We got an intern for the summer. Which means a new meat bag to grind up. It was my privilege to do the grinding this time and that meant I was back to working 45+hrs a week instead of 40. Which is wonderful for the paycheck.
We really needed it. We had to buy a new mattress because our previous one was from ’06. Mattresses cost a lot more than they used to, that is a stone cold fact! Plus, the first mattress we bought ended up giving both of us back pain and bad dreams (it was simply too firm), so we’re in the process of exchanging it for another that is a good bit softer.
We also found out that we need to replace a couple of windows in our condo because of frame rot, so that is going to be a bundle too. So everything I’m earning by getting overtime is already being spent before I’ve earned it. I just hope our cars don’t break down.
So because of my extra working time, my reading time dropped. It is probably going to stay that way through August. That lack of reading time is really going to take care of my problem about posting so much. So no need for an extra blog or to come up with some other convoluted solution. As one wise commenter said (even though I think they were being snarky) “Post less”. Sometimes the simplest solutions are the best.
Now for the not so easy (for me) stuff.
My eye. It continued to be effected for most of the month. On the 21st the Doctor decided that it WAS getting better and thus surgery (slicing and dicing kind of eye surgery) wasn’t necessary and that the regular treatments of laser cauterizations and chemical injections were still the order of the day. You have no idea the weight that was taken off of my shoulders with that decision.
There were 1 or 2 blogging things that revolved around people that got me down too. Any other month I probably would have just shrugged it off, but with the potential bills piling up, my eye still not working correctly and being tired from crew chief’ing at work, I just didn’t have the buffer to deal with things. It hit me a lot harder emotionally than normal. While reading is my main personal hobby, blogging is my main social outlet and I rely on it a lot more than I care to admit sometimes. My need for people isn’t great, but it is intense. I am much more akin to the SS Minnow than I am to the USS Destroyer and so even little waves can swamp me.
Cover Love:
Strange Company takes the award for Cover Love easily. While I didn’t like the book (2stars and I felt like I was being generous), that cover is just awesome.
Plans for Next Month:
Well, July is going to be a very different month in terms of blogging. I didn’t post quite so much in June as I did in May. That trajectory is going to be continuing, but more deliberately. I have one more One Piece review for July and then I’m taking a break from manga. I really need it. Not just different manga, but a cessation from it. I’ll still be reading my comics though. So starting the second week in July Tuesdays are going to be left open. Not for “extra” posts but just as a blank space so I don’t feel pressured.
I am leaving Saturday and Sunday’s open for misc posts and if one of those days come up and I haven’t written anything, that’ll be another blank day. I just don’t expect to be around the blogosphere quite as much in July. Not on my blog anyway. I’m still going to haunt yours and threaten you all with a strontium bat studded with depleted uranium nails.
Because what are friends for after all?
I am going to be starting some of the X-Men movies as my next movie review series. I’ll do the original trilogy and probably the Wolverine trilogy. Remind me of when Superhero movies were still fun :-/
I have started the process to get my site indexed fully by Google. It is going to be a massive undertaking and is going to be one of those misc projects I have going on in the background for the next couple of years. None of you should notice anything though. Except my ego getting even bigger as I finally get the google recognition I know I deserve 😉
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
Oh yeah!!!! THIS is how the series should have been going all along. Non-stop action with talk’y bits to explain stuff, but it is all on topic! Every single thing advanced the story line and I wasn’t having my chained yanked with stupid kids running around an abandoned city playing pranks or other such crap. Lust appears to be killed. For real. Now, whether she stays dead or whatever I have no idea, but Roy Mustang destroyed the philosophers stone that was her heart, so I hope she’s dead for good.
We found out for sure that the creator of the homunculi is Big Daddy Elric. He unplugs himself from a massive machine and goes to his house where Edward meets him at the end of the volume. More mentions are made of the “human sacrifice” needed and Edward comes across a country that was destroyed in one day. He finds a wall carving that looks very similar to alchemical circles but slightly different. My guess is that the leaders of the country opened the Big Scary Door and it destroyed their country. We’ll see.
Now, the humor wasn’t lacking in this issue. It was just saved for the “extras” at the end, where it belongs! I laughed my head off.
Chapter 41: On the Palm of an Arrogant Human Being
“Barry the Chopper, the psychopathic killer whose soul is encased in a suit of armor, has been captured by Colonel Mustang’s troops. Fearing he will reveal the Philosopher’s Stone conspiracy, Gluttony and Lust decide to kill him, using Barry’s own original soulless body to track him down! Though Colonel Mustang has anticipated their moves and set up an ambush, Gluttony and Lust prove too powerful and easily fight their way through to Barry, who is being protected by Al and Lieutenant Hawkeye. In a terrible battle, a badly injured Colonel Mustang sacrifices all in a last-ditch attempt to stop Lust!”
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: Strange Company Series: Strange Company #1 Author: Nick Cole Rating: 2 of 5 Stars Genre: SF Pages: 419 Words: 150K
~huff~ Well then. When I was reading the Forgotten Ruin series, I wondered which author to blame for the style it was written in, Jason Anspach or Nick Cole. This book answered that in spades. It fell squarely on Nick Cole’s shoulders. It was all his fault and this book was completely his fault, as he was sole author here.
Let me be clear. This was not badly written. It was not poorly executed. But it was written in a style that I detest and in a manner that I’ll only read over my own dead body from here on out. Much like Solzhenitsyn’s Experiment, this was my own Literary Experiment in Masochism. It was a complete success. Or failure, if you’re a normal person.
And that cover? I love that cover. A lot! If the book had been even 1/10th as awesome, well, it would have been awesome. Pooh.
This was some SF space version of Forgotten Ruin. We have our narrator who tells us everything except that cool action’y stuff we want to read about. Do you want to know the big secret lie that the nigh immortal rulers of the galaxy have been hiding and is about to be divulged to Strange Company? Too bad. You get the story of why a kid joined Strange Company. Who promptly dies on the next page. Now is that awesome or what? And can I get a “please repeat that gung-ho military as many times as possible please” while I’m at it? I can? Fantastic. Nothing is more awesome than a catch phrase used ad nauseum.
This has confirmed to me that Jason Anspach is the storyteller behind the Galaxy’s Edge duo and that Nick Cole is whatever he is. It also has shown me that if I start a new series by them and I don’t like the first book, that series will never change and I will never end up liking it. That’s not a bad thing to learn.
There is a second book, but I would rather cut my own throat with a rusty spoon, scoop out my esophagus with said spoon and then eat it than read that second book. Nick Cole gets no more chances from me.
★★☆☆☆
From the Publisher
Stack bodies, get paid, get to the ship.
“If you can survive Reaper Platoon in the Strange, then Ghost or Dog Platoons will get you for their own. Best to steer clear of the freaks in Voodoo, kid.”
Surrounded and outgunned, a group of private military contractors known as “Strange Company” find themselves on a remote planet at the edge of known space, and on the losing end of a bad contract. Orbital D-beam strikes, dropships bristling with auto-guns, missiles, and troops – even Monarch space marines in state-of-the-art advanced battle rattle – will try to prevent the company from reaching the exfil LZ and getting off-world.
For Strange, that means it’s time to hang tough and get it on with as much hyper-kinetic violence as they can muster to get clear of the whole mess. And what the Strange can’t get done by violent assault and crazy firefights, they’ll get done by the freaks of Voodoo Platoon – operators who have been changed by the Dark Labs into powerful and unnervingly unnatural asymmetrical weapons.
