Man, where January sped by so fast that it was over before I blinked, February has felt like absolute frozen molasses. It went no where and it went there really slow. Every day of each week felt like it should have been Friday, not matter if it was Monday or some other day. Every single week. It was the month That. Would. Not. End.
Then part way through the month I got the worst cold that I’ve had in a long time. It started in my head and worked it’s way down to my chest. For two days at work I thought I was going to die. It was like a freight train had run me over. Took me over a week to recover from the weakness and I was coughing for the rest of the month.
On the positive side, I was able to play a good bit of Magic the Gathering on whatsapp. Had a 3player game with Dave and Mark. It took us a solid, glorious week to play. With me in the United States, Mark in the UK and Dave in the Netherlands, those time zones really kicked our butts. But we overcame and while I don’t know about the other two, I had an absolute blast. Long, slow games of Magic where you chat between turns is one of my favoritist things.
Speaking of games, I kicked my own butt into gear and sleeved up Marvel Champions. I will put up that post next week, so no need to fret, you’ll get your MC fix.
We have several new families at church, so I’ve been wearing myself out introducing myself each Sunday. I am NOT a people person and interacting with people wears me out, even good interactions. I can’t wait until they’re regulars and I can go back to ignoring them 😉
Cover Love:
Kind of the opposite of “love” because this is the cringiest cover for a book that I’ve read in a very long time. But “Making Love Last Forever“ by Gary Smalley was a great book. The cover, however, is like looking at a train wreck happening in real time in slow motion. I cannot look away no matter how much I want to. And now you get to see that image seared into your brains as well. You are welcome.
Plans for Next Month:
I’m going to watch and review a movie. I have no idea which one though. I’m contemplating digging back into my massive pile of anime discs and trying them again. There’s gotta be SOMETHING I can still enjoy 😀
My Magic card posts will get a slight aesthetic change. I’m not going to be putting up the art AND the card in the post. While I liked a change, I found it was simply too busy for my taste. So I’m going to be making the art part the featured image and just having the card itself in the post. That way I still get both parts but without having it look overwhelming.
Will have two [Art] posts again.
Will be doing another buddy-read of the Discworld series with Dave again. Going to be reading Mort, the first of the Death subseries. I remember really enjoying the Death books before, so I have high hopes I’ll enjoy it as much if not more so than last time 😀
Other than that, reviews as normal and random posts when I feel the inspiration.
In preparatory celebration of Dune: Part 2 releasing in theatres this coming Friday, I thought I would do a fun little post where I blabbed. As opposed to all those other posts where I’m just a big ball of frowniness and generally stay as silent as the grave. You remember, that post where I just sat there and stared at you and totally judged you for not commenting on my post that had nothing in it? Oh, NOW you remember? Good. Don’t let it happen again, ok? Because otherwise I’ll have to unleash the beast and he’ll cram spicedrops down your throat until you are addicted as Paul was to the spice.
Because if you think about it, there’s really not that much difference between Spicedrops and the Spice.
One of them comes out of a giant worm’s butt and one of them comes out of a giant factory’s extrusion machine. It’s really the same thing, especially in principle. Secondly, both of them can kill you if you take too much of it, especially if you’re Special and are blessed/cursed with Type 1 Diabetes/AretheChosenOne (those are really the same thing too if you want to get technical). Thirdly, they are both addictive. While wars have not been fought over the Spicedrops (yet!), that is because the supply is almost unlimited. You just wait until the masses can’t buy them in the grocery stores anymore and THEN you’ll see rioting never seen except when a Star Wars movie blasphemy is released. But enough of that sad sack talk. This is supposed to be a happy post!
Now, you might be wondering how I came to this decision. Well, I’ll be honest. It was a miracle, plain and simple! I woke up one morning and before me was A Sign.
Not even Jonah himself could ignore a sign like that! Well, he could, and did, hence the whole Jonah and the whale scenario. But I’m way smarter than Jonah. No getting eaten by a whale for me, thank you very much. Or even a big sandworm. I’m also much smarter than that dummkopf Liet Kynes.
Therefore, as the Prophesied One, I declare today to be the start of Party Hardy Month! We will move to a lunar calendar, thus giving us 13 months in the year. There will be January, February, Party Hardy, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, Bookstoogetober, November and December. I’m not your run of the mill Prophesied One. When I want something, I roll up the sleeves of my Mystery Robe and get to work. I don’t expect the world to change on a dime just for me. I’ll do the changing TO it. On a quarter. Because I’m not a cheapskate.
So grab yourself a bag of The Spicedrops, watch Dune Part 2 and celebrate Party Hardy with me, Bookstooge the Prophesied One. It’ll be great! Or else….
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 Formidable Series: Conan the Barbarian #16 Author: Steve Perry Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars Genre: Fantasy Pages: 171 Words: 62K
First, the cover. There is a man with four arms in this story, but he’s a scared little weakling who is being used in a freak show. He’s definitely NOT a monstrous hulk who takes on Conan. I don’t know who the woman is supposed to be, because there’s not a normal woman amongst the group. Perry’s predilection for monster women comes roaring to the forefront. There’s a cat woman, a giantess and a young teen giantess and for once, Perry doesn’t have Conan sleep with anyone. You could have bowled me over with a feather, because Perry’s a perv and it has shown through in all his previous Conan books. So the woman on the cover is, ahem, artistic license.
There is an evil sorcerer, but he’s not 500 years old and he’s pretty dumb. His biggest ambition is to run a big freak show and pimp the freaks for even more money. When your highest ambition is to get some rich nobleman to be your patron, and you have magic and freaks, well, I say you are aiming pretty low. Said magician was the villain but he wasn’t a competent one, more of just one more annoyance Conan has to deal with on his travels. The magician does kidnap both some giants and a swamp dwarf thingy, so that brings their dada’s into the action.
Those guys hate each other and even though they work together to get their kids back, they both want to kill Conan and everyone else in the freak show because they know the location of their homes. Evil incompetent magician, traitorous and backstabbing giant and dwarf and then a bunch of regular soldiers hired to guard a rich nobleman. Conan and Co have a lot of killing to do and Perry didn’t let me down. There was a lot of action and that is what I liked most about this story. It didn’t hurt that at the end the two Dada’s ended up killing each other by accident while trying to be treacherous to each other. It was the perfect ending for two such scum bags.
I’ve got one final Conan book by Perry to read. I wasn’t going to after the last book (Conan the Defiant) but this one gave me the strength for that final lap. Much like that scene in the movie “Chariots of Fire” where the main character gets knocked down and then gets back up and wins the race, I too shall recover and take this reading race by the throat and make Perry wish he’d never written a Conan story. Oh wait, no. What I MEANT to say was that I’m going to push through all the pain and suffering Perry has put me through with these mediocre Conan fanfics and teach him that not even he can stop me from reading Conan stories. Hmmm, that doesn’t quite right either. Well, whatever. I’m going to read the final Conan book by Perry and that’s inspiring and you should be hearing that music from Chariots of Fire while reading this. Plus, you should be inspired to be more like me so you can crowdfund a biopic movie about my life and how great I am. Now THAT’S inspiring!
