northern California.

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Blog: https://brianrushwriter.wordpress.com/

http://www.wordclay.com/BookStore/BookStoreBookDetails.aspx?bookid=58157

1700s    99 percent vs 1 percent    aliens    aliens among us    aliens and lovers    aliens on earth    alienspirituality    america    astral plane    capitalism    contemporary fantasy    democracy    direct democracy    dreams    dystopia    economic democracy    economy    faerie    fairytale    familiar spirit    fantasy    fantasy magic contemporary    goddess    gods    hero    history    immortality    intrigue    life and death    love and power    lovers quarrel    magic    magic abilities    magic and occultism    magic and science fiction    magic paranormal    magic romance    magic war    magic wizards    magical order    modern    music    new constitution    occult    other worlds    psychic abilites    psychic abilities    psychic assassin    psychic fantasy    revolution    robin hood    science fiction    secret societies    secret society    socialism    star mage    transformation    vampire    visionary    werewolf   

• A Bear Tale on June 24, 2012
  
  This novella is full of very human characters, many of them not human. Diana, the MC, comes across initially as a somewhat shallow young woman almost exclusively focused on getting a guy, but we come to understand her better through her relationship with her dog and a bear and find that she is a very earthy and instinctive person, tied in to nature without consciously acknowledging it, full of intuitive depths that she doesn't articulate but that show up strongly in her actions. Along the way, issues of humanity's relationship with the wilderness and wild animals emerge in a sharply-defined way, as they do when fear is a part of the picture. The story can be a little slow going in, but as it unfolds along with our understanding of Diana, it becomes clear it couldn't be told another way.
  
• One of One on July 29, 2012
  
  This book is really creative and unusual. That up front. I'm interested in seeing the sequel, which is always high praise. The voice is good, the characters are interesting, and so is the plot. There are a couple of experiments that the book makes and I'm still trying to decide if they work, which probably means they do. I'll get to that in a moment. In synopsis, this is about two women living on opposite sides of the world, geographically and culturally, who are bound together by a telepathic tie even though they are total strangers. The main plot line involves a nefarious political scheme, with the sister of one of the two women as its intended victim. It's a good story, and the way the telepathy contributes to the story development held my interest. A word about the experiments. There are two of them. One is that the point of view shifts often and abruptly, creating the sense of identify being a fluid and shifting thing, and the isolation of the individual being an illusion. That violates a basic convention of fiction writing which holds that point-of-view changes should be done not too often and clearly delineated by (for example) chapter headings (although other ways of making the shift clear and unconfusing can work, too). I found that jarring to begin with, and you may, too, but my suggestion is to get past it and get used to it -- I think it works. The defiance of the convention is deliberate here, I understand why it was done, and the story still flows well. The other experiment is to embed links in the story to music, articles, and so on where these occur in the story. That I don't think works as well, but it's by no means a killer. If you click on those links, you'll disrupt the flow of the tale badly and lose immersion, but I didn't find it hard to ignore them, and of course they're still there if I want to go back and check it out. I did feel that the pace of the story could have been a bit faster and livelier. Some of the passages of description and technical detail could have been shortened, the necessary information conveyed more economically, and the story would have been more gripping; as it was, some of the plot's potential (and it has a lot) was lost, I felt. Still, good story, and a worthy read. Oh, and also: if you, yourself, are a telepath, you'll especially love this. I won't explain that. You'll understand if it applies.