June '24 Roundup & Ramblings

Raw Data:

Novels – 15 ↓

Short Stories – 0 –

Manga/Graphic Novels – 0 ↓

Comics – 0 ↓

Average Rating – 3.20 ↓

Pages – 3608 ↓

Words – 1304K ↓

The Bad:

Life, the Universe and Everything – 2 stars of utter stupidity. Not funny, just stupid.

Remains – 2.5stars of watching a favorite series slide into something I didn’t want.

The Good:

Jenny Trapdoor – 4stars of Polity goodness and ultra-violence.

The Pinhoe Egg – 4star ending to the Chrestomanci series.

Movie:

The Clow. The first four episodes of the anime Card Captor Sakura. When story telling still meant something.

Miscellaneous Posts:

• [Art] Solar Guardians: Earth
• Ebony Horse – MTG 4E
• CRQ: Mary Poppins Comes Back
• So, This Happened…
• Book Recommendations – The Intro Post
• Elder Land Wurm – MTG 4E
• Tastes Like Chicken!
• [Art] Gardens True Spirit
• El-Hajjaj – MTG 4E
• My Week I
• Elven Riders – MTG 4E
• MC: The Deckening I
• Top Dog (For A Day Anyway) or My Week II

Personal: (there’s a lot)

Thankfully, that nasty cough is gone for both of us. Took me two weeks longer than Mrs B, but we eventually beat it. Man, I do not want to repeat that any time soon!

Got both my eyes injected for my diabetes, at the same time. I usually have one eye done one week and then the other the next, but that is an extra vacation day to use up, so I took the latest time slot and Mrs B came with me so she could drive home. It’s a good thing. I normally drive myself home when it was just one eye, but man, doing both at once really did a number on me. Once we got home, I took some tylenol, a sleeping pill and slept until it was time to go to work the next day. And I didn’t even have to use up any vacation time. Score!

One of our cars developed a gas leak, but the garage said they didn’t have an opening until the next week, so we drove it there and parked it. That way the gas would get on THEIR parking lot and not ours 😉 I was hoping that would help convince them to put it into the schedule sooner. That meant juggling our remaining vehicle as we both had to work. Thankfully, our work times have enough leeway that one could drive to work and the other drive back. Meant one had to sit around in the morning the other sit around in the afternoon, but better than walking 4 miles each way next to a four lane highway. It was taken care of, quicker than they said it could be, so I think leaving it on their premises helped 😉

It was also a busy month. Mainly for Mrs B, but when she’s busy, there’s always spillover and so I’m busier too, even if not as busy as her. Several various doctors appointments. Lots of social meetings (including picking strawberries at a local organic farm), a highschool graduation party, a bbq sendoff for a childhood friend of mine who I haven’t seen in years, singing at a local rest home, helping our new (future) pastor and his family move in to their home and going to a work friend’s place for more bbq’ing.

In fact, we were so busy that I forgot to read a Groo comic this month. Is that a crying shame or what? Never fear though, I’ve made sure to pencil it in for July so I won’t miss it. Wouldn’t want to deprive you of your one piece of good literature you’ll read about 😉

I also managed to forget about $2000 worth of equipment on a jobsite one day. Thankfully, the contractor saw it and set it aside so no one stole it, but man, that really shook me up. I’m usually very meticulous about making sure we pack everything up at the end of the day. It was about an hour away, so Mrs B and I went on a road trip that weekend to pick it up. Lovely scenery anyway.

I participated in my first “group thing” in several years. #ReadingtheMeow2024 was a very simple group activity of just reading a book that involved a cat. The Pinhoe Egg (linked above) slotted right in without me even having to try. THAT’S the kind of group activity I like. Where I am by myself and nobody tells me what to do 😉

The Mysterious Spike In Stats (chronicled in the “So This Happened” post, which also broke the 100 view mark in a single day) got me some big numbers for the month. I believe I was able to find out the cause of some of them, but definitely not all. Either the bots are truly becoming intelligent (as shown by their consuming my words like honey) or my ascension as the King of Blogging has begun. Personally, I suspect you may start calling me “Your Majesty” by this time next month. 👑

We had a heat wave mid-month. For three days it was 100 degrees. Had to go into work an hour early so we were done before the temps peaked in the afternoon. It was pure misery.

Plans for Next Month:

READ A GROO COMIC!!!! I know I mentioned it above, but seriously, that is important stuff.

Independence Day is coming up later this week and I’ll be doing my usual posting of our Founding Document.

Book Recommendations. I garnered enough suggestions in the Intro Post to start replying in July. So put on your thinking caps and come up with MORE suggestions. And you people who comment rarely or never, jump on in would you? I would love to link to some of you folks and get to know you, even if in a very silly way. You can do it! I would say there is nothing to be afraid of, but honestly, there is. That Chartreuse Flag is flapping menacingly in the background. You can hear it, flap, flaaaap, flaaaaaaaap…

Pound of Flesh (Arcane Casebook #10) 3.5Stars

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: Pound of Flesh
Series: Arcane Casebook #10
Author: Dan Willis
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Pages: 312
Words: 100K

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I was looking, it’s been over a year and a half since I read the last Arcane Casebook, Hidden Voices. This is why I don’t usually read a series as it is being written. But in a few select cases, I let that rule slide. The Arcane Casebook is one of those series.

In this story, Alex is dealing with the fallout from the previous book. He had become addicted to a drug that enhanced his abilities but with the usual costs of a drug. This time, he had to be cutoff from using ANY magic or else his own system might kill him. Which means that by the books end, he was forced to rely on help from others and to begin thinking on his feet again. It was a return to form from the first book where Alex was a very weak runewright. I liked it.

The multiple mysteries were entertaining too. My only issue was at the 70% mark I suddenly realized how everything tied together. It didn’t ruin the book for me, but it definitely took the edge off of the thrill. I suspect mystery readers will piece things together much faster than me.

With this entry I am now content to read the next book whenever it becomes available. I’m in no rush nor do I feel a burning desire to HAVE to have the next book. That’s a good feeling to be content.

★★★✬☆

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From the Publisher

Synopsis – Click to Open

One of the first things a private detective learns is that people have secrets, and people with important secrets attract trouble.