★★★✬☆
From Wikipedia
Synopsis – Click to Open
The novel opens with Conan walking into Shadizar through the Karpash Mountains. He is ambushed by some bandits in the mountains and rescued by a giantess named Teyle. She leads Conan back to her village in the swamp they inhabit at the foot of a mountain. The swamp is also inhabited by Vargs, who are described as “Green dwarves” and act more like goblins or orcs. Upon arriving, he is knocked out by Teyle to be experimented upon by the request of Raseri, the village chieftain and Teyle’s father.
Conan awakens inside a cage made from the bones of giants and finds he’s being experimented upon by Raseri. Raseri is performing research on the physical endurance of damage in humans. Meanwhile, Dake the freakmaster is on his way to the giant’s village with his entourage of Penz the wolfman, Tro the catwoman, Sab the four-armed man, and Kreg his assistant. Dake’s mission is to capture a giant and a “green dwarf” for his freak show.
On the way, Dake’s freak show is attacked by Vargs, but the creatures are scared off by a massive red demon which Dake summons (which is an illusion). Penz captures one of the Vargs at the behest of Dake. Dake promptly hypnotizes his Varg into servitude. The Varg that is captured turns out to be Vilken, the son of Fosull, a Varg chieftain.
Conan eventually escapes the cage in which he is being held and sets fire to Raseri’s hut, sending all of his research on humans into flames. Conan escapes into the swamp, running across some Vargs and killing several of them. Meanwhile, Dake arrives at night in the hopes of capturing a giant for his freak show with the help of Tro the catwoman’s night vision. The flaming hut distracts many of the giants and Dake is able to capture Teyle, as well as Morja and Oren, who are also Raseri’s children.
As Conan escapes, the giants release their “Hellhounds”, a massive beast with the appearance of a cross between a bear and a wolf. The hellhounds, Vargs, and giants are tracking Conan in that order of following. Soon, Conan slays all the hellhounds. When the Vargs and giants find these corpses, they are amazed. Conan finally escapes the swamp only to be magically captured by Dake.
Figuring that more of his own kind will attract too much attention, Raseri decides to leave the swamp to look for his children by asking the local humans if they have seen a man resembling Conan. Fosull decides on a similar plan, but coats himself in mud (so as not to display his green skin) and follows the cart’s tracks, knowing what they look like. Fosull manages to get a ride with a drunken wine seller in his cart. Dake forces Conan to display his strength so that it may be measured. Dake learns that Conan is stronger than all the rest of his freak show combined and sets Conan to use as his strongman for the traveling circus.
Raseri eventually finds Fosull’s wagon and learns that the cart in front of him contains a Varg who is tracking their children. Fosull learns that he is being tracked by a giant, but knows not who. Dake exhibits his circus to a village. Eventually, Conan discovers that rage helps in weakening Dake’s spell. Soon, Penz reveals he knows a few of Dake’s spells.
Fosull and Raseri form a temporary alliance to rescue their children. Dake meets up with a caravan of other merchants. They stop for the night and Dake sends Morja to the leader of the caravan as a gift. Raseri and Fosull have managed to sneak up secretly. This enrages Dake’s slaves and they manage to break the spell of entrapment set upon them. The former-slaves, Raseri, and Fosull manage to rescue Morja before she arrives at the merchant’s wagon.
The group kills the merchant and several guards in the ensuing battle. Oren throws a rock at Dake as he’s reciting his enslavement spell. The spell gets 2/3 done and binds the ex-slaves, Raseri, and Fousull (except for Conan) before the thrown rock smashes Dake’s teeth preventing the final articulation of the spell. Conan promptly slays Dake in the process.
Raseri is convinced that the group should not be able to leave knowing how to get to his village of giants. Raseri tells the group that he has a potion which will help them forget how to get to his village. However, his potion is actually a poison. Penz sprinkles a powder (stolen from Dake) that turns all liquid to water into the cups of the slaves while Raseri is not watching. Eveyone drinks the potion and Raseri reveals they are about to die. Fosull, whose drink was not sprinkled with the magical powder, kills Raseri with his poisoned spear and dies shortly afterwards. Raseri’s death also prevents the poison from taking effect. Soon, Teyle decides to let the group leave and the book is concluded.
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: Phule’s Company Series: Phule’s Company #1 Author: Robert Asprin Rating: 4 of 5 Stars Genre: SF Pages: 182 Words: 77K
My main knowledge about Asprin’s writing is through his “Myth Adventures” series and his “Thieves World” anthologies. The Myth books were boooooring with a few exceptions and the Thieves World books tended to be vulgar and of dnf moral quality. So you can imagine just how dubious I was at giving him yet another chance.
But something about the idea of a misfit millionaire in the military turning other misfits into a semi-reasonable outfit just appealed to me. I like a good underdog story and while Phule isn’t the underdog, everybody else in the story sure is. But even Phule knows that money can only go so far and in some cases can hurt more than help. I found Asprin’s philosophy surprisingly thought out even while disagreeing with Phule’s underlying thought that people are basically good.
This was fun, pure and simple. I had a blast reading this and found this to be the most enjoyable Asprin I’ve read to date (even better than Myth Inc in Action, the best Myth book in my opinion). However, given my past experience with Asprin I’m holding this series very lightly and am putting no expectations on the next book. But for the moment, this is a great book and I recommend it, even if I can’t comment on the series as a whole (yet).
★★★★☆
From Wikipedia.org
The book begins as Willard Phule, a multimillionaire, is court-martialed by the Space Legion for ordering the strafing of a treaty signing ceremony. For his punishment, he is given command of an Omega Company full of misfits on Haskin’s Planet, a mining settlement on the edge of settled space. He quickly goes to his duty station and leverages his personal money and a knack for managing people to get the company to come together as a unit. His antics attract the attention of the local and interplanetary press, but create a very cohesive unit of the Legionnaires.
When a contract for an honorary duty is awarded to the Regular Army on Haskin’s Planet, Phule convinces the governor to leave the contract up for competition between the Space Legionnaires and the Regular Army. The Army sends some of their most elite troops to take part in the competition, and through an impressive show of cooperation and teamwork, Phule’s company ties the regular troops. In the final episode of the book, Phule’s company encounters lizard-like alien explorers from the Zenobian Empire. Quickly reverting to his business instincts, Phule negotiates a business deal to sell swampland to the creatures in exchange for new technologies. This again enrages some of his superiors, but because of a show of support from the Legionnaires for their commander and a complete conviction of his own innocence, Phule evades court-martial again.
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 Closed Worlds Series: Starwolf #2 Author: Edmond Hamilton Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars Genre: SF Pages: 151 Words: 46K
This was MUCH better than the previous story. This had all the adventure and daring-do that I was expecting from a golden age SF writer. Chane the Starwolf plays a part but not the central part. He is now definitely part of the Mercenary group and not some Lone Wolf (ha!) all by himself.
Most of the action took place on the planet as the Mercs, led by one of the woman of the Opposition, tried to find out a rich archeologist. They ran into some decidely deadly created life forms several times and I thought Hamilton did a great job of showing how deadly the creatures were, either singly or in a massive pack. Of course, they weren’t enough to stop Chane the Starwolf, but come on, he wouldn’t be much of a hero if they had.
