Manabarbs - MTG 4E

 

Man, Red just wants to hurt people, even if it involved hurting themselves. I don't think I ever got this card to work for me and I'm not sure I even tried really. Imagine those things jabbing into your thigh? You'd be hooked like a slab of beef!

Death Bag (Standalone) 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: Death Bag
Series: ----------
Editor: Alfred Hitchcock
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Crime Fiction
Pages: 144
Words: 55K
Publish: 1969

This was a decent overall collection. The only story that really stood out to me though was “Murder and Lonely Hearts” by Helen Nielsen and even that was because I remembered the song “Escape”, better known as the Pina Colada song. Of course, while Pina Colada has a happy ending with a man and wife realizing they both still love the other, this is a murder story, so at least one of the pair has to die :-D For some very perverse reason, it just made me grin.

The rest of the stories were typical Alfred Hitchcock Presents kind of stories and by the end of this book I realized I needed to take another break from Alfie. This was the last Hitchcock book on my ereader, so when I removed it from my Era, I simply deleted the “Hitchcock” category and won’t put any more on until I feel the need for it. That might be a while. It also opens up another space so I can start some new series or author if I wish. Or I can just have a smaller selection on my Era. Considering how slowly I went through books in June, I’ll probably go with that second option. I’ve got over 20 series/author categories right now, which at the pace I read in June means it’ll take me two months to cycle through them all. That’s pushing the envelope for how long I like to have between books in a category.

★★★☆☆

Publisher’s Blurb & Table of Contents:

OUR GUARANTEE OF QUALITY IN CRIME

When you see the name of Alfred Hitchcock, you can be sure of the very finest in ingenious evil and shivery surprise—and the master of the macabre has never been in finer form than in this superb collection of the choicest tales ever to keep the pages turning far into the night.

INTRODUCTION

by Alfred Hitchcock

DYING A THOUSAND DEATHS

by Hal Ellson

YEAR-END CLEARANCE

by Mary Linn Roby

RUBY MARTINSON, EX-CON

by Henry Slesar

BEWARE: DANGEROUS MAN

by C. B. Gilford

MURDER AND LONELY HEARTS

by Helen Nielsen

TO AVOID A SCANDAL

by Talmage Powell

REVENGE IS BITTER-SWEET

by H. A. DeRosso

HOSPITALITY MOST SERENE

by Jack Ritchie

THE TENTH PART OF A MILLION

by Robert Colby

HORSE-COLLAR HOMICIDE

by Arthur Porges

SCHEDULE FOR AN ASSASSINATION

by Robert Edmond Alter

AMBITION

by Michael Brett

SUCCESSOR

by Richard H. Hardwick

STOP KILLING ME

by Hal Dresner

• All of My “Alfred Hitchcock” Reviews

The Call of Honor (Empire Rising #18) 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: The Call of Honor
Series: Empire Rising #18
Author: David Holmes
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 431
Words: 162K
Publish: 2023

Some people die, some surprises are pulled by both humans and karacknids, lots of missiles are fired, lots of missiles blow up, lots of ships blow up. Jonathan Somerville is a clone of his father, at least in terms of character make up. James is now just an old guy, that’s about the limit of his characterization now.

And that’s about the limit of these books. Take from it what you will.

★★★☆☆

From the Publisher
The Karacknid Civil War has ended. Tanaka-lan is the uncontested Imperator of the Karacknid Empire. One task now dominates his desires: the complete conquest of Humanity.

On Earth, James and Christine are all too aware of what the end of the civil war means. For over two decades they have been preparing their civilization for the showdown they always knew was coming. Not content to sit back and let Tanaka-lan bring the war to them, James and his Admirals hatch a plan to go on the offensive first. By striking at the Karacknids’ distant colonies, they hope to goad Tanaka-lan into defending his worlds instead of attacking Humanity’s. Yet Tanaka-lan’s desires are not easily set aside.

Unbeknown to his father, Jonathan Somerville also finds himself thrust into the midst of the developing war. Forced by his sense of honor to lead his own foray into Karacknid space, he may very well ignite the Second Karacknid War before either James or Tanaka-lan desire.

