Bookstooge's Reviews On the Road

Monday, February 09, 2026

Kismet - MTG 4E

I remember this card, mainly because of the tiger. I don't think I used this card because making your opponent's "everything" come into play tapped means they can't use it the turn it comes into play, which slows the game down AND makes your opponent feel like they can't play. Maybe from a competitive side it makes sense, but when you're playing with your friends, there's no sense in alienating them or making the game feel "unfun". Getting back to the tiger. I don't know why I remember it, because it isn't like it is a creature or anything. But somehow, that image stuck in my head and even now, I can shake my head and remember the card :-D

Sunday, February 08, 2026

Thorn (The Dracula Files #4) 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: Thorn
Series: The Dracula Files #4
Author: Fred Saberhagen
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 254
Words: 97K
Publish: 1980

This dual storyline is about Dracula before he became Dracula and about him today. It is a loose sequel to Friend of the Family in that a character or two from Friend are tangentially involved, but that is as far as that goes. Basically the early storyline is him chasing down a princess gone wild named Helen and how he marries her and finds a painting done of her by Da Vinci. The second, modern, storyline is about him chasing down the painting and finding out Helen has gone nosferatu (second tier vampire I guess?) and when she dies, he goes crazy and kills people. There’s other stuff going on, but it is just adding flesh to the story and not changing it in any significant way.

If I had been more cognizant of the overall storyline, I might have picked up on the fact that the Helen in the modern story was the Helen from the past. But even with the reveal, there is nothing said about HOW she became what she was. It really felt deus ex machina, so I don’t feel bad about not picking up on it earlier. It also didn’t really add anything to the story except to link the history part with the modern part. Since the history part was half the book, I did expect a stronger link.

Oh well, that is why these Dracula Files books are only getting 3stars. They’re decent reads but nothing great or something I ever plan on re-reading. And we all know how much I like to re-read the Good Books :-D

★★★☆☆

From Fandom.com

Jonathan Thorn, a vampire, tries to recover an unknown painting by Leonardo da Vinci from Ellison Seabright, who is suspected of murdering his half brother to acquire the priceless work

A Love Affair for the Ages. Five hundred years ago their paths first crossed. He possessed her totally, not quite against her will. Until she fled. And was captured. And was punished. And fled. And is fleeing still…

Dracula tells the story of his life and his great love before he became undead. The portrait of his beloved from those precious living days is in the hands of villains. The Prince must pursue and possess this link with his breathing life. The Southerlands, particularly Judy, are ready to assist an old friend of the family.

Friday, February 06, 2026

My Week XXXI with Pictures

Sunday saw the dramatic return of Imperator Bookstooge as he swept back into the blogosphere. Spheres of influence were shaken and the status quo destroyed as he vowed to take over Devilreads and make it safe for everyone, not just illiterate dumb dumbs who wouldn't know a good book if it hit them over the head. The Imperator knows he has a long struggle ahead of him and that defeat is most likely, but this has not deterred our intrepid hero. All Hail Imperator Bookstooge!

Monday was one of those days I got home from work and all plans evaporated because of how tired I was. I had visions of doing laundry, vacuuming, sweeping, mopping, etc. 2 weeks ago we got hit by a snow storm that dumped over a foot of snow on us and it is sticking around. I'm trudging around each day through snow that has piled up to my knees in places. I come home exhausted.

Tuesday I was by myself as Short Round went with his wife to an ultrasound to see their newly conceived baby. It was a nice day (above freezing) and while the job sucked (to be fair, all jobs suck this time of year with this much snow), I still had energy at the end of the day. I did laundry. Go me!!!!! I also listened to a lot of Enya's albums as I needed something very easy and soothing to help me settle down from doing all those laundries ;-)

Wednesday was the day I overcame and did even MOOOOR chores. I hadn't vacuumed our place in over a month (don't judge me) and it was time. I broke out ye olde Rainbow Vac and got a ton of stuff off our floors and out of the carpets. Every time I vacuum, I tell myself I need to do it weekly (I do!) but then a month passes and this situation happens, time after time after time. I guess I just don't like vacuuming. But in my defense, Mrs B likes doing vacuuming even less than I do, so you can consider me the clean freak of the pair ;-) Whilst I was vacuuming, I shanghaied Mrs B into sweeping and mopping. I might be the clean freak, but the freaky deaky has to be shared.