Another aspect that I liked was that when Chane was caught in the Astral Projection Machine, trying to rescue the woman, he fought tooth and nail to get back to where his body was. He wasn’t just tough in body, but in mind and spirit. During his time he visited the Starwolves’ home planet, which set things up nicely for the final book in this trilogy.
This was just the right length, with just the right amount of spaceships, just the right amount of jungle and freakish creatures and just the right amount of hand to hand fighting. Had a very good time while reading this and am now looking forward to more of Hamilton’s works.
★★★✬☆
From Wikipedia & Bookstooge.blog
Synopsis – Click to Open
While on Earth, Morgan Chane, captain Dilullo, Bollard, and others once again team up to get a new mission. This time they are hired by a wealthy earth businessman and trader James Ashton for $500k to find his brother, Randall Ashton, who disappeared in the Closed Worlds. The latter are notable for being so dangerous and so mysterious that even starwolves don’t dare to step their foot on – they have laws that bar them from landing on Arkuu, the planet of the Closed World, where natives don’t wellcome anyone. The mercs accept the deadly offer and leave for the Closed Worlds.
The Mercs find evidence of Randall and his crew. With the help of a woman of the Closed Worlds who is in opposition to the policy, set out to find the lost expedition. They are pursued by government forces. The Mercs find Randall, who has re-discovered what the Closed Worlds were trying to hide, an astral projection machine for the mind that allowed the user to wander the universe as long as the body was taken care of. It was destructively addictive and was the reason the Closed Worlds shut themselves off from Galactic Civilization. The Mercs rescue Randall against his will and the woman figures out a way to make use of the machine that won’t be destructive.
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: Arba and Dakarba Series: Groo the Wanderer #26 Author: Sergio Aragones Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars Genre: Comics Pages: 23 Words: 2K
Hahahahaahaha, this was another laugh out loud comic. Man, if Groo can DO something and yet still not do it, he will find a way. I am in awe at how Aragones even comes up with these ideas. What kind of mind is so fiendishly twisted that something this funny, this amusing and this twisted is even thought of? It’s just brilliant!
It is one thing to be funny, it’s not too hard to make Groo a complete idiot. But at the same time Aragones has made him this completely unstoppable force of nature who simply cannot do things as people want him to. Sure, he can stop an army. By burning down a forest and destroying all the villages in it. Whatever he is tasked with, Groo will do. But he will do it badly and in such a way that comes back to bite the person who made the initial request. Without fail!
The page I’m including is the last one. Groo has done his job but done it so wrongly that EVERYONE wants to kill him. Classic!
★★★✬☆
From Bookstooge.blog
Click to Open
Groo is hired by two witches to recover an amulet from some tiny people. The witches make Groo small and he attempts to steal the amulet. He fails but is told if he steals ANOTHER amulet from a wizard that the little people will let him have the first amulet. Both amulets end up being a part of an Artifact of Power. Groo steals the wizard’s amulet but in the process of giving it to the tiny people ends up stealing the first amulet, thus owning both. He throws away the wizard’s amulet, since “he” doesn’t need it any more and gives the original amulet to the two witches. Who turn out to be working for the wizard. The comic ends with the two witches, the wizard and the entire tribe of tiny people waiting in ambush to kill Groo for destroying all their plans.
Shelf Control is a weekly “feature” hosted now by Mallika from Literary Potpourri. The gist seems to be to pick a book or series on your TBR shelf and write about it as a way to get you to either read it or toss it in the eternal battle of trying to trim our TBR’s.
After my last foray (Warlock Holmes) I realized that the next longest waiting series on my TBR was the Metaframe War by Graeme Rodaughan. Don’t ask me how to pronounce that last name because I have no idea. I just know it’s not Cracker, hehehehe.
Here is the blurb from the first book, A Subtle Agency:
Hunters and vampires are fighting a secret war for control of the fabric of reality. Whoever acquires mastery of the reality shifting powers of the Metaframe will become the new gods of the universe.
I have no idea why I put this series on my tbr list. I’m pretty sure I put it on in ’17 and I think the final book is supposed to come out this year (book 7). Once it comes out I will add it to my reading rotation and dive in. I am really hoping that the author does something interesting with vampires and doesn’t turn this into a goopy pnr hellhole. (setting the bar pretty low in my opinion!)
Thankfully, I know I WILL be reading this. It is now just a matter of when 🙂
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 WordPresss & Blogspot by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission
Title: The Blackmail Ring Series: The Shadow #13 Authors: Maxwell Grant Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars Genre: Crime Fiction Pages: 146 Words: 44K
The Batman vibes were almost overpowering in this story. It’s a decent story about a blackmailer using other blackmailers to do his own dirty work and the Shadow catches wind of it and goes on an international rampage taking out the limbs of the Ring before finally cutting off the head.
He does detecting work.
He is very physically present in this story, with both fists, guns and body checks. He’s not a skinny wimp relying on just scare tactics. The Shadow knows how to fight and he does so.
He drives a souped up super car.
He flies his own little private airplaine.
Batman was most definitely based on the Shadow and the more I read of the Shadow, the more I realize just how much Batman took from him. In many ways, Batman is just an updated version for a new generation and a new medium (comics vs books or radio drama). And yet only 9 years separated the two and they ran concurrently for several decades.
The Shadow gets another recruit and still has to rescue Harry Vincent. I don’t understand Gibson’s continued use of him. He has let other recruits slide into the background and barely mentions them, so why can’t he do that with Harry? Some things just aren’t to be I guess. Kind of like wishing that Coca-Cola would bring back Vanilla-Orange Coke Zero. It ain’t happening. Now I am sad. I’m going over to that corner over there and have a good cry.
And that’s how I’m going to end this review, sitting in a corner crying for something that will never exist again. Ahhh, the pathos is real in this review. Weep, minions, weeeeeeeeep I say.
★★★✬☆
From the Publisher
The Shadow follows a bloody trail of extortion and murder that leads from the back alleys of Paris to the country homes of New England to confront “The Blackmail Ring”.
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
Wow, it’s been a while since I read an 87th Precinct book! I was thinking I had stopped in November of ‘23, but looking at the the blog, it turns out it was back in June with Killer’s Choice. Man, time really got away from me on this series. That’s ok though, as these are essentially standalone stories with just little tidbits connecting them to any previous books.
Cotton Hawes was introduced in the previous book and he’s the main character here. He literally sleeps with some woman every other chapter and is the main reason this didn’t get 3 ½ stars. It’s not graphic or anything, but McBain makes it a point and by the end, it’s almost a joke. But that kind of thing isn’t a joke.
I found the idea of the police working hard to apprehend the killer of a scumbag blackmailer to be morally repugnant but that is how the Rule of Law works. It doesn’t get to play favorites based on your personal choice of who you like or don’t like. Either the Law applies to all or it applies to none. I didn’t delve into that aspect in my own head very deep because I didn’t want to go down a ranty path where I sounded off about various social ills caused by Big Government either ignoring the Law or actively working against it. But it peeped out. Like a ray of ranty sunshine 😉
I still love the fact that these are so short. I read this in one sitting and when I was done, I just sat back and enjoyed the fact that I had a complete story under my belt and didn’t have to spend the next week wading through purple prose and over descriptiveness and so much detail that nothing was left to my imagination.
