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  • Parallel Worlds: The Heroes Within
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Customer reviews

4.4 out of 5 stars
4.4 out of 5
288 global ratings
5 star
59%
4 star
25%
3 star
11%
2 star
4%
1 star
1%
Parallel Worlds: The Heroes Within

Parallel Worlds: The Heroes Within

byL. J. Hachmeister
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Top positive review

All positive reviews›
Marie
4.0 out of 5 starsA few very good stories
Reviewed in the United States on October 22, 2019
I wish there had been more detail in the book's description. I will give a short blurb and try to avoid spoilers. If you don't want more information, skip to the next review.

Dead End Rhodes by Sarah Hoyt - 5 stars, science fiction
This is a bittersweet story. A former socialite, Stella, travels with Nick, a cyborg detective, and they solve cases from their spaceship. Creating Borgs is very illegal and just being in the proximity of a Borg is punishable by death. Borgs are made by encasing a brain in a mechanical body. Most don’t survive. They are hired to find the missing son of the man who runs a series of mines.

Look Me in the Stars by Christopher Husberg - 2 stars
This is a series of blog posts by an apocalypse survivor that doesn’t go anywhere.

The Dead Who Care by DJ Butler - 3 stories, paranormal
A turn of the century story about Mormons. Hiram makes a promise to care for another soldier’s family after his death.

Myth Deeds by Jody Lynn Nye - 1 star
DNF. Cute title

The Shadow of Markham by RR Virdi - 5 stars
A dark elf patrols the Markham rooftops trying to save kidnapped children.

Davy Crockett vs the Saucer Men by David Afsharirad - 3 stars, coming of age story, science fiction
Davy and his friends spot a spaceship and investigate around having to go home for lunch.

Dead Run by Aaron Michael Ritchey - 3 stars, science fiction
A boy fights to save his sister from a mysterious disease.

Unnamed by Gama Ray Martinez - 4 stars, fantasy
Paranormal creatures are invading the city and the Unnamed fight them in secret.

Prisoner 141 by LJ Hachmeister - 3 stars, science fiction
Raza was convicted of a crime so heinous, they wiped her memory. She’s chosen to disarm a planet-killing weapon.

Valentine Blues by James A Hunter - 3 stars, fantasy
Yancy Lazarus is a mage. He drives through a town that reneged on a deal with the Pied Piper.

The Tragedy of John Metcalf by Yudhanjaya Wijeratne - 2 stars
John lives in two parallel worlds. In one he’s a magician assassin, the other he’s a scientist. There is a hard ending.

Effigies in Bronze by Colten Hehr - 1 star
Written in a heavy period style. DNF

Daily Bread by EA Copen - 4 stars, fantasy
Josiah Quinn apprentices under an evil man. This is from the Hellbent Halo series.

The Demons of Arae by Christopher Ruocchio The Mouth of Hell - 3.5 stars, science fiction
Lord Marlowe investigated the loss of a legion of 26,000 men and their 4 ships. It was determined they were taken by space pirates. The Roman angle was an odd choice and some more detail on his backstory would have been nice. The story felt like a prequel or a story between books.

A Tale of Red Riding: Seduction of the Werepire by Neo Edmund - 3 stars, paranormal
A YA story about Red Riding Hood and the Wolfman hunting a vampire/werewolf hybrid. There is a lot of missing detail. I suspect it's part of a larger story arc.

Threshold by Todd Fahnestock - 1 star
DNF. Lots of odd made-up names.

The Last Death of Oscar Hernandez by Russell Nohelty - 2 stars, science fiction
A man keeps getting reincarnated and in this version, he rescues a little girl's kite.

The Magpie and the Mosquito by Josh Vogt - 2 stars, fantasy
A Magpie takes on a young thief and saves her bonded mate. I skimmed most of the story.