This is the Strange Company. Because in the Strange, it’s always really Strange. Join them – and get ready for full auto combat at the furthest limits of human exploration
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 Greater Good Series: WH40K: Ciaphas Cain #9 Authors: Sandy Mitchell Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars Genre: SF Pages: 307 Words: 102K
First off, that supposed synopsis from the Lexicanum is just the cover blurb and it is pathetic. I have no idea why some Cain fan hasn’t written an indepth synopsis seven pages long. I mean, this book came out in 2013, that’s been a whole decade for some basement dweller to get bored enough to do that. Come on guys, you’re letting me down here!
While the alien Tau are touted (their whole culture relies on the principle of The Greater Good), they don’t actually have much to do with the novel itself. One of them goes along with Cain as a political liason when Humanity fights a boatload of Tyranids, but that’s it. I was hoping for a whole novel of Cain and some guard units fighting them.
Instead, we get some ultra-stupid Cogboys (the Adeptus Mechanicus) and Ultra-Marines who think they can experiment on the tyranids in safety. Of course, whenever someone makes a dumb decision about the gene-stealing tyranids, that is a big fat sign that someone has been infected by them. And surprise, surprise (no it actually isn’t!), the head cog-girl was infected from some other time. So the planet is not only being invaded by tyranids from space, but it is also being potentially over-run by others already on the planet. What a mess. Cain is able to get everyone to work together and kill so many tyranids that I lost count and hurray and frabjous joy, The Imperium of Man pulls a win out of its collective backside.
This was fun to read. There is no shortage of action, tons of bolter blasting by the ultra-marines, tons of Cain cutting up tyranids with his chainsword and plenty of his aid Jurgen stinking up every room he goes into. In short, this was a perfect Ciaphas Cain novel. Since the last CC book, I have managed to track down the last CC novel so I’ll be reading that next. Then I have a book of short stories about various Tau characters and then I’ll take a break from Warhammer 40,000 until next year.
For various reasons, I have decided to put the ‘synopsis’ part down below. This will be my new SOP for reviews from here on out. End Report ~ Commissar Bookstooge
★★★✬☆
From Wh40k.lexicanum.com
When the world of Quadravidia comes under attack by the insidious tau, only one man can defeat the aliens and save the planet in the Emperor’s name: the legendary Hero of the Imperium, Commissar Ciaphas Cain. When the aliens call for a ceasefire, Cain expects the worst, and his fears are answered in the form of the dread menace of the tyranids. As a hive fleet approaches Quadravidia, Cain must try to forge an alliance between the Imperium and the tau – but can he truly trust the inscrutable xenos?
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 Castle of Llyr Series: The Prydain Chronicles #3 Author: Lloyd Alexander Rating: 5 of 5 Stars Genre: Fantasy Pages: 102 Words: 43K
From Wikipedia.org
Eighteen months after the destruction of the Black Cauldron, Dallben the enchanter has decided that Eilonwy, as a princess and last of the line of the House of Llyr, needs a proper royal lady’s education that he cannot provide. He sends her to reside at Dinas Rhydnant, a royal court on the Isle of Mona, in the west of Prydain. Taran and Gurgi escort her to Mona on a ship belonging to Prince Rhun, a cheerful but incompetent youth. Taran is finally aware of his feelings for Eilonwy, but is saddened that he is a commoner and she a princess and envies Rhun’s noble birth.
While Eilonwy is introduced to the tedium of life at court, Taran encounters his old companion Fflewddur Fflam—a minor king who lives as a wandering bard—and a shoemaker who turns out to be Prince Gwydion, traveling incognito. Gwydion tells Taran that Eilonwy is in grave danger, very likely from the evil sorceress Achren, from whom Taran and Eilonwy escaped in The Book of Three. Taran and Gwydion witness Chief Steward Magg leave the castle at night to signal a ship at sea. The next morning, Magg and Eilonwy do not show for breakfast and it is concluded that Magg has kidnapped the princess. King Rhuddlum organizes search parties, with Prince Rhun in charge of one. The king assigns Taran to the same group and personally asks him to protect his son Rhun during the search, confiding to Taran that he and Queen Teleria hope to betroth their son to Eilonwy. Although resentful and envious, Taran vows to ensure Rhun’s safety.
Shortly before dusk, Rhun separates from the group. Taran, Fflewddur, and Gurgi pursue, and the next morning they find Rhun at an abandoned hut in the woods. Inside, they find a small book of blank pages that Rhun keeps for himself, along with a sheaf of notes belonging to the former resident, Glew, a man who experimented with size-enhancement potions. As the companions prepare to leave, they come face to face with Llyan, a mountain cat that Glew made larger than a horse, seemingly intending to eat them. Fflewddur entrances the cat with his harp playing, allowing the companions to escape.
Taran’s pet crow Kaw spots Magg and Eilonwy heading for the river Alaw on horseback. Reaching the river, Rhun finds Eilonwy’s bauble and tracks indicating Magg and Eilonwy continued their journey by boat. The companions hastily construct a raft to follow downstream, but it disintegrates before reaching the mouth of the river. While repairing the raft, Rhun tumbles into a deep pit and causes a landslide that traps the group. Exploring nearby caverns, the companions eventually find Glew, who is now a giant trapped in the caverns by his enhanced size. The companions promise him Dallben’s aid in creating an antidote to his potion, while Glew promises to lead them out of the caverns. Instead, Glew takes the companions to a dead-end and traps them. Glew explains he already knows how to make an antidote that will decrease his size, but he must kill one of the companions for a final ingredient. Glew leaves, promising to free the others if one of them agrees to be a sacrifice for his antidote. Rhun surprises everyone by volunteering to sacrifice himself, believing he is burden to all and incompetent to rule.
Before Glew returns, the companions notice an exit above their heads and convince Rhun to let them help him reach it. As he escapes, Rhun promises to return to the city and bring help. When Glew returns, Taran, Fflewddur, and Gurgi break out and attack him. Rhun does not leave the area but instead doubles back, guided by the light of Eilonwy’s bauble. Having grown accustomed to the darkness of the caverns, Glew is overwhelmed by the bauble’s light, allowing the companions to escape. Taran discovers that under the light of the bauble, Rhun’s book of blank pages is revealed to be filled with writing, though none of them can read the language.
Reaching the mouth of Alaw on the reconstructed raft, the companions reunite with Gwydion, who reveals that he has visited the northeast offshore ruin of Caer Colur, the ancestral home of the House of Llyr, where Eilonwy’s grandmother Queen Regat was the last in the line of women to reign. Against Regat’s wishes, Eilonwy’s mother, Angharad, married the common man Geraint and left Caer Colur, taking a book of the House of Llyr’s most powerful enchantments, as well as the Golden Pelydryn necessary to read them. Gwydion tells Taran and the companions that Eilonwy’s bauble is, in fact, the long-lost Golden Pelydryn, and that the book of seemingly blank pages found in Glew’s house is actually Angharad’s book of spells. Gwydion explains that Eilonwy had not been sent to live with Achren to study magic as a child, as Eilonwy had believed; rather, Achren had kidnapped the princess and taken her to Spiral Castle with the intention of harnessing the House of Llyr’s magic for her own ends.
