This is a highly entertaining read. I expected to want more at the end because it's short, but it's all wrapped up very nicely.

Book Reviews posted below. Kirkus Review said the book was "delightful."

SAN FRANCISCO BOOK REVIEW In this futuristic story of gourmet food and shady interplanetary business deals, Molly Marbles seeks to find her place in the world, or rather, in the solar system. Molly is an overweight Earth woman in a universe that prizes the tall, thin figures of those born and raised on low-gravity heavenly bodies, such as Mars. Everything changes for her when she begins college on the Moon. She no longer worries about dieting, and she can begin to focus on her passion for cooking and eating delicacies, such as duck breast in a coriander fig sauce. She and her husband suddenly find themselves penniless and forced to move to Mars, where nearly everyone is thin and they only eat food supplements, if they eat anything at all. Molly once again finds herself on the outside looking in, but when she takes a job in security at Culinary Institute of Mars, home of the Candy Universe, Molly finds her niche. Unfortunately, Molly discovers that her favorite candy, Chocolate Chocolate Moons, is poisoned! She and her friends must catch the candy-poisoning culprits and ensure they receive their just desserts! Jackie Kingon’s stuffs her writing full of puns, plays on words, and food similes. For example, the characters wear Dolce and Banana, and Molly drives along the Carpal Tunnel to get to the mall. When I first began reading, I thought, “This book is so silly!” but I got into the spirit of it and laughed out loud throughout the whole story. It is a quick read, and the foodie version of Jasper Fforde’s The Eyre Affair. Molly is an instantly likeable character, and Kingon’s word play is so fun, it is hard to resist. THE LAST DIET YOU WILL EVER BE ON Barbara Bruce White Mountain Talk Show Host News Talk 970 & 1270 streaming at 970kvwm.com. All of us have wished we could find that magic bullet for weight loss but it is always elusive. In Chocolate Chocolate Moons, Jackie Kingon takes you on a journey that is truly "out of this world" with humor and, believe it or not, information that could work for you, not just at Armstrong University, but right here on Planet Earth. You laugh, you empathize and then you re-think how you look at the way you view the food you eat. Love the book! As a Radio Talk Show Host,I also loved Jackie; listeners connected with her right away because we know that she sees inside all of us who would really long to GIVE UP the DIETING GAME once and for all. KIRKUS REVIEW Molly Marbles, an overweight 24th-century Earth girl, wrote “The Joy of Salami,” an essay that won her a spot at a university on the moon. Later, after marriage and twin girls, Molly lives on Mars. After starting a new job as a security guard at the Culinary Institute, she investigates a mystery: People are ending up poisoned after eating her favorite snack food, Chocolate Moons. Kingon invents a colorful, often outrageous cast: Molly’s first love, Drew, who has an affair with CC, otherwise known as Colorful Copies; Cortland Summers, Molly’s husband and an aspiring rock legend; and Rocket, a sleazy fellow looking to make lots of money by any means necessary; and other memorable characters. The author builds a weird, hilarious universe full of witty language and unique detail. In the future, for example, Hallmark-card artwork is expensive and coveted, Uranus is home to toy factories and Mars has cities named New Chicago and Pharaoh City. Kingon’s prose is often as snappy as her settings; when Molly discovers Drew’s affair she proclaims, “Suddenly I feel like a pizza cut into more than eight slices. ” The story does wrap up with a satisfying conclusion. Delightful. MIDWEST BOOK REVIEW James A. Cox, Editor-in-Chief Every taste of sweetness might have a bit of poison behind it. "Chocolate Chocolate Moons" is a novel following larger Molly Marbles as she's presented with an opportunity to break from her cycle of dieting with a trip to the moon where her weight is suddenly much less of concern, and when her favorite snack food turns out to have a hidden twist, Molly has more on her plate than even she can handle. "Chocolate Chocolate Moons" is a humorous romp, sure to please many a reader.
Micah Andrew, Reviewer CLARION REVIEW Molly Summers is a gal who loves her chocolate. While working as a security guard at a factory where a particular candy is poisoned, the lead investigator points out that Molly had easy access to commit the crime. “Easy access but no motive,” she tells him. “I consider Godiva and Hershey saints and chocolate to be the food of the gods.” Welcome to the twenty-fourth century, when overweight earthlings can travel to the moon and live in an atmosphere where they weigh nearly five times less than their actual weight. At first, it is heaven for the Neil Armstrong University-bound Molly and her heavyset boyfriend, Drew, but they soon break up when another girl comes between them. Life goes on for Molly, and when readers meet up with her again she is married, the mother of twin fifteen-year-old daughters, and working security for the Culinary Institute of Mars, where the big question of the novel arises: why would someone want to sabotage the popular candy Chocolate Moons? With the help of her Martian best friend, Jersey, and Jersey’s husband—the half-human, half-machine, Trenton—Molly tries to solve the mystery. Kingon is a teacher, artist, and writer who has had several short stories published, as well as articles in the New York Times. This rollicking, whimsical, tongue-in-cheek story is her debut novel. Food is ever present in this alternate universe. In fact, many of Molly’s thoughts and feelings are associated with food: “I feel as light as a whipped egg white in a floating island dessert.” Those who like unusual stories served with a dose of humor will enjoy Molly’s out-of-this-world adventure. Robin Farrell Edmunds, Reviewer

To be honest, I never made by the first chapter of this book. I may pick it up a day when I have no other book in the pile of unread stuff, and the weather is lousy. The chapter I read was quite blandly written and mostly sounded as a excuse for American war atrocities in Vietnam. So until I have nothing better to do I dropped this...

