Unfortunately, February was not much of an improvement over January. No ER visits and Mrs B is feeling ok, at the moment, but that could change at a moment’s notice and so we’re pretty much living on tenterhooks and taking life one day at a time.
Weatherwise, February was fantastic. Made work a real treat but the end of the month showed that March is probably going to be a brutal winter lion month instead of a gentle lamb spring month. Ahh well. Winter is here 🙁
Plans for Next Month:
I’m going to start watching the Shrek franchise for my movies so I’ll be doing one a month for a bit.
There will be double posts every Monday and Thursday’s. Just wanted to give you the heads up. I know I’ve been posting a lot and it looks to be continuing for March. Wednesdays will be all manga, as I’m ready to start reading more each month of both One Piece and Fullmetal Alchemist.
Hoping to do several posts about journaling too. I’ve got 5 posts in mind about journaling, so as long as I can get my butt in gear and get them written, that will take up Saturdays and be some of the double posting I am planning on do on the weekdays.
Goodness, it sounds like a lot when I type it all out like that. But really, if I wasn’t planning those things, I’d be planning something else. I’m just an inveterate planner, for good or bad, so I just roll with it until I burn out and then I plan my convalescence 😀
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: Lay the Hate Series: Forgotten Ruin #4 Author: Jason Anspach & Nick Cole Rating: 3 of 5 Stars Genre: Military Fantasy Pages: 209 Words: 76K
The Ranger-Roos are off on a big bad mission to kill somebody. Only, they get side tracked and kill somebody else and the stupid narrator, Talker, who is like the most important person to the group for his linguistics skills, jumps into a dimensional vortex/rift thingy to save another ranger so he pretty much is dead.
Hurray!!!!!!!!!!!!! No more blathering idiot going on about coffee or blabbing about wanting to be a real Ranger-Roo. I actually did a fist pump when it was revealed that he was dead. It was very carthartic for me.
Of course, we’ll have to see if the next narrator is any better. I have a bad feeling Anspach and Cole (the authors) are just going to use some other nitwit to journal instead of, you know, actually writing an exciting adventure novel. Aaaaaand I just went on Amazon to see how many books were in this series and wouldn’t you know, one of the later books has Talker as the narrator again. Tarnation!
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 Mugger Series: 87th Precinct Author: Ed McBain Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars Genre: Crime Fiction Pages: 149 Words: 49K
Oh, this not a cozy crime novel and I’m realizing this series is not even going to be “comfortable murder solving 101” like with Nero Wolfe. Not being a “crime fiction” aficiando, I think I would call this True Crime. It’s certainly dirty, gritty and violent enough. I added the ultra violent tag because a 17 year old is killed and she was pregnant, by her brother in law. I felt dirty just writing that.
The whole Mugger thing is a separate storyline and McBain plays the reader like a violin in how he interweaves them and makes them appear as one. It was fantastic. There are times I like being manipulated as a reader and McBain did that masterly in this book.
At the same time, the whole pregnant 17 year old thing was extremely disturbing. She had fallen in love with her brother in law and he used that to his own advantage. It was the grossest violation of adult power that I have read about in a long time. Realizing that people can be, and are, like this really depresses me. As a Christian I know that humanity as a whole is fallen, ie, no longer perfect because of sin. But knowing something and seeing something are very different things. I’ve talked about this with a friend of mine, and that dichotomy of knowing that humanity is the worst while still expecting the best of them, is something most Christians seem to have to live with. So while this kind of behavior is rather normal, unfortunately, it still shocks me.
I do hope this kind of thing isn’t going to be the norm. That would be too heavy a burden for me to deal with I suspect.
For me, this was a very big issue. Moving from the West Coast to the Northern East Coast was about as much of a change as you could get and I was afraid it might be more than Mrs B could handle. One of my former Bibleschool classmates was from Georgia and she had married an alumnist and moved up north. And she was absolutely miserable, to the point of seriously wondering if she’d made the wrong choice in who she had married. I saw all of that and while it resolved just fine, the poor guy was made miserable for quite a time. I was concerned I would have something of the same experience.
Ha!