Gwydion explains he has seen Achren, Magg, and Eilonwy arrive at Caer Colur with several mercenary guards. Achren hopes to rule Prydain by controlling Eilonwy’s mind while also awakening her full ancestral magical power. That night, Gwydion rows their raft to a point of land below the seaward walls that protect the ruins of Caer Colur from the being flooded by the ocean, hiding the book and bauble before they begin their search for the princess. Taran climbs to the tower room where Eilonwy resides, only to find that she does not recognize him or the names of her former companions. She flees from her room and Taran follows, but he is arrested by Magg. Gwydion, Fflewddur, and Gurgi then struggle with Magg and several guards, until Eilonwy and Achren appear, the princess now fully under the witch’s control. Achren needs the spell book to master her control of the House of Llyr’s magic, and Rhun stupidly reveals that he and the companions know its location. Achren turns to Taran and offers a bargain: she will restore Eilonwy’s memories of him and allow them to wed if the young man helps her acquire the book and bauble. Rather than force Taran to decide or be punished for refusing, Gwydion reveals the location of the items.
Eilonwy is given the two heirlooms and begins to examine the book in the light of the bauble. While doing so, she begins to resist Achren’s spell. Calling upon the full power of the Pelydryn, she incinerates the book in a column of crimson flame rather than let it be abused. Achren aims her fury at Magg, who responds by opening the gates that protect the castle from the sea. He then escapes on the only ship with his surviving guards. As the castle floods, Taran loses consciousness.
Taran awakes to discover the companions have reached the shallows alive, thanks to the still-enchanted Llyan pulling them up the beach. Eilonwy explains how she was kidnapped by Magg and lost her bauble en route to Caer Colur. Before leaving the sea, she finds a ceremonial horn that has washed ashore, remarking that this artifact is “all that’s left of Caer Colur.” She gives the horn to Taran as token of her pledge that she will not forget him during her tenure at Dinas Rhydnant. Having no gift of his own to give to her, Taran can pledge only his word in return, but notes that the word of an Assistant Pig-Keeper “shall do very well indeed.” Taran then mentions the hope of Prince Rhun’s parents that he and Eilonwy will be engaged. Eilonwy scolds him for taking such a hope seriously.
I am absolutely loving this re-read. Every book so far has lived beyond my expectations from my 2006 read. Simple but solid literary fare, lacking the seasoning of a Sanderson that book gluttons have come to expect now, but giving a reader everything they actually need without all the extraneous literary fat that eventually kills. We are a world of ultra-obese readers, enabling authors to shove literary fat directly down our throats. We are the enablers of our own destruction. Well, you all are the enablers. I’m a lone voice in the wilderness, eating locusts and honey telling you fatsos to kick the habit. I don’t expect you to listen to me though.
Ok, enough of that! (for this review anyway)
This introduced the romance element in an age appropriate manner. Both Taran and Eilonwy are growing up and to ignore this part of life would be an oversight on the author’s part. He is showing both these characters becoming adults and I think he handles it quite well. Besides the series long growth arc of both Taran and Eilonwy, we also got a mini-arc of Prince Rhun. He’s a bumbling doofus, not because he’s stupid, but just because he’s one of those people who don’t quite go as smoothly through life as the rest of us. But by the end you could see he was beginning to find his footing. That was really good to see.
While I suspect I would not be giving these books 5stars if I was reading them for the first time now, the fact that I am re-reading them, enjoying them and finding a much needed respite from bloated series, bloated stories and even, “world building” (gasp! Say it ain’t so!), means I having the time of my life with these.
On a side note, I am going to start using a regular star rating in the title of my posts. Google Search Console is choking its guts out over my use of “★” in the title because WordPress will redirect any search queries to a version of the page without them as it comes out as a long-ass string of text. I just have to go and complicate things, don’t I? Well, c’est la vie…
Previously on “Blogshido: The Way of the Blogger” I discussed my reasoning for doing my monthly roundup & ramblings posts. Today, I would like to discuss another aspect of blogshido, namely, commenting.
Taekwondo is a martial art form where, according to wikipedia, “punching and kicking techniques, with emphasis on head-height kicks, spinning jump kicks, and fast kicking techniques.” are the way to victory. That tells me that taekwondo isn’t fooling around. It is short, it is sharp, it is trying to get it’s job done in the fastest and deadliest way possible. In martial arts, you’re trying to destroy your opponent and taekwondo excels at that.
I rigorously practice taekommentdo every day. I might go so far as to say that besides the main art of blogshido, that taekommentdo is the particular art of blogging that I love the most. But just like all other aspects of Blogshido, it is highly personalized. I have gone so far down the path of taekommentdo that my mastery of this form might look completely different from another master’s form. My foundational belief is that no comment is wasted. Just like a punch, it doesn’t matter if it breaks your opponents ribcage or not, they are forced to react and thus you can control the battle. The same principle applies to taekommentdo. When I leave a comment on someone’s post, I have taken control of the blogging narrative. A good opponent will know how to roll with that and thus can begin a long and enjoyable battle. But sometimes a quick kick to the nads is all that is needed and the battle is done.
Whatever form you choose to master in taekommentdo, the most essential part is practice, practice, practice. Your words are your weapons. Only you can use them. Do not let them rust and tarnish from disuse. Keep them sharp and shiny by constant use. Thus you will grow the will of a warrior deep inside yourself. Plus, it’s easier to kick someone’s head off if you practice doing that everyday. Otherwise you’re liable to pull a hamstring. Do not let Master Fnog’s prophecy be true about you!
Sensei Bookstooge will now dismiss you all to practice.
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 Friend of the Family Series: (The Russians) Author: Fyodor Dostoyevsky Translator: Garnett Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars Genre: Fiction Pages: 190 Words: 60K
From Wikipedia:
Sergey Alexandrovich, the narrator, is summoned from St. Petersburg to the estate of his uncle, Colonel Yegor Ilyich Rostanev, and finds that a middle-aged charlatan named Foma Fomich Opiskin has swindled the nobles around him into believing that he is virtuous despite behavior that is passive-aggressive, selfish, and spiteful. Foma obliges the servants to learn French, and gets furious when they are caught dancing the kamarinskaya.
Uncle Yegor asks Sergey to marry the poor young girl Nastenka. It turns out Uncle Yegor is in love with her himself, but Foma wants him to marry the wealthy Tatyana Ivanova instead. Tatyana has several other suitors, including Mizinchikov, who confides in Sergey about his plans to elope with her.
The next morning Tatyana has eloped, not with Mizinchikov but with Obnoskin, who acted under the influence of his mother. After a pursuit Tatyana returns voluntarily. At Stepanchikovo Foma Fomich is furious because Uncle Yegor has been caught red-handed during an assignation in the garden with Nastenka. Foma leaves, but falls into a ditch. The inhabitants beg him to come back. A general reconciliation follows after Foma, manipulating as ever, gives his blessing to a marriage between Uncle Yegor and Nastenka.
This has an alternate title, The Village of Stepanchikovo, but I decided to go with the more western friendly title. Because there is no way I am EVER going to remember a title with Stepanchikovo in the title. 5 flipping syllables folks, for one word. While the title I chose has only 6 syllables in the entire title. Maybe if I was russian Stepanchikovo (I copy/pasted the alternate title from wikipedia and even now have to look at that to figure out to spell the blasted name) would roll off my tongue and be as easy to remember as, say, Quarryville, but I am not russian and so it doesn’t roll off my tongue and it is not as easy to remember as Quarryville.