• All of My “Empire Rising” Reviews

Announcement: Barbara Cartland Buddy Read

 

Well, after last year's debacle where I dnf'd the Barby book and left everyone on the hook, I debated whether I wanted to do another for 2026. Thankfully, I manned up and told myself "Imperator, you ARE going to do another Barbara Cartland Buddy Read and you ARE going to read the entire book and you WILL enjoy it". Two out of three isn't bad, right?

This year's selection is "A Ghost in Monte Carlo". It is slightly longer than previous years selections. It is a bit over 200 pages long and has 15 chapters.

Now, before anyone gets worried that I'll dnf the book (again!), I can assure you that I won't, by the simple expedience of stating that I've already read it by the time this post has gone up. I'll obviously re-read it for the weekly chapter updates in December. Speaking of that, here's the schedule for things in December:

• Chapters 1-3 - Tuesday, December 1st
• Chapters 4-6 - Tuesday, December 8th
• Chapters 7-9 - Tuesday, December 15th
• Chapters 10-12 - Tuesday, December 22nd
• Chapters 12-15 - Tuesday, December 29th
• Review of "A Ghost in Monte Carlo" - Sunday, January 3rd, 2027

Scheduling stuff so far in advance might seem a bit much, but this gives anyone plenty of time to think about it, decide if they want to participate, read the book, write their thoughts on the chapters and then write their review, all before December even hits, if they so desire. December can be a busy month and if you have posts already scheduled, that will help with the blogging burden.

In any post you choose to mention this buddyread, please do include the tag "Barbara Cartland Buddy Read", as it will help others find your posts. If you also decide that you do want to read and review the book, I can leave space in my review for links to your reviews. Just let me know and I'll adjust things as necessary.

Any questions? Ask away in the comments! Au Revoir....

June '26 Circum et Pervagatus

 

Raw Data:

Novels/Novellas - 6 ↓

Short Stories - 2 ↑

Manga/Graphic Novels - 0 -

Comics - 1 -

Average Rating - 3.17 ↓

Pages - 1898 ↓

Words - 725K ↑

The Bad:

Dragons of Autumn Twilight - 1.5stars of dnf'ing of my youth

The Good:

The White Rose - 4stars of Black Company goodness

Movie:

Resident Evil 5: Retribution was an absolute action packed blast of a time.

Miscellaneous Posts:

• Lost Soul - MTG 4E
• Lure - MTG 4E
• Imperatoris Chronicorum IV
• Magical Hack - MTG 4E
• [Art] Summer Maiden 2026
• Magnetic Mountain - MTG 4E
• Mahamoti Djinn - MTG 4E

Personal:

This was a busy work month. I had more 10hr days this month than I've had since January. I am not a fan of this. If it continues, and given the work load and how the office people are pushing I suspect it will, I will be having a talk with Human Resources. Just to air my concerns. We (Mrs B and I) will be able to pay off our condo by year's end I believe and once that happens, I am going to be looking long and hard at this whole 45+hr work thing. So that has been in the back of my mind all month.

I pretty much used up all my creativity with the Imperatoris Chronicorum IV post, so I just didn't have much else to say this month outside of book reviews. It did feel good to not blog as much, but that was a general words malaise thing, as my journaling time plunged too. I'm going to blame it on work though. When I'm exhausted, the words just dry up and they stay as stillborn thoughts inside my head.

Reading wasn't bad this month, but DNF'ing Dragons of Autumn Twilight really did a hatchet job on my rating average and page numbers. With only 9 books that had a lot more weight than it would have if I'd read closer to 15. Thank goodness July is a new month with a new start!

Plans for Next Month:

This past month was a nice break from the frenetic hurly burly of blogging. However, my reading is picking up, so then must my reviews. Which means I'll probably be doing more posts in July. I'm planning on going back to taking Wednesday and Saturday's off. I know I've been changing my posting days each month and I'd like to thank you all for putting up with that.

