Xuthal of the Dusk (Conan Chronicles #5) 3.5Stars

 

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress & Blogspot by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: Xuthal of the Dusk
Series: Conan Chronicles #5
Author: Robert Howard
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 40
Words: 13K
Publish: 1933

I always enjoy when a Conan story dips its toes into the cosmic horror side of things. This time around Conan has to face off against “Thog”, a humanoid frog god of another dimension, who is also a thinly disguised version of Tsathoggua, who was created by Clark Ashton Smith in 1929 and used by HP Lovecraft in his Cthulhu mythos in 1931. This Conan story was published in 1933, so good ol’ Tsathoggua was definitely hitting it off with readers. Unlike Lovecraft, where his human characters fail and shatter before such a creature, Conan fights the thing to a standstill, sticks his sword through its head and throws it down a well that leads to the original dimension where it came from. Now that is how you do heroic. It’s also why I don’t really consider Conan stories to be true “cosmic horror” stories. As I’ve stated in the past, Cosmic Horror is about the despair of nothingness and the utter futility of resistance. You don’t really get that vibe when the main character is sticking a sword through the supposedly unkillable god’s face, hahahahaha.

But that is a BIG part of why I like these original Conan stories so much. Conan is indomitable and his fighting spirit is never quenched. He represents the drive of humanity to never give in, to never give up and that yes, you can overcome almost anything. Every man has a bit of that “barbarian” buried at varying depths inside of himself, even those so-called beta males, and deep calls to deep.

This was originally titled “The Slithering Shadow” when it was published in the Weird Tales magazine in 1933 but somehow got an alternate title in future publications. My guess is that “Xuthal” sounds way more exotic and that the original title might have led people to think it was about The Shadow, that big nosed avenger of Justice ;-)

★★★✬☆

From Wikipedia.org

Conan and his ally, Natala the Brythunian, are the sole survivors of Prince Almuric's army which swept through the Lands of Shem and the wilderness of Stygia. With a Stygian host on their heels, Almuric's soldiers had cut their way across the kingdom of Kush, only to be annihilated near the edge of Stygia's southern desert.

In the resulting conflict, when the Stygians and Kushites surrounded the trapped remnants, Conan sliced his way through the Stygian militia and fled on a camel, with Natala, into the southern desert. For days, the two pushed on, seeking water, until their camel died. Then, they continued on foot.

When their canteen is empty, Conan prepares to slay Natala in an act of mercy-killing. However, they spy the distant city of Xuthal. Eventually, Conan and Natala enter Xuthal while pursued by an entrance guard. They soon encounter Thalis, a beautiful Stygian mage, who reveals the history of her fabled city and the existence of Thog. Thog is a monstrous demon from the city-states of ancient Valusia, his current form summoned by the sorcerers of Xuthal from the darkness between the stars. For an ageless time, Thog has haunted the depths of Xuthal in search of living flesh to support the continuing manifestation of his body on the physical plane.

Thalis falls in love with Conan and, to eliminate her rival, kidnaps Natala in the hopes of sacrificing her to Thog. Thalis first strips Natala of her tunic and flagellates her with a jewel-handled whip. Thog suddenly appears, snatches Thalis, and devours her. The demon returns for Natala, but Conan intervenes and saves her. Conan fights Thog with all his might, but is scarcely harming the demon's supernatural form, while receiving hideous wounds in the coils of its pseudopods and tentacles. However, Conan manages to pierce what he perceives as the head of the monster and throws it down a well. Conan frees Natala, who sets forth to help him, but he is rapidly dying. Fortunately, the Brythunian girl soon brings him a jade goblet full of golden wine, retrieved from a room with a dreaming woman of Xuthal in it. The beverage proves to be a life-giving elixir briefly mentioned by Thalis in a previous conversation, which miraculously heals all of Conan's wounds. Finally, the couple retrieve enough food and water for their journey through the rest of the desert. The two depart while Natala jokingly blames Conan for having aroused Thalis' lustful nature. He retorts playfully about the jealous nature of women.

• The “Essential Conan” Trilogy

• All of My “Conan the Barbarian” Reviews

• All of My “Conan Chronicles” Reviews

Finest Hour (Warhammer 40K: Astra Militarum) 3Stars

 

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress & Blogspot by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: Finest Hour
Series: Warhammer 40K: Astra Militarum
Author: Sam Ryan
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 42
Words: 13K
Publish: 2025

A lot happens in these 40 pages. It all centers around the “Colors” of a regiment, a flag of honor. One of the Sergeants starts with it in the beginning of the story and every time someone has it, they die and someone else picks it up to continue the charge against the Chaos Cultists who have infiltrated an ice world. One new conscript runs away and leaves his comrades and leaders to die. In the end, he picks up the Flag and takes it back to the regiment while they are retreating. He is given a hero’s welcome and thus a coward is turned into a hero.

