You are about to make a game winning move, about to cast the card that will win the game in one single turn and then BAAAAAM, that annoying blue player plays this card and just short circuits it all. Boooyahhhh. And that's why everybody hated Blue Players back in the 90's. And most blue players liked that infamy :-)
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Title: The Shadow’s Justice
Series:
The Shadow #28
Authors: Maxwell Grant
Rating:
3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Crime Fiction
Pages:
128
Words: 40K
Publish: 1933
What kind of person works their whole life so hard that they destroy their health and earn 10million dollars (about 250million today), only to hide it away and make their own son follow one tiny clue to find it? A total flipping jackass, that is who. Oh, I was mighty upset by the beginning of this. I was very glad when the workaholic DID die, because I wouldn’t have to hear his pitiful excuses about why he’s doing what he is. It made zero sense and only in a Shadow pulp novel would this be acceptable.
With that out of the way, this was fun.
The son is a bluff, hale young man returning from exploring the world. The nephew is a dissolute wastrel but ends up having a heart of gold. The lawyer is revealed to be an evil man the all the mob guys are typical mob guys. You get Harry Vincent and The Shadow helping out and in the end, The Shadow defeats them all in a mining shaft by releasing an ore cart train full of old rocks that deals with all the mob guys like a hammer versus a (very squishy) tomato.
★★★✬☆
From Bookstooge
An old rich man dies and leaves his modest inheritance to his son and nephew. He tells his lawyer there is a much greater fortune to be had if the young men will look for it. Mob bosses get involved in the search for the 10million. The lawyer turns out to be in league with the mob and the Shadow turns out to be in league with himself (ha!). The good guys find the money and the Shadow destroys the bad guys in an old mining shaft.
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without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at
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Title: A Lear of the Steppes
Series:
(The Russians)
Author: Ivan Turgenev
Translator:
Constance
Garnett
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre:
Classic
Pages: 214
Words:
66K
Publish: 1870
A big powerful man becomes afraid of death and for some reason decides this means he needs to divide his property up between his two daughters before he dies. He has stipulations so he can still live the quality of life he wants. Surprise, surprise, once the girls get the power, don’t obey any of the stipulations and eventually drive their father from the house. He goes all Hulkmode and literally tears the house apart with his bare hands and then dies.
I have not read King Lear. Given that I’ve stopped my reading of Shakespeare (probably for good), I suspect I never will either. I’m not sure that making comparisons between the play and this book would in any way make this better. Throughout this whole book I kept questioning why Martin Harlov (the “Lear of the steppes”) did anything that he did. It made zero sense from beginning to end. In other Russian novels I have felt like the story has exposed me to a mindset completely different to my own, thus broadening my own horizons. Not so in this case. It just felt like Harlov was a complete fool and I cannot abide fools.
I was glad he got his comeuppance at the hands of his terrible daughters. I was glad when he was sitting in the mud, having been pushed out of the house. I was glad when he fell off the roof at the end and died. He deserved every single instance of what he got, because he was a fool. It wasn’t enjoyable to behold and I have no idea what Turgenev might have been trying to say with this book. Maybe that Russian men are fools? That would fit with everything I’ve read so far :-/
Because this was translated by Constance Garnett, it read very much like how Dickens would have written this. I really enjoy that style of writing and that is the main reason this got 3.5stars from me instead of less.
While this is a shorter work of Turgenev’s, I certainly wouldn’t recommend starting here. Unless you enjoy being befuddled and forced to question what this book was meant to convey.
★★★✬☆
From Grokipedia
The novella is presented as the reminiscence of a narrator who, as a young boy, observed the tragic events on a neighboring estate in rural Russia during the early 1840s. Martin Petrovich Harlov, a gigantic and domineering landowner, decides to divide his entire estate equally between his two daughters, Anna Martinovna and Evlampia Martinovna, while he is still alive, interpreting a prophetic dream as an omen of impending death. He formalizes the transfer in a ceremony witnessed by local officials, the priest, and others, reserving for himself only a modest room, a small monthly allowance of ten rubles, basic food, a carriage with an old mare, and the services of his young page-boy Maximka. Almost immediately after the division, Harlov's son-in-law Vladimir Sletkin, who had married Anna Martinovna, assumes effective control of the property and begins systematically dispossessing Harlov with the daughters' acquiescence. The mare is sold, Maximka is apprenticed elsewhere, the allowance is reduced or withheld, Harlov's possessions are taken, his living space is encroached upon until he is relegated to a lumber-room, and he is left unshaven, ragged, and increasingly neglected. Harlov endures the escalating humiliation in proud silence, refusing to beg or complain despite invitations from the narrator's mother to seek refuge on her estate. When his room is permanently seized and he is expelled into the rain and mud, he flees on foot to the narrator's mother's house, arriving soaked and broken. After being cleaned, clothed, and offered permanent shelter, a cruel taunt about having no roof over his head ignites his fury, and he storms back to his former estate. There, he climbs onto the roof of the house he had built and furiously tears it apart with his bare hands, ripping down boards, rafters, and the chimney while chanting and defying pleas from his daughters and threats from Sletkin. During this destructive rampage, Harlov loses his balance while shaking the final gable, falls heavily with a beam, and sustains fatal injuries including a fractured skull and broken ribs; he dies shortly afterward, uttering fragmented last words referencing his prophetic dream. In the aftermath, Evlampia Martinovna renounces her share of the estate, takes only a small sum of money, and departs forever, while Anna Martinovna and Sletkin retain full control and prosper on the property.
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Title: Dragons for Sale
Series:
Groo the Wanderer #53
Author:
Sergio Aragones
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre:
Comics
Pages: 24
Words:
2K
Publish: 1989
Groo is still running after Chakaal and just won’t leave her alone. They run across dragons that are attacking people, even though dragons are usually docile. Turns out Groo’s old “buddies” Drum and Pal are taking baby dragons and mistreating them so they become ferocious and then selling them as guard dragons to various towns. Chakaal decides to put an end to their business. Groo is clueless as usual but Drum and Pal know the jig is up, so they run away on a ship, only to have Groo come after them, with all his “ship sinking” ways :-D Everyone, including Chakal & Rufferto, think Groo drowned. Chakaal goes off on her own and Rufferto mourns on the sea shore, only to have Groo come out of the ocean in the last panel.
Thank goodness. It seems this is the
last issue, at least for a while, with Chakaal in it. I was
thoroughly tired of her by this issue and she was only introduced in
issue 50. All the side characters (except Rufferto the dog, who I
actually really like) need to be limited to maybe two issues. After
that, they outstay their welcom in my opinion. Keep Groo the main
thing!
★★★✬☆
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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.
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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
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 :-)
You are about to make a game winning move, about to cast the card that will win the game in one single turn and then BAAAAAM, that an...