Overall, I was happy with this story and the continuing adventures of the police of the 87th Precinct. Cotton Hawes will be the main character for at least one more book, so I’m prepared now for him to be a total manwhore. I do hope though that he gets married and settles down.
★★★☆☆
From the Publisher
Click to Open
Sy Kramer, a blackmailer, is shot dead in a 1937-style drive-by execution. But it is 1958 and Cotton Hawes and Steve Carella have to find out who killed him. It could have been Lucy Mencken, a rich and respectable lady with a past that included some very unrespectable photographic portraits, or it could have been Edward Schlesser, a manufacturer of soda pop. Or perhaps it was one of the members of a hunting party that went very wrong. In the end, it was the 3 hunters. They had accidentally killed a man, were seen by Kramer and he was blackmailing them. He squeezed them too hard and so they decided to simply kill 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: The Expanding Universe #1 Series: Editor: Craig Martelle Rating: 1 of 5 Stars Genre: SF Pages: 432 Words: 178K
Where do I even start? That’s the thought that kept running through my head as I waded through this pile of utter drek. Every new story would bring me hope that maybe “this” writer would write a good story and then the first paragraph would show me they were just as much a talentless hack as the previous writers.
I had seen Martelle’s name in the Larry Correia collection No Game for Knights. I am always on the lookout for SF anthologies of short stories and thought I’d give this a try. It was a big mistake.
My first clue to the impending disaster to come was the big fat inclusion of Michael Anderle’s name on the front cover. He wrote the introduction. If you don’t know, Anderle is a whore who writes bad space vampire fiction and will put his name on anything, written by anybody. He has no talent, no shame and no limits. But he just wrote the introduction I reasoned, I can’t blame the other authors for that. I do now.
This was published in 2016, and Martelle hadn’t written anything on his own before ‘16 as well. He’s one of those turn and churn authors. But even a mediocre author can be a decent editor, or so I thought. Martelle also belongs to an organization of Indie Writers who support each other. Apparently, what that means is that if one of them edits an anthology, they will automatically include stories from other writers in the organization, no matter how terrible or badly written those stories might be. Martelle could have gone to any Science Fiction forum on the internet, copy/pasted some of the fan fic on there and he couldn’t possible have done a worse job than he did with these stories.
Another issue was that almost all of these stories took place in existing universes or storylines of the writers and were not standalone stories at all. They were prequels, sequels, side stories, to already established storylines and were nothing more than advertisements by the writers waving their wares obnoxiously in my face. Over half of these had some sort of “and if you want to find out how the story resolves, read the writers other books”. That really got my goat.
Another issue is that many of these stories were not actually science fiction. They were modern dramas set on a spaceship or had some fantasy element. Putting a spaceship into a story doesn’t automatically make it a science fiction story. I’m afraid that all of these authors do not understand that very fundamental concept and I’m also afraid that they will never learn it. Because they are all chowderheads with no talent.
The lack of skill here was atrocious. I mentioned internet forum fan fiction early and this is that level of writing. These stories are the things you write when you are practicing to learn the very basic basic of writing. None of these stories should have seen the light of day. Some were definitely better than others, but not a single one of them deserved to be in print. There’s a reason these writers belong to that organization that Martelle belongs to.
Then you had the moral content. I knew going in that since this was published in 2016, that the chances of at least one of these authors would be some woke dill head pushing a perverted agenda was high. I made it almost to the end and was pleasantly surprised that perversion hadn’t reared its ugly head when bam. Sho’ nuff, one writer just had to add it to their story, for no apparent reason either. It was the literal expression of “check box” writing.
Finally, I want to highlight the worst two of the stories here. Taken for a Walk describes itself thusly:
“The short story that follows is Justin’s teaser for a novel he hopes to one day write in what he thinks will be something like Alien meets The Matrix meets Braveheart. The short story is at times silly, but leads into a very serious moment and situation”
The only good thing about this story was that I think it was the shortest of the collection. It was just plain bad.
Worlds Revealed has this for its intro:
“This is a brand new story in the Alpha Alien Abduction Tales series. It starts out with the couples we know from the first two books in the series, Worlds Away and Worlds Collide. But it quickly goes back to the summer of 1947 when a spaceship crashed in Roswell, New Mexico. Venay’s grandfather was the Commander of the ship that was involved in that nightmare. But it wasn’t the V’Zenians, or even the Zateelians, who crashed on Earth! You can expect to learn the true story of the Roswell Aliens, and who they really were.”
When I read that intro, I immediately made a note in my kindle along the lines of “Frak No!” Aliens abduct human women, use their mind powers to make them fall in love with them and then marry and mate them. Just for the record, the author is a woman. This is not some man’s fantasy, it’s a woman’s fantasy.
To end, I had several of these collections lined up, but after this Titanic level of reading disaster, I’m dumping them like a pile of nuclear waste.
★☆☆☆☆
Table of Contents
Click to Open
Fear Peace – Craig Martelle
Taken for a Walk Justin Sloan
Fall to Earth TJ Ryan
Blue Eyed Devil Spencer Pierson
Those Who Breathe Under the End James Osiris Baldwin
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
This is the first book in a series about Myron Bolitar (hence the series name), a man who was an up and coming basketball star, only to have things come to a complete crashing halt when his leg gets shattered in his first game. So he goes to school, becomes a lawyer and then becomes a sports agent. He also apparently did some super-secret black ops stuff for the government with a man who is now one of his best friends and business partner. But this book isn’t about those events at all. They are just alluded to and form a bigger picture of who Myron Bolitar is.
This is a Harlan Coben novel through and through. It has all the elements from the standalones that I’ve read so far (except for the absence of the Witness Protection Program. I just kept waiting for that to pop up and it never did. I was surprised!) but reworked deftly enough that I was never quite sure what the picture was that I was looking at. It was like seeing things when your eyes are dilated. You can generally tell what you are looking at but even the middling details get a bit muddled.
I was generally happy with this read and as long as Coben can keep his stories original with the character of Myron, I’ll happily feed at the trough even if it’s not 5star material.
That does bring me to Myron himself though. He was one of the reasons this didn’t get to the 3.5star rating. He’s a semi-successful business man in his early 30’s I think, but he still lives in his parents basement and participates in their family life, ie, eating breakfast with them, etc. What a loser. I mean, what a complete and utter loser who deserves to have his face ground into the dirt for being such a loser. His parents don’t need his help, he doesn’t make their life better, he complains in his head about both of them, but he won’t move out even though he has the means to. What a scumbag. I hope in one of the later books some mobster shatters his other leg to teach him a fething lesson about growing up. In that same vein, there was also a page where he complains about his parents naming him Myron. What 30 year old is still worrying about his name? I can see a highschooler doing that, but not a grown man. And that is the crux of the matter right there. Coben has written Myron Bolitar as a mix of little boy and grown man and it grates on me, almost like Coben took a cheese grater to my washboard abs.
