Bookstooge's Reviews On the Road: August 2019

Friday, August 30, 2019

Torchship Captain (Torchship #3) ☆☆☆☆½ DNF@10% w/ Extreme Prejudice

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Title: Torchship Captain
Series: Torchship #3
Author: Karl Gallagher
Rating: 0.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 354 DNF@10'ish%
Format: Digital Edition

My Thoughts:

THIS REVIEW WILL CONTAIN ADULT CONTENT.

Things were going along really well. The Fusion was starting to fall apart and that threatened the union between the Fusion and the Disconnect against the AI threat. Michigan Long is now captain and running her own ship. She has a friendship with one of the Fusion leaders, the young girl they rescued back in the first book. When the capital world of the Fusion falls to revolution, the young girl becomes part of it to save her life, as she was one of the ruling class.

Then the girl comes aboard the ship to touch base with Michigan and her husband. She's helping run the new council, as she has some experience, but she's definitely just staying ahead of mob rule. So she's complaining about how inexperienced she feels and her biggest complaint is that she is sexually inexperienced. Seriously. Trying to run a world on a council that is just as likely to kill her as take her ideas into consideration and she is thinking about how her sex life is zero.

So Michigan offers to teach her and right there, kneels before her husband and starts sucking him off. She then tells him to show the girl what sex is like and watches as her husband has sexual intercourse with the young woman. I believe I literally said out loud “what the fuck” and closed my kindle in complete and utter disgust.

I really don't know what to say. It wasn't erotic, it wasn't smutty. Gallagher made sure to write in such a way that it wasn't explicit but that the reader still knew exactly what he meant. But it was revolting. It had no place in this story and it completely destroyed everything. I don't know if Gallagher has ever written anything else but I abandoned this with Extreme Prejudice and I'll never read another word by him, or even CONSIDER reading anything by him.

☆☆☆☆½

Wednesday, August 28, 2019

Rath's Gambit (Janus Group #2) ★★★☆☆

Title: Rath's Gambit
Series: Janus Group #2
Author: Piers Platt
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 210
Format: Digital Edition

Synopsis:

Rath is on the run. With other Operatives from the Janus Group tasked to hunt him down, he has to escape, disappear and then hook back up with Operative 339 so they can begin their campaign against the Group and hopefully live through it.

Things start to go off the rails when Operative 339 doesn't show up at the rendevous point. Rath waits for quite awhile before realizing something is wrong. What he doesn't know is that Operative 339 was caught by some civil authorities on another planet while she was free-lancing. She was sentenced to a prison term and her her plan was to serve for a year or two and then get early release for good behavior. Of course, Rath knows none of this.

Rath enlists the aid of the man who has been investigating the Group on his own. They track down O339 and Rath breaks her out of prison. Bungling up all her careful plans of staying under the radar.

The book ends with them trying to escape a whole batch of Operatives that had been following Rath, hoping he would do exactly what he did, ie, lead them to O339.

My Thoughts:

I enjoyed this BUT between the non-resolution ending, Rath acting like an idiot (for an Operative who made his 50 kills, he sure is incompetent and stupid) and the continued prison reform schtick, I've decided to not read any more by Platt.

When I finished this book and it ended with them being chased, I realized I simply didn't care how it turned out. Rath is a bungler who can't seem to plan out even basic strategy. I couldn't tell if that was deliberate on the part of the author or what, but it wasn't what I wanted to read about. I wanted a story about a highly trained Operative who kicked butt, oh you know, like say Operative 339. But nooooo, I get Rath the Bozo who can't seem to find his own bum with both hands, a wall mirror and someone directing him.

The parts dealing with O339 were great. She kicked butt. She was smart and knew when to lay low and when to fight back. She had a plan and she knew how to adjust that plan as circumstances changed. WHY couldn't this series have been about her?

Overall, while Platt hasn't written any atrociously bad books, he certainly hasn't written any very good books. I'm done sampling the Mediocre Buffet.