This was supposed to be an amusing, ironic and biting read. We’re supposed to laugh at the idiocy of Foma ruling the roosts even though he is just a guest and a very poor guest at that. We’re supposed to chuckle at the poor Uncle who is over run by his mother, Foma (the “friend” in the title) and pretty much everyone.
Unfortunately, I didn’t find it particularly amusing. The Uncle and the Nephew (the narrator) are both spineless men who won’t stand up to anyone about anything. While the book is supposed to be showcasing Foma as a caricature, I really found the portrayal of the uncle and nephew more enlightening and rather sad. I wanted to shake both of them by the neck several times and by the end just wanted the story to end. Even though the uncle gets his way about getting married to the girl he loves, Foma still manipulates everything so he gets to stay in the house until he dies. What a free loader!
Speaking of the uncle and marriage. He’s in his mid-40’s I think (it’s kind of tough to tell but since his mother is still alive and he has a nephew in his 20’s, that seems right) and several times he’s just presented as this super old guy, even though Foma is older than him and his mother is still alive. And then he marries the poor governess, who is 17. They wuuuuuuv each other. But I just don’t see how that kind of age difference works out except in exceptional cases. I’m in my mid-40’s and know some teenagers and I’d sooner marry a grandma than one of them. No offense to them, but the generation gap feels very large every time I interact with them. For example. I was talking with some of them about movies and one of the girls brought up the movie Call of the Wild. I asked if it was based on the book by Jack London. None of them knew who Jack London was. Then I asked who was in the movie. Another girl named Actor X, who was in Movie/tv show Y. I had no idea who they were talking about. Once home I googled it. Flipping Harrison Ford was in the cast and that didn’t cross their radar at all. They don’t know who Han Solo is. They don’t know who Indiana Jones is.
I realize that with technology, generation gaps happen quicker and closer together now. Maybe back in Russia in the 1800’s it wasn’t the same, but Fathers and Sons explores that very issue and shows it WAS a real issue for them just as it is for me today. So that was a niggle in the back of my mind.
I can see why this isn’t famous like some of Dostoyevsky’s other works but it was a valuable read in terms of broadening my horizons and become more familiar with his works. We’ll see if I even remember anything about this story in 5 years though, hahahahhaa (when I’m senile!)
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
Annie Boone is dead. She was shot four times in the chest, pieces of the liquor store’s windows spread over her body like raindrops from a lethal storm. For 87th Precinct Detectives Carella, Kling, and newcomer Hawes, even more troubling is the loss of one of their own. Detective Roger Havilland is murdered shortly thereafter, a shard of glass through his jugular.
Faced with a host of suspects—from Annie’s former mother-in-law to her ex-husband, employer, and a string of boyfriends—the detectives find themselves with a victim whose identity spurns all conventional definition. She was the store’s saleswoman…as well as a divorced mother, pool shark, society lady, drunk, and patron of the ballet. Each facet of her life has a corresponding potential suspect. The only way for Carella and the men to find her killer—and maybe that of Havilland, too—is to find out who she really was. The problem is, the only one who really knew her died in a shower of glass.
Turns out the woman was having an affair with the owner of the store and the man’s wife got tired of him cheating on her. So she killed her competition. She would have gotten away with it too except she sent the murdered woman a gloating note and said note was written on a torn off piece of vehicle registration, which had the wife’s info all over it.
There are times I do not understand why one of these books is super gritty and makes me feel horrible while at other times, like this particular book, its like I’m just reading a newspaper report with zero emotional impact.
This was one of those cases where the victim had portrayed herself to each person who knew her as somebody different. Why, we’re never told. But it made life really hard for the detectives and made me glad I’m a land surveyor and all I have to worry about is poison ivy, stepping on ground nests of hornets and abutters who are dumb as bricks and don’t even know it. I can deal with those things!
I’m glad this didn’t hit me like some of the previous books. Means I can keep on reading the series.
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: Hamlet Author: William Shakespeare Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars Genre: Play Pages: 347 Words: 97K
From Wikipedia:
Act I
Prince Hamlet of Denmark is the son of the recently deceased King Hamlet, and nephew of King Claudius, his father’s brother and successor. Claudius hastily married King Hamlet’s widow, Gertrude, Hamlet’s mother, and took the throne for himself. Denmark has a long-standing feud with neighbouring Norway, in which King Hamlet slew King Fortinbras of Norway in a battle some years ago. Although Denmark defeated Norway and the Norwegian throne fell to King Fortinbras’s infirm brother, Denmark fears that an invasion led by the dead Norwegian king’s son, Prince Fortinbras, is imminent.
On a cold night on the ramparts of Elsinore, the Danish royal castle, the sentries Bernardo and Marcellus discuss a ghost resembling the late King Hamlet which they have recently seen, and bring Prince Hamlet’s friend Horatio as a witness. After the ghost appears again, the three vow to tell Prince Hamlet what they have witnessed.
The court gathers the next day, and King Claudius and Queen Gertrude discuss affairs of state with their elderly adviser Polonius. Claudius grants permission for Polonius’s son Laertes to return to school in France, and he sends envoys to inform the King of Norway about Fortinbras. Claudius also questions Hamlet regarding his continuing to grieve for his father, and forbids him to return to his university in Wittenberg. After the court exits, Hamlet despairs of his father’s death and his mother’s hasty remarriage. Learning of the ghost from Horatio, Hamlet resolves to see it himself.
As Polonius’s son Laertes prepares to depart for France, Polonius offers him advice that culminates in the maxim “to thine own self be true.”[5] Polonius’s daughter, Ophelia, admits her interest in Hamlet, but Laertes warns her against seeking the prince’s attention, and Polonius orders her to reject his advances. That night on the rampart, the ghost appears to Hamlet, tells the prince that he was murdered by Claudius, and demands that Hamlet avenge the murder. Hamlet agrees, and the ghost vanishes. The prince confides to Horatio and the sentries that from now on he plans to “put an antic disposition on”, or act as though he has gone mad. Hamlet forces them to swear to keep his plans for revenge secret; however, he remains uncertain of the ghost’s reliability.
Act II
Ophelia rushes to her father, telling him that Hamlet arrived at her door the prior night half-undressed and behaving erratically. Polonius blames love for Hamlet’s madness and resolves to inform Claudius and Gertrude. As he enters to do so, the king and queen are welcoming Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, two student acquaintances of Hamlet, to Elsinore. The royal couple has requested that the two students investigate the cause of Hamlet’s mood and behaviour. Additional news requires that Polonius wait to be heard: messengers from Norway inform Claudius that the king of Norway has rebuked Prince Fortinbras for attempting to re-fight his father’s battles. The forces that Fortinbras had conscripted to march against Denmark will instead be sent against Poland, though they will pass through Danish territory to get there.
Polonius tells Claudius and Gertrude his theory regarding Hamlet’s behaviour, and then speaks to Hamlet in a hall of the castle to try to learn more. Hamlet feigns madness and subtly insults Polonius all the while. When Rosencrantz and Guildenstern arrive, Hamlet greets his “friends” warmly but quickly discerns that they are there to spy on him for Claudius. Hamlet admits that he is upset at his situation but refuses to give the true reason, instead remarking “What a piece of work is a man”. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern tell Hamlet that they have brought along a troupe of actors that they met while travelling to Elsinore. Hamlet, after welcoming the actors and dismissing his friends-turned-spies, asks them to deliver a soliloquy about the death of King Priam and Queen Hecuba at the climax of the Trojan War. Hamlet then asks the actors to stage The Murder of Gonzago, a play featuring a death in the style of his father’s murder. Hamlet intends to study Claudius’s reaction to the play, and thereby determine the truth of the ghost’s story of Claudius’s guilt.