That first winter, we had a horrible icestorm, one of the worst since the 90’s. EVERYTHING was covered in ice and people lost power for weeks. And Mrs B loved every single second of it. She loved going outside and making a snowman (she still does this at least once a season even now). She loved driving to work while going half the speed limit. While she wasn’t a huge fan of the cold, she did like that she could cuddle up to me for warmth and I wouldn’t push her away. I tend to run a bit hot and in the summer, another body next to mine is just too much for me but during the winter when it’s cold, it is just fine. So she quickly learned to take advantage of the season while she could, hahahaa. We went snowshoeing, we went sledding. We never went ski’ing but that had more to do with both of us not being the athletic type or enjoying that kind of thing.
So, our first winter set the tone for the years to come. Mrs B was happy and I was happy that she was happy. It has worked out pretty well so far, so I’m not inclined to mess with the formula 😀
Next week will be the Happily Ever After ending, so please look forward to it.
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: Titus Andronicus Author: William Shakespeare Rating: 1.5 of 5 Stars Genre: Play Pages: 219 Words: 63K
Synopsis:
From Wikipedia
Shortly after the death of the Roman emperor, his two sons, Saturninus and Bassianus, quarrel over who will succeed him. Their conflict seems set to boil over into violence until a tribune, Marcus Andronicus, announces that the people’s choice for the new emperor is Marcus’s brother, Titus, who will shortly return to Rome from a victorious ten-year campaign against the Goths. Titus arrives to much fanfare, bearing with him as prisoners Tamora, Queen of the Goths, her three sons Alarbus, Chiron, and Demetrius, and her secret lover, Aaron the Moor. Despite Tamora’s desperate pleas, Titus sacrifices her eldest son, Alarbus, to avenge the deaths of twenty-five of his own sons during the war. Distraught, Tamora and her two surviving sons vow to obtain revenge on Titus and his family.
Meanwhile, Titus refuses the offer of the throne, arguing that he is not fit to rule and instead supporting the claim of Saturninus, who then is duly elected. Saturninus tells Titus that for his first act as emperor, he will marry Titus’s daughter Lavinia. Titus agrees, although Lavinia is already betrothed to Saturninus’s brother, Bassianus, who refuses to give her up. Titus’s sons tell Titus that Bassianus is in the right under Roman law, but Titus refuses to listen, accusing them all of treason. A scuffle breaks out, during which Titus kills his own son, Mutius. Saturninus then denounces the Andronici family for their effrontery and shocks Titus by marrying Tamora. Putting into motion her plan for revenge, Tamora advises Saturninus to pardon Bassianus and the Andronici family, which he reluctantly does.
During a royal hunt the following day, Aaron persuades Demetrius and Chiron to kill Bassianus so that they may rape Lavinia. They do so, throwing Bassianus’s body into a pit and dragging Lavinia deep into the forest before violently raping her. To keep her from revealing what has happened, they cut out her tongue and cut off her hands. Meanwhile, Aaron writes a forged letter, which frames Titus’s sons Martius and Quintus for the murder of Bassianus. Horrified at the death of his brother, Saturninus arrests Martius and Quintus and sentences them to death.
Some time later, Marcus discovers the mutilated Lavinia and takes her to her father, who is still shocked at the accusations levelled at his sons, and upon seeing Lavinia, he is overcome with grief. Aaron then visits Titus and falsely tells him that Saturninus will spare Martius and Quintus if either Titus, Marcus, or Titus’ remaining son, Lucius, cuts off one of their hands and sends it to him. Though Marcus and Lucius are willing, Titus has his own left hand cut off by Aaron and sends it to the emperor. However, a messenger brings back Martius’s and Quintus’s severed heads, along with Titus’s own severed hand. Desperate for revenge, Titus orders Lucius to flee Rome and raise an army among their former enemy, the Goths.
Later, Lavinia writes the names of her attackers in the dirt, using a stick held with her mouth and between her arms. Meanwhile, Aaron is informed that Tamora has secretly given birth to a mixed-race baby, fathered by Aaron, which will draw Saturninus’s wrath. Though Tamora wants the baby killed, Aaron kills the nurse to keep the child’s race a secret and flees to raise his son among the Goths. Thereafter, Lucius, marching on Rome with an army, captures Aaron and threatens to hang the infant. In order to save the baby, Aaron reveals the entire revenge plot to Lucius.
