Frank Aaker

Painter decorator.
Husband, father, granddad.
Love reading, hate TV.
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My star awarding system:
-One star: Problems with formatting, typos, grammatical errors, porno, excessive violence; issues so bad I put the book down without finishing.
-Two stars: The same as one star, but not so bad that I couldn't finish the book.
-Three stars: A good, satisfying read. Still a few one and two star issues, but not enough to spoil the story.
-Four stars: Excellent story and the author cares enough about his/her book to make the prose perfect.
-Five stars: The author is a gifted artist. One of those books impossible to put down and the memory lingers long after the last page is turned.

• Project Earth I: Origin on Jan. 21, 2013
  
  Lee discovers a crashed alien spaceship buried in his lake. He constructs a massive underground garage, digs the spaceship out, hides it in the garage, writes three best sellers to finance his project, and befriends two surviving aliens. Lee soon realizes he is an alien himself with latent mind powers, trapped in a human body. He visits his home world, then, single-handed, defeats a horde of enemy aliens to free his father on Mars. He then overrides Earth's communication satellites to set up 'Project Earth' and saves the human race from self-destruction. Like many indie books, 'Project Earth 1' desperately needs editing and proofreading. Throughout the book we irritatingly hear how 'cool' everything is, and how wonderful coffee tastes. The characters are flat, the plot is unconvincing, and the moralistic messages are old hat. To be fair, this book held my interest to the end, but I shan't be reading 'Project Earth 2.'
  
• XIN: The Veiled Genocides on Jan. 25, 2013
  
  I really enjoyed this book. A war is raging in our galaxy, good against evil, evil is winning. Dave, from the primitive planet Earth finds himself involved for no other reason than an ancient, alien, research probe needs a friend. As the war develops, Earth is chosen as the battlefield, a battle to end all battles. Robert G. Moons' style of writing is unique, but reminiscent of many classic authors: E. E. Doc Smith, Heinlein, Asimov, etc. However, I noticed a few rough edges in his prose and considered deducting a star. Then the ending disappointed me somewhat and I was sure I could deduct the star. But, as I turned the last page, I knew this book deserves all five stars, the overall reading experience was that good. Robert G. Moons is a talented artist of the first order. If you're a fan of genuine Science-Fiction, do yourself a favour and read this book.
  
• America One (Book 1) on Jan. 31, 2013
  
  Sorry, but I put the book down half way through chapter three. I found nothing in chapter one to hook my interest, but to give the book a chance I ploughed on through into chapter two, after all, some books are slow starters. By the second half of chapter two I was thoroughly bored and found myself skipping huge chunks of text in search of action. Chapter three carried on in the same style, description, description, description – I gave up. It's a shame, there is probably a good story buried deep within the boggy layers of words, but I don't have the patience to filter it out.
  
• Elysium Part One. Another Chance on Feb. 05, 2013
  
  Just to make it clear, this is as a post-apocalypse story, not science fiction. True, events take place in the near future, in a corner of England that I know and love, but there's not a sign of spaceship, alien, or ray gun anywhere in sight. Kelvin James Roper has talent, his writing is smooth as silk and a pleasure to read. Unfortunately, typos crop up irritatingly often, which is a shame in his otherwise delightful prose. The story itself is somewhat disappointing. I'm not sure what the plot is about or where it leads; the setting is fine, events happen, but at the end I was left wondering, 'Yeah, so what?' Characters are well defined, but there are so many that I lost track, and the heroes and villains are not well defined at all. Part one is short, 100 pages on my reader, and breaks off with countless unanswered questions. Too many, even sub plots are left unresolved and I missed that 'last page' feeling of satisfaction. I think this story may work best as one complete book instead of three short parts. But please read this book, it has many merits and is far above the standard of most indie books. If post-apocalypse is your thing, you'll doubtless award this story top marks.
  
• The Seedbearing Prince: Part I on Feb. 09, 2013
  
  I REALLY wanted to read this book, the story captivated me. BUT, the formatting, typos, pov issues, and grammatical errors are a disaster. I stumbled and tripped through fifty-three pages, reached chapter four, closed the book and put it down – mighty disappointed. A book I can't read to the end automatically gets a one star. Please, Mr. Sanders, clean up your prose, you have the makings of a best-seller here.
  
• Drawing God? on Feb. 10, 2013
  
  I'm glad I found this short story, I love this sort of philosophical bartering of ideas, this one between an atheist professor and a young girl. Wilde Blue Sky's prose is clear, smooth and easy to read. Religion is a minefield, one of those taboo subjects we're not supposed to discuss; even this harmless little story has provoked strong reaction, take a look at some of the other reviews. Go on, give it a read, what are you worried about?
  
• Times of Trial: Christian End Times Thriller (Book 3) on April 14, 2013
  
  Religion is always a difficult subject to write (or read) about, as it provokes deep-seated emotions of one sort or the other. This story is no different. Although the writing style painfully lacks editing, I found myself drawn into the story, which is about the apocalypse as predicted in the bible, the fall of western democracy, the end of the present age, the return of Jesus, and the ultimate victory of good over evil. Many of the horrific events predicted in this book seem far-fetched and impossible, and it’s easy to sneer, shake the head in denial, and say it could never happen. But the truth is that many of the atrocities have transpired once before with the mass murder of the Jews by the Nazis during World War II. If this book was properly edited I would give it four stars; in its current shoddy state I can only give it two stars -- which is a shame.
  
• Metal In The Moonlight on Sep. 22, 2013
  
  Five stars for the story, one star for writing skills = three stars.
  
• Pocket-sized Yarns on Jan. 01, 2015
  
  I'm mighty glad I discovered this collection of (very) short stories, it restores my faith in the indie author industry. These people know their stuff. Each story only takes five minutes to read, and if I were to rate each one individually, I'd give five stars to ninety percent and four to the rest. In other words, great. I shall certainly be following up other materiel by these talented writers.