I will be making my annual announcement about the Barbara Cartland Buddy Read this coming Thursday. After last year's little dustup, I've made sure there won't be a repeat. So please look forward to that announcement where I spell everything out. So pull out your favorite pair of dice, buy a sealed deck of cards and get James Bond on the phone because we're heading to Monte Carlo this year! And that's all I'll say about it until Thursday.

Mahamoti Djinn - MTG 4E

 

Disney's Genie could totally take this guy! Just saying....

Dragons of Autumn Twilight (Dragonlance Chronicles #1) 1.5Stars DNF@49%

 

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: Dragons of Autumn Twilight
Series: Dragonlance Chronicles #1
Author: Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman
Rating: 1.5 of 5 Stars DNF@49%
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 412 / 202
Words: 151K / 74K
Publish: 1984

I would have enjoyed this much more 30-35 years ago. I probably would have eaten it up with a spoon, both hands and tried to use my feet to shove even more in. And I would have had very fond memories of it, which might have tided me over a re-read today.

However, none of that happened, so I went into this completely unblinkered and seeing this from my perspective of “now” without any nostalgia glasses or youth. It was not pretty.

This was written for teenagers without experience. The characters are all supposed to be almost 30, and in some cases, much older, but they all ACT like teenagers. They fight amongst themselves, they are jerks, they scream and holler at the worst possible times, they play “jokes” that are mean-spirited and they don’t think about anybody but themselves as individuals. Plus, at one point they all get a ride from a group of Pegasi that are supposed to take them right to the place they need to go to prevent a world ending evil from happening and the pegasus leader is like “nope, it’s too evil, we’re dropping you off here because it is too dangerous. Sorry/not sorry!” and they have to traipse through an impassable swamp. It was ridiculous.

I talked about the characters being jerks to each other, but one in particular really annoyed me. His name was Raistlin and he was a wizard and a brother to one of the other members of the party who was some sort of warrior’y kind of guy. Raistlin was a selfish son of a bastard from the get-go and despised everyone in the party, including his own brother, because they didn’t have the knowledge he did (which he’d spent years learning and paying a massive physical price for). He was physically sick a lot, but also I’d say he was mentally sick and emotionally sick. He was the kind of character I could see becoming a Saruman kind of figure.

Plus there was more stuff and I realized at the 200 page mark that I was just feeling miserable with this. So I dnf’d this and will not be trying another Dragonlance book ever again. That being said, this is something I would recommend to the teen crowd because I think reading the Fantasy genre is good for the developing teen mind. It is raw fuel for their mind, just like an entire pizza is fuel for their body. I’d probably die if I tried to eat an entire pizza now ;-)

★✬☆☆☆

From Grokipedia

Dragons of Autumn Twilight follows a group of longtime companions who reunite in the treetop village of Solace at the Inn of the Last Home after five years apart, amid rumors of returning dragons and the apparent abandonment of the gods. [5] [6] Their gathering is disrupted by the arrival of two Plainsmen, Goldmoon and Riverwind, who carry a mysterious blue crystal staff capable of miraculous healing, suggesting the possible return of divine power to Krynn. [5] [6] When draconian soldiers serving the Dragon Highlord Verminaard attack Solace in pursuit of the staff, the companions flee together, joined by the Plainsmen, and are guided by a seemingly senile old wizard named Fizban as they escape downriver. [6]The group's perilous journey leads them through haunted forests and devastated lands, including the ruined village of Que-shu, where Goldmoon and Riverwind confront their past losses. [6] Directed by visions and aided by the Forestmaster and her pegasi, they reach the flooded ruins of Xak Tsaroth within a critical timeframe. [6] There, they navigate treacherous depths inhabited by gully dwarves and draconians, culminating in a confrontation with the black dragon Khisanth, guardian of the staff's origins. [6] Goldmoon employs the staff against the dragon, destroying it but apparently sacrificing herself; the gods revive her and grant the Disks of Mishakal, platinum discs inscribed with the true teachings of the good deities, marking the rediscovery of divine magic. [6] The battle causes further destruction to the city, forcing the companions to escape with the sacred disks. [6]Upon returning, the companions find Solace and surrounding areas occupied by the Dragonarmies. [6] Captured and enslaved, they are transported in a caravan where they encounter Tanis's elven cousin Gilthanas and Fizban again; elven attackers aid their escape. [6] The group reaches the elven kingdom of Qualinesti, where tensions arise over Tanis's heritage, but the elves agree to assist in disrupting the Dragonarmies by freeing slaves held at the fortress of Pax Tharkas. [6] Joined by Tika and later Laurana, they infiltrate the fortress, navigating traps and guards while encountering the enigmatic Berem, a man with a green gemstone embedded in his chest. [6]In the climactic confrontation at Pax Tharkas, the companions battle Dragon Highlord Verminaard and his forces. [6] With Fizban's intervention stripping Verminaard's clerical powers, they defeat him, leading to the liberation of the enslaved people and a partial collapse of the fortress. [6] Goldmoon and Riverwind marry in the aftermath, offering a moment of respite as the companions prepare for the escalating war against the Dragonarmies. [6] The narrative unfolds as an episodic quest that begins with a reunion and the discovery of the blue crystal staff, progresses through trials that restore divine knowledge, and culminates in the dramatic liberation at Pax Tharkas. [6]