★★★☆☆
From Wikipedia and Bookstooge.blog
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Investigator and sports agent Myron Bolitar is poised on the edge of the big-time. So is Christian Steele, a rookie quarterback and Myron’s prized client. But when Christian gets a phone call from a former girlfriend, a woman whom everyone, including the police, believes is dead, the deal starts to go sour. Suddenly Myron is plunged into a baffling mystery of sex and blackmail. Trying to unravel the truth about a family’s tragedy, a woman’s secret and a man’s lies, Myron is up against the dark side of his business—where image and talent make you rich, but the truth can get you killed.
In the end, facing down mob bosses, angry dead dads and corrupt sports stars, Myron figures out one of his sports athletes participated in the events that led to a young woman’s death and another of his athletes committed the crime itself.
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: Pride and Prejudice Series: ———- Author: Jane Austen Rating: 5 of 5 Stars Genre: Classic Pages: 275 Words: 124K
This will be a bit different from my usual review. Lashaan and I did a buddy read of this and we used a series of questions I found online to help us talk about the book. There were 11 questions in total and I chose to answer 7 of them. I found the other 4 stupid, insipid, insulting or just plain not a subject I cared one whit for. After the questions I have some general thoughts. And I’ve included a link to Lashaan’s review at the end. Please visit his review when it goes live to see another whole take on this book 😀
1. “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a goodfortune,must be in want of a wife.” This first line has become one of the most famous in Englishliterature. In addition to setting the narrative in motion, how does this line alert us to thetone of the novel and our role, as readers, in appreciating it? What does the line implyabout women?
I’ll work backwards on this. Addressing that last question first.
When you talk about the opening line, you have to also use the second to put it into context: “However little known the feelings or views of such a man may be on his first entering a neighbourhood, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding families, that he is considered as the rightful property of some one or other of their daughters.”
So what the opening implies about women, and then about men, is that they are both playing pieces for their elders. It’s not about gender (despite what the questioner is trying to force into this). Both are pawns are on the chessboard of marriage.
The role of the reader is whatever the reader wants it to be. It doesn’t matter what the author thinks, or tries to do. The reader is an independent being and a good author acknowledges this and simply writes their story without forcing their reader into the slavery of being “in a role”. Only Message writers do that.
As for the tone of the novel, I’d say it it sets a jolly good tone! Funny, amusing and yet acknowledging the foibles of the culture the author is living in.
So there we go. My first set of ranty answers to the first question 😀
2. Elizabeth is upset to learn that Charlotte has accepted Mr. Collins’s marriageproposal. Doyou think Charlotte should have married Mr. Collins? Did she choose him or did he chooseher? What do you think influenced her decision to accept him? Is Charlotte a romantic? IsElizabeth?
At 27, being plain, poor and unconnected, Charlotte didn’t have much choice if she didn’t want to end up being a burden to her family. While I suspect she will regret in the future her choice of Mr Collins, tempermentally she seems fit to deal with his particular brand of pride and false-humility. And now she is mistress of her own establishment with greater things to come. Her children won’t be in her circumstances and thus will hopefully be able to have more choices open to them.
I’d say Charlotte definitely chose Mr Collins. He was just wafting around like a butterfly, looking for the first open flower. She saw him coming a mile away. Besides, Mr Collins seems to stupid to do any real choosing 😀
I think my answer to the first question also answers this. Material stability goes a long way towards making a relationship stable. Charlotte knew what her future held and so she did what she had to to change it, for the better.
I don’t see Charlotte as romantic at all. She’s just super realistic. Elizabeth on the other hand is fully infected with the “Love is Our Guiding Light” idea. Of course, given what Elizabeth sees between her father and mother, one can forgive her for wanting some genuine love in a relationship.
3. How does Pemberley play a role in Elizabeth’s change of heart? Does she really fall inlove with Darcy after seeing his estate? Trace the development of her feelings for him.Why is Darcy attracted to Elizabeth? Trace the development of his feelings for her.
I think this question is a bit too “school report” like for my taste. Plus, you know, feelings. Seeing Pemberley was just another check mark in the positive side for Darcy. Not because it was all big and rich, but because of the character it displayed and thus by extension, Darcy’s character. You can tell a lot about a person by their living quarters. And by the people they keep around them. So it simply helped Elizabeth begin to change her feelings towards Darcy. She saw another side of him displayed through Pemberley. She was discerning enough to see that and to look beyond the wealth itself.
4. What might have happened if Elizabeth had accepted Darcy’s first proposal? Do you thinkhe really expected her to accept? How does the first proposal change their feelings for, andopinions of, each other?
I think their marriage would have ended in disaster. He wouldn’t have respected her and she never would have loved him him. They both needed to change themselves and see the other in a more accurate light before their marriage could have worked.
I do think Darcy expected an acceptance. I’m pretty sure when they are talking about it later he says something like “you had everything to gain and nothing to lose by accepting my proposal. At least that is how I saw it at the time”.
I think Darcy’s proposal opened Elizabeth’s eyes to the fact that Darcy did love her. He wasn’t just attracted to her, but he loved her. That allowed her to realize that her feelings of prejudice might need to change. And Darcy got a good earful from Elizabeth and he needed that to set him on the path of seeing her as an equal in any marriage endeavor and not just an emotional and sexual outlet.
7. Mr. and Mrs. Bennet do not agree on very much, especially when it comes to theirdaughters’ futures. Who is the better parent—Mr. or Mrs. Bennet? What role does familyplay in this novel?
Neither of them is the better parent. Mr Bennet is the least worst though. Lydia is exactly like her mother, so it shouldn’t have come as any surprise to anyone at her running away with Wickham and not caring at all about getting married. Mr Bennet could have helped guide his wife’s character growth at the beginning of their marriage but chose not to fight that battle and he reaped the harvest with a selfish, vain, silly woman for a wife.
Family plays a huge role! The Bennetts. Darcy’s sister and Aunt. Mr Bingley’s sister. Elizabeth’s Aunt and Uncle. Even Wickham is a pseudo-family of the Darcy’s. You can’t go very far without a family interaction.
8. Darcy says that Wickham tried to elope with Georgiana for revenge. Does revenge play a part in his elopement with Lydia?
I don’t think it does at all. I think Wickham needed an out and Lydia provided the easiest and most comfortable out. I have to admit, Wickham running away with Lydia still puzzles me.
11. Why is this novel so popular? Why do readers keep coming back to it, even after the original suspense is gone and they know how it ends?
Because it’s a girly romance and there are more women in the world than men.
Is my off the cuff, flippant remark, hahahahaa.
My serious answer would be that the Initially Thwarted Romance between Jane and Mr Bingley and the Enemies to Lovers Romance between Elizabeth and Mr Darcy speaks to a lot of women. “I” like it because it’s a romantic story that shows some real human foibles and it’s some very fine writing.
I skipped a bunch of questions because they pissed me off. I hate social media so wanted to nothing to do with that question. I disliked the leading question about Irony because I don’t like being led down a certain path by somebody else. Finally, I don’t care two figs for what it might have been originally titled. It is called Pride and Prejudice and that’ that. It’s overthinking things for the sake of overthinking to do any more on the title.