When a young woman is brutally murdered in a back alley, the police quickly turn to Alex Lockerby to help them. Hampered by the fallout from his own secrets, Alex goes to work, only to find that the victim in this case had secrets of her own, starting with her identity.

As Alex tries to trace the origins of the mysterious murder victim, a woman comes to his office, begging Alex’s help because she believes the new house she’s purchased is haunted. When Alex investigates the house, he finds that even it holds a secret, one that someone is willing to kill to keep.

With political pressure mounting to solve the murder of the nameless woman, and the tabloids blaming the police for the lack of progress, Alex finds himself caught in a web of secrets, lies, and murder that he might not be able to escape from. Can Alex bring a violent maniac to justice while, at the same time, stopping a methodical killer determined to bury the past forever?

Top Dog! (For A Day Anyway) or My Week II

This past week I’ve been getting a very steady trickle of Google search hits for my reviews on the Metaframe War books I’ve read so far. It was enough that I decided to investigate and see what was going on. Most of the time when that happens it’s because I’ve pissed somebody off and they’ve cried to their mommy about it and that sends the drones my way. Thankfully, it was nothing like that.

Mommy Drone in Attack Mode!

As you can see in the first picture, my site pops up Fourth in a google search for Metaframe War Review. Most of the hits after that are from various bookstores, etc, much like the Amazon hit shown.

I didn’t show it, but my review for Traitor’s War (book 2) is at Fourteen. So I’ve got 2 frontline eyeballs for anyone curious about the Metaframe War. Of course, in about a week I’ll have sunk to the 100th page and I’m ok with that.

But for right now, I’m basking in my own notoriety and the power that comes from being A Book Reviewer. I am the power behind the throne. Dreams live, or die, at my whim. Hope and Despair live within my gaze and I turn it where I will, much like the Eye of Sauron! Mwhahahahaha!

Yeah, ok, I’m giving myself a Chartreuse Flag for an out of control egotrip. But it was worth it, every single second!

Hopefully you’ve had a good week too? Probably not as good as mine, but that’s ok. Not everyone can be the Mad Chartreuse Emperor of the known Universes after all. But just to show you how much I care, I will actually read any comments that are left and if you’ve been a really good boy/girl, I might even respond. Wowzer, talk about incredibly generous! That way you can tell your grandkids that you actually talked with someone who was on Google. But wait, there’s more!

Oh, no there isn’t.

Have a good Friday and I’ll see you in the comments. Or on your blog. Or on Whatsapp. Or email. Or text. Don’t think that just because I’m ending this post means I’m stopping talking. No sirree bob. There are words to be said. Many, many, many words. Like “extra large bottle of bbq sauce”.

`dragged away by the men in white coats carrying a strait jacket

ps,
If you don’t find this amusing, don’t worry. I am amused enough for everyone.

Mary Poppins Comes Back (Mary Poppins #2) 3Stars

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress & Blogspot by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: Mary Poppins Comes Back
Series: Mary Poppins #2
Author: Pamela Travers
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Middlegrade Fiction
Pages: 304
Words: 59K

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A couple of teens in our church had done the play/musical Mary Poppins Jr and had to read the original book so they had the full story. I was talking to them and when they mentioned it, that was how I got the idea to read at least the first couple of books. I thoroughly enjoyed Mary Poppins and after their play was done, hunted them down and asked them what they thought of the book. They had a VERY different take on the original and one that I suspect was more about age and experience difference than actual literary evaluation difference. But their comments stayed in my head as I went into the next book and yeah, I see what they meant. I shall expound in a later paragraph.

When I did the Currently Reading & Quote post earlier this month, I said I was looking forward to Mr Banks’ old nanny, Miss Andrew, striking sparks with Mary Poppins. Well, there was a confrontation but there weren’t many sparks, mainly because Mary Poppins so overpowered Miss Andrew that it would have been like asking a log of wood to strike sparks from an axe. Mary Poppins eventually got so fed up with Miss Andrew, that when she found out Miss Andrew kept a singing lark prisoner in a cage, she put Miss Andrew in the cage and had the lark fly all over the sky with it, thus scaring the stuffing out of Miss Andrew.

In this book, it is Jane, the eldest, who has a “bad” day and is naughty, naughty, naughty (in the previous book it was Michael). She ends up inside a magic vase, trapped by an evil “grandfather” who wants new grandchildren and for them to never change. Mary Poppins rescues her but Janes’ takeaway is that it wasn’t really her who was being so naughty, but some other “Jane”. I have noticed this author doesn’t believe in the fallen nature of humanity. Everyone is basically good. Which is so much complete balderdash that you have to be deliberately ignoring the evidence in front of your eyes. Children ARE naughty and bad. They need to be corrected. They need to come to the realization that they are bad in and of themselves and that they will never be “perfect’ on their own. Until a person realizes that, they can never admit that they need Jesus as their Lord and Savior.

Ok, so back to my reading. When I was talking with the teens from church, one of their complaints about Mary Poppins was how she gaslit the children and that really annoyed them, hence their dislike of the first book. I had to laugh, because it happens just as much this time, if not more. Jane and Michael will see something, like Mary Poppins coming down at the end of Michael’s kite (how she came back) and when they mention it to her, Mary Poppins acts outraged and like it couldn’t possibly have happened. Being children, they are not so sure of themselves, but the author always has them see some bit of evidence at the end of the chapter so they KNOW they did see what they thought they saw. I found it extremely amusing but I guess from a teenager’s view point I could understand why they wouldn’t like that. Getting older has brought me so many benefits that sometimes I forget and it takes talking to someone who hasn’t gotten to my place yet to remember just how blessed I am.

I also found out there are EIGHT Mary Poppins books. I just have the omnibus collecting the first four. Depending on how the next two go will determine if I try to track down the other four.