Back in Rome, Titus’s behaviour suggests he might be deranged. Convinced of Titus’s madness, Tamora, Demetrius, and Chiron (dressed as the spirits of Revenge, Murder, and Rape, respectively) approach Titus in order to persuade him to have Lucius remove his troops from Rome. Tamora (as Revenge) tells Titus that she will grant him revenge on all of his enemies if he convinces Lucius to postpone the imminent attack on Rome. Titus agrees and sends Marcus to invite Lucius to a reconciliatory feast. Revenge then offers to invite the Emperor and Tamora as well, and is about to leave when Titus insists that Rape and Murder stay with him. When Tamora is gone, Titus has Chiron and Demetrius restrained, cuts their throats, and drains their blood into a basin held by Lavinia. Titus tells Lavinia that he will “play the cook”, grind the bones of Demetrius and Chiron into powder, and bake their heads into two pies.
The next day, during the feast at his house, Titus asks Saturninus if a father should kill his daughter when she has been raped. When Saturninus answers that he should, Titus kills Lavinia and tells Saturninus of the rape. When the Emperor calls for Chiron and Demetrius, Titus reveals that they were baked in the pie Tamora has just been eating. Titus then kills Tamora and is immediately killed by Saturninus, who is subsequently killed by Lucius to avenge his father’s death. Lucius is then proclaimed Emperor. He orders that Titus and Lavinia be laid in their family tomb, that Saturninus be given a state burial, that Tamora’s body be thrown to the wild beasts outside the city, and that Aaron be hanged. Aaron, however, is unrepentant to the end, regretting only that he did not do more evil in his life. Lucius decides Aaron deserves to be buried chest-deep as punishment and left to die of thirst and starvation, and Aaron is taken away to be punished thus.
My Thoughts:
The last time I read some Shakespeare was last year in August when I made it through Richard III. I needed a break and so of course, once I’m back, I start out with Titus Andronicus, possibly the most violent, the most disturbing and the most outlandish of all his plays. I’m going to keep the “Synopsis” and “My Thoughts” format for Shakespeare even while I’ve abandoned it for all the rest of the books I read. I want a place I can put the entire synopsis from Wikipedia and then easily hide it with the details code. I don’t ever plan on reading Shakespeare again but I do want to know what each play is about.
Ugh. Titus murders his own son. His daughter is raped and maimed. He chops off his own hand. Another son is sent into exile. He kills the men who raped his daughter, bakes their flesh into a pie and feeds it to the mother of the men. He then dies himself.
Good times on the Good Ship Lollypop, eh? Not even Shirley Temple could have tap danced this into a happy story. There were several times I was just about ready to call it quits on Shakespeare and to let him rot in his mouldering grave. But I forged ahead because I was wearing my Big Boy Pants and that’s what you do. All I can say is that whatever I read next from Shakespeare had better be better than this play.
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: ‘Til Death Do Us Part! Series: Web of Spiderman #1 Writer: Louise Simonson Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars Genre: Comics Pages: 25 Words: 2K
This particular Spiderman comic takes place after the Secret Wars (where all the super heroes went off world to fight for/against aliens and got lots of cool tech). Spiderman had gotten a black suit that enhanced his powers but once he came back to earth Reed Richards of the Fantastic Four found out it was a living symbiote and was trying to take Peter Parker over. Reed drove it off with a sonic gun and Parker thought they had it safely locked away.
All that info? They convey in 2 pages. TWO!!! No shilly shallying, no filler, just in your face info dump. That’s how it should be.
And with this comic the suit escapes and tries to take Parker over again. While he’s being attacked by a group of super villains. He fights off the villains but can’t make it to Reed Towers to get help from the Fantastic Four, so he manages to get under some really loud bells and the noise drives the symbiote away. It appears like the noise is enough to actually destroy it and that is where the comic ends.
This was originally published in 1985 or ‘86 which was when Spiderman was really beginning to take off as a comic book hero. He had several comics dedicated to him (Amazing Spiderman, Spectacular Spiderman and now this Web of Spiderman) and seemed to be doing well.
I enjoyed this even while it was just too short for my taste. But I definitely want to keep reading. How long I keep reading, well, that’s an entirely different question 🙂
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: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #14 Authors: Peter Laird & Kevin Eastman Rating: 1.5 of 5 Stars Genre: Comics Pages: 51 Words: 2K
Everyone is hanging out in Casey’s old hometown. A bronze cow is stolen from the roof of a convenience store and Casey decides to solve the case. Turns out the cow is solid gold and a national treasure of Slavakia. An unscrupulous businessman is trying to buy it and the Feds are on the case. While Casey, with help from the turtles and April, bumbles about like an idiot.
