Tag: Book Review

December 2025 – Update

The writing continues. I’m over 60% through writing the Leap The Dead. It’s going well, we get to explore Yeuhan Island in depth, and the Japanese Emperor’s sadistic Unit Thirty-Five. I’m having fun with that. And Trample The Weak is still doing REALLY well in sales. So I need to wrap that up…

My next project is up in the air though… I was going to write this series about two competing billionaires using mercenaries to retrieve artifacts of Christ.

But then I saw this $0 deal on Amazon for The Blood King by Matt James who is a fantastic writer and cover artists. (He does my cover art)

And danged if he didn’t write my book.

It’s so good, folks. I’m about 3/4’s of the way through, reading it in bits and pieces on my bathroom breaks at work. (heh) And I’m very, very impressed. I highly recommend it. He gets the ‘nerd lore’ down pat. I won’t say anything more than that, but it’s clever and historical and such.

Go buy it. The sequel, The False Prophet, is already out.

So, since Matt James wrote my series and all… it’s back to the drawing board.

Settling Prehistoric is still waiting. I’d love to go back to the world of Prehistoria and write about my favorite character of all time. But I’m going to have to re-read the books so I don’t goof it up after taking a year and a half off from the series.

And… that’s kinda it. I’ve a few small ideas that I’ve got to do some thinking on and see if I can expand them properly for a nice little series.

But we will see.

Hope you all had a glorious Thanksgiving with much giving of thanks to our Lord and Savior, and enjoyed your bountiful feasts on this conquered land.

Hasta la vista.

Writer’s Update – October 2025

Still working on ‘Leap the Dead‘. It’s coming out spectacular.

I think the word tracker was at 40% written. Not where I was hoping to be, but still progressing. Will I make it by the end of the year? Dang, I dunno… I really hope to pull it off somehow…

But there’s an awful lot going on in the real world for me. Pretty much all of it is just… exhausting and difficult and in some cases, kind of needless. But alas, the world continues to turn and my books continue to be written in my free time with style, elegance, and grace. 🙂

I did manage to take a couple days off from work and go shooting. It was good for the soul. The first time out, the rifle range was packed so I spent some time on the pistol range zeroing in my daughter’s Ruger Mark IV pistol and plinking with mine. As tempting as it was, I didn’t go guns akimbo(dual wield!)… The second time, I got there early Monday morning and beat all the old retired guys to the rifle range. Got some really good shooting in and spanked the old steel coyote at 300 yards with regularity.

I’ve gotten back into reading my bible. I’ve backslid for a few years now. So trying to get back into that. Also we are actively looking for a new church.

I’m planning on watching Primal War this weekend with my son. Pretty excited for that. I attempted to read the book… and it was terrible but I’ve heard the movie is pretty good.

Speaking of books, Larry Correia’s “Academy of Outcasts” came out a week or so ago. I just finished it… and wow. Highly recommend. I’m a snob when it comes to ‘reading time’ these days as my time is so limited and I can afford to be picky. Whereas when I was younger, I’d just devour everything inprint.. But Correia has yet to let me down on anything he’s written. May his Moose Yard Mountain grow ever higher.

Kind of a boring update. I’ll try to be more interesting next time.

But there’s only so many ways I can write, “The writing continues…”

About 3 weeks into Trample the Weak release.

One of the neat things about self-publishing is the vast amount of information I’m now privy to that I never saw before.

Before I received a quarterly statement showing Kindle Unlimited pages read, E-Books sold, Paperbacks sold, and Audiobooks sold.

Now I’ve got daily information that changes by the hour.

Pretty neat stuff.

I’ve managed to work my way down from clicking the refresh button hourly to only a few times a day now to watch my sales and pages read. 🙂

And how are sales going? Pretty good. About what I expected for the start of a new series. And the reviews are rolling in nicely, I was at a satisfying 4.8/5 with 10 reviews until a 3 star kicked me in the review-groin down to a 4.5. But that will balance out as more come in.

So – certainly good enough to continue with the sequel. 🙂

Which, according to my fancy Atticus writing/formatting/etc program, (highly recommend!) I’m around 14% on completion.

I also got a few author copies of Trample the Weak in and decided to do a quick photo shoot as I cleaned some guns.

One of the cool things a bout being a gun guy, is writing about what you own. And then taking pictures with your Garand and the books it’s included in. 🙂

Because success should always be chronicled and bragged about.

In other news, you may recall that we got rabbits last year. That was… interesting.

Now, my daughter has moved into the realm of ‘RATS’… yes. The big rodents with big tails.