★★★☆☆

Rath's Deception (Book 1)

Monday, August 26, 2019

Empire of Silence (Sun Eater #1) ★☆☆☆☆

Title: Empire of Silence
Series: Sun Eater #1
Author: Christopher Ruocchio
Rating: 1 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 624/DNF@2%
Format: Digital Edition

My Thoughts:

I'm pretty sure I got this through a recommendation through Larry Correia's website and one of his Book Bomb promotional posts.

However, at 2% (personally, I prefer skim milk myself), the main character starts talking about how his mother preferred other women instead of conjugal visits with his father. So I was done.

★☆☆☆☆

Friday, August 23, 2019

Barnaby Rudge ★★★★☆

Title: Barnaby Rudge
Series: ----------
Author: Charles Dickens
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre: Classic
Pages: 864
Format: Digital Edition

Synopsis:

Barnaby Rudge is a young man who is an idiot. He never grew up past 6 and can't remember one day from the next. He lives with his widowed mother on a stipend from Mr Haredale, the estate owner that Barnaby's father worked for before he vanished all those years ago on the night that a murder was committed.

Mr Haredale, a staunch Catholic, has a niece named Emma. Her father was the man murdered all those years ago and now Mr Haredale is her guardian. She is in love with a young man named Edward Chester, the son of Mr Chester. Mr Chester and Mr Haredale are at odds with one another and neither guardian nor father want the match to happen. Emma also has a companion named Dolly Varden.

Dolly Varden lives in London with her father and mother. Her father is a jolly blacksmith while her mother is one of those creatures that only Dickens can bring to the page. Gabriel Varden has an apprentice, one Simon Tappertitt, who is in love with Dolly, hates Gabriel for some reason and thinks he is the most beautiful specimen of manhood to ever exist. Dolly is in love with Joe Willet.

Joe Willet is a young man whose father runs the Maypole, an inn that belongs to Mr Haredale. Joe Willet Sr is constantly treating Joe Jr like a boy and eventually Joe runs away and joins the army.

The main story is about how all of these characters interact through the 5 years leading up to the riots in 1780 in London, where a mob ran riot for several days in protest against Catholics and Catholicism. Barnaby is dragged into it, not knowing any better. Joe has returned from America (where he fought against American Independence, boo hiss!) and Edward Chester has returned from the Continent after having learned to make his living. Simon Tappertitt kidnaps Dolly and Emma during the riots, gets his just desserts and becomes a legless beggar by the end of the story. Mr Haredale and Mr Chester have a duel in which Chester dies. Mr Haredale gives his blessing and fortune to Emma and Edward. Joe Jr returns with an arm missing and his father starts treating him like an adult. Joe Jr and Dolly get married and run the Maypole together. Barnaby goes to jail for participating in the riots and is about to be hung when he gets a pardon because Joe Jr and Edward Chester work like the dickens (ha!) to get him free.

My Thoughts:

This was not plot oriented at all. Given, most of Dickens' books center around his characters, but this one more so. The Riot of '80 was the event that tied this all together.

I enjoyed this but it took me over 2 weeks to work my way through. I'd read a chapter and then put the book down for the rest of the day. Given, Mrs B was away for a family visit and I was dealing with job interviews and thinking about the future, so I was obviously distracted but still, I had to concentrate to pick this up.

I really don't know what else to say. If you enjoy Dickens, you'll enjoy this. This is probably not the book to start a Dickens Journey of Discovery though. This wasn't quite as organic as some of Dickens other books and it shows. That is why I kept this at 4stars like last time.

I can say that one needs uninterrupted time, without stress or pressure, to fully appreciate Dickens. If one is harried, distracted and busy, it takes away from the experience.

★★★★☆

Barnaby Rudge (2008 Review)

Wednesday, August 21, 2019

Betty Zane (Ohio River #1) ★☆☆☆½

Title: Betty Zane
Series: Ohio River #1
Author: Zane Grey
Rating: 1.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Western?
Pages: 263
Format: Digital Edition

Synopsis:

Betty Zane has come to the frontier to live with her brother and his family. Pretty, head strong and used to getting her way, Betty lives life her way.