Act III
Polonius forces Ophelia to return Hamlet’s love letters to the prince while he and Claudius secretly watch in order to evaluate Hamlet’s reaction. Hamlet is walking alone in the hall as the King and Polonius await Ophelia’s entrance. Hamlet muses on thoughts of life versus death. When Ophelia enters and tries to return Hamlet’s things, Hamlet accuses her of immodesty and cries “get thee to a nunnery”, though it is unclear whether this, too, is a show of madness or genuine distress. His reaction convinces Claudius that Hamlet is not mad for love. Shortly thereafter, the court assembles to watch the play Hamlet has commissioned. After seeing the Player King murdered by his rival pouring poison in his ear, Claudius abruptly rises and runs from the room; for Hamlet, this is proof of his uncle’s guilt.
Hamlet mistakenly stabs Polonius (Artist: Coke Smyth, 19th century).
Gertrude summons Hamlet to her chamber to demand an explanation. Meanwhile, Claudius talks to himself about the impossibility of repenting, since he still has possession of his ill-gotten goods: his brother’s crown and wife. He sinks to his knees. Hamlet, on his way to visit his mother, sneaks up behind him but does not kill him, reasoning that killing Claudius while he is praying will send him straight to heaven while his father’s ghost is stuck in purgatory. In the queen’s bedchamber, Hamlet and Gertrude fight bitterly. Polonius, spying on the conversation from behind a tapestry, calls for help as Gertrude, believing Hamlet wants to kill her, calls out for help herself.
Hamlet, believing it is Claudius, stabs wildly, killing Polonius, but he pulls aside the curtain and sees his mistake. In a rage, Hamlet brutally insults his mother for her apparent ignorance of Claudius’s villainy, but the ghost enters and reprimands Hamlet for his inaction and harsh words. Unable to see or hear the ghost herself, Gertrude takes Hamlet’s conversation with it as further evidence of madness. After begging the queen to stop sleeping with Claudius, Hamlet leaves, dragging Polonius’s corpse away.
Act IV
Hamlet jokes with Claudius about where he has hidden Polonius’s body, and the king, fearing for his life, sends Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to accompany Hamlet to England with a sealed letter to the English king requesting that Hamlet be executed immediately.
Unhinged by grief at Polonius’s death, Ophelia wanders Elsinore. Laertes arrives back from France, enraged by his father’s death and his sister’s madness. Claudius convinces Laertes that Hamlet is solely responsible, but a letter soon arrives indicating that Hamlet has returned to Denmark, foiling Claudius’s plan. Claudius switches tactics, proposing a fencing match between Laertes and Hamlet to settle their differences. Laertes will be given a poison-tipped foil, and, if that fails, Claudius will offer Hamlet poisoned wine as a congratulation. Gertrude interrupts to report that Ophelia has drowned, though it is unclear whether it was suicide or an accident caused by her madness.
Act V
Horatio has received a letter from Hamlet, explaining that the prince escaped by negotiating with pirates who attempted to attack his England-bound ship, and the friends reunite offstage. Two gravediggers discuss Ophelia’s apparent suicide while digging her grave. Hamlet arrives with Horatio and banters with one of the gravediggers, who unearths the skull of a jester from Hamlet’s childhood, Yorick. Hamlet picks up the skull, saying “Alas, poor Yorick” as he contemplates mortality. Ophelia’s funeral procession approaches, led by Laertes. Hamlet and Horatio initially hide, but when Hamlet realizes that Ophelia is the one being buried, he reveals himself, proclaiming his love for her. Laertes and Hamlet fight by Ophelia’s graveside, but the brawl is broken up.
Back at Elsinore, Hamlet explains to Horatio that he had discovered Claudius’s letter with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern’s belongings and replaced it with a forged copy indicating that his former friends should be killed instead. A foppish courtier, Osric, interrupts the conversation to deliver the fencing challenge to Hamlet. Hamlet, despite Horatio’s pleas, accepts it. Hamlet does well at first, leading the match by two hits to none, and Gertrude raises a toast to him using the poisoned glass of wine Claudius had set aside for Hamlet. Claudius tries to stop her but is too late: she drinks, and Laertes realizes the plot will be revealed. Laertes slashes Hamlet with his poisoned blade. In the ensuing scuffle, they switch weapons, and Hamlet wounds Laertes with his own poisoned sword. Gertrude collapses and, claiming she has been poisoned, dies. In his dying moments, Laertes reconciles with Hamlet and reveals Claudius’s plan. Hamlet rushes at Claudius and kills him. As the poison takes effect, Hamlet, hearing that Fortinbras is marching through the area, names the Norwegian prince as his successor. Horatio, distraught at the thought of being the last survivor and living whilst Hamlet does not, says he will commit suicide by drinking the dregs of Gertrude’s poisoned wine, but Hamlet begs him to live on and tell his story. Hamlet dies in Horatio’s arms, proclaiming “the rest is silence”. Fortinbras, who was ostensibly marching towards Poland with his army, arrives at the palace, along with an English ambassador bringing news of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern’s deaths. Horatio promises to recount the full story of what happened, and Fortinbras, seeing the entire Danish royal family dead, takes the crown for himself and orders a military funeral to honour Hamlet.
Reading this, I can understand why it is as popular as it is. I enjoyed this but had one serious problem with it.
To find out what that problem is, please insert 10dollars/euros/gallonsofsyrup/poundsofgold/whateveryouuseforcurrency and I will send you a special link initiating you into the mysteries of Shakespeare and what my problem with him is.
What’s that? You don’t care enough to pay money to hear my opinion, which you already hear too much of for free? Gadzooks! I hadn’t thought of that. Fine, you talked me into it, I’ll tell you my opinion for free, this time! But watch out, for I shall send 3 ghosts to visit you to help you stop being such a skinflint. When the clock strikes midnight! Reeeeemembeeeer, wheeeeen the cloooock strikes midniiiiight!
Why did Hamlet pretend to go mad to get his revenge on his uncle? Why not just kill the guy and tell your mom you knew she had killed your dad so she could shack up with his brother and give her the choice of taking poison or getting a real close haircut with your sword? Why the elaborate play of insanity that by the end seems to have become the real thing?
I thought going into things that Hamlet had a plan. Apparently not. That bugged me. You gotta have a plan. Otherwise it’s not worth doing. As Hamlet found out when he died by a poisoned sword. Way to go Shakespeare. Next time write better, kay? Maybe watch a few movies from the 80’s to see how it should be 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: Forge of the High Mage Series: Malaz: Path to Ascendancy #4 Author: Ian C. Esslemont Rating: 4 of 5 Stars Genre: Fantasy Pages: 467 Words: 152K
From Malazan.fandom.com
After decades of warfare, Malazan forces are now close to consolidating the Quon Talian mainland. Yet it is at this moment that Emperor Kellanved orders a new campaign far to the north: the invasion of Falar.
Since the main Malazan armies are otherwise engaged in Quon Tali, a collection of orphaned units and broken squads has been brought together under Fist Dujek – himself recovering from the loss of an arm – to fight this new campaign. A somewhat rag-tag army, joined by a similarly motley fleet under the command of the Emperor himself.