I think the flag went through about five different people? It’s even used as a weapon to kill a Chaos cultist at one point. Then coward boy uses it as a tourniquet on a Kreig soldier and carries him to the retreat point and everyone thinks he did it on purpose (saving the flag that is). The kreig soldier dies so nobody knows the boy was a coward who let everyone around him die.

That juxtaposition of cowardice and perceived bravery is a big part of the Warhammer 40,000 universe. It’s not just the humans either, as I’ve seen that literary tendency in the Tau and the Necrons. Little doses of it are tolerable but it gets rather depressing in novels or in a series.

★★★☆☆

From the Internet

The narrative follows newly conscripted Cadian infantryman Mathias Thorne during a brutal betrayal by heretic forces. As the Astra Militarum takes heavy casualties, a combined force of Cadian, Elysian, Krieg, and Vostroyan troopers mount a desperate counteroffensive.

The story focuses on a symbolic regimental banner passed from one dying soldier to the next in the chaos of battle. When the flag lands in Thorne's hands, he must summon the courage to carry it back to Imperial territory

• All of My Warhammer 40K Reviews

Mana Flare - MTG 4E

 

I love this card for how it looks. It captures that essence of so much power that it is literally bursting forth!

Sadly, once AGAIN (for about the 100th time) this is another card that I simply could not get to work for me, not even when I returned to Magic in 2013. I'd build a deck around it, have everything all lined up and then when I would play, my opponent would always benefit more from this card than I did and beat me to a pulp. And this time it wasn't a fun beating, but simply frustrating. I could see my path to victory, but so could my opponent and they always got there first. It didn't take very many games before I gave up the deck and using this card at all. But I do like looking at it, which is good :-)

The Final Chapter (Resident Evil #6) (2017 Movie)

 

Movie Details:

Title - The Final Chapter
Series – Resident Evil #6
Director – Paul WS Anderson
Release – 2017
Rating – R
Time – 1hr 47min

My Thoughts:

Man, this movie had the potential to be one of the best RE movies and a great ending to the franchise. Unfortunately, it was ruined by two things.

First, the directorial choice to use a LOT of shaky cam footage during the fight scenes and also something that I learned is called a “quick cut”. Basically, the camera switches viewpoints throughout a fight every 5-15seconds. It is meant to increase the feeling of “action” but the reality is that it totally defeats the purpose of a fight, because you as a viewer can’t actually tell what is going on in said fight. You get this “idea” that two people are beating the snot out of each other but there is no coherence or order to it at all. Combined with shaky cam footage (simulating someone holding a camera in their hand and thus “shaking”), it is almost nausea inducing. There were a couple of times I had to stop watching the movie because I was so upset that I couldn’t make sense of the fighting going on.

The second thing that ruined this for me was the cutting of certain scenes which would have made things make sense. In this movie, it is made to look like one scientist invented the T-virus to cure his daughter of progeria (the disease that ages someone at an accelerated rate), which directly contradicts what is shown in the second movie Apocalypse, where a third scientist invented the T-virus for HIS daughter. The reality is that the first scientist appropriated the T-virus from the third scientist and that irons out ALL apparent storyline contradictions. The problem is, that was never shown in this movie and you’d never know it unless you read the novelization of the movie or the Wiki page (synopsis included below). So there appears to be this HUGE plot hole, so big that even I noticed it and it ruins the flow of the movie. What makes it especially egregious is that a 30second clip of the first scientist appropriating it from the third scientist would have solved it all. 30 SECONDS!!!!!

Other than those two things, this was a great movie. The previous movie ended with everyone preparing for a fight at the White House, only it was a trap by Wesker and the Umbrella Corporation but Alice survives. She’s contacted by the Red Queen AI and told humanity is on the edge of being wiped out but that there’s an airborne cure back at the Raccoon City Hive. So Alice has to go back to where the story started and fix everything. It was great! The movie ends with Alice finding out she’s a clone but just like Pinocchio she gets memories and becomes a “real girl” and the anti-T-virus is released and the world is now on the path of being saved. And Alice is still on her mission to kill all T-virus infected monsters, wherever they may be.