A young man comes to the settlement and because he doesn't immediately bow to Betty's beauty she “hates” him. Of course, they fall in love with each other but between both of them being young, full of pride and just generally stupid, things don't go easy.

Then Indians and some damn British Red Coats attack the fort. The brave men and women and children hold them off and win a great victory.

Betty Zane and her fella done get hitched and produce a heap 'o chillens.

My Thoughts:

Well, after I was done with the Sacketts, I figured Zane Grey was next. This is NOT an auspicious start, that is for sure.

This isn't what I'd think of as a Western, but more of Frontier Fiction. There are no cowboys, no West, it's all East of the Mississippi river and it is sappy as a Janette Oke book. I was NOT expecting that.

I also wasn't expecting deeply insightful characters either but almost everyone portrayed came across as a cardboard cutout slapped with a coat of brightly colored paint. I felt like I was watching clowns at a circus.

The story telling itself was tedious. First Zane would do a chapter of “history” where he just spells everything out. Then we'd jump into the story where he would then tell that exact same history but using the characters and making a story of it. He bleeding spoils his own thing and pretty much just puffs up his word count. Needless to say, I was not impressed.

I have an omnibus edition of Grey's works and I'll be skipping the next Ohio River book. Of course, without an actual index I'll have to flip through 200'ish pages to do that. This is why you shouldn't buy $2 omnibus books on Amazon.

★☆☆☆½

Monday, August 19, 2019

Dance of the Dead (Ravenloft #3) ★☆☆☆½

Title: Dance of the Dead
Series: Ravenloft #3
Author: Christie Golden
Rating: 1.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Franchise Fiction
Pages: 310
Format: Digital Edition

Synopsis:

Raoul Dumont, captain of a paddle boat, steams up and down the rivers of Ravenloft bringing cheer and entertainment to all the small towns he visits. His troupe of actors regular perform a play he has written and Dumont's young ward, Larissa Snowmane, is growing into her role as the villain of the piece.

However, while staying at an elven town, the main starlet of the show turns up dead and Dumont suspects the Elven Lord. He and the Crew make a run for it and pass through the mists. They come to a small town that Larissa recognizes as the one she grew up in many years ago before her father abandoned her to Dumont's care.

Dumont begins to show his true colors and tries to take advantage of Larissa. She escapes, meets a young man named Willen and finds out that Dumont has a group of magical creatures as slaves in the hold of his boat. Dumont's goal is to find a magical creature in this small town and in this he is aided by a Necromancer named Lond. Lond begins turning the crew into zombies that are directly controlled by Dumont. Lond wants out of the town, as he has made an enemy of the Lord of the Manor, a vampiric necromancer of immense power.

Larissa escapes into the swamp, finds out her white hair (hence the name Snowmane) gives her a special connection and is taught by the Swamp Witch. However, before they can attack Dumont or Lond, they must get permission from the Lord of the Manor, as nothing occurs without his personal approval. He teaches Larissa the Dance of the Dead and sends her on her way.

A battle ensues between the gang on the boat and denizens of the swamp. Things aren't looking good for Larissa's friends as Lond is just resurrecting them and using them for his side. Larissa dances the Dance of the Dead (which she was told would allow her to control all zombies) only to find out that not only can she control all zombies but she makes zombies of anyone who watches the dance. Willen gets zombified and Lond kills Dumont to try to escape. Lond ends up dying in a contest of wills and Larissa's group wins.

The book ends with the remaining non-zombies asking Larissa to be the Captain of the Boat and she begins making eyes at one of the men.

My Thoughts:

What an utter piece of tripe. This had every cliché and trope possible for “Young Heroine Comes Into Her Own”.

Also, nothing about this seems to actually be in the Realm of Ravenloft. If Dumont could travel willy-nilly through the mists, he could have made himself king. This was just a Grl Power fantasy book with the name “Ravenloft” stamped on it.