★★★☆☆

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From Wikipedia

Synopsis – Click to Open

Nothing has been right since Mary Poppins left Number Seventeen Cherry Tree Lane. One day, when Mrs. Banks sends the children out to the park, Michael flies his kite up into the clouds. Everyone is surprised, when Michael reels his kite in, to find that Mary Poppins is at the end of the string. She takes charge of the children once again (though she’ll only stay “’til the chain of her locket breaks”). This time, Jane and Michael meet the fearsome Miss Andrew, experience an upside-down tea party, and visit a circus in the sky. In the chapter “The New One” a girl, Annabel, is born into the Banks family, and concludes the family of now five children: three daughters and two sons. As in Mary Poppins, Mary leaves at the end (via an enchanted merry-go-round, throwing her locket towards the children as she disappears), but this time with a “return ticket, just in case” she needs to return.

Marvel Champions: The Deckening I

The last couple of posts explained, in simplified terms, the rules of Marvel Champions and the various steps each Hero and Villain went through for each round of the game.

Today, and then next month as well, I’d like to look at how the decks are constructed. This is a necessary bit of knowledge because while the Spiderman and Captain Marvel decks as well as the Rhino Villain Deck, are preconstructed, should you desire to play with any of the other heroes from the box, you will need to construct a deck yourself. This might seem complicated if you’ve never done any sort of deck construction before, but thankfully, the rules walk you through exactly what to do and I’ll be showing the various parts with pictures.

Today, we will just deal with constructing your Hero Deck. In the base set (the big box), there are 5 Heroes to choose from.

• Spiderman
• Captain Marvel
• Iron Man
• She-Hulk
• Black Panther

I will be choosing Spiderman today and using him and his cards as an example.

Once you choose your Hero Identity, there are a set of cards automatically associated with that Hero. You will see this on cards down in the lower right of the card. On the card below I have boxed in “Spiderman” in yellow with a big yellow arrow pointing to it. The number next to it means there are 15 cards in total associated directly with Spiderman.

Also associated with each Hero are a set of “Nemesis” cards. You will not be using these to construct your Hero deck, but need to keep track of them for when we construct our Villain Deck next time. I have once again boxed it in yellow with a big yellow arrow, hopefully making it easy to see. The numbers once again indicate how many of these cards there are, making it easy to group them together should you ever spill the box or have your cat knock it off the table, or even have your children play along with you.

The next part of the deck is your Aspect. In Marvel Champions, there are four Aspects to choose from:

• Justice
• Leadership
• Aggression
• Protection

Once again, there are specific cards associated with each Aspect, making it easy to choose the correct cards. These are found on the lower right of the card, just like the Hero Cards. While a bit blurry, the card below is a “Justice” card.

The Next part of a Hero Deck are the pool of Basic cards. This is group of cards that you can mix and match and add to your deck to bring it up to the requirements of deck building.

Some cards are generic and some are unique. If a card is generic, you can have up to 3 copies of it in your deck. If it is unique, you can only have 1 copy of it. You can tell a card is unique because of the Diamond symbol next to the Title/Name, as pictured below.

The above are all the parts you’ll need to create your personal deck. A Hero deck must have a minimum of 40 cards and a maximum of 50.

• One Hero Identity Card (doesn’t count towards the limit)
• All of the associated Hero Cards
• One of each card from a particular Aspect
• Additional cards from the Aspect you have chosen
• Additional cards from the Basic card pool

By the time you are done, you will have created a deck of 40 to 50 cards with which to play. Next time we will look at constructing the Villain Deck. And remember folks….

There Can Be…..
…..Only None!

A Traitor’s War (The Metaframe War #2) 3Stars

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress & Blogspot by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: A Traitor’s War
Series: The Metaframe War #2
Author: Graeme Rodaughan
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Pages: 247
Words: 97K

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Anton goes through a training montage with his new buddies, Vampire General Armitage continues her machinations and the secret hidden servant of the Red Empire (humans who fight vampires, but don’t care about collateral damage) is conflicted when they find out that the Red Empire has allied with the Vampire Dominion to take down the Order of Thoth (the group Anton kind of belongs to now).

Decent, but with some real issues. The leader of the group that Anton is now in appears to take such a hands off approach to being a leader that all he does is fight and tell others to fight. There was no “strategy” or tactics or anything. He really didn’t display any leadership qualities and his choices could have some really bad consequences, IF the leaders of the Red Empire and the Vampire Dominion weren’t just as clueless as him. It’s definitely the author not having any idea of how to write a leader. For him, the main character should be the leader and that is Anton, except Anton can’t be the leader because he’s too inexperienced and doesn’t know enough. It wasn’t bad writing, but it WAS poor writing. There were also some egregious “he said, she said, he did, she did” kind of scenarios that took me right out of the story.

Now, with all that complaining, I still enjoyed the story. I think the bones are decent. However, as I wrote in the comments in the first book (A Subtle Agency) if Rodaughan hasn’t improve beyond this level by the next book, I’m probably going to dnf the series. These books seem like the quality that you’d find in the Kindle Unlimited program. Indie authors who are trying to improve but aren’t keeping it to themselves when they should be.

I didn’t waste my time but neither did I feel like I had read something exceptional or even pretty good. It was decent and that was it. Sometimes that IS enough and sometimes it just isn’t. I guess I’ll be finding out which it is in the next book.

★★★☆☆

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From the Publisher

After the desperate battle on the Boston docks, Anton Slayne finds refuge amongst the vampire hunters of the Order of Thoth.
Anton discovers the Order of Thoth harbors a traitor who could get his new friends killed. While a secret alliance between the Red Empire, and rogue vampire general, Chloe Armitage, threatens to do the same.
With threats both within and without – will Anton’s new powers be enough to save his friends, or will his circling enemies destroy everyone he loves?

Elven Riders - MTG 4E

The Clow (Cardcaptor Sakura #1) (1998 Anime)

Hang on to your hats folks. After the utter disaster that Dune, Part 2 was, whereby my last remaining shred of interest in modern movies was completely ground into the dust, I decided to look backwards in time, to a completely different country, when story telling actually counted for something.

So back to a beloved anime from 1998. Cardcaptor Sakura is a Magical Girl anime about a girl named Sakura who accidentally releases a bunch of magical cards created by a Magician named Clow. The Guardian of the Cards, who had been sleeping on the job for 30 years, gives Sakura the job of re-capturing the Cards before a prophesied disaster befalls the entire world. Sakura is given magical girl powers by Kero, the Guardian and each Card she captures gives her additional magical powers.