Yep. I’m done. This was stupid and idiotic. Casey is just dumb and the turtles do nothing to make him smarter but simply enable his stupidity. Plus, we have ninja turtles and all the authors can think of for a storyline is a gold cow? It’s not even bad, it is worse, it is banal.
I’ve got a marvel comic I want to try next, so that will be coming later today. I figure there’s no sense wasting time and waiting until next month.
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: Majestic Series: ———- Author: Whitley Strieber Rating: 2 of 5 Stars Genre: SF Pages: 267 Words: 95K
Majestic is the name of the secret government agency tasked with dealing with aliens, etc in the United States Government. This book was published in 1989 and in 1993 the tv show The X-Files started airing. I will eat my hat, and quite possibly my boots too, if Chris Carter, the creator of the X-Files didn’t read this book and lift parts of it whole sale to create the X-Files mythology. The head of Majestic is even a bitter old man who has given himself cancer by smoking so much (one of the main villains in the X-Files is the Smoking Man). Because I have seen the X-Files, this felt like an origins story and was rather boring since all the bits and pieces had already been revealed. The differences and specifics were small enough and didn’t matter enough so I wasn’t really interested.
This is supposedly non-fiction posing as fiction to protect Strieber, but come on. And it committed the cardinal sin of being boring. I mean really, really, really boring. And aliens invading us, or protecting us or evolving us, or whatever the heck Strieber is claiming (all of the above at the same time plus some other stuff as far as I could tell) should NOT be boring.
I am debating whether I want to try again with Strieber. Part of writing reviews is so I can think about things like this and not make a snap decision. Sometimes not continuing isn’t even on my mind (like with Universe 2 from yesterday) until I start writing and then I can easily make a decision. This isn’t like that unfortunately. I have been considering this since about halfway through this book and I still can’t make up my mind. Am I hitting a bad run of Strieber or is he really just not for me? Is he really boring like this book? If he is, do I dare give him a 3rd chance? Cat Magic was also very boring, so you know what? I’m done with Strieber. I’ll leave him to those who want him.
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: Universe 2 Series: Universe Anthology #2 Author: Terry Carr (ed) Rating: 3 of 5 Stars Genre: SF Pages: 231 Words: 70K
Marginally better than the previous volume, but with some of the names involved, I expected a LOT better. Here’s the TOC:
RETROACTIVE by Bob Shaw
WHEN WE WENT TO SEE THE END OF THE WORLD by Robert Silverberg
FUNERAL SERVICE by Gerard F. Conway
A SPECIAL CONDITION IN SUMMIT CITY by R. A. Lafferty
PATRON OF THE ARTS by William Rotsler
USEFUL PHRASES FOR THE TOURIST by Joanna Russ
ON THE DOWNHILL SIDE by Harlan Ellison
THE OTHER PERCEIVER by Pamela Sargent
MY HEAD’S IN A DIFFERENT PLACE, NOW by Grania Davis
STALKING THE SUN by Gordon Eklund
THE MAN WHO WAVED HELLO by Gardner R. Dozois
THE HEADLESS MAN by Gene Wolfe
TIGER BOY by Edgar Pangborn
The weirdest, out there, completely bonzo’d gourd story was without a doubt the one by Grania Davis. A couple of druggies go to Mexico or South America, or some place south of California and get stoned out of their gourd and eventually turn into monsters. It was very disturbing, mainly because they had a young daughter (toddler age).
However, I still am not sold on this series. I’ll give it one more book to try to actually interest me but if it doesn’t, I’m going to have to call it quits. I’d probably be better off quitting now but I don’t have another anthology series lined up and I want that. Now that I just wrote that, that is absolutely silly. I would be better served simply not reading something than something that is sub-par, like this Universes series. So I’m done.
And this is one reason WHY I write reviews as well as rate the books I read. Being introspective sometimes takes time to allow my thoughts to stop swirling and to settle and that is when I have moments of clarity like the above paragraph.
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
Cain gets involved in stopping a group of renegade humans who want to help the alien Tau by destroying the flagship that is protecting the human’s world. They all die, Cain and Jurgen escape and Cain looks like a hero.
I like that these Cain stories deal with other villains than just the Ruinous Powers (ie, the demons from the warp) that characterized the Gaunt’s Ghost series. It is also quite interesting to see humanity rejecting the Tau because they are aliens and not humans. Their tech is better, their world/universe view seems to have a greater chance of surviving in the long term but even Cain just rejects them categorically. It shows how much the Empire of Man has truly become an Empire of the Emperor. Kind of depressing, but then, the whole point of the Warhammer 40K universe is to be depressing. Thank goodness Cain lightens things up.