There are however those who harbour doubts regarding the stewardship of Kellanved and his cohort Dancer, and as the Malazan force heads north, it encounters an unlooked-for and most unwelcome threat – unspeakable and born of legend, it has woken and will destroy all who stand in its way. Most appalled by this is Tayschrenn, the untested High Mage of the Empire. He is all-too aware of the true nature of this ancient horror – and his own inadequacy in having to confront it. Yet confront it he must, alongside the most unlikely of allies…
And then the theocracy of Falar is itself far from defenceless – its priests are in possession of a weapon so terrifying it has not been unleashed for centuries. Named the Jhistal, it was rumoured to be a gift from the sea-god Mael. But two can play at that game, for the Emperor sails towards Falar aboard his flagship Twisted – a vessel that is itself thought to be not entirely of this world…
Here, then, in the tracts of the Ice Wastes and among the islands of Falar, the Empire of Malaz faces two seemingly insurmountable tests – each one potentially the origin of its destruction…
These are bloody, turbulent and treacherous times for all caught up in the forging of the Malazan Empire.
Just like in previous Path to Ascendancy books, there is another huge time jump from the previous book to this one. It’s been four years since I read Kellanved’s Reach and so I’d kind of forgotten how Esslemont operates. So it was a bit jarring to suddenly be in the middle of the Malazan Army being fully realized and the Empire we all come to know and love in the Malazan Book of the Fallen series.
There is a lot going on. The biggest problem I had, and I think ANY long time reader of the Malazan Universe will have, is that there is a flipping K’Chain Che’Malle floating fortress that not only Kelanved is aware of, but an entire Malazan fights against. That’s a big deal because in the main series, nobody is supposed to be aware that the Che’Malle are revived and roaming the world again, until Memories of Ice, the 3rd book in the series. That would be like someone today telling a story about New York and claiming that the Two Towers were still in existence.
Other than that massive and gaping plot hole, this was another fantastic story by ICE. He has a much lighter touch in terms of navel gazing self-absorbed existentials angsty philosophizing, unlike his fellow writer Erikson. Which is why I enjoy his body of work much more. He also isn’t afraid to get his hands dirty with plain old fashioned action scenes. High Mage Tayschren going up against a floating fortress, the Jhistal being misused and used, Esslemont dives right into things.
Despite what the synopsis states, there is a LOT more going on. There are several more main “side characters” and their storylines. It fits how multi-layered any Malazan story is supposed to be At the same time, I found myself not caring enough to try to tie all the the threads into their appropriate place and just sailing on through the reading.
There were also a lot of name dropping Easter Eggs for long time fans. It actually got tiresome. Especially when when Esslemont played coy and just described a character by their mannerism or description. During those times I knew it was supposed to be “somebody” but since it didn’t really affect the current story, I just kept on reading without trying to comprehend everything.
The online chatter I’ve read says there will be one more of these Path to Ascendancy books and that book will bring us up to the Book of the Malazan timeline. I just hope Esslemont keeps on writing in this universe, I really like his style.
The Fourth, and supposedly final, Shrek film. I enjoyed my time watching this, and rewatching it, and I plan on enjoying it when I watch it again in the future. BUT. I have to deliberately not think for that to work.
It is Shrek’s kids 1st birthday and Shrek is feeling overwhelmed at being a responsible adult and has a fight with his wife Fiona and gets tricked by Rumplestiltskin and has to convince Fiona (because the world changed) to fall in love with him all over again, only now she’s in ogre form and leading a band of freedom fighter ogres against Emperor Stiltskin. And of course it happens and the world is back on course and we get our happily ever after.
There’s a lot of grrrrl power lingo jazz thrown around and at one point Fiona states that she had to save herself. It was not subtle or woven in, but just hammered. Then you have Shrek not being able to cope with being a dad and not an ogre any more. I feel like the writers didn’t know how to deal with family life and so just put Shrek in a situation that they remembered from some sit-com way back when.
At the same time, I thought the basic idea was very good. Shrek gets to be a complete ogre for one day in exchange for giving one other day to Rumplestiltskin. So Rumple chooses the day of his birth, so Shrek never gets born, never rescues Fiona and thus they never fall in love and have a family. Shrek comes back to this world, he remembers how it is supposed to be and has until midnight to convince Fiona that they are indeed true love’s vessels. It was silly but at the same time it was heart breaking. The relationship between Shrek and Fiona has always been the backbone of the franchise, no matter how shallow or trivial, and to see that ripped away from only one of them really amped up the pathos for me.
I’ve got 92 books on my kindle, 203 in Calibre with the tbr tag, approximately 100 waiting to be added to calibre (residing in my “new books” folder) and then untold numbers of manga and comics. These are all books I have pretty much committed to actually reading. This not a vague wishlist of “some day maybe”.
So yeah, I may have 99 problems but finding books to read ain’t one of them. Peace out, my bookahs….
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: Asterix and Caesar’s Gift Series: Asterix #21 Authors: Goscinny & Uderzo Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars Genre: Comics Pages: 53 Words: 3K
From Wikipedia:
Having completed twenty years of service in the Roman Army, veteran legionaries Tremensdelirius and Egganlettus await their honesta missio (Latin: honorary discharge) in the morning, but that night a drunk Tremensdelirius insults Julius Caesar and gets arrested. When Caesar is informed of Tremensdelirius’s mishap, he decides to play a practical joke on him. Caesar awards a “special gift” to Tremensdelirius: Asterix’s village in Armorica, the only territory of Gaul not yet conquered by the Roman legions. Tremensdelirius sees little merit in a gift he cannot drink and winds up exchanging the gift for wine and food at an inn in Arausio, owned by Orthopaedix.
Orthopaedix, his wife Angina and daughter Influenza arrive at the village only to be disappointed to find it already inhabited, and that Caesar does not own the village at all (making the gift worthless). With no place to go, Angina berates her husband for selling their inn to travel to Armorica. Vitalstatistix overhears the conversation and decides to offer Orthopaedix a building to open a new inn. Obelix soon has a crush on Influenza, while Geriatrix doesn’t welcome Orthopaedix and his family, regarding them as outsiders. The villagers attend the new inn’s opening night, but Vitalstatistix’s wife Impedimenta and Angina start arguing about who owns the village. A fight ensues and the inn is trashed as a result.
The next morning, a bruised Orthopaedix is ready to leave and return to Lutetia, his hometown, but Angina wants to have revenge on Impedimenta and makes a claim to the leadership of the village on behalf of her husband. Vitalstatistix, shocked, has Cacofonix obtain an opinion poll of the villagers and learns that aside from Geriatrix, the villagers don’t really care, until Vitalstatistix makes a few remarks that offends some of the villagers, making them go to the other side. A political race starts, and Geriatrix thinks Vitalstatistix is weak and tries to stand for Chief himself. Asterix becomes worried that internal conflict could benefit the Romans. Meanwhile, Tremensdelirius arrives at the village to visit Orthopaedix, explains that since their last meeting he unsuccessfully tried all kinds of trade and he wants his land back, since he is in fact not allowed to sell the land. When the family refuses, he draws his sword. Asterix arrives, and the two fight, with Asterix winning. Influenza is impressed, while Tremensdelirius, swearing revenge, goes to the Laudanum Roman camp and finds his old friend Egganlettus serving as an aide-de-camp under the local centurion (as he found retirement boring and signed up for another 20 years). With his support, Tremensdelirius makes an official request to the centurion to restore his land. The centurion is reluctant to face the Gauls, but the veterans threaten to report him to Caesar, and he agrees to prepare a military attack with the new weapons they have.