CCS has had quite the storied release here in North America. It was released as a completely butchered tv version where Sakura plays a minor part instead of being the main character. It was subsequently released on dvd, uncut but subtitled only. Finally, it was released on Bluray, uncut and with both dubs and subs. There were other releases as the rights jumped from one company to another, but our interest here is the Uncut DVD release and the Bluray release.

I bought the entire 70 episode series (18 dvds) back in 2005. 18 dvd’s was quite an investment for me back then and I treasured this series. It was light, fluffy, upbeat and so positive that you could pour it on pancakes for breakfast. At the time, I didn’t mind the subtitle only release. This was the only way to watch CCS and so I watched it this way.

Fast forward to now. I was despondent. I was in despair. Movies were anathema to me. I was ready to nuke Hollywood as a whole and damn the civilian casualties. I needed something light, fluffy, upbeat and so positive I could pour it on my waffles for breakfast. CCS immediately sprang to mind. But I have a touch of the snob in me and merely re-watching my old dvd’s was not going to be nearly good enough for me. So I ordered the entire series on bluray. I wanted to do a compare/contrast and see if I had wasted my money on an upgraded version. I’ll be looking into that aspect next month.

This dvd, The Clow, has four episodes on it. They are as follows:

Synopses – Click to Open

1) Sakura and the Mysterious Magic Book”
-Sakura Kinomoto, a ten-year-old, experiences dreams involving a peculiar book and Tokyo Tower. After returning home from school, Sakura is drawn to the basement by strange noises. In her father’s library, she discovers the Clow Book, the same book from her dream. She accidentally breaks its seal, unleashing the magical Clow Cards into the world. The cards’ guardian, Cerberus, awakens and appoints Sakura the role of Cardcaptor – to catch and seal the cards using the Clow Wand. They successfully catch the Fly Card, allowing Sakura to fly.

2) Sakura’s Wonderful Friend
-Tomoyo meets Cerberus after she discovers Sakura’s secret and becomes involved in Sakura’s quest. Cerberus gets given the nickname “Kero-chan”, which will stick for the rest of the series. The next day, the students find the school’s desks and equipment in large piles. Kero believes it was the work of a Clow Card and forces Sakura to go to school at night where she confronts the Shadow Card. Using Windy, Sakura is able to capture it. Sakura finally accepts her role as a Cardcaptor because of Tomoyo’s support, who begins providing battle costumes for her to wear, as well as filming her endeavors.

3) Sakura’s Heart-Racing First Date
-Sakura’s class is on a field trip to the aquarium. During the penguin show, something catches the trainer’s leg and a penguin and pulls them into the water, but they are saved by Sakura’s brother, Toya, who is working part-time there. At school, Tomoyo gives Sakura and Kero mobile phones and on the way home, Sakura bumps into Yukito who invites her on a casual “date” to the aquarium. While they are eating, the Watery Card attempts to drown Sakura. For the first time, Sakura has to formulate a plan to capture a card. Using her wits and an unintentional clue from Yukito, she lures Watery into a freezer to immobilize and capture it.

4) Sakura’s Tiring Sunday
-While cleaning the house, Sakura finds two dormant Clow Cards, the Wood and the Rain. But while running an errand for her father, the two cards activate creating a jungle inside the house. Sakura uses Watery to capture the Rain Card and the gentle Wood Card yields on her own. Sakura gets the hard-earned lesson that a card is not fully subdued until she signs her name on it.

When I remembered these as sweet, I wasn’t kidding! I am talking totally saccharine here. By the time I was done with these 4 episodes, I was done for this month. I thoroughly enjoyed these but just like a bag of gum drops, you can only take so many at once.

I realize I blabbed a lot at the beginning and didn’t talk a lot about the specific episodes. I’ll eventually get around to that, but not at this time nor next month. I’ll provide a synopsis in a Details code next time just like this time but am hoping to focus on the differences between the dvd and the bluray releases. After THAT we’ll see if I can be bothered to talk about the episodes themselves. Don’t hold your breath though, I’m not feeling very “talky” when it comes to movies anymore.

Conan of Venarium (Conan the Barbarian #19) 3Stars

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress & Blogspot by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: Conan of Venarium
Series: Conan the Barbarian #19
Author: Harry Turtledove
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 192
Words: 81K

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Harry Turtledove is known for his alternate history, especially Roman alternate history. He’s big on the Roman Empire, blah blah blah. He is what I would qualify as an author and not just a writer. Doesn’t mean I read very much of his stuff. But it elevates my expectations of what I’m going to be getting.

And I got it.

Most fans of Conan know about the sack of Venarium. It was the beginning of the saga of Conan. Aquilonians invade Cimmeria and have their way for about two years. Then the various tribes unite and utterly destroy the invaders, from soldiers down to children. There was no mercy and it was a lesson to the Aquilonians to never even come near Cimmeria again.

Conan starts the story as a twelve year old and by the end, is only fourteen or fifteen. He’s pretty much the Conan that we read about in later stories by that point. His parents both die, the young girl he’s in love with has been destroyed, his entire village is gone and he has no ties to Cimmeria any more and he has a mansized grudge against Aquilonia.

This was a very good “origin” story for Conan and I’m happy to have read it. Recommended if you are a fan of Conan.

★★★☆☆

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From Wikipedia

Synopsis – Click to Open

An Aquilonian army marches across the border of Bossonia into southern Cimmeria under the command of one Count Stercus. We soon learn that, although an able commander and warrior, Stercus has fallen from favour with King Numedides for his lecherous ways involving adolescents back in Aquilonia. His banishment to the frontier is, apparently, part of his penance.

Word of the invasion passes through Cimmeria as the army continues to press north, building forts each evening where they camp. Eventually Stercus is satisfied with his advance and calls a halt.

The last fort constructed is called Venarium.

We are introduced to a 12-year-old boy named Conan, living with his family in a village called Duthil, located north of Venarium, about a day’s travel by foot. Conan’s family consists of his father, Mordec the blacksmith and his mother, Verina. Conan’s mother has been sick for as long as Conan can remember with tuberculosis.