At the beginning of the movie we see a battle between Alice and that flying monstrous badboy. After that, the monsters are everything we’ve seen in previous movies, just in greater numbers. There’s no Nemesis or Tyrant, or even a Super-Licker (yeah, yeah, whoever thought that name up was NOT in top form that day). I guess the point here was that humanity was its own worst enemy so most of Alice’s opponents are humans. I prefer monstrous monsters thank you very much.

I enjoyed what I could of this movie and it didn’t ruin the franchise as a whole for me. I just feel that a couple of “easy” changes would have made this movie so much better. With that in view, I tried to watch a director commentary on the movie, hoping that maybe Anderson would explain his choices. Sadly, there was only a commentary track called “Retaliation” where Jovovich and Anderson briefly talk about various scenes in the movie where Anderson had really pushed Jovovich to the edge in terms of physicality. It was supposed to allow Jovovich to “retaliate” against Anderson in a fun loving way. There were very few instances of this and ended up being more about them talking about their daughter (who played the Red Queen and young Alice in this movie) and some personal reminiscences. It was extremely disappointing especially since we’d gotten commentary tracks (even if I didn’t care for some of them) on all the previous movies, and given that RE6 made almost 350million on a 40million budget, well, it felt very cheap on their part to not make the commentary track happen.

Overall, I enjoyed the franchise as a whole as a series of action movies. There were big holes to ignore but if you could, it was fun. I was able to (mostly), hence my buying the bluray collection :-D

Considering that I’ve just reviewed six movies in six months, I think I’m going to take a break from reviewing a movie for a bit. When I feel inspired, I’ll choose something else and probably let you know in a Circum et Pervagatus post.

Synopsis from Wikipedia

Synopsis - click to open

Dr. James Marcus, the founder of the Umbrella Corporation, had a daughter, Alicia, who was dying of progeria. Desperate to save her, Marcus confiscates an untested embryonic Umbrella project—the T-virus—created by his colleague Dr. Charles Ashford and uses it on Alicia and others with the disease. After one child treated with the virus becomes a zombie, Marcus immediately orders the project terminated, all data on it destroyed, and forbids Ashford from ever pursuing it again, devastating Ashford, who needed the T-virus to save his own daughter Angela.[a] Marcus's partner, Dr. Alexander Isaacs, has Marcus murdered by Albert Wesker, adopts Alicia, and takes over the Corporation.

In the present, Alice awakens in the ruined White House, after Wesker betrayed her.[b] The Red Queen appears and tells her she has 48 hours to infiltrate the Hive, a facility beneath Raccoon City. The Umbrella Corporation has an airborne anti-virus that can kill every zombie but is waiting for the last few remaining humans to be wiped out. As her body carries the virus, Alice does not expect to live after the mission.

While traveling, Alice is captured by Isaacs, learning the "Isaacs" she previously killed was a clone.[c] She escapes his convoy and reaches Raccoon City, where she meets a group of survivors: Doc, Abigail, Christian, Cobalt, Razor, and Claire Redfield, who survived the attack on Arcadia.[d] Isaacs' convoy approaches, trailed by a horde of zombies. Alice and the group defeat them and retrieve Isaacs' few human captives, though Cobalt dies in the process. Alice and the crew enter the Hive, where Wesker is in control. He releases mutated guard dogs, killing Christian and a freed captive.

The Red Queen appears to Alice and explains that her program is in conflict, as she can never hurt an Umbrella employee but also must value human life. She plays a video of Isaacs explaining to Umbrella's executives a plan to release the T-virus, cleansing the world of humanity and leaving many of the rich and powerful—including the company executives, stored in cryogenic capsules in the Hive—to rebuild the world. The Red Queen warns Alice that someone in her group is helping Umbrella.

The group encounters traps that kill Abigail and Razor. Alice and Doc plant bombs throughout the Hive taken from the leftover equipment by the first Hive team,[e] and confront the real, tech-upgraded Isaacs. Doc turns out to be Umbrella's spy, and Claire is captured by Wesker. A cryogenic capsule releases Alicia Marcus, Umbrella's co-owner and Marcus' daughter. Isaacs and the Red Queen reveal to Alice that she is actually a clone of Alicia. Isaacs plans to eliminate the pair and assume control of Umbrella. Alicia fires Wesker, allowing the Red Queen to terminate his protection program and crush his leg with a security door. Doc tries to shoot Alice, but his gun is empty—as Alice had earlier deduced his treachery—and Claire kills him. After giving Wesker a deadman's switch to the primed bombs, Alice and Claire pursue Isaacs while Alicia uploads a copy of her childhood memories.