A stinker of a book. If the next Ravenloft book is anything close to this I'm done with the series. I always knew this would happen but I have to admit I was hoping it wouldn't happen until later in the series.

C'est la Vie!

★☆☆☆½

All of My "Ravenloft" Reviews

Friday, August 16, 2019

Galactic North (Revelation Space #6) ★★★★½

Title: Galactic North
Series: Revelation Space #6
Author: Alastair Reynolds
Rating: 4.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 356
Format: Digital Edition

Synopsis:

A collection of 8 short stories and novellas set in Reynolds Revelation Space universe. Many of them focus on the Conjoiners and we get several stories that provide history about several of the Conjoiner characters we've read about in previous books.

There is also a story about the Green Light that is mentioned in an earlier book and while we don't see how humanity overcomes that, we do see how it gets started.

One of the stories gives a tip 'o the hat to the novella Diamond Dogs. That story was much closer to a horror story and it meshed with the tone of Diamond Dogs perfectly.

My Thoughts:

Man, another winner of a book. I thoroughly enjoyed this. I'd already read one or two of these stories in Reynold's Best Of... Collection but they were just as good upon a re-read.

I did enjoy the variation in length of story from novella down to a short story. It helped with the flow of the book and never made me feel like I was slogging. I also liked finding out the history and future of several characters we have already met in previous books. Reading this was a nice “rounding out” experience.

By this time, if one has read this far into Reynold's Revelation Space universe, nothing here is going to deter one from continuing. Not even referencing one's self in the third person. That being said, I think there is only one more book for me to read and then I'll have to go track down his other works and figure out what order to read them.

★★★★½

All My "Revelation Space" Reviews

Wednesday, August 14, 2019

The Mating Season (Jeeves Omnibus #3.2) ★★★★½

Title: The Mating Season
Series: Jeeves Omnibus #3.2
Author: P.G. Wodehouse
Rating: 4.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Humor
Pages: 304
Format: Digital Edition

Synopsis:

2 of Bertie Wooster's friends get in a spot of trouble. To prevent the fiance of one of them finding out, Bertie fills in for Friend One and pretends to be him down in the country. Friend Two pretends to be Bertie's serving man. Then shenanigans and Friend One shows up pretending to be Bertie. A Country Squire, a local policeman, several young ladies and a gaggle of Aunts are thrown into the mix.

Jeeves stirs everything, bakes it just right and from a gloopy mess comes a beautiful bunt cake complete with happy endings for just about everyone.

My Thoughts:

This was very much a situation of “The Right Book at the Right Time”. If I ever re-read this, I highly doubt I'll rate it this high again. It was pretty much on par with most of the Jeeves books that have come before but this time I just laughed at almost every chapter.

Where does Wodehouse come up with the names he does? Finknoddle, Catsmeat, etc. They fit perfectly with Bertie's personality and the situations he gets himself into. Jeeves was very much in the background for this book and it allowed Bertie to trample all over the story like a drunken elephant. It was glorious!

And to top it all off, Jeeves koshes a policeman on the back of the head. How great is that?

From the title, you can tell that a lot of young people are falling in and out of love at a moments notice and the story is driven by that force. While I did feel an occasional eye roll coming on, Wodehouse masterfully turned each instance of that into a very humorous situation. So far, I've usually been a fan of the short story collections that make up a Jeeves & Wooster book but this time, the novel length story actually worked for me.

★★★★½

All My "Jeeves" Reviews

Monday, August 12, 2019

Much Ado About Nothing ★★★★☆

Title: Much Ado About Nothing
Series: ----------
Author: William Shakespeare
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre: Play, Comedy
Pages: 84
Format: Digital Edition

Synopsis:

Benedick, a womanizing batchelor who regularly speaks out against marriage, has come home from the wars with his friend Claudio. Claudio sees Hero, the daughter of a Don and immediately falls in love and she with him. Benedick claims he'll never get married and spars verbally with Hero's cousin Beatrice, who has as sharp a tongue as him. They both claim hatred of the other.