Duthil is a good sized village, sporting a smith, a miller, a weaver, a tanner and other cottage industry. A number of farmers and herdsmen use Duthil as a hub for commerce and a source of additional labour at harvest. At least 2 homes in Duthil have more than one room.

Word of the invasion soon reaches Duthil. Mordec and Balarg, the two leading Elders, determine how to best continue spreading the word to other villages. We also hear, at this time, that Conan bears more than a passing affection for Balarg’s daughter, Tarla, who is near his age.

Before long, the men of a handful of Clans are gathering to repel the invading Aquilonians. Mordec readies himself to join them. He and Conan come to blows over Conan’s insistence that he is old enough to join in the battle.

The Clans surround the fort and mount a fierce attack but are scattered by a charge of Aquilonian cavalry as they are about to breach the gate. The Cimmerians break and run, many of them being ridden down and killed. A number of men from Duthil survive with various wounds. Mordec, one of the last Cimmerians to leave the battle, is the last villager from Duthil to return home. He and his Clansmen resignedly accept that, for the time being, they must live as conquered subjects of Aquilonia.

A squad of Aquilonian soldiers soon arrives at Duthil commanded by a Captain Treviranus. Mordec translates the Captain’s decrees into Cimmerian. He will treat the Cimmerians fairly but informs them that every Aquilonian harmed by a Cimmerian will result in ten Cimmerians being harmed in return. Treviraus even goes so far as to warn them to ward their youth against the impure interests of Count Stercus, his commander in Venarium. The squad constructs a small walled compound a stone’s throw from the village as a garrison.

Settlers begin arriving shortly thereafter and establish homesteads in the country around Venarium and south to the Bossonian border.

We see Conan grow up under the shackles of his youth, his domestic situation, and the enmity he bears the occupying soldiers and settlers.

The occupation lasts approximately two years.

That summer, two score Cimmerian Clans rise against the invaders and the horde sweeps south, utterly destroying Venarium, driving the last surviving settlers and the remnants of the defeated Aquilonian army ahead of them into Bossonia. A number of Cimmerians cross into Bossonia to teach the Aquilonians a hard lesson about ever considering another invasion. More than one band pushes south through Bossonia, raiding into Gunderland. Conan’s raiding party even pushes far enough south to enter Aquilonia itself, but is wiped out, soon thereafter, to a single man; Conan is the sole survivor.

Continuing south through Aquilonia, intent on travelling to the capital, Tarantia, Conan takes a contract as a teamster, despite never having driven a horse and wagon. He delivers the wagon load of onions, as promised, and then steals the wagon to head south and east toward other Hyborian lands.

Conan is 14 years old at the end of the story.

• The “Essential Conan” Trilogy
• All of My “Conan” Reviews

My Week I

This has been a brutal work week. If you’re one of those “Centigrade” people, here’s a link to a handy converter for you:
Online Temp Converter

By the end of each work day, I felt like a steam roller had run me over, multiple times. In the 9hrs at work, I would drink about 3/4 gallon of water and about 1/2 gallon of gatorade.

I came home, cooled down and went to bed. I had no energy for much else. And I still have to get through today. Wish me luck!

Remains (Galaxy's Edge #14) 2.5Stars

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: Remains
Series: Galaxy’s Edge #14
Author: Jason Anspach & Nick Cole
Rating: 2.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Military SF
Pages: 281
Words: 123K

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This was exactly the same as the previous book, in that we get one chapter with some of the space opera element and the rest of the book is a Legionnaires military science fiction novel. Not at all what I signed up for. So I’m downgrading my rating because I felt very generous last time. I’m not feeling that way at all any more.

Anspach and Cole made an unspoken compact with the readers in the first series. This was Star War’esque in both it’s tone and story line. That compact has been broken, most thoroughly now, by them in this second series. I wish they had never started this and once I’m done with this series, I’ll be done with them as authors.

Once again, Indie authors disappoint me and let me down. How typical.

★★✬☆☆

---

From the Publisher

The Legion has landed…

The Republic world of Kima has fallen with shocking speed to the renewed forces of the Mid-Core Rebellion, and General Chhun must lead the rebuilt and enhanced 131st Legion-along with Marines, Dark Ops, Navy, and Kimbrin Resistance-onto the planet to violently check their assault.

But timing is of the essence, and Chhun can’t do it alone. Bear, working undercover, unearths the treachery of a resurgent Nether Ops still working their dark influence from the shadows. Masters has his hands full just staying alive while he evades deadly pursuers. And Keel finds himself swept up in intrigues that may make the planetary takeover of Kima all but insignificant.

The battle is fierce and hard, but VICTORY is always within reach so long as the Legion-remade to its initial purpose-remains to fight.

Life, the Universe and Everything (THGttG #3) 2Stars

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: Life, the Universe and Everything
Series: THGttG #3
Author: Douglas Adams
Rating: 2 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 126
Words: 53K

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This was stupid. It wasn’t funny, it wasn’t amusing, it didn’t tell a story. It was simply stupid and Adams completely wasted my time with this utter piece of drivel.

Don’t be like the Chartreuse Emperor and read this book, or you’ll go insane. That’s a DoUbLe BoBa FaCt PrOmIsE!

★★☆☆☆

---

From Wikipedia

Synopsis – Click to Open

After being stranded on pre-historic Earth after the events in The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, Arthur Dent is met by his old friend Ford Prefect, who drags him into a space-time eddy, represented by an anachronistic sofa. The two end up at Lord’s Cricket Ground two days before the Earth’s destruction by the Vogons. Shortly after they arrive, a squad of robots land in a spaceship in the middle of the field and attack the assembled crowd, stealing the Ashes before departing. Another spaceship arrives, the Starship Bistromath, helmed by Slartibartfast, who discovers he is too late to stop the theft and requests Arthur and Ford’s help.