Bookstooge’s General Thoughts:
I must admit, I did not like this format of Question and Answer. I felt stifled, hemmed in and like I was back in highschool with a teacher looking over my shoulder. While it made writing a review much easier (I pasted/copied the questions and my answers from my emails to Lashaan), I totally did not enjoy the reading process itself. My brain did not have the freedom to wander down the byways because I was focused on trying to “pay attention” to the story so I could answer the questions.
It’s not that the Q&A is a bad way of doing things, especially for younger people who haven’t been trained to think for themselves yet. It gives them a framework within which to work, otherwise they’d be left floundering and their thoughts would be “I liked this” or “I didn’t like this” without any further explanation. But I am not a kid any more. Sadly, I haven’t been for a long time and I have much vaster reading experience now than I did back when I was a teenager (even as well read as I was then). For me, the reading experience itself is part of the process. I simply flow into the story, absorb it and let it knock around my brain like a pair of dice. Then I release it and see what happens. That’s how I read and review now. It’s been quite the revelation to me to come to that realization.
I am also glad that “I” am the one that chose the questions, that way I have nobody but myself to blame, hahahaahahaa.
Overall, while this Q&A was quite the different approach, and one that I’m happy to have applied, it won’t be happening again.
1. “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.” This first line has become one of the most famous in English literature. In addition to setting the narrative in motion, how does this line alert us to the tone of the novel and our role, as readers, in appreciating it? What does the line imply about women? (From the Chicago Public Library’s One Book, One Chicago pamphlet on Pride and Prejudice, 2005)
2. Elizabeth is upset to learn that Charlotte has accepted Mr. Collins’s marriage proposal. Do you think Charlotte should have married Mr. Collins? Did she choose him or did he choose her? What do you think influenced her decision to accept him? Is Charlotte a romantic? Is Elizabeth?
3. How does Pemberley play a role in Elizabeth’s change of heart? Does she really fall in love with Darcy after seeing his estate? Trace the development of her feelings for him. Why is Darcy attracted to Elizabeth? Trace the development of his feelings for her.
4. What might have happened if Elizabeth had accepted Darcy’s first proposal? Do you think he really expected her to accept? How does the first proposal change their feelings for, and opinions of, each other?
5. Several letters are reproduced in full in the text. What is the effect on you as a reader when you read a letter instead of getting the information contained in it from the 3rd person narrator? Why do you think Austen might have used letters so often in this novel? (There are 59 references to letters in the book.)
6. How does the title Pride and Prejudice relate to the original title Jane Austen used for the novel, First Impressions? Do you think Pride and Prejudice is a better title? Why? How does it relate to Elizabeth? Darcy? Does it relate to other characters in the novel?
7. Mr. and Mrs. Bennet do not agree on very much, especially when it comes to their daughters’ futures. Who is the better parent—Mr. or Mrs. Bennet? What role does family play in this novel?
8. Darcy says that Wickham tried to elope with Georgiana for revenge. Does revenge play a part in his elopement with Lydia?
9. Lady Catherine’s visit to Elizabeth to persuade her not to marry Darcy actually has the opposite effect and propels them toward the final conclusion, their marriage. What is it about this use of dramatic irony that is so appealing to readers? What other examples of irony do you find in the novel?
10. The novel has many universal themes that make it relevant today and inspire contemporary spin-offs and adaptations. Imagine the Facebook pages of each of the Bennet daughters. Who would be most active on Facebook? How would their entries differ from each other? Would any of them choose not to be on Facebook?
11. Why is this novel so popular? Why do readers keep coming back to it, even after the original suspense is gone and they know how it ends?
From Wikipedia.org
Synopsis – Click to Open
In the early 19th century, the Bennet family live at their Longbourn estate, situated near the village of Meryton in Hertfordshire, England. Mrs Bennet’s greatest desire is to marry off her five daughters to secure their futures.
The arrival of Mr Bingley, a rich bachelor who rents the neighbouring Netherfield estate, gives her hope that one of her daughters might contract an advantageous marriage, because “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife”.
At a ball, the family is introduced to the Netherfield party, including Mr Bingley, his two sisters and Mr Darcy, his dearest friend. Mr Bingley’s friendly and cheerful manner earns him popularity among the guests. He appears interested in Jane, the eldest Bennet daughter. Mr Darcy, reputed to be twice as wealthy as Mr Bingley, is haughty and aloof, causing a decided dislike of him. He declines to dance with Elizabeth, the second-eldest Bennet daughter, as she is “not handsome enough”. Although she jokes about it with her friend, Elizabeth is deeply offended. Despite this first impression, Mr Darcy secretly begins to find himself drawn to Elizabeth as they continue to encounter each other at social events, appreciating her wit and frankness.
Mr Collins, the heir to the Longbourn estate, visits the Bennet family with the intention of finding a wife among the five girls under the advice of his patroness Lady Catherine de Bourgh, also revealed to be Mr Darcy’s aunt. He decides to pursue Elizabeth. The Bennet family meet the charming army officer George Wickham, who tells Elizabeth in confidence about Mr Darcy’s unpleasant treatment of him in the past. Elizabeth, blinded by her prejudice toward Mr Darcy, believes him.
Elizabeth dances with Mr Darcy at a ball, where Mrs Bennet hints loudly that she expects Jane and Bingley to become engaged. Elizabeth rejects Mr Collins’ marriage proposal, to her mother’s fury and her father’s relief. Mr Collins instead proposes to Charlotte Lucas, a friend of Elizabeth.
Having heard Mrs Bennet’s words at the ball and disapproving of the marriage, Mr Darcy joins Mr Bingley in a trip to London and, with the help of his sisters, persuades him not to return to Netherfield. A heartbroken Jane visits her Aunt and Uncle Gardiner in London to raise her spirits, while Elizabeth’s hatred for Mr Darcy grows as she suspects he was responsible for Mr Bingley’s departure.
In the spring, Elizabeth visits Charlotte and Mr Collins in Kent. Elizabeth and her hosts are invited to Rosings Park, Lady Catherine’s home. Mr Darcy and his cousin, Colonel Fitzwilliam, are also visiting Rosings Park. Fitzwilliam tells Elizabeth how Mr Darcy recently saved a friend, presumably Bingley, from an undesirable match. Elizabeth realises that the prevented engagement was to Jane.
Mr Darcy proposes to Elizabeth, declaring his love for her despite her low social connections. She is shocked, as she was unaware of Mr Darcy’s interest, and rejects him angrily, saying that he is the last person she would ever marry and that she could never love a man who caused her sister such unhappiness; she further accuses him of treating Wickham unjustly. Mr Darcy brags about his success in separating Bingley and Jane and sarcastically dismisses the accusation regarding Wickham without addressing it.