The following day, Influenza expresses her admiration to Asterix, making the jealous Obelix feel betrayed. Asterix attempts to warn everyone about Tremensdelirius, but his warning falls on deaf ears. Hence, Asterix decides to investigate and discovers that the Romans are preparing siege weapons. The Romans see him, but are afraid to attack, allowing him to retreat and escape (as he has no magic potion with him to fight against them). His escape gives the Romans the belief that the Gauls can no longer resist the Romans, and makes them more confident.
Asterix returns to the village and attempts to warn them, but everyone gathers to witness the public debate between Vitalstatistix and Orthopaedix, until it is interrupted by rocks launched from the Roman catapults. Vitalstatistix begs for Getafix to give them magic potion, but the druid refuses, too disgusted by the Gaulish in-fighting. When Vitalstatistix asks for the druid to give magic potion to his rival instead, Getafix finally agrees to help them. The villagers manage to defeat the Romans, with Orthopaedix himself confronting Tremensdelirius and smashing Caesar’s gift on Tremensdelirius’s head.
The Gauls are reconciled following their victory. A much more confident Orthopaedix befriends his former rival, and decides to withdraw his claim for leadership and return to Lutetia, despite Angina’s objections. Impedimenta and Angina also become friends. Obelix is saddened that Influenza will be leaving with her parents but is reconciled with Asterix. The village then hosts a banquet.
This was quite amusing. The Gaulish village being sold to a roman and then traded to an innkeeper and the shenanigans as said innkeeper tries to become chief of the village. And the Romans think they have everything in the bag and attack the village with various new ranged weapons.
So of course that unites the Gauls, even the erstwhile Innkeeper and they trounce the romans with their magic potion and the innkeeper goes back to the city where he and his family were originally from. And everybody has a happy ending.
Man, the Romans, much like the pirates, just can’t catch a break. Of course, if they’d left well enough alone and not tried to get greedy by attacking the gaul’s village, the village might have split. But just like every other time, a roman incursion unites the fractious dolts and they just wallop the romans. It’s funny in small doses 🙂
The stories are formulaic and as long as you can take that, it’s great. But after reading One Piece Vol 41 earlier this week, I needed something light and that didn’t meander. A formula story works very well in that regards and I suspect part of my I enjoyed this as much as I did was just because of that contrast. I don’t read in a vacuum and how I’m feeling at the time can affect things. Life can affect things, people can affect thing, other books can affect things. So I note what I think is affecting me and move on. And as Chief Vitalstatistix so expressively says in this edition “And anyone who doesn’t like it can shove off!”. That man has a great way with words 😉
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 Island Deception Series: Gateways to Alissia #2 Author: Dan Koboldt Rating: 3 of 5 Stars Genre: Fantasy Pages: 310 Words: 97K
From the Publishers
What happens in Las Vegas stays in Las Vegas. But what happens after you step through a portal to another world, well…
For stage magician Quinn Bradley, he thought his time in Alissia was over. He’d done his job for the mysterious company CASE Global Enterprises, and now his name is finally on the marquee of one of the biggest Vegas casinos. And yet, for all the accolades, he definitely feels something is missing. He can create the most amazing illusions on Earth, but he’s also tasted true power. Real magic.
He misses it.
Luckily—or not—CASE Global is not done with him, and they want him to go back. The first time, he was tasked with finding a missing researcher. Now, though, he has another task:
Help take Richard Holt down.
It’s impossible to be in Vegas…
Sigh. Quinn Bradley goes through the portal to the fantasy world and is supposed to be spying for his corporate masters, again. His secret goal is to learn real magic. What frustrated me was that he was enrolled in classes to learn magic and instead of allowing the teachers to break his resistance, continually tries to use his sleight of hand/magician skills and the tech from our world to fake it. It was like he didn’t actually WANT to learn magic. By the end of the book thankfully it was forced upon him but his resistance to the training made him look stupid to the reader and like a stubborn jackass. It detracted from the enjoyment for me.
Then you have Richard Holt, the guy who defected in the first book who is THE expert on this fantasy world. He has plans and plans to defend it against the corporate raiders. And everyone who we read about (in fairness they are employed and by the end of the book coerced by CASE Global) is on board with hunting Richard down. It was like no one even thought to question why he was doing this or to even ask themselves if maybe he had some justification for it. Nope, it was the Company Line straight down the page.
While not bad, the issues of Quinn acting so immature and the supposedly special forces people just blindly accepting what their civilian overseers state were enough to knock off half a star. I’ll be going into the third and final book with some VERY adjusted expectations.
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: Declaration of War Series: One Piece #41 Arc: Water Seven #10 Author: Eiichiro Oda Rating: 1.5 of 5 Stars Genre: Manga Pages: 227 Words: 10K
From Wikipedia:
“Response”
“Accepting the Challenge”
“The Girl They Called a Demon”
“Dereshi”
“Olvia”
“The Demons of Ohara”
“Ohara vs. the World Government”
“Saul”
“In Hopes of Reaching the Future”
“Declaration of War”
“Jump Toward the Waterfall!!”
The Straw Hats and CP9, and their two captives, face each other down. Nico Robin tries turning the crew away again, but when Monkey D. Luffy tells her that she can die as part of the crew instead, Robin experiences a flashback to her childhood. Raised on an island of archaeologists, Robin and the rest of the islanders attempt to discover the secret of the void century, a period in time that the government forbids anyone to know. To prevent knowledge of the void century from spreading, the island and its inhabitants (except Robin) are destroyed. Aokiji allows Robin to escape, challenging her to find friends and to live. Realizing that she had almost given up on both, Robin decides she wants to live with the rest of the Straw Hats. Touched by their words, Franky reveals that the blueprints CP9 have been searching are hidden on his person, but they are not that of Pluton, but an “opposing weapon” and he promptly destroys them, giving CP9 no further reason to keep him in custody.
We are treated to another extended flashback, this time to Robin Nico’s childhood and all the wah wah wah baggage she’s carrying. Because her mother abandoned her to find out about the poneglif. What really chapped my backside is that the mother doesn’t want Robin to the be “the daughter of a criminal” so she tells Robin she’s not her mother. As the island is under attack from the World Government and Buster Call (the One Piece Equivalent of a nuclear strike). So nobody is going to survive and the mother still denies to Robin that she is her mother. It made me sick.That’s like worrying about causing your child pain because of pulling out a splinter while some chainsaw wielding psycho is chasing said child. And I hate this kind of flash back, as I’ve said before. It absolutely destroys the pacing of the story and while it may fill in some chunks, it doesn’t advance the Main Story about Luffy becoming King of the Pirates.
THAT, and THAT ALONE should be Oda-sensei’s focus. And it is very obvious that he’s doing all he can to stretch out the main story with all this crappy bull caca back story. I swear, he’s as bad as Brandon Sanderson and his disgusting love affair with world building at the expense of everything else. At the ¾ mark I was just about ready to quit I was so disgusted with this.
But I kept reading.
And wished I hadn’t. Because the scholars who are researching the Ponegliff, which is the cause of the island getting the Buster Call, are one and all complete fething idiots. They are researching forbidden material but have no plan to relocate or save their works. They squawk and squawk about “oh, they just CAN’T burn history, it wouldn’t be right”. Ivory headed idiots without one brain that works in the real world. I know Oda-sensei is writing them this way on purpose, but it’s like authors who make their characters really dumb just to make the plot happen. There was no need for these scholars to die, or for all their works to be destroyed. It was lazy writing and I couldn’t get past it.