Major characters

The major characters in Dragons of Autumn Twilight center on the Companions, a diverse group of longtime friends who reunite in Solace and become known as the Heroes of the Lance, each bringing distinct backgrounds, personalities, and interpersonal tensions that shape their bonds. Tanis Half-Elven, the half-elf ranger and de facto leader, grapples with his heritage as the son of a human brigand and an elf maiden, feeling like an outcast among both races and often hiding his pointed ears in human society. [6] [7] His conflicted nature is deepened by past romantic connections to the elf Laurana and the ambitious human Kitiara Uth Matar. [6]Sturm Brightblade, a principled Knight of Solamnia, stands as a classic idealist in a morally ambiguous world, marked by his strong sense of honor, melancholy outlook, and kind-hearted nature, often clashing with more cynical companions through his rigid adherence to chivalric values. [6] The twin brothers Caramon and Raistlin Majere provide stark contrast within the group: Caramon is a physically powerful, good-hearted warrior who loyally protects his brother, while Raistlin is a frail, brilliant, and deeply bitter mage whose past suffering has fostered cynicism, arrogance, and ambition, tempered by rare moments of tenderness toward those close to him. [6] Their inseparable bond reflects complementary halves, with Caramon's straightforward strength offsetting Raistlin's intellectual intensity and vulnerability. [6]Flint Fireforge, an elderly hill dwarf craftsman, serves as a gruff mentor figure and source of comic relief, frequently complaining about his age and prone to pratfalls, though his experience and loyalty anchor the group. [6] Tasslehoff Burrfoot, a kender driven by insatiable curiosity and fearlessness, acts as the group's lighthearted rogue, "borrowing" items without malice while displaying surprising empathy and social awareness that balance the party's heavier tones. [6]Goldmoon, a plains barbarian cleric bearing the sacred Blue Crystal Staff, carries the weight of rediscovering true divine faith, portrayed as aloof yet burdened by responsibility and tragedy, while her partner Riverwind is a protective, suspicious warrior whose devotion to her is complicated by their shared hardships. [6] Their arrival introduces spiritual renewal to the companions, contrasting with the group's more secular dynamics. [6]Supporting figures include Tika Waylan, a brave barmaid who evolves from inexperience to capable fighter amid fear and growth; Fizban, a doddering yet mysteriously powerful wizard who offers comic relief and enigmatic guidance; Kitiara Uth Matar, the skilled and ambitious warrior tied to Tanis and the Majere siblings through family and past; Lord Verminaard, the ruthless Dragon Highlord and primary antagonist; and Elistan, a cleric who emerges as a key spiritual leader. [6] The companions' relationships are defined by constant bickering rooted in personality clashes—such as Raistlin's cynicism against Sturm's idealism, Tanis's stoicism versus Tasslehoff's irresponsibility, and the twins' interdependence—yet underpinned by profound loyalty and willingness to risk everything for one another.

Links:

Witty and Sarcastics 2021 Buddyread Review – Very Positive

Joelendil’s 2025 Review – Not So Positive