The next day, Mr Darcy gives Elizabeth a letter, explaining that Wickham, the son of his late father’s steward, had refused the “living” his father had arranged for him and was instead given money for it. Wickham quickly squandered the money and tried to elope with Darcy’s 15-year-old sister, Georgiana, for her considerable dowry. Mr Darcy also writes that he separated Jane and Bingley because he believed her indifferent to Bingley and because of the lack of propriety displayed by her family. Elizabeth is ashamed by her family’s behaviour and her own prejudice against Mr Darcy.
Months later, Elizabeth accompanies the Gardiners on a tour of Derbyshire. They visit Pemberley, Darcy’s estate. When Mr Darcy returns unexpectedly, he is exceedingly gracious with Elizabeth and the Gardiners. Elizabeth is surprised by Darcy’s behaviour and grows fond of him, even coming to regret rejecting his proposal. She receives news that her sister Lydia has run off with Wickham. She tells Mr Darcy, then departs in haste. After an agonising interim, Wickham agrees to marry Lydia. She visits the family and tells Elizabeth that Mr Darcy was at her wedding. Though Mr Darcy had sworn everyone involved to secrecy, Mrs Gardiner now feels obliged to inform Elizabeth that he secured the match, at great expense and trouble to himself.
Mr Bingley and Mr Darcy return to Netherfield. Jane accepts Mr Bingley’s proposal. Lady Catherine, having heard rumours that Elizabeth intends to marry Mr Darcy, visits her and demands she promise never to accept Mr Darcy’s proposal, as she and Darcy’s late mother had already planned his marriage to her daughter Anne. Elizabeth refuses and asks the outraged Lady Catherine to leave. Darcy, heartened by his aunt’s indignant relaying of Elizabeth’s response, again proposes to her and is accepted.
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: Making Love Last Forever Series: Author: Gary Smalley Rating: 4 of 5 Stars Genre: Non-Fiction Pages: 304 Words: 99K
First, lets get the elephant in the room out of the room. That cover is pure 90’s Self-Help and it doesn’t do the book any favors whatsoever. I know that Smalley is not a vain man (more than any other man I mean) but this makes him look like some greased up shyster on a used car lot. It is too bad because this is a very helpful book on a lot of levels. I also have thought ALL these years that Smalley was the author of one of the books that changed my life, The Five Love Languages, so I gave him a lot of leeway. Upon finishing this book I realized that a “Gary Chapman” had written that book and that Smalley had nothing to do with it. Oh, what a let down that was.
Smalley is a professional counselor and does/did counseling in an office, in seminars, through video series and in books. He set out to reach as many people as he could and I think he succeeded in his mission.
Smalley is a Christian but his principles are general-use and while geared towards those who believe in Jesus, are still effective and ecumenical enough for anyone. He also only brings God into things as a “and if you want it to work even better, try….”. I never felt that he was a pushy Evangelical writing a theological treatise under the guise of a self-help book. Smalley genuinely cares for people and couples and wants what is best for them.
The book is filled with anecdotes from his own life, from people he has counseled and from other situations he has been in. While he might seem to go on tangents at time, he is always very good about bringing things right back to the theme of that particular chapter. He also has very good generalized advice and everything is aimed at the reader of the book. It’s not about trying to change your spouse, or make “them” better. Smalley says Love starts with us and it is our responsibility to carry out the duties of Love even if things are bad. This delves a lot into attitudes and stuff going on inside of a person. Which I must admit sometimes annoyed me because I wanted a Concrete List of things To Do. And what do you know, at the end of each chapter he has a list of things that Forever Love does, or does not do, that tie into the theme of that chapter. By the end of the book there were close to 150 bullet points in the list. That is exactly what I wanted.
I liked the fact that was so focused on the reader. In my marriage, the only thing I can truly change is myself. I can try to control Mrs B, or our circumstances or events, but that will destroy things quicker than anything. Plus, it’s exhausting trying to live two people’s lives. Smalley brings out that it simply isn’t viable, besides the fact that it goes against everything that Love actually is. So what can I do in my marriage to make things better? Focus on those things and don’t worry about what you can’t. I’m sure other people reading the book will get different things, but that is what stood out to me.
I’ve written about Love (Smalley uses the term Forever Love) here but wanted to define just what that is. Otherwise it becomes a nebulous “whatever” that can be manipulated. The following comes from the first book of Corinthians, chapter 13:
Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.Love never ends.
★★★★☆
From the Publisher
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For years Gary Smalley has helped millions of couples throughout North America enrich their relationships and deepen their bonds of love and companionship. In this extraordinary book, he shows you how to stay in love through all the stages of life. From first attraction to lifelong commitment, Gary’s proven techniques and practical advice show you how to pursue and keep the love you want, and how to energize your relationship with enduring, passion-filled love.
In this book you’ll learn how to:
Understand and use love’s best-kept secret
Deal with the number one enemy of love
Turn headaches into more love
Increase your energy to keep loving
Find the power to keep on loving your spouse
Use normal conflicts as doorways to intimacy
Read a woman’s built-in marriage manual twelve ways
Divorce-proof your marriage
Develop the five vital signs of a healthy marriage
Respond to your partner’s number one request
Find the powerful secret to great love
Bring out the best in your maddening mate
With humor, empathy, and insight, Gary Smalley inspires you to fall in love with life and enjoy the deep satisfaction of a lifelong love. Down-to-earth examples, touching personal experiences, and inspiring spiritual principles will motivate you to bring about positive changes in your marriage-whether or not your mate is a willing participant. You’ll learn how to tap resources at hand to help you follow through with your journey-and make your love last forever.
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: Enemy of the State Series: Mitch Rapp #16 Author: Vince Flynn & Kyle Mills Rating: 3 of 5 Stars Genre: Thriller Pages: 331 Words: 103K
The US President is tired of the Saudi’s continuing to fund terrorism while taking our money to supposedly fight it themselves. So he sends Mitch Rapp on a mission to start killing the Saudi Royalty as a way to show they can no longer be safe as terrorist proxies. Things go south and Rapp becomes disavowed by the US government. One of his old enemies is co-opted by a corrupt Saudi working for ISIS to hunt Rapp down. And just in case that isn’t enough, Rapp’s new girl wants to start working the logistics side of supporting him in the field.
Kennedy, the Director of the CIA and Rapp’s boss, is barely in this story. I don’t think Mills knows how to truly utilize her and so he just has pushed her to the background. He’s also turned Mitch Rapp into the crazy killing machine everyone thought he was (but wasn’t) when the original author Vince Flynn was writing him. Mills has a much heavier hand and there’s no nuance or suggestion. It’s not a terrible change but it makes Rapp a much less interesting character and limits the scope of what he is capable of.
The action/adventure side of things is definitely all there. It was good. It is what is keeping this series from descending into mediocre territory since Mills just can’t seem to handle Mitch Rapp as a character. I’m going to continue to read these book, I’m going to continue to enjoy them but I am definitely going to continue to complain about Mills’ handling of the characters.