Monsters by Jim Butcher - 4 stars, fantasy, paranormal
Goodman Grey is a professional monster and shapeshifter. Viti is his secretary. Gentleman John Marcone comes into his office and hires him to save kidnapped children from being forced to work in a brothel. The story needed more detail to get 5 stars. Why the silver dollar? What was the secretary? I enjoy John Marcone from the Harry Dresden series but this one had too many unanswered questions. I became curious and did some Googling. Goodman Grey was in Skin Game but I didn't remember him. I confess; I wish the Dresden Series would have ended before Butcher grievously wounded Michael and changed the direction for the series.
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41 people found this helpful

Top critical review

All critical reviews›
Tawnya
3.0 out of 5 starsI hate doing headlines.
Reviewed in the United States on February 24, 2022
Parallel Worlds
actual rating 3.26

Dead End Rhodes
Sarah A. Hoyt
3.5 stars
I am surprised I liked this. I don't care for Sci-Fi and noir normally bores me. It was a good, old-fashioned mystery with a small bit of angst.
Story is told from the perspective of a woman whose boss happens to be a cyborg. He is unaware of this fact. He believes himself to be a private eye. It has a Sam Spade feel to it.

Look Me in the Stars
Christopher Husberg
1 star
I couldn't get past the second day. Maybe I'm too old for this type of writing. I don't even like to read my own journal, so why would I read someone else's dithering’s.

The Dead Who Care
D.J. Butler
3 stars
Interesting take on a ghost story. Learned a bit of history. In 1921 a man driving his Model T picks up what he quickly realizes is a ghost. The story goes in depth about a Mormon massacre from 1857 the Mountain Meadows Massacre. The Mormons were the monsters attacking another group of Mormons. I knew of their heinous forced marriages from that era, but not the infighting.

Myth Deeds
Jody Lynn Nye
3 stars
Some graphic mistakes that haven't appeared elsewhere in the book so far. The story was fun, if a bit odd. Magic & old west mentality combined with modern need for the most "likes" set up a unique way of promoting one's self.

The Shadow of Markham
R.R. Virdi
4 stars
Fast story. Nice allegory for racism. Dark elf is trying to find out why children are disappearing . I really liked the author's Grave Report series.

Davy Crockett vs. The Saucer Men
David Afsharirad
3.5 stars
Old-fashioned kids' tale. Young boys in the 50s find a spaceship.

Dead Run
Aaron Michael Ritchey
3 stars
I've never cared for post-apocalyptic literature, but this wasn't too bad. No happy ending though. After an economic collapse a teenage boy tries to save his dying sister by finding a way to get into a storage unit housing alien creatures. He hopes to get enough money from selling a baby one to buy the medicine his sister needs. First he has to get passed his evil brother.

Unnamed
Gama Ray Martinez
3.5 stars
Would like to read a series based on this story. Thomas is the "unnamed". Unnamed is the designation of a unit of fighters railing against creatures from other dimensions. I am skimming thru the anthology trying to flesh out what I wrote the first time I read it. This story I read through completely again. I really wish this was a series.

Prisoner 141
L. J. Hachmeister
3.5 stars
Space story that has some interesting moral dilemmas. Prisoner who has had her memories wiped is transferred to an alien ship in order to find and disable a terrible weapon.

Valentine Blues
James A. Hunter
4 stars
I had Bobby Singer in my head while reading this. Guy drives into a town that seems abandoned. He soon finds the children behaving strangely. I saw "Children of the Corn" being mentioned in other reviews. I concur.

The Tragedy of John Metcalf
Yudhanjaya Wijeratne
3.5 stars
Some minor disjointedness. Cool story over all. So far this is the only story in the anthology that has "parallel worlds". John Metcalf, an assassin, sees another aircraft while flying to Turkey. Meanwhile in a "parallel world" a different John Metcalf is a doctor. The story goes back and forth between them.

Effigies in Bronze
Colton Hehr
3 stars
War story with a conscious. The end sort of petered out though. Soldiers in an era of arrows and spears have cousins as their leaders. One has integrity. The other would kill children without a qualm.