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 Void War Series: Empire Rising #1 Author: David Holmes Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars Genre: SF Pages: 339 Words: 132K
Sometime in the year 3000 there is a Human Empire and some blathering idiot of a historian decides to chronicle the Rise of the Empire. Thankfully, we get a science fiction novel that tells a good cracking, exciting and interesting story instead of a dry history filled only with names, dates and statistical data. As you can probably tell, I am not a fan of history books (sorry Matt, they’re all yours!).
The Little (disgraced) Rich Boy makes good and starts becoming Somebody. Along the way he helps defeat Space Communists (Yaaaaaaaaaaaay!!!!!!) but doesn’t get to marry the Princess (Boooooooo!). However, Ensign “Chickie Boo” Underling is standing in the wings and while they hate each other at first, it’s all a big misunderstanding and so by book’s end they are besties. (Awwwwwwww!)
Everything is based on The British Navy, in Spaaaaaaace! (say that while remembering the Muppet’s skit, Pigs in Spaaaaaace). Jack Campell did this first with his Black Jack Geary aka Lost Fleet series, but unlike Campbell, Holmes skips all the boring bits (like waiting 6hrs for space missiles to actually arrive or waiting 6hrs to shoot your own space missiles) and thus we zoom along at a pretty good breakneck pace. (don’t try shooting missiles at home, kids. That is not Batman & Robin approved behavior!)
I look forward to reading more in this series and hope it stays as good as this book was.
The church I was attending at the time celebrated the 3 major feasts that are written about in the Old Testament in the Bible. It was a time to gather together, meet old friends, go to meetings (and boy howdy, there were a lot of meetings), and meet new friends. It was also one of the best times to introduce someone, as the grapevine was pretty alive. So everybody who knew me got to meet Miss Library. It really was obvious we were in love and that marriage was inevitable, but I was so introspective (too much so and still am) that I “wasn’t sure”. It really took me awhile to realize just how in love I was with her.
I was a library regular. Every weekend I’d go to the library and load up on books to read for the week. One of my big fears was running out of books to read during the week, so I always took a big stack. I became a familiar and knew the librarians and got to know the Head Librarian. So it wasn’t a big stretch to get them to open the Wadlicus up one Sunday afternoon so I could “show” Miss Library the library and spring the proposal. She tells me she had no idea. I believe her because she’s very similar to me in the subtlety regards, ie, we’re as subtle as hammers. But it was perfect. We both loved books and what could be more fitting than a proposal in a whole building dedicated to books?
Stay tuned for next week’s post-wedding adventure in… The Land of Snow and Ice!
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: Latency Series: Hunter Bureau #2 Author: Blaze Ward Rating: 2 of 5 Stars Genre: SF Pages: 197 Words: 62K
When I read and reviewed the first book, I mentioned that there were key words or phrases that usually only came from a political side that was completely opposed to everything I stand for in terms of morals, principles and guiding principles. So instead of either brushing it off or making a mountain out of a molehill, as I was reading, I just highlighted stuff that caught my eye. That’s mostly what this review will contain, is quotes from the book. I am not trying to provide context within the story or anything like that. I’m planning on hiding it all behind the Details code so you don’t have to read it if you don’t want to.
Location 147: (speaking of handguns)Greyson’s grandfather had had something like that, demilled when the aliens decided to make humans safer.
Location 378: Back when the US was a thing and had an army they liked to sic on weaker nations.
Location 611: be allowed
Location 726: And they hadn’t done androgynous in those days. Being less than stridently hetero in the late 20th Century was an invitation to get beat up. Fucking barbarians.
Location 793: The bits that were left were generally the ones the Army had found useful as tools. Deliberate cruelty. Premeditated self-defense.
Location 972: Universal Basic Income kept people from starving,
Location 1184: Mostly, ex-special forces, so knuckleheads who liked to solve problems with extreme firepower.
Location 1332: Honest men got no reason to bolt,
Location 1904: Superfast trains had already worked in other countries because the governments had been able to get right of way. In the old United States, NIMBY had delayed everything for so long that it was never economical to actually build. Not In My Back Yard. Then the middle-class bastards had the audacity to complain about bad roads and crowded….