After writing that, I thought about it for a bit. I realized that it isn’t so much that Mills doesn’t “get” Rapp, but that he doesn’t have the same sense of the political that Flynn did. It feels like Mills is colorblind in this regards while Flynn had an eye for various shades of the same color, thus able to subtly bring out aspects you’d never expect. Mills simply can’t do that because of his limitations. Part of me thinks I shouldn’t pick on the poor gimpo, but he is the one who chose to pick up the brush of the master and try to continue his work. I am never going to compare Mills to other books by Mills because I have zero interest in his other works. I will always be comparing him to Flynn, because Flynn started this and created a masterful canvas to work on. Mills just isn’t as good an author as Flynn was. In his defense, he never whines or complains in the forwards or afterwards. He has a cash cow and he’s thankful for every squeezing it gives him.
I just wish he’d make some of that wonderful caramalized onion cheddar instead of the straight up sharp cheddar.
★★★☆☆
From Kylemills.com/books/enemy-of-the-state/
Click to Open
In the #1 New York Times bestselling series’ latest installment, Mitch Rapp finds himself alone and targeted by a country that is supposed to be one of America’s closest allies.
After 9/11, the US made one of the most secretive and dangerous deals in its history—the evidence against the powerful Saudis who coordinated the attack would be buried. In return, King Faisal would promise to keep the oil flowing and deal with the conspirators in his midst.
When the king’s own nephew is discovered funding ISIS, the president suspects that the Saudis never intended to live up to their agreement. He decides that the royalty needs to be sent a message and that Mitch Rapp is just the man to deliver it. The catch? America can’t be seen moving against an ally. Rapp will be on his own.
Forced to make a decision that will change his life forever, Rapp quits the CIA and assembles a group of independent contractors to help him complete the mission.
They’ve barely begun unraveling the connections between the Saudi government and ISIS when the brilliant new head of the intelligence directorate discovers their efforts. With Rapp getting too close, he threatens to go public with the details of the post-9/11 agreement between the two countries.
Facing an international incident that could end his political career, the President orders America’s intelligence agencies to join the Saudis’ effort to hunt the former CIA man down.
Rapp, supported only by a team of mercenaries with dubious allegiances, finds himself at the center of the most elaborate manhunt in history. It’s only a matter of time before he’s caught or killed. Will it be enough to turn the tables on the Saudis and clear his name?
As Valentines Day is coming up in just a few days, I wanted to showcase art directly related and not just a happy drawing like last week’s Lover’s First Date.
Even Beasts have hearts that beat with love for another. Whether handsome and debonair, or ill-visaged and rough, the same heart beats within both. Remember that Love is no respecter of persons. It strikes when and where it will.
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 Doctor and The Kid Series: Weird West Tales #2 Author: Mike Resnick Rating: 2.5 of 5 Stars Genre: Steampunk Pages: 235 Words: 77K
Another lacklustre series by Resnick. This was Book #2 in the Weird West Tales series and you might wonder why I read and reviewed this instead of the first book, The Buntline Special. I would recommend you sit down. If you have a weak heart or are given to vapors, please, stop reading now. I didn’t read the first book BECAUSE, da da dum, it wouldn’t open on my kindle oasis.
Shock
Gasp
Wince
Vapors!
I know, I know. It shocked me to the core as well. I even reconverted the azw3 file with calibre and it still wouldn’t open. Since I had stopped caring about Resnick since his pathetic outing on the John Justin Mallory series, I pre-emptively didn’t care about book 1 of this series either. So on to book 2 it was.
Sadly, I made the right choice in pre-emptively not caring.
Doc Holliday is a bastard, pushing away everyone near to him. At one point he deliberately says some really nasty things about his best friend’s wife just because he’s feeling ornery. And Holliday even likes the poor lady. He’s just the worst that humanity has on tap.
Resnick does his patented “He said, He did” style of writing and what could have been a real interesting idea (Geronimo and other Indian shamans have kept the US bottled at the Mississippi River and the US Government has hired Thomas Edison and Ned Buntline to try to find a way to break their magic using technology coupled with Doc Holliday taking down Billy the Kid) turned into a drunken, consumptive asshole killing some people and telling everyone he meets he can’t wait to die.
Inspiring stuff! I was thrilled beyond belief.
It wasn’t terrible. It just wasn’t any good. But I have given Resnick enough passes and so I am done with him as an author.
Next!
★★✬☆☆
From the Publisher
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Welcome to a West like you’ve never seen before! With the O. K. Corral and the battle with the thing that used to be Johnny Ringo behind him, the consumptive Doc Holliday makes his way to Deadwood, Colorado. But when a gambling loss drains his bankroll, Doc aims for quick cash as a bounty hunter. The biggest reward? Young, 20-year-old desperado known as Billy the Kid. With a steampunk twist on these classic characters, nothing can be as simple as it seems.
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Title: Bar the Doors Series: ———- Editor: Alfred Hitchcock Rating: 3 of 5 Stars Genre: Crime Fiction Pages: 198 Words: 59K
The subtitle for this book is “13 Great Tales of Terror by Masters of the Macabre”. This collection uses a lot of short stories that didn’t appear in Hitchcock’s own mystery magazine and it shows. Not that they are in any way bad, but they don’t have that “curated by Hitchcock” feel that I get from other collections.
Also, while I have kept this in the “crime fiction” fiction, the tales of terror subtitle is much more accurate. Not all are supernatural. Some are blatantly physical, such as The Storm, in which a woman comes home a week early only to find her husband is out. And she finds a woman’s body in a moving trunk with a distinctive ring on it’s finger. The story ends with her being gaslit by her husband and seeing that same ring on his finger. It was just plain creepy but nothing supernatural. Then you have Pollock and the Porroh Man which is ALL about the supernatural. A man takes a voodoo man’s woman and then tries to kill the voodoo man and in the process gets cursed. He then kills the voodoo man, so there is no way to lift the curse. The head of the voodoo man follows him back to England and haunts him until he goes insane and he kills himself. Lovely, eh?
I was particularly interested in this collection because of the inclusion of two authors, Ambrose Bierce and Augustus Derleth. Both were small time contributors to the King in Yellow and Cthulhu mythologies and I was hoping that these stories would give me a taste of what they were like. I was not impressed. Derleth’s story, The Metronome, was a simple ghost story about a murdered boy murdering the step-mother who had killed him. I actually had to go and read the story again before writing this because I had completely forgotten what it was about a mere week after reading it. It wasn’t bad but there wasn’t a single memorable thing about it. Bierce’s The Damned Thing, was about an invisible monster that killed a man in front of his friend the story is the friend relating it all at the inquest. The inquest ends with the jury deciding the man who was killed was killed by a mountain lion. While nothing spectacular, it did have that fatalistic feel of “nothing I say or does matters” which I’ve come to associate very strongly with Cosmic Horror.
I did have a bad scan of this, as it was quite apparent that someone had simply scanned the pages from the original paperback and sent it out into the wild without cleaning it up at all. So there would be random “Authors Name Page X” or “Story Name Page X” scattered throughout the text. That detracted from the flow of reading through this smoothly. Kind of like hitting a nail in tree while chopping it down using a chainsaw. If you’ve ever had that experience, you’ll know exactly what I mean.
Finally, the cover. The version I had originally came with some lame picture of Hitchcock in a rain coat in the rain at a doorway about to enter. It was blasé. I chose this cover because it’s very creepy looking and is actually semi-related to the story “The Kill”.