Opening with a bang, this skillfully told tale piles horror and uncertanty as some youngsters in some indeterminate age and place seek to come to terms with what is going on around them. To pick it up is to continue turning the pages wondering what will come next.

Legends of Lucifer and his attendant demons seem to have come to life and whirl around the protagonists in terrifying numbers. Will they find a way out...?

For the role-player: This could have the makings of an epic horror adventure if you have the skills to run one effectively. Best wait for the whole series, though, as a lot of the fun is foreshadowing things to come in the information that you reveal to your players through the legends they discover.

A nicely-written if somewhat predictable tale of a bunch of young people out on a road trip who run into a genuine curse at the inn they stop at!

Characters are well-described, the whole tale reads well... and manages to get over moments of passion without descending into porn, tastefully done.

For the role-player: If you like contemporary horror, this could make the basis of an adventure - or even a bit more if you want to pick up on the strange graveyard and other things encountered on the way.

If I had a single paragraph of advice for the reader, then it would be: Get your expectations right up front. Don't expect high literature. Don't expect sentences that take your breath away for their sheer beauty. Don't expect personal drama, big emotions and deeply-painted characters that will haunt your dreams. And don't expect a plot that sucks you into the pages, let's you stay up all night and leaves you desperate for more.

On the other hand, this need not be a problem. This is not Mary Shelley writing. It is not even Dan Brown. Nobody claimed that it would. This is a book that tells a (rather routine) story in the Space: 1889 setting. It can help you to learn more about a roleplaying world, and it does so nicely. The language is elegant, the story is well-told, the mood of the (pulp) Victorian era is being captured. It's an enjoyable read if you don't expect too much. I'm a person who easily puts away a book that bores me, and this one didn't. I read it in the course of a few evenings, I liked it, and I will order other books of the series to learn more about a setting I find interesting. All in all, it's what I expect from a roleplaying novel. Thus, I give it three out of five stars.

P.S.: If there is one point I really would criticise, then it's the open ends. The book concludes its main story, but it nonetheless leaves quite a few open ends. Why did the peaceful Selenites attack the exploration crew on the "Annabella", and how did they win the fight against the well-armed English even though they did not carry weapons? What is the reason for the eerie feelings and halluzinations the crew experienced on Luna? Where did Stevenson disappear, and why? I guess that answers will be given in future books from the series, but it's still somewhat annoying (especially since it is not before #6 that we return to Luna, where the mysteries will hopefully be unravelled).

They say it is not so much a matter of how well the bear dances, but that the bear actually dances at all is a wonder. So thus we are swept up in the musings of a self-aware, genius even, straw man as he tells of his strange situation and as best he can, what it is like to be him.

Told in the first person, it grabs you up and sweeps you along wondering whatever revelation will be next. By exploring the human condition from outside, yet able to think as men do, this straw man illuminates corners that often lie unconsidered. As you read on, though, you discover that you know him. Or at least, thought that you did. As the tale unfolds it brings a whole new slant to things you thought were familiar.

Role-players in games that investigate the strange and unexplained may find him somewhere - he does not shy away from communicating with flesh and bones men, so may well pause to talk with such explorers of the unusual and the bizarre.

An enjoyable read.

OK. What would YOU do if you found zombies in your back garden?

This well-written tale tells the story of one normal God-fearing farmer, busy doing his best by his family and how he dealt with a zombie problem... or at least, how he struggled with it and all the trauma that occurred once the rest of the world heard what was cavorting amongst his beans of an evening.

If you're a role-player, this will provide plenty of ideas for a zombie game, or a contemporary horror game in the 'early X-Files' or 'Supernatural' style, when there's an oddness to investigate and the rest of the world to keep relatively safe if not in the dark ('cos they'd panic, is the usual rationale).

It's a nicely-told tale that keeps you reading along. Recommended.

What do cartoon characters do when they're not on screen?

Apparently much the same as they do whilst the show is running: yell, act mean or generous on a whim, rush around, do odd things and yell some more.

As for what they do when the show gets cancelled... well, pity the poor TV executive who did it as all the yelling and acting mean will be focussed in his direction.

An entertaining glimpse of the secret life of everyday cartoons, told in an engaging style that almost makes you care what happens to them. So, will they get back on air? Read on and find out...

Quite an interesting short story that begins innocuously as a psychology professor travels out into the mountains to visit a man aquitted some 20 years ago of the murder of his brothers but widely believed to have done it, nonetheless. His angle: what is life like for someone thought guilty even when found innocent in a court of law?

Descriptions are vivid, sometimes erring on the side of profuse, like a student in a creative writing class finding something to say about absolutely everything as he practices his craft, but it settles down once the scene is set.

Verbal sparring twixt prof and hillbilly is realistically portrayed as is the internal feelings of inadequacy felt by the professor...

... then things turn darker, hauntingly so.

For the role-player: If you are playing a contemporary investigative or horror game this could well provide something for the characters to investigate. At times it reads like an early X-Files or Supernatural script, or something that the FBI's behavioural analysis unit might investigate.

It's an atmospheric scary read, with good scenario potential.

A fun, light read with a better-than-expected conclusion. Recommended!

Do you think that the far future is all exciting space battles and exotic aliens?

Even intrepid space explorers need to be paid. Here is a brief account of one harried accountant's attempts to ensure that his crew gets their just reward. Read, chuckle and remember... some things never change!