Apparently there is an entire not-so-underground society of people who breed and keep rats. And there are all kinds of the hairy creatures at all sorts of varying prices for fur and size variations.

And business seems to be booming. Probably because rats only live ~2 years. So you’re constantly getting new pets, but still… I digress…

Tomorrow we are picking up a giant cage and play set from someone who is getting out of the rat business. And this weekend, we are picking up a pair of rats.

Which… I have to share photos of.

I -think- the current name choices are Spot and Sunny… will likely change in the near future before being settled on.

So. Yay. Rats!

Enh, they are kinda cute. And these are supposed to be very docile and hand-able.

But yes, out with the rabbits in with the rats.

And now for some not so subtle advertising.

https://www.amazon.com/author/eriktesterman

Above is my Author Page on Amazon. Please click it, and follow me. It helps let you know when I have books come out. And because us writers are a savage bunch of nerds, we like to brag about how many followers we have on Amazon to each other. 🙂

Thank you and enjoy your early summer!

CONQUERING PREHISTORIC – RELEASE DAY!

It’s out!

WOOOO.

It’s a great feeling to have something you worked hard on come to life after such a long time. Especially in this case… this book took much longer than typical due to some external reasons and I’m grateful it’s finished and publishable. 🙂

Link is above.

Kindle is out now, paperback should be out within a few hours/day… and audible should be out in a few months.

This is a bitter sweet moment as I leave the world of cowboys and dinosaurs behind to work on some other projects.

I really just want to keep going…

But, writing is a business and needs to be treated as such. Thus, I must go out and gather more readers by writing various things. The good news is that a rising tide raises all ships. By bringing in readers to my upcoming WWII series and the modern day action-adventure series that are in the plans now, I’ll be introducing more people to my work and in turn, to the world of West of Prehistoric.

Which means I can and will return. 🙂

I’ve already been rolling around ideas on how to continue and the series is certainly set up for some more fun and violence down the road.

So, here we go.

Tell your friends about it, buy family members copies, mention it in passing to your coworkers and neighbors, if you can without being weird about it. The more readers the books get, the sooner I can return.

Writing this series has been a dream come true.

And ironically, I believe it was a 4th of July Weekend in 2018 when I first started writing the opening pages for this series. So it’s fitting that this one should come out on the same weekend six years later.

I never thought I’d find this measure of success. I just hoped to write something that didn’t suck that would entertain people. And while these books may not be the next great American novel they’ve done just that… they’ve entertained many a person in a satisfactory manner.

And I’m eternally grateful for you giving my books a chance.

Have a wonderful Fourth of July.

Erik.

Got my first International Review. That’s pretty cool!

And it’s a good one, by the Australian author of Guns of Perdition herself, Jessica Bakker.

Book Review – West of Prehistoric – Erik Testerman

Oh. My. God. This book, West of Prehistoric, by Erik (Tracer) Testerman was BRILLIANT. The highlight of my 2020 reading journey. It came out of nowhere – I hadn’t heard anything about it – and perhaps that’s why I had no real expectations going in, but within two pages, I was already blown away, and knew this was going to be a helluva book.

What’s it about? Well, think Red Dead Redemption 2 meets Planet of the Apes, then has a threesome with Jurassic Park. The resulting love-child, is West of Prehistoric.

Ex-outlaw turned rancher, Jed Smith, is minding his own business working on his ranch, when he’s suddenly (and brutally) attacked by a dinosaur. From that moment on, the weird, the west, the carnage, and the awesome, don’t stop.

An excellently fleshed out cast of characters join Jed as he seeks to first understand the dinosaur/ape menace that threaten the west, and then to stop them slaughtering every human they come across. Action is crammed into these pages, but there’s still room for fantastic character development, wry humour, and yes, some romance. You know an author has a great handle on character development when he makes the reader love and care about the main character’s horse!

Though West of Prehistoric is Testerman’s debut novel, he feels like an old-hat at writing – there’s nary a jangled sentence or misplaced word to be found. And while the premise of West of Prehistoric might seem simplistic on first glance, it’s actually absorbing, engaging, and addictive. I had trouble putting this one down.

It’s pretty clear this is a setup for a sequel or possible trilogy, and I can only hope Testerman draws this saga out for a few more books – I for one, will be lining up to get the next instalment when it comes out.

Yes, it’s weird western. Yes, there’s gore. However, even to those of you who aren’t into this genre or gore, I’d suggest grabbing a copy and giving it a go, because at the end of the day, this is just a wonderfully told, greatly entertaining story.

Purchase HERE

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Did you see that? She called it BRILLIANT… in all caps. (I added the bold.)

Awesome!