Location 2135: Greyson was just old enough to remember the great awakening in this culture, when everyone discovered that there were more options than white-bread hetero. Folks like that had always been there, but for the longest time the power structure in his country had come down hard on anyone deviating from the strict party line, both legally as well as socially.
Location 2277: would still be the rest of his lifetime and maybe all of Rachel’s before the planet started cooling down again, but hopefully they’d managed to save it in time.
Location 2686: Back in the bleak days of a War on Crime that was a thinly-veiled War on Black People that had started before 1618 and never really been forced to subside until aliens landed and threatened to crack heads together.
Location 2849: Sandwiches he brought from home instead of lunch out.
Location 2927: where a young white boy like him had had no business being.
Location 2951: But then, most men didn’t know how to deal with a woman who was tougher than they were, and probably smarter.
Location 3206: If Greyson had shown some of his otherwise private political leanings with the places he had mailed his packages, that was between him and God. And God supposedly loved everyone, so Greyson figured he was on safe ground
I read to the end of the book and with all of those quotes decided that I won’t be reading any more by Mister Blaze Ward. Now I just have to figure out what I’m going to replace this series with. Choices, choices, choices.
This week my father asked me to get ChatGPT to write a two-page report on the efficacy of green leucaena seeds for controlling gastro-intestinal parasites (worms) in children. He could have done it himself but you how oldies are with new technology so I duly obliged. ChatGPT spat out a report that was very good […]
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: Mansions of the Gods Series: Asterix #17 Authors: Goscinny & Uderzo Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars Genre: Comics Pages: 53 Words: 3K
Caesar has the VERY clever idea of surrounding the Gaul’s village with luxury roman apartments and thus subsuming the Gauls culturally. He sends his best architect and a whole galley of slaves (former pirates) to cut down the forest and build the Mansions of the Gods.
Of course, the problem is that the Gauls can regrow trees overnight, beat the stuffing out of the roman soldiers AND give magic potion to the slaves. Not even this though is enough to overcome Caesar’s plans and a mansion is built and tenanted (even if it’s that or the circus maximus!). When Cacofonix the bard empties the building of regular tenants, the soldiers move in and then the Gaul’s attack en masse and destroy the building. The architect gives up and the gauls replant the forest over the ruins.
I thought the idea was quite a workable one (culturally subsuming a small group of hold outs) but it can take generations. The Amish are a good example. They have held out (and continue to do so) against modern civilization, but as a group they are slowly shrinking and are being forced to make changes simply to continue to exist.
Goscinny and Urderzo make this a quick, funny event and everything turns out ok for the Gauls this time, but my cynical adult self realizes that what was proposed here is what would eventually happen if this were real. Since it is NOT real however, I can laugh at Obelix accidentally planting a magic acorn in the middle of Asterix’s house and them all eating dinner 100 feet up in the air 😀
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 City of Water, Water Seven Series: One Piece #34 Arc: Water Seven #3 Author: Eiichiro Oda Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars Genre: Manga Pages: 230 Words: 10K
The Straw Hats win the Davy Back Fight and sail on to the island of Seven Waters where there is a whole city of shipwrights to work on the Merry Go. The shipwrights show their power and the Straw Hats convert all the gold into ready cash and immediately start having robbery attempts on them.
While the end of the Fight was stupid, the introduction to the shipwrights was as madcap as I could want in the One Piece world. And Luffy’s response was just what I would expect from him, as evinced by this panel:
I now have higher hopes for this Water Seven arc than I did when it started out. That makes me happy.
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: Conan the Defender Series: Conan the Barbarian Author: Robert Jordan Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars Genre: Fantasy Pages: 193 Words: 65K
This is a direct sequel to the previous Conan book, Conan the Invincible. More in terms of characters than in plot. Conan gets together with the prince of the bandits from the previous book and they go to some city and try to earn gold as guards. There’s a revolution brewing and a sorcerer is the prime mover and shaker and Conan works out said sorcerer is using the revolutionaries (who are the spares of rich royal families and thus have nothing to do) as patsies. When he reveals they get all butt hurt and toss him out. He goes to work for the king and runs across the Queen of the Bandits from the previous book. He also comes into conflict with the sorcerer and with wit and mighty thews bests him. Everyone realizes Conan was right about everything and peace reigns supreme. The end.
