Frank L. Cole's "The Afterlife Academy"...A Book Review

If you want to know what Frank Cole's The Afterlife Academy is all about, just look at the cover. It pretty much covers the story you'll find behind its pages.

The Afterlife Academy focuses on two main characters, Charles Dewdle, who is living, and Walter Prairie, who is not. You could say it's a buddy story, two opposites who must work together to fight a common enemy, and in the process, they end up saving each other.

Cole has created a great world in which to place Charles and Walter. In the first paragraph we find out that Walter has died, struck down--literally--with his whole life ahead of him. But, we don't have time to mourn this teenager because the next thing Walter knows, he's given an assignment. He's now Charles's Guardian Agent. And even though he's only been dead a day, he bypasses the Afterlife Academy and is sent to protect his HLT or High-Level Target.

And Charles desperately needs protecting. He's stumbled upon a book that has the power to unleash unspeakable evil upon the world and it's up to the least qualified agent to save Charles, his family, a schoolyard crush and the rest of humanity. There's baddies, plots, baptism-by-fire learning and heroes finding themselves in one pickle after just escaping the previous one.

Can Walter do it? Will Charlie be saved?

Oh, it's a great little story! It's the kind of story that even though it's intended target audience is middle-grade, there's no reason this should stop anyone from picking it up and enjoying the fun. If you're looking for a book you kids will enjoy, I recommend this one. Because you'll like it, too.

Finally...I Get To Read Frank's Book!

 I was so happy to see this on my iPad screen this afternoon. It's been a long time coming.

I met Frank Cole I believe last year at a Salt Lake Comic Con event. He was on a panel I moderated and a nicer guy you could not find. I even screwed up the next time I saw him by saying that he was the one who wrote "the janitor books."

You see, Frank didn't write the janitor books--he wrote The Afterlife Academy, the Guardians and Hashbrown Winters books. I was on another panel with a local author the year before who wrote the janitor books. Since the stories authors write are so personal, my comment was like calling one of his kids a boy when it was a girl. Frank was polite and acted as if my comment was "no big deal." Either he's a good actor or is really wasn't a big deal. I felt bad and apologized and I told him I would read one of his books.

Fast forward a few months and I saw his book, The Afterlife Academy, at my local library. I thought I could finally make amends and read one of his books. But I'd have to wait a little bit. Turns out, this particular book was popular. I was number five or six on the waiting list. A few days ago I got a message from the library saying it was now my turn.

Great! I was stoked! The way e-books are "delivered" from our library is that once the book is available, you click a button and the book downloads to an Amazon account. No big deal, but when I hit "download," my computer was signed up under my wife's Amazon account and therefore, it went to her Kindle. It did not go to my iPad, the device I take to work and from which I read e-books going to and from work on the bus.

I spent the next hour or so trying to figure out how to add my iPad to her account so I could transfer the book. Nope--those Amazon smarties do not allow this. I then tried downloading again from the library's website. Nope--I only got one shot.

Since I don't download a lot of e-books from the library, I didn't see the other option the library offers to its patrons. I could download the document to a web page and that's how I finally got Frank's book in a format where I could read it on the bus. I started it this afternoon. I'm liking it so far--good writing!

Of course, I could have avoided all this pain-in-the-rear stuff had I just bought his book at the Con...