Daily Bread
E.A. Copen
4 stars
I read this in a different book. Looking for it drove me nuts. I'm guessing it was at the end of a Lazarus story. Since the author pulled all of her books off Amazon twice within a year the actual edition I read it in is no longer available. This is Josiah's backstory.

The Demons of Arae
Christopher Ruocchio
3 stars
Alien war story.

A Tale of Red Riding: Seduction of the Werepire
Neo Edmund
3 stars
Funny parts, but Red is tiresome.

Threshold
Todd Fahnestock
3 stars
Interesting premise. Would have liked more info about everything. A boy wants desperately to find out what his power will be. In his world humans appear for a short time before dying. It is against the law to give the humans any aid before they disappear to wherever is next in their journey. One day his mother breaks the law.

The Last Death of Oscar Hernandez
Russell Nohelty
3 stars
Truthfully it seemed familiar, like something out of "The Twilight Zone" series. Man experiences death and his soul is thrust into a new body over and over again.

The Magpie and the Mosquito
Josh Vogt
3.5 stars
Thieves, young & old. Skeeter wants Maggie to teach her. After Maggie says no Skeeter ruins her night.

Monsters
Jim Butcher
4 stars
Grey, the skinwalker from "Skin Game", gets a visit from Johnny Marcone. A gang from out of town wants to open a new business in Chicago. The problem is they want to use children to do it. Marcone hires Grey to stop them.
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From the United States

Miro
2.0 out of 5 stars Two
Reviewed in the United States on November 11, 2019
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Audrey
2.0 out of 5 stars someone, please proofread this ebook
Reviewed in the United States on January 18, 2020
i will update my review after i finish all the stories. in the meanwhile, i will note that this book needs a good going-over by an editor. Fix the typos, fix the footnote hyperlinks that don't work, fix the incomplete sentences…

Update: I finished it with the result that I am downgrading my placeholder review. There were a very few readable stories in this anthology. The rest were lousy with typos and purple prose, or read like someone's creative writing class project.

Below are just a very few directly-quoted examples of typos found in the pages of this book (there are many more to be found):

"My teeth grated against each other as I descended onto the topmost create and worked my way down."
"I plucked several free, looking to the space between where I crouched and another formation of crated."
"Thomas’s eyes seemed to slide off of him, and indication that he probably had some sort of supernatural ancestry."
"Still holding, fast, the alien continued, her voice hardening."
"In twenty minutes, Victor, this time driving a sleek, black car stamped with the coat of arms of the Süleymaniye Complex."
"Blindness danced like a black blame in his left hand."
"I took the reed and whicker stool"

I am glad I only borrowed it (Kindle Owner's Lending Library) because I would have been seriously annoyed it I had purchased it. Yes, in case you wondered, poorly edited books are a pet peeve of mine.
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Jenny
2.0 out of 5 stars Too much child abuse
Reviewed in the United States on October 20, 2020
I got this book for the Dresden Files short story, which was good, then started to read the rest of the shorts. I read several stories and got sick of literally ALL of them featuring child abuse in some manner or another (even the DF short) and finally Noped Out.

It seems like every author decided to take the shortcut to bad guydom by featuring child abuse in some manner or another. Even the one story, told in a blog format after the zombie apocalypse, which went *nowhere* and accomplished nothing, managed to make space for explaining the girl writing the blog had been abused after her brother had been abused. It did nothing to move plot along and barely mattered for her character except to give a convenient reason her father was missing and she didn't care. I don't often feel like I wasted my time when I finish reading something but that story was just SO pointless.

So, if you don't mind reading a bunch of stories that feature the abuse of children as plot fodder, go ahead and read this book. Otherwise, my recommendation is don't waste your money.
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From other countries

Stefan Gradmann
2.0 out of 5 stars -
Reviewed in Germany on January 7, 2020
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