Thursday, well Thursday turned into a good day. It was sunny, it was at the freezing mark (amazing how warm freezing feels when you been below it for weeks) AND I got some Mr Macs Deluxe Cheeseburger mac-n-cheese for lunch. Considering it was between 800 to 1000 calories you know it was good. Mrs B had a good day too, so that made for a good evening together as we enjoyed the general goodness of the day.

Friday wasn't as fun as Thursday. The job wasn't easy and by the time we were done I was hurting. I was setting pins on a property line and the ground was frozen, so I had to use a power drill and then whale on the pin itself to drive it flush. THEN I had to put a wooden tall stake next to it as a witness. Oh, did I mention I had to shovel out a foot of snow at each point, enough so I could kneel down and do all that work? Yeah, it was brutal. Ended up taking 2 extra strength tylenol for my shoulder and elbow when I got home.

Saturday I have plans. I'm part of our church's men's group that meets twice a month from 8-9:15am. We're currently studying 2nd Peter. On a good Saturday we'll get through 5 verses :-D Then my brother is coming over and we'll shoot the breeze or maybe play some Munchkin. Finally, at 2pm I'm heading out to play some Magic with one of the teens from church. We're going to try some of the "new" Precon Commander decks I have from '21 or '22. I am really looking forward to playing some Magic!

And that's a wrap for the week!

Thursday, February 05, 2026

Puzzles of the Black Widowers (The Black Widowers #5) 3Stars

Title: Puzzles of the Black Widowers
Series: The Black Widowers #5
Authors: Isaac Asimov
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Mystery
Pages: 144
Words: 68K
Publish: 1990

I felt that I was being generous with giving this 3stars. Most of the stories felt like Henry (the waiter and the guy who always solves the mystery) just pulled a random solution out of a hat. Nothing that he stated was categorically fact like in previous collections. I don’t mind admitting that it might have been me, but I don’t think so. I think Asimov was reaching the end of his rope and it was showing. While the stories were written from 1985 to 1990, the collection wasn’t published until 1990 and Asimov died in ‘92.

There is one more post-humus collection of the Black Widowers. Most of the stories are reprints, but I believe there are a couple of new ones in it. I plan on focusing on those. The fact that I’m spending as much time talking about the next book as I did about this one should tell you how milque-toast this particular collection was.

★★★☆☆

From Wikipedia.org

Introduction

"The Fourth Homonym" (1985)

"Unique Is Where You Find It" (1985)

"The Lucky Piece" (1990)

"Triple Devil" (1985)

"Sunset on the Water" (1986)

"Where Is He?" (1986)

"The Old Purse" (1987)

"The Quiet Place" (1988)

"The Four-Leaf Clover" (1990)

"The Envelope" (1989)

"The Alibi" (1989)

"The Recipe" (1990)

All of My Asimov Reviews

Tuesday, February 03, 2026

Jane Austen: Frederic and Elfrida 3Stars

Title: Jane Austen: Frederic and Elfrida
Series: ----------
Author: Jane Austen
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Satire
Pages: 9
Words: 2K
Publish: 1787

Brona has graciously agreed to continue to host the #ReadingAusten into 2026 as some of us (ie, me) had more Austen to read. The link to her master post with all the various posts by Austen readers can be found at the end after my avatar. So thank you Brona, I appreciate your thoughtfulness.

For whatever reason, unlike some of the previous Juvenilia works where I felt that they never should have been released and was almost embarrassed to read them, Frederic & Elfrida was simply hilarious and a wonderful short story parody. I chortled my way through all 9 pages and laughed my head off at the end where Elfrida gets Frederic to finally marry her by having fainting spells.