My goodness. Jordan knows how to write some pulp here. If I had been in a more scathing mood I’d probably have trashed this 6 ways from Sunday. But as I was rather raw inside at the time of reading, the simple hack, slash and bash of Conan outpowering everyone was like a balm upon my heart. Conan’s ability to literally cut his way through any and all problems is what I WISH I could do today. Sadly, it just doesn’t work that way. And it really doesn’t work that way for little chubby bald guys who don’t like people 😉
This stuff is pure wish fulfillment and I enjoy it as such.
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 Vicar of Nibbleswick Authors: Roald Dahl Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars Genre: Childrens Fiction Pages: 6 Words: 1K
I have no idea how this story got to be on its own instead of being folded into some sort of collection. Be that as it may, this feels like a good ending to my Dahl re-read. Short and sweet and amusing.
The Vicar says words backwards and Dahl has a blast figuring out language tricks to make things sound not just nonsensical but actually correct grammatically while being totally wrong in what the poor Vicar is trying to say. One funny instance is him trying to tell the congregation not to “park” their cars alongside the front of the church but to use the back parking lot. I laughed, as it comes out like telling them to not krap in front of the church, hahahhaa. Good stuff!
Having started my Dahl re-read back in December of ‘21 with Matilda, which is close to being one of his longest books, like I mentioned at first, this short story felt like a great way to finish things up. I’ve enjoyed this almost year and a half journey of exploring Dahl all over again but I’ve realized that I probably won’t do it again on my own. I feel like Dahl has a magic circle that his books work in and I’ve simply aged out of that circle. They are still wonderful and amusing stories and I’ll remember them very fondly, but I am now done.
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 Return of Santiago Series: Santiago #2 Author: Mike Resnick Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars Genre: SF Pages: 278 Words: 122K
So, a hundred or two years after the first Santiago book, some small time thief discovers the original manuscript from Black Orpheus and decides that he wants to become his successor, a Dante. So he realizes that he needs a Santiago to center the continuing poem around sets out to find one. With the help of some colorful characters he attempts to recruit various bigger than life characters to become Santiago only to realize that each one is pretty flawed each time. Eventually, with the help of his co-horts hitting him over the head with it, he realizes HE is the new Santiago.
Santiago was published in 1986 and was a completely standalone novel. Return was published in ‘03 and did a bit of fancy dancy stuff to make it possible to need a “return of Santiago”. While I still enjoyed this, it simply wasn’t in the same league as the first book and really felt like Resnick was trying to recapture the magic (and failing). Thankfully, he doesn’t recycle the same set of characters as was presented in the first book, so that was good. But none of them quite lived up the engaging’ness of the cast of characters we met in the first book.
If you liked Santiago, then I would recommend Return if you really need to be a completionist. However, I would strongly caution you to think twice, as this just isn’t as good. Not bad, but not as good.
After I had gotten permission to court Mrs B (Miss Librarian at the time), we decided it was time for her family to meet me. So we all (Mr and Mrs Parental Pod, Sir Grumpy, Miss Librarian and me) went to Hawaii for a week. The incident described above really happened. Mrs Parental Pod was driving us and I had nervous energy from being on the plane and me and my friends had always played the points game. Basically, you would describe how you would/could hit a pedestrian or bicyclist and we made up rules about how many points. Old ladies were worth the most but if you could convince everyone else in the car that you could make a bicyclist bounce or even double hit them (car doors were very popular in the game), you could get triple points, thus increasing your score very quickly. Unfortunately, if you don’t have a dark sense of humor, well, the game cross across as very macabre at best and downright psychopathic at worst. It was probably one of the worst blunders I made in our relationship and it had barely begun.
But it was Hawaii. So between the sunshine and everything, it was ok. We went traveling every day and packed in a lot of sight seeing. We visited the Polynesian Cultural Center one day and that is what the title is based on. They had these big man-made waterfalls with tiki torches all along them so you had fire and water all together and it was beautiful. I took a ukulele lesson and Miss Librarian sang “You are my Sunshine” while I bravely tried to accompany her on said ukulele. We visited Pearl Harbor, some beaches and the Dole Plantation. We also visited Admiral and Mrs Stamps, which was great. Admiral Stamps had been a freshman during my senior bibleschool year and we had a good bond. Throw in that Miss Librarian and I had met at their wedding and well, they had a lot of gratitude from us.
And that is our little adventure in the Land of Fire and Water. Stay tuned when we return next week with a life changing visit to The Libraricus!