Claudio and Hero conspire to get Benedick and Beatrice together. Using gossip and reverse psychology, it works. However, Claudio's illegitimate brother decides to cause problems. He makes it appear that Hero is a whore and discredits her before her father and Claudio. She feigns death while her name is cleared.

Then Hero & Claudio and Benedick & Beatrice get married and the rascally brother gets caught by the law.

My Thoughts:

I went into this with a heavy heart. I was thinking to myself “Oh, not another Shakespeare, maybe I can skip a cycle”. I am glad I didn't though. I had a blast reading this.

Beatrice was the kind of loud mouth woman that most men just want to put a rag in her mouth because she won't shut up. It was hilarious. It also helped that she was one of the witty characters. Now, I did have some issues parsing what she was trying to say, what with her english being 400'ish years old, but for the most part I was able to get the gist of what she was trying to get across.

The only reason I gave this just a 4star instead of higher was because of how quickly both Beatrice and Benedick change their minds about the other. Yes, it is a very short play and for time constraints I understand, but it was almost literally a 180 degree reversal in the space of a minute.

Other than that, this was a true comedy. I'm thinking about tracking down a video version and seeing how it compares. Does anyone have any suggestions?

★★★★☆

Previous Shakespeare Reviews

Friday, August 09, 2019

Dread Brass Shadows (Garrett, PI #5) ★★★☆½

Title: Dread Brass Shadows
Series: Garrett, PI #5
Author: Glen Cook
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 304
Format: Digital Edition

Synopsis:

Garrett walks out his front door one day and sees his sex buddy, Tinny Tate, stabbed in front of his eyes. He and one of his buddies chase the perp down but the guy knows nothing, almost like whoever sent him knew the Dead Man lived at Garrett's house. Garrett tells Tinny's uncle and he has her taken home where she receives the best medical care money can buy. Uncle Tate also tells Garrett to find whoever sent the perp and that he, Uncle Tate, wants a piece of them.

The next day a nude, wounded redhead who looks remarkably like Tinny collapses on Garrett's front step. He brings her in to recover. The Dead Man tells Garrett to go visit the local head of the Dwarves. After the interview in which Garrett learns that a “Book of Shadows” is somehow involved, he is attacked by an out of town gang of dwarves. He is saved by two of the guys who work for the local Crime Lord. When Garrett gets home the redhead has disappeared.

The next day yet ANOTHER redhead shows up, wanting to hire Garrett to find this book of Shadows. It was created by a witch and can allow anyone who reads it to turn into other people. Garrett can only imagine what could be done with that and sets out to find it just so he can destroy it.

The Crime Lord gets involved as he knows he can almost live forever with a book like that under his control. He knows Garrett will get in his way and so he tries to kill him. The 2 henchman, who are the Crime Lord's Right and Left Hand, abandon him when they realize they'll never be able to replace him, as he will never die. They contact Garrett and ask for help in assassinating the Crime Lord.

Everybody, Tates, Dwarves, the Witch who created the Book, Garrett and Henchman, and Others, all converge on the Crime Lord's estate. A huge blood bath ensues but nobody knows where the book is. Garrett eventually remembers that the Nude Redhead had a parcel with her and finds it at his house, under the bed. Voila, the book. He destroys it.

Life settles down back to normal, as normal as life in TunFaire can be anyway.

My Thoughts:

Cook did a very good job of keeping me as mystified as Garrett. I hadn't a clue what was going on and while a sharper minded person might have remembered the package and deduced everything, I'd completely forgotten about it and so was completely at sea.

A simple mystery for a simple man. I was happy, for the most part, with what I read. Each book I have to wrestle with Garrett being a womanizing, immoral pig. It's the main reason these will never get a real high rating from me, no matter how much I might enjoy them. But once I deal with that, then I enjoy the rest of the book. It has been that way for every book and I suspect it will be that way for each future book as well.