Isaacs, Alice, and Claire fight. Isaacs overpowers them at first, but Alice manages to activate a grenade in his pocket and kill him. She escapes to the surface with the anti-virus, but Isaacs reboots and catches her before she can release it. Before he can kill her, the Isaacs clone from the convoy arrives and kills him, believing himself to be the original Isaacs, before being devoured by the undead. Alice releases the anti-virus, killing all of the zombies around her before she passes out. Wesker simultaneously drops the deadman's switch, destroying himself, Alicia, the Hive, and the hibernating elite.

Claire wakes Alice, who survived because the anti-virus killed the T-virus within her body, not the healthy cells. The Red Queen uploads Alicia's childhood memories into Alice, granting her a childhood. With the anti-virus being carried by the winds, it will take years to reach all corners of the globe, and until it does, Alice vows to continue her mission.

• Resident Evil
• Apocalypse
• Extinction
• Afterlife
• Retribution
• The Final Chapter

Imperatoris Chronicorum V

 Most of this week has been taken up with preparing for Mrs B's trip to visit her family. She does so much around our place that when we started planning out the week for when she would be gone, I suddenly realized how much I was going to have to take on. So of course I "encouraged" her to do as much as she could ahead of time so I wouldn't have to, hahahahaa. Being Mr B to her Mrs B is fantastic.

The other thing I concentrated on was sleeving up the latest iteration of Magic the Gathering. This set was all about Marvel Superheroes and Villains.

Each deck consists of 100 cards, so that's a total of 400 cards. That's a lot of work. I've done this before with other sets (Warhammer 40K, Lord of the Rings, etc) and always had someone else to help me. I did one deck each evening and let me tell you, sitting in a hard backed chair putting little pieces of cardboard into little pieces of plastic was boring. Satisfying but boring. It was like doing laundry. It needs to be done and I do it every Sunday, but I do NOT look forward to it :-D

Now, I do get to put those little pieces of pretty cardboard into little pretty pieces of plastic. I could just use just black sleeves, but half the fun is getting a sleeve color to match the deck. I've got Green for the Dr Doom, Blue for Fantastic Four, Black for Wakanda Forever and Silver for the Avengers. The little touches, while not necessary, really move this from a chore to a FUN chore, hehehehe.

The second part of deck'ing is the case you put them in. I usually use clear cases so I can see the Commander, ie, the face card of the deck. However, for these specialty releases, I like to play the decks only against each other. I only play the Warhammer 40K decks against each other, the Lord of the Rings against each other and now, just the Marvel Heroes decks against each other. My problem is that I have a cupboard of over 50 commander decks. Pawing through 50 decks isn't fun and really ruins the pre-game vibe. So these nice green deck cases are easy to see and pick out for when I want a little Magic Marvel action.

On Wednesday, as chronicled by AAA (that stands for Awesome As Alex), Canada set itself on fire and then invaded the United States. The sky was filled with smoke. The picture above is one my coworker took at 10am on the jobsite we were working at. We worked for an hour or so, then went inside one of the buildings that had AC and just breathed clean air for a bit. We could taste it and feel it coating our throats. It was extremely unpleasant. Thankfully it cleared up by Thursday and it was blue skies then.

And now it is Friday evening and Mrs B has arrived safely at her destination. I had the day off since I had to take her to the airport early and I picked up some Mr Mac's Cheeseburger Deluxe . It might be summer, but when I go batch'ing it, Mr Macs is essential to my single's lifestyle. The other essential part of my single's lifestyle will be to live the next week exactly the same as I always do. Just by myself.

I have a feeling I will be talking to myself, out loud, a lot over the coming week. The tv will also be on most evenings to give me the sense that I'm not by myself, even though I know I will be.

Lest you think I will be a sniveling wretch, let me assure you that I won't be. I will enjoy this truly alone time, because I know it isn't permanent. It has a specific end date and so I will be soaking in the solitude like Superman soaking in the rays of the sun :-D

See you all on the flipside.

The Mask of Fu-Manchu (Dr Fu-Manchu #5) 1.5Stars

 

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress & Blogspot by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: The Mask of Fu-Manchu
Series: Dr Fu-Manchu #5
Author: Sax Rohmer
Rating: 1.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Pulp Mystery
Pages: 192
Words: 70K
Publish: 1932

This is a direct sequel to The Daughter of Fu-Manchu (link below my avatar) and thus some doofus named Greville is the narrator instead of Dr Petrie. I’ve complained about Petrie being stupid in the past, but my goodness, Greville is just one huge ball of stupid from top to toe, front to back, beginning to end. I had to stop reading several times because he was being such an idiot and I couldn’t stand reading such stupidity. Then throw in his boss, the archeologist Lionel Barton who trades fake goods to Dr Fu-Manchu for the life of his own niece and that pretty much sums up Barton. He was a scumbag and I hated him.