The end of the volume is back in the present and Robin decides she wants to live after all, so the Straw Hats all jump off of a cliff to save her.
But it was too late for me. This was not fun to read and I hate being taken away from the main story and I am going to consider if I actually want to continue this series. I quit reading this series once before because of the manga-ka’s proclivity towards selling the manga instead of telling the story and I was hoping I could get past that. This volume has shown me that I can’t. And from what others have said, these flashbacks continue.
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, & Librarything by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission
Title: Atomic Age Cthulhu Series: Cthulhu Anthology #10 Editor: Glynn Barrass & Brian Sammons Rating: 4 of 5 Stars Genre: Cosmic Horror Pages: 287 Words: 106K
Table of Contents:
Introduction
Bad Reception by Jeffrey Thomas
Unamerican by Cody Goodfellow
Fallout by Sam Stone
Eldritch Lunch by Adam Bolivar
Little Curly by Neil Baker
The Day the Music Died by Charles Christian
The Terror That Came to Dounreay by William Meikle
The Romero Transference by Josh Reynolds
It Came to Modesto by Ed Erdelac
Within the Image of the Divine by Bear Weiter
Yellow is the Color of the Future by Jason Andrew
Fears Realized by Tom Lynch
Professor Patriot and the Doom that Came to Niceville by Christine Morgan
Rose-Colored Glasses by Michael Szymanski
The Preserved Ones by Christopher M. Geeson
Putnam’s Monster by Scott T. Goudsward
Operation Switch by Pete Rawlik
Names on the Black List by Robert M. Price
The End of the Golden Age by Brian M. Sammons & Glynn Owen Barrass
This was a great collection of Cthulhu mythos stories set during the 1950’s and ranged from the commies being Eldrich Horrors to the Eldrich Horrors taking over America so THEY could fight the commies. In most of the stories any commies got what was coming to them.
This was on track for being a 4.5star rating, but I ran into 2 stories that made that impossible.
The first one, Eldrich Lunch, almost made me quit the book. It was vile, and brought to mind my reaction to Lapvona last month. It really made me question if I was being hypocritical or not. I don’t think so for two reasons. First, the story was meant to be vile. Cosmic Horror is meant to have that edge. Second, it was just that one story and not the entire book. Quantity does matter. But it made me want to be much more careful about how I judge others for the books they read in the future. I’m still going to judge the heck out of the books and possibly the authors, but the people reading and praising them, I can at least keep my mouth shut.
The second story, Yellow is the Color of the Future, was obviously a King in Yellow story. My hopes skyrocketed. Sadly, they were dashed even before my real reasons for disliking the story came into play. Some sad sack of a movie producer finds the play The King in Yellow and a friend reads it and they decide to film it. The character playing the King gets possessed and is preparing to use the movie to enter our world and rule it. The sad sack producer figures out how to stop him and destroys the film. Happily Ever After. No. There are NO happily ever after’s in a good KiY story. Because even when you win against the King, you still end up losing. That’s what I appreciated so much about The Yellow Sign, that author understood that conundrum and wrote it well. And a movie producer? Come on, those guys don’t have a working brain cell, much less a whole brain, to be able to fight against the Horror of the King. That would be like Petunia Pig taking down a Gundam, bare handed. Inconceivable!
Fallout, on the other hand, was an excellent story. It follows a teen boy who’s about to turn 16 who is living in an American Dream. His family, no, the whole town is well off and doing well beyond imagination. Sure, his dad built a bunker in the backyard that gives the teen the heeby jeebies, but you gotta be prepared right? Turns out, the town has made a pact to offer their first borns on their 16th birthday for wealth and prosperity. It ends well too, with the boy being sacrificed and one of the people who threw him into the fallout shelter saying something like “next month is my Suzie’s 16th”. Cosmic Horror for the win!
To polish things off, I’d just like to take a second and talk about the editors, Glynn Barrass and Brian Sammons. So far, I have had very good luck for books edited by Barrass. Unlike Joshi, he doesn’t seem to have his head stuck up his fundament and instead focuses on telling stories that fans want to read. I like that attitude and I am beginning to recognize his name. If I see his name on a cover, chances are good I’m going to eventually pick up that book. More importantly, I’m probably going to enjoy it. Sammons, I don’t know. I’ll see if he shows up in other books that I end up enjoying.
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Title: The Black Master Series: The Shadow #8 Authors: Maxwell Grant Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars Genre: Crime Fiction Pages: 174 Words: 82K
From the Publisher & Bookstooge.blog
Five die and many are injured when Wall Street is bombed, followed by Grand Central Station and the subway entrance at Columbus Circle. When a reporter for The Classic claims to have information on the bomber’s identity, the office explodes. As the death toll rises, The Shadow races to uncover who is the bomber known as The Black Master.
Turns out the Blackmaster is a german scientist who had a sister back in the day. Said sister married an American and died from starvation. The american went on to become a multi-millionaire and the Black Master has decided that HE is the one to mete out justice for his sister’s death. If a multitude of New Yorker’s must die in the process, that is a price the Black Master is willing to pay.
The Shadow is not a big fan of this course of action and sets himself in opposition. Of course he wins and destroys the Black Master, who was also a crime fighter helping the police with his new fangled german “criminal psychology”.
First things first. This is not some filthy urban fantasy erotica porn. I mention this because I am reading the Shadow omnibuses and so have to search out the individual titles to find the covers, pages, etc. The crap I had to wade through was not right. I ended up searching for ISBN 9780450027420 to get the correct info. So use that, not the title if you’re ever searching this out.
Second thing. This gave me YUUUUGE 9/11 vibes. New York was getting bombed and there was panic in the newspaper and speculation was rife and nobody knew what was going on. It reminded me exactly of my experience on 9/11. I was working and the radio was going nuts. There were “reports” of bombs going off in cars, of bombs going off in garbage cans, of “sporadic gunfire”. The *&^%%% media didn’t know what was going on and they let their speculation run rampant and increased the panic. Until the plane hit the towers, nobody actually KNEW what was happening. That sense of bewilderment was spot on. Of course, in this novel everybody just goes back to normal the next day and life carries on.
Thirdly, the Crime Fighting Psychologist. Come on, I mean, really? As soon as it was revealed that he was german and profiled criminals, it was painfully obvious he was the Black Master. And if that comes as a spoiler to you, shame on you for being so gullible. It reminded me of the first episode in the Sherlock tv show with Benedict Cumberbatch and one of the police officers, who is not a fan of Sherlock, tells Watson that someday Sherlock will get bored of solving crimes and begin committing then. That is the exact vibe I got from Dr Proffessor Germano (yeah, yeah, whatever, who remembers his real name anyway?) and so as soon as he was introduced he had a big fat arrow pointing to him screaming “Dah Black Meister!”
Now, with all of that being said, I still enjoyed the daylights out of this story. The Black Master was a very worthy adversary for the Shadow and gave him a good run for his money. When a villain seeks to go head to head against the Shadow in a game of mental manipulation, you know he’s not just some thug with a .38 police special.
And Harry Vincent gets his brain blasted by the Black Master and his magic crystal ball. Sadly, we all know he’ll recover and show up in future books. I would have liked to see his drooling corpse slumped against a wall. Oh well, not every story can be a completely Happily Ever After.