As they travel to their next destination, Slartibartfast explains that he is trying to stop the robots from collecting all the components of the Wikkit Gate. Long ago, the peaceful population of the planet of Krikkit, unaware of the rest of the Universe due to a dust cloud that surrounded its solar system, were surprised to find the wreckage of a spacecraft on their planet. Reverse engineering the vessel, they explored past the dust cloud and saw the rest of the Universe, immediately taking a disliking to it and deciding that it must be destroyed. They built a fleet of ships and robots to attack the rest of the Universe in a brutal onslaught known as the Krikkit Wars, but were eventually defeated. Realizing that the Krikkit population would not be satisfied alongside the existence of the rest of the Universe, it was decided to lock the planet in a Slo-Time envelope, to be opened only after the Universe has ended so that the planet can exist alone. The Wikkit Gate, shaped exactly like a wicket used in the sport of cricket, is needed to unlock the envelope. However, one ship carrying a troop of robots from Krikkit avoided being sealed in, and these robots began to search for the pieces of the Gate after they were dispersed about space and time.

Slartibartfast, Arthur, and Ford transport to an airborne party that has lasted numerous generations where another Gate component, the Silver Bail, is to be found, but Arthur finds himself separated from the others and ends up at a Cathedral of Hate created by a being called Agrajag. Agrajag reveals that he has been reincarnated countless times in a wide variety of forms, only to be killed by Arthur in each life; he now plans to kill Arthur in revenge. However, upon learning that Arthur has yet to cause his death at a place called Stavromula Beta, Agrajag realizes that he has pulled Arthur out of his relative timeline too soon and that killing him now would cause a paradox, but attempts to kill Arthur anyway. In his insanity, Agrajag brings the Cathedral down around them. Arthur manages to escape unharmed, partially due to learning how to fly after falling and missing the ground while catching sight of a bag he had lost at a Greek airport years before. After collecting the bag, Arthur inadvertently comes across the flying party and rejoins his friends. Inside, they find Trillian, but they are too late to stop the robots from stealing the Silver Bail. Arthur, Ford, Trillian, and Slartibartfast return to the Bistromath and try to head off the robots activating the Wikkit Gate.

Meanwhile, the Krikkit robots steal the last two pieces, the Infinite Improbability Drive core from the spaceship Heart of Gold and a peg leg used by Marvin the Paranoid Android. They capture both Marvin and Zaphod Beeblebrox in the process.

The Bistromath arrives too late to stop the robots from opening the Gate, so its occupants transport to the planet to attempt to negotiate with the Krikkit people. To their surprise, they find that the people seem to lack any desire to continue the war, and are directed to the robot and spaceship facilities in orbit about the planet. With help from Zaphod and Marvin, the group is able to infiltrate the facilities. Trillian deduces that the Krikkiters have been manipulated, reasoning that the people of Krikkit could not simultaneously be smart enough to develop their ultimate weapon—a bomb that could destroy every star in the universe—and also stupid enough not to realize that this weapon would also destroy them.

The characters discover that the true force behind the war has been the supercomputer Hactar. Previously built to serve a war-faring species, Hactar was tasked to build a supernova-bomb that would link the cores of every sun in the Universe together at the press of a button and cause the end of the Universe. Hactar purposely created a dud version of the weapon instead, causing his creators to pulverize him into dust, which thus became the dust cloud around Krikkit. However, Hactar was still able to function, though at a much weaker level. Trillian and Arthur speak to Hactar in a virtual space that he creates for them to explain himself. Hactar reveals that he spent eons creating the spaceship that crashed on Krikkit to inspire their xenophobia and incite them to go to war, also influencing their thoughts. However, when the Slo-Time envelope was activated, his control on the population waned. As he struggles to remain functional, Hactar apologizes to Trillian and Arthur for his actions before they leave for their ship.

With the war over, the group collects the core of the Heart of Gold and the Ashes, the only two components of the Wikkit Gate not destroyed by the robots, and returns Zaphod and Marvin to the Heart of Gold. Returning to Lord’s Cricket Ground only moments after the robots’ attack, Arthur attempts to return the Ashes, but is suddenly inspired to bowl one shot at a wicket that is being defended using a cricket ball in his bag. However, during his run-up, Arthur suddenly realizes that the ball was created and placed in his bag by Hactar and is actually the working version of the cosmic-supernova-bomb, and that the defender of the wicket is one of the Krikkit robots, ready to detonate the bomb once thrown. Arthur trips, misses the ground, and flies over the pitch, allowing him to throw the bomb safely aside and behead the robot with its own bat.

Afterward, the group are taking Arthur to a ‘quiet and idyllic planet’ when they come across a half-mad journalist. Some time earlier, he had been reporting on a court case in which a witness named Prak was inadvertently given an overdose of a truth drug. Prak began to tell all truth, horrifying the involved parties so badly that they abandoned the courtroom and sealed it up with him inside. The group find him still there, hoping to learn from him the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything. They are disappointed to find that Prak has told all the truth in existence, but has forgotten it and kept no record. The only information he can provide is that the Ultimate Question and its answer can never both be known about in the same universe. He then attempts to tell Arthur where God’s last message to His creation is, though he dies seemingly before Arthur is able to memorize the location.

Arthur ultimately settles on Krikkit, where he becomes a more skillful flier and learns bird language. He is briefly interrupted by the arrival of an immortal alien who has made it his goal to insult every living creature in the universe, but the alien realizes that he has already done so with Arthur on prehistoric Earth.

• “The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide” (2009 Review)
• All of my “Douglas Adams” Reviews

The Amazing Mrs Pollifax (Mrs Pollifax #2) 3.5Stars

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 Amazing Mrs Pollifax
Series: Mrs Pollifax #2
Author: Dorothy Gilman
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Thriller
Pages: 173
Words: 60K

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Another wonderful adventure. Oh, I absolutely ADORE Emily Pollifax. She is the kind of person I wish I could meet more of in real life. She doesn’t ignore the horrible situation that she finds herself in in this story (chased by damned commies, governmental agencies of other countries and a rogue double agent) but through it all, she perseveres. If I had been in her situation, I would have crumbled into a smear of ash and blown away into the winds.