I did like the shakeup of the Crime Lord getting whacked and his two subordinates taking over. That should help make any future storylines a tad bit different, even if only superficially. But considering these are superficial stories, that should be enough.

More of the same, more of the same.

★★★☆½

All My "Garrett, PI" Reviews

Wednesday, August 07, 2019

The Devil's Delusion: Atheism and its Scientific Pretensions ★★★★☆

Title: The Devil's Delusion: Atheism and its Scientific Pretensions
Series: ----------
Author: David Berlinski
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre: Non-Fiction
Pages: 258
Format: Digital Edition

Synopsis:

The title really does sum this up. Written as a foil to Dawkin's The God Delusion, Berlinski, a non-practicing Jew, shows just how shaky the ground is, philosophically AND scientifically, that many out-spoken atheists stand on.

Using humor, sarcasm and other rather ham handed approaches, Berlinski pokes the High Priests of Scyenze and lets the hot air out of them, much like a balloon. He doesn't approach things form an angle of “They are wrong and I'm right” but more of a “their attitude is untenable given their arrogant, boasting statements about Faith and Religion”.

My Thoughts:

I had a hard time with this. Even while I agreed with much of what Berlinski wrote, I am not a fan of the style he uses, ie, poking the bear with a stick. The problem is, people like Hawkings, Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris, etc, NEED to be poked. They are arrogant, proud, boastful and self-centered and all of their might and effort is put forth proving that God doesn't exist just so that they don't have to kneel before Him. Reading this was like getting a splinter removed with a needle. It was necessary and good but you don't like the process.

I was high lighting sentences left and right on my kindle but I don't care enough to type them all out. Honestly, I don't know if I was the target audience for this or not. Berlinski is an Evolutionist but realizes that the pat “We Have All the Answers” attitude put out by the scientific community as a whole is a bunch of bologna. He pokes and pokes and shows that no, they don't have all the answers. In fact, some of the contortions they must go through make the planetary epicycles of Ptolemy look positively straight!

The biggest thing I got was that most of the people he mentions by name are arrogant blowhards and that Pride shapes how they think and how they approach existence itself. Pride is what led to Satan's fall from grace and Berlinski shows how Pride is still blinding people today, even people of great intellect.

Recommended as a Counter Cultural Argument against the monolithic religion of our day, Scyenze.

★★★★☆

Monday, August 05, 2019

Time Thieves ★★★☆☆

Title: Time Thieves
Series: ----------
Author: Dean Koontz
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 146
Format: Digital Scan

Synopsis:

Peter Mullion wakes up sitting in his car in his garage and can't remember a thing about how he got there. He knows he went to his cabin to work on it, but that is it. When his wife comes home and sees him, she tells him he's been missing for 3 weeks! Peter sets out to investigate just what happened to him.

Unfortunately, he's having trouble counting or keeping track of time or even where he is. He loses his way one day in his office building and when he comes to his wife tells him he's been missing again, for several days. Peter sees the same man watching him, at a restaurant, at home, wherever he turns, there he is. Peter and his wife Delia head up to the mountain cabin to see if that holds any clues. They find the cabin painted, which means Peter was there. However, upon further examination, it appears that the painting was done less than a day ago, not weeks ago like it should have. Peter's paranoia isn't so misplaced after all.

One night Peter begins hearing voices and he realizes he can hear other people's thoughts. Peter ends up in communication with an alien being, who has been spying on him using its robot servants. Peter flees, honing his mental skills. During a cat and mouse game, he destroys the minds of the robots. Now he just has to deal with the aliens.

The aliens mentally kidnap his wife and tell Peter that they accidentally killed him 3 weeks ago. They rebuilt him but due to them not being familiar with human biology, accidentally gave him telepathy. They say Humanity isn't ready for that and they just want to take that ability away from Peter. No harm, no violence, just remove a mistake that they made. Peter refuses and tells them every single human is alone and that they shouldn't be. Peter kills the aliens, who are pacifists at heart and he and Delia go off to live a happy life, spreading telepathy to all and sundry like corn kernels to chickens.