Petrie shows up to do “doctor’y” things and then jets off when not needed by the author. Fu-Manchu’s main English adversary, Sir Dennis Nayland Smith, sometimes referred to as Sir Dennis and at other times as Nayland Smith, does his typical bungling job of opposing Fu-Manchu. Greville’s lover and Barton’s niece is there to provide a frisson of danger and to be kidnapped and that’s about it.

Finally, the biggest thing that got my goat, was that Fu-Manchu acts like an English Blue-Blood and keeps his “sacred and honorable word” even though it means not killing Nayland Smith, Petrie and Barton, the man who cheated him. It was pure national projection on the part of Rohmer (the author) and it stank like three day old fish. There are times I wish people like Rohmer had been in Mao’s re-education camps. I realize that is impossible, given when this was written and when Mao’s reign of terror occurred, but still, I like to fantasize.

I still enjoyed the overall story of the rise of a heretic sect of Islam but it wasn’t much of a Dr Fu-Manchu story, hence the extremely low rating. I just hope that wretched Greville isn’t the narrator for the next story.

★✬☆☆☆

From the Publisher

After discovering the tomb of El Mokanna - the Veiled Prophet - and retrieving the precious relics buried there, the eminent archaeologist Sir Lionel Barton blows up the tomb. The heretic sect faithful to Mokanna interpret the fireball as their prophet's second coming, and a violent uprising begins.

Meanwhile, the insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu senses an opportunity to use the powerful relics for his own evil ends. The action stretches from Persia to Cairo, then back to London, including an extraordinary confrontation inside of the Great Pyramid. Along the way his opponents face Ogboni killers, mind-control drugs, dervishes, and a "ghost mosque."

• The Mystery of Dr Fu-Manchu

• The Return of Dr Fu-Manchu

• The Hand of Dr Fu-Manchu

• The Daughter of Dr Fu-Manchu

Mrs Pollifax and the Lion Killer (Mrs Pollifax #12) 3Stars

 This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress & Blogspot by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: Mrs Pollifax and the Lion Killer
Series: Mrs Pollifax #12
Author: Dorothy Gilman
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Thriller
Pages: 155
Words: 52K
Publish: 1996

A direct sequel to Mrs Pollifax Pursued and I must say, this didn’t come out so great in comparison. There is no CIA connection, no Carstairs or any other operatives, just Mrs Pollifax in a fake African country that is being riven by rumors and with everybody acting like a three year old.

I think this was the first Mrs Pollifax book that I finished with a sigh of relief that it was over. Part of it was that Mrs P was very passive in the first part of the book and that doesn’t suit her at all. Yes, she’s tired and she’s dealing with that girl Kadi, but she just lets everything happen to her. It didn’t feel like Mrs P until she took matters into her own hands, but even then, it was just a little bit. This was more of a mystery with its passiveness than an active thriller like I’ve come to expect from the author.

Also, that title. It refers to a man who dresses up as a lion and kills people. So if any of you are bleeding hearts, don’t worry, no lions are killed. Because there are NO lions in the fake country of Ubangiba. I guess that was part of the irritation. Gilman has had no problem talking about other real countries and their pro’s and con’s, all over the world, but suddenly we go to Africa and its different for them?

Despite my complaining, this was still a decent read, just not a great read and I must admit, after the last book I had high expectations.

★★★☆☆

From the Publisher

In response to a desperate SOS, Kadi Hopkirk flies to the African country of Ubangiba, where her childhood friend, Sammat, is soon to be crowned king. Mrs. Pollifax, reluctant to allow the girl to venture alone into what she fears may be grave danger, crashes the party. On arrival, Kadi and Mrs. P. soon discover that Sammat has dangerous enemies. Rumors are springing up that he is a sorcerer who is responsible for a rash of shocking murders in which the victims appear to have been clawed to death by a lion. These crimes are especially terrifying because there are no lions in Ubangiba. So Mrs. Pollifax wades into the fray, hunting for the source of the bloody terrorism that threatens Sammat and Ubangida – – not to mention Kadi and Mrs. Pollifax…..

• All of my “Mrs Pollifax” Reviews