Another thing I appreciate about these stories, at least so far, is that nothing feels outlandish. I don’t feel like Gilman pulls authorial fiat just to increase the drama. Her story telling is real and organic and I could totally see things like this happening. Things go wrong in situations and when you’re dealing with spies, counter-spies and double agents, things going wrong is a very bad thing. It just felt “real”. Doesn’t mean it is, but as a casual reader, I was never taken out of the story. Mrs Pollifax doesn’t jump down a 10 story building, shoot 50 badguys and then flap her magical wings and fly to the moon. She puts her head down, she hides with gypsies and she simply tries to survive and do her best to get the woman she was supposed to contact out of the country. And she does it! Without whining or complaining. Amazing!!!!!! Authors today could take a page from Gilman’s style, that is for sure.

★★★✬☆

---

From Wikipedia.org

Synopsis – click to open

For this novel, Mrs. Pollifax is tasked by Mr. Carstairs, her CIA superior, to go to Turkey[2][3] and contact Magda Ferenci-Sabo, a known Russian spy and secret double agent[4] who is defecting to the Free World. Emily Pollifax is to give Magda money and a passport which will enable the former spy to leave Turkey. Although Carstairs gives Mrs. Pollifax only 30 minutes to get ready, the plucky widow is ready for another adventure. She flies to Turkey and sees Magda, but is unable to make personal contact before Magda flees. In pursuing her mission, Mrs. Pollifax embarks on a wild ride, matching wits with a diabolical double agent, traveling with Gypsies,[3][5] and again surviving imprisonment. However, characteristically, she befriends unlikely allies along her way.

• All of my “Mrs Pollifax” Reviews

El-Hajjaj - MTG 4E

The Ghost Makers (The Shadow #16) 3.5Stars

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 Ghost Makers
Series: The Shadow #16
Authors: Maxwell Grant
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Crime Fiction
Pages: 120
Words: 37K

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A bunch of scam artists pretend to be able to talk to the dead and bilk idiots out of their money. This is only possible if you don’t believe in soul sleep. Which I doubt any of you do. So prepare yourselves to get bilked, because the Amazing Bookstoogio will now do something that no one has ever done before.

I will end this review before it even gets started. Tada!

Now give me your money!

★★★✬☆

---

From Bookstooge.blog

Fake Mystics from India are fleecing the dumb and gullible nitwits here in the United States. The Shadow can’t stand for that, so he steps in and sends his own gullible nitwit against the fakirs, Detective Cardona. The whole gang is wrapped up and Cardona gets the accolades.

• All of My “The Shadow” Reviews

[Art] Garden's True Spirit

With Solar System Alpha Prime now protected by the Solar Guardians of Sun, Moon and Earth, we now return to our on-going story of the Mad Emperor Bookstooge and his quest of dire vengeance upon the Pegleg Pirate Ninja, the Hero of the People. Last we saw Hero, he was Flying Deep into the Mountains of Night, the last stronghold on Earth3.

Hero was hoping to gain an alliance with the Spirit of the World Garden, who was so powerful that she had kept the Mad Emperor at bay by her simple refusal to have anything to do with him. An act of utter negation as it were. It was through her power that Alpha Prime had been protected. While Hero sought an alliance, to use the Mountains of Night as a base of operations, Emperor Bookstooge had sought a crack into the World Garden. He had found a thread, a crack through Hero’s flight.

It was all a charade. Hero was no more a threat to the Mad Emperor than you or I would have been. The crack into the World Garden had been sought and with Hero’s unknowing aid, it was now found.

Would this spell the corruption of the World Garden? Would its power be co-opted to slake the Mad Emperor’s thirst for conquest of the stars themselves? Or would this attack upon her power simply make her even stronger, more impervious? Destruction, Stagnation or Growth?

Once again, I must apologize dear reader, for your humble narrator has no idea. Is the future safe, are the Stars themselves about to be conquered? We are all on this adventure of discovery together. Until next month, I bid you adieu.

~the mad laughter of a Mad Emperor rolls across the cosmos~

Tastes Like Chicken!

Behold, the Power of BBQ SAUCE!!!!!

The other Friday Mrs B and I went over to a childhood friend’s house of mine. He and I had literally grown up together and were best friends until my family moved away when we were tweens. We were baptized together. We went to summer bible camp from 1st grade through 12th grade. We attended vacation bible school. The little redheaded girl I liked was infatuated with him. We attended our freshman year of Bibleschool together. Then we went our separate ways. He ended up in the State Department, becoming a globe trotter for years at a time while I became a land surveyor and stayed within 20 miles of where I had grown up 😀

We would meet and catch up over the years. We really caught up at his sister’s wedding but our relationship was still “Oh, we knew each other, that’s nice”. Then she succumbed to Cancer in 2017 and during that time leading up to it, we reconnected as solid friends again. Ever since, we have made it a point to keep in touch and when he is in the North East, to visit for a couple of hours and catch each other up on what’s going on in our lives.

So Friday was such a time. He invited us over to his Mom’s house. I have many wonderful memories of playing at their house and it was great for a 10 year old boy to be out of a suburban area and way into the country. There was a rock by the side of their driveway, that probably came up to just past my knees. But to a 10 year old, it was humongous and we called it “Big Rock”. We played with Muscle Men and GI Joes and had adventures like you wouldn’t believe.

When you are 8 years old, Muscle Men were the coolest thing EVAH!

Then there were the two bad memories. The first one is humorous. I was 5 or 6 and was spending the night away from home for the first time. This was a BIG deal and I was so proud of it. Then that night we had a massive thunderstorm and I was so scared that I couldn’t stop crying and I practically made his dad take me home. How a 6 year old did that, I don’t know, but I suspect a LOT of screaming and fear. The second bad memory was of one of his dogs. I had gone over for the weekend and Saturday we had driven to Maine so his dad could scout out potential Christmas tree sellers. We were gone for like 12hours. We get home and us 3 kids (him, his sister and I) all get out at the bottom of the driveway so we can stretch our legs. The parents drove to the house and let the dog out. Now, this dog absolutely loved him. He was the light of the world to that dog. So to be gone 12hrs was pure hell for that dog. He came tearing down that dirt drive, running as fast as he could. Unfortunately, that dog was particularly stupid too. It was going so fast and only had eyes for his master that he didn’t see me until he was 5 feet away from me. In his defense, he tried to stop, but on a dirt driveway, it wasn’t happening. He bowled me over completely and dragged me a couple of feet. I got a massive cut on my upper leg from a rock cutting into me and I still have the scars from it to this day. I’m kind of surprised I didn’t end up in the Emergency Room. But in those days, you didn’t go to those unless you were dying, or dead. It was too expensive for people like us. So those are some of my memories of the house itself.

