I love trying new authors and one of the best ways is to browse the free or cheap books for my Nook.  Kira Bacal is a doctor who worked at NASA and the Senate before moving to New Zealand.  She published seven free Nook novellas, all enjoyable, easy reads.   I’ll cover three in this post.

All I Need to Know about the Earth, I Learned in Kindergarten

What do you do when you’re an intergalactic criminal and need a safe, quiet hideaway?  Why come to Earth and teach kindergarten of course.  “Miss Buttercup” is leading her classroom out to catch their buses home when one of the kids steps into the road, right in front of a car.  Miss Buttercup can move much faster than humans and rescues the child, however there is a witness:  Mrs. Weinbaum, an 80 year old crossing guard.

Mrs. Weinbaum asks Miss Buttercup to come to her home where they agree to a mutually advantageous outcome.

This story is not deep but it is well-written and entertaining.  I enjoyed Miss Buttercup and her penchant for helping her human students and would love to read a longer story with her as a main character.

Look What the Cat Dragged In

Would you answer the door during a howling blizzard if you live alone in a remote cabin?  Our main character does and lets in a young kitten she names Amber.  Amber has deformed front legs that don’t let her walk normally and our heroine is mildly curious how she managed to make it to her doorstep before freezing in the snow.

A few weeks later she learns the answer when Amber’s real people show up…

I liked the characters in this one too, but especially enjoyed the ambiguity around the pronouns “She is protecting it”.  Who is the “she” and who is the “it”?  This was a fun fast read, possibly the weakest of the stories yet well worth the time.

The Ananaki

This one was different from the others.  Still had a science fiction background, but the main character is a fishing captain on a backward planet.  Some unscrupulous folks convinced the locals they were “gods”, “Ananaki” and provided an amulet and altar for communication and punishment.

Luckily for our hero his latest passenger, a rescued young man, does not believe in the Ananaki and damages the altar.  That damages causes the amulet to instead contact a military or police vessel (we never learn who) that manages to disabuse the natives of the Ananaki’s perfection and removes the Ananaki from the planet.

I enjoyed the dialogue and the style of this one very much.  The story was good and we learned just enough of the people to see there was trouble afoot.  The “gods” were mean and greedy, not the sort anyone wants around.  The middle of the novella dragged just a bit when the captain and his rescued atheist argue but the rest was very good.

All told I’d give these 4 to 5 stars.  Excellent, fun reads, perfect to spend a few minutes enjoyably.

Note to readers:  For some reason the spell checker in Word Press isn’t working very well – or else I”m not making any typos or misspellings.  Ha, not too likely!