It is little stories like this that keep me reading this Juvenilia stuff. I feel like I am a better man for reading the cast off writings of a 12 year old girl from almost 250 years ago. Ain’t life grand!? :-D

★★★☆☆

Synopsis

Elfrida and Frederic are cousins who were born on the same day, grew up together, and were very much alike. It is not surprising that their parents determine they should be married. Austen skips around to introduce Elfrida’s friend, Charlotte, who is visiting her aunt when she receives a letter from Elfrida requesting that she purchase Elfrida a bonnet. Charlotte is a very amiable young woman, so of course, she obliges.

When Charlotte returns home and is welcomed back “with the greatest Joy” by Elfrida and Frederic, they take a walk and spy two girls, Jezalinda and Rebecca, the daughters of Mrs. Fitzroy, and a friendship develops.

After the meeting with the Fitzroys, the last few pages breeze by, with a relationship frowned upon then embraced (frowned upon because Mrs. Fitzroy thought the couple too young for matrimony at 36 and 63) and a melodramatic suicide following one character’s acceptance of two marriage proposals seemingly within a “short time” of one another, meaning more like hours or even minutes. Meanwhile, a wedding date is never set for Elfrida and Frederic, and when time passes and Frederic seems almost lost to her, Elfrida secures her desired outcome through fainting fits.

Monday, February 02, 2026

Killer Bees - MTG 4E

I remember seeing this card and just loving it. Unfortunately, I was never able to make a deck with this card. That didn't really matter to me at the time though, as I was just as likely to put my cards in a binder and look at them as I was to actually use them :-D This is also one of the few "serious" cards by Phil Foglio, instead of his typically silly and nonsensical art, like "Gaseous Form".

Sunday, February 01, 2026

January '26 Roundup & Ramblings

Raw Data:

Novels - 8 ↓

Short Stories - 0 ↓

Manga/Graphic Novels - 0 -

Comics - 0 -

Average Rating - 3.44 ↑

Pages - 3087 ↓

Words - 1133K ↓

January was a quiet blog month, as I only blogged the first week of January and then went into silent running mode. Here are all my posts from then:

I obviously didn't stop reading. Here is a quick grab bag of what else I read in January, but didn't review. Maybe some day they'll get reviews, but not this month.

Mrs Pollifax and the Whirling Dervish by Dorothy Gillman - 4Stars

The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" by William Hodgson - 3Stars

Graveyard of Demons by Larry Correia - 4Stars

A Right to Die by Rex Stout - 4Stars

The Blue Sword by Robin McKinley - 3.5Stars

The Stony Man Doctrine by Dick Stivers - 3Stars

Also, I gave in (for like the sixth or seventh time) and joined devilreads. I only rate the books I read, no reviews. Words get me in trouble in devilreads and I want to see if I can go a whole year there without having an encounter with some jackass, or the bleeding staff. I can be found at:
https://www.goodreads.com/botstooge
I make no promises about how long I'll be there this time though. My average is like 4 weeks ;-)

January was quite the month. Workwise, winter is here in full force. We had several snow storms. The latest one, which occurred last Sunday and Monday, dumped about 18inches (45cm) of the white stuff on us. That has made this past week especially tough as we acclimate to very different working conditions. It has also been extremely cold this past week. Friday Short Round and I were working at a house on the side of a mountain and the temps were at 0 and the windchills were -19 (-18C & -28C) all day. I just came home exhausted simply from being outdoors. February is going to be tough, as the temps are predicted to stay cold, which means the snow won't melt away.

I have to admit, I enjoyed my time off from blogging. I hadn't realized how much pressure I had put on my own shoulders until I stopped and threw all that weight onto the ground. I felt more free to comment or not on other peoples' blogs because it didn't matter to my own blog. It was a refreshing time and I suspect I will be repeating January's experience later this year. But I'm back now, so.....

February will be back to blogging regularly. Posts will be at 5pm and I don't plan on blogging on Wednesdays or Saturdays. Mondays will always be Magic Mondays ;-) I aim to slow down my reading AND blogging in 2026 and try to enjoy it instead of just consuming and regurgitating mindlessly.