We had a wonderful time visiting. We had great food (grilled bbq chicken, light and heavy bbq sauced, grilled chicken sausages, grilled vegetables, potato salad, cole slaw, watermelon and cool drinks) that really hit the spot and it just facilitated us talking. Mrs B and he had never met so it was good for them to see the other. While I don’t talk about him a lot, he still influences my life. And obviously, I DO talk a lot about Mrs B 😀

And now he’s gone globetrotting again. Thankfully, we’ve connected via Whatsapp, so our communications should be more frequent than once every 2-5 years.

To close out this maudlin post, just remember, BBQ Sauce makes everything taste like chicken, even racoon 🦝 Hahahahahahaaa.

‘Til Death (87th Precinct) 3.5Stars

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress & Blogspot by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: ‘Til Death
Series: 87^th Precinct
Author: Ed McBain
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Crime Fiction
Pages: 139
Words: 46K

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How does an author manage to pack such an exciting and thrilling story into just 139 pages? Magic. That is the only explanation that I can logically come up with for how McBain tells this taut thriller, keeping me on the edge of my seat the entire time and yet not making me feel like I ever missed out on something.

Part of this is that it is not a “normal” situation for the officers of the 87^th Precinct. It’s all off duty, at the wedding of the sister of one of the main characters. Somebody wants to kill the groom and it’s up to the off duty officers to figure out who and prevent it. The kicker is, and while this is a spoiler, none of you are ever going to read this so I’m not too worried, there is actually more than one wanna-be killer. I totally did not see that coming.

It is amazing how McBain can turn little circumstances at a wedding into incidents that hold a lot more meaning. And the obsessed ex-boyfriend? Whoo boy, that guy kept getting worse and worse through the story and by the end, I had to wonder how he had avoided doing something before this that landed him in jail. He would be every girl’s nightmare and the kind of guy a big brother would have to squash to make him leave his sister alone. It was sad to see him living in such a delusional state, convinced the bride should be his and that she would be happy with him instead of with her fiance. And he’s not the guy who is trying to shoot the groom either!

See what I mean about McBain packing stuff in? It was fantastic.

★★★✬☆

---

From the Publisher

Synopsis – Click to Open

The wedding day of Detective Steve Carella’s sister Angela should be the most romantic, special day of her life. But it might turn out to be the worst if her brother can’t figure out which man on the guest list has come to murder the groom.

Carella and the men from the 87th Precinct find themselves on the clock as they desperately hunt amongst the name cards and catered dinners for the would-be assailant. Trouble is, the crowd has numerous people with viable motives: the best man who stands to inherit everything the groom owns, the ex-boyfriend with a homicidal crush, and even an ex-GI with a score to settle. But time is ticking, and if they don’t act fast, Angela will become a bride—and a widow—on the same day.

Another riveting installment of the 87th Precinct series, ‘Til Death is one of bestseller Ed McBain’s finest, an intense, life-and-death nerve-wracker hailed by the Literary Review as “zestful, inventive, and utterly compulsive.”

• All My “87^th Precinct” Reviews

The Pinhoe Egg (Chrestomanci #6) 4Stars

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 Pinhoe Egg
Series: Chrestomanci #6
Author: Diana Jones
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre: Middlegrade Fantasy
Pages: 231
Words: 88K

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This is the final Chrestomanci novel, as far as I know. I believe there are some collected short stories, but I will be passing on those. Jones’ story telling ability really goes up and down over this series and it mirrors my experience with the rest of her writings. It’s easy to see why she never became a famous “Go on tv and do interviews for years on end” kind of author. She’s decent and when she hits her stride, she really tells a good story. But there is something that keeps that from consistently happening. So I think I’m done with her as an author now. Ok, on to this particular book.

Once again, I found this quite an enjoyable story. Cat is a great main character and I enjoyed watching him and Marianne (a local witch) begin the growing up process and the self-assuredness that goes with that. My only issue is, and this pretty much applies to the whole series, is that not one adult can be trusted by the children. Chrestomanci is completely trustworthy, but the kids simply don’t trust him because he’s an adult. Even Roald Dahl always had one sympathetic and understanding adult in his stories, even if the children ended up taking care of everything. I really don’t like the message that anyone in authority is to be automatically distrusted. That is a terrible thing to tell children.

Because this was short and Jones really packs things in, it felt like a whirlwind, in a good way. If it wasn’t Cat learning about his own magic, it was Marianne chasing down Nutcase the cat who can walk through walls or Chrestomanci getting trapped by the combined magic of the Pinhoe’s and Farleigh’s or Joe (Marianne’s brother) and Roger Chant working on combining magic and mechanical engineering to create a flying machine. It was fun, crazy and enchanting.

Speaking of Nutcase the cat. All of the Chrestomanci books have showcased a cat, usually ones that are psychically linked to one character or another. That isn’t the case here. Nutcase is just a big tom who goes where he wants, when he wants and eats the same way. He’s a great way to get Marianne running all over the place trying to catch him and he definitely had attitude for the whole book.

I mention this because Mallika is running #ReadingtheMeow2024 this week and this book slips right into that, nice as pie. If you happen to like cats, please check out her Introductory Post from this past Sunday and see all the posts people are including. Apparently, people like cats. Who knew?

★★★★☆

---

From Fandom.com

Synopsis – Click to Open

The plot revolves around Marianne Pinhoe and Eric “Cat” Chant.

Marianne’s family are witches who mostly live in Ulverscote, 10 miles from Chrestomanci Castle and do not want Chrestomanci finding out about them and preventing them using magic. The book begins with Gammer Pinhoe, Marianne’s grandmother, having a terrific row with the heads of a rival witch family. Afterwards she is unable to speak coherently and the family believes her mind has gone due to old age, though Marianne believes that Gaffer Farleigh cast a