My Thoughts:

First, that cover has ZERO to do with this story. There is no sexy woman with a ray gun, Peter doesn't dress up like a ninja and crouch on a mountain and the UFO is only talked about. It's actually parked inside a mountain for the whole book.

The title only makes sense if you consider the aliens to have stolen time from Peter when he went missing those several times. They can't actually manipulate time. I kept waiting for that right up until almost the end of the book.

The tension was pretty high for most of the book and I liked that. Koontz kept me edgy and wondering just what was going to happen.

My issues came down to the fact that Peter killed the aliens because they were going to take something back that had been given by mistake. His life was not in danger, his wife's life was not in danger but Peter had something and he wasn't going to give it up. The justification given is because of how much Peter loves Delia, but that just rang false. He was an adult who knew enough about how Humanity would use such a gift and he was even told that it would spread but he chose to keep it anyway. It almost felt like Koontz was writing about a modern Adam and Eve, but ones that weren't deceived into eating the forbidden fruit but ones who willfully chose to take and eat such a fruit. Even “love” can be corrupted and that is really applicable in this day and age with every idiot bleating about “love” all the time but having no concrete concept of what Love actually is.

My kindle had this at about 140 pages. I think the paperback runs around 100, so either way, it was a short little novel bordering on the novella. I wasn't expecting a mind blowing experience and I wasn't disappointed. On the other hand, I wasn't disappointed. Glad I read this but don't plan on ever reading it again.

I am thinking of adding an author's name as a tag to any series of books that don't have a series associating them together. I've been doing that with Dickens and I'm going to start now with Koontz. I will have to decide if I want to start that with every book or not. The problem with NOT doing it for every author is then remembering which authors I AM doing it for. But if I do it for every author then my tag cloud is going to grow humongously, even more ridiculous than it already is. Do any of you have any thoughts or opinions or anecdotes or experience to shed some light on this issue?

★★★☆☆

Friday, August 02, 2019

The Savage Tales of Solomon Kane ★★★☆☆

Title: The Savage Tales of Solomon Kane
Series: ----------
Author: Robert Howard
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 432
Format: Digital Edition

Synopsis:

The collected works following the adventures of the Puritan Swordsman, Solomon Kane. From the deepest depths of Africa to the windswept shores of England, Solomon Kane follows wither the spirit leads. Avenging wrongs, rescuing maidens, defeating evil incarnate, Solomon Kane knows no fear, for he is God's Avenging Sword against Evil.

My Thoughts:

Not as enjoyable as the Essential Conan collection I read last year. Part of that was that there just wasn't nearly as much material for Solomon Kane as there was for Conan. Almost 1/3 of the stories in this book were fragments that Howard had started and then either set aside or just never finished. Thankfully each story that was a fragment had the word (fragment), like that, next to the story name. There were also 2 or 3 poems and I'm just not a poetry buff of any sort.

My biggest problem however, was that Kane was supposed to be a Puritan. While he dresses like one, not once does he act in any way that I recognized as a Godly man. He consorts with sorcerers, uses gifts of magic from a devil worshipper, thinks that men are nothing but higher animals and generally displays no reverence for God. He occasionally mouths a platitude or two about “faith” but what he said could just as easily have come from a Hindu, a Muslim or a Buddhist.

Now with all of that out of the way...

There were some fine pulp stories here. Encountering lost civilizations in the heart of Africa, fighting off a tribe of flying cannibal creatures, torching a city of zombie vampires, fighting a whole crew of pirates, Solomon Kane has the chops to keep you entertained. Everydayshouldbetuesday talked about Solomon Kane back in May and that peaked my interest.

I would recommend this if you enjoyed Howard's Conan stories and wanted to try something different. However, if you haven't read any Howard, don't start with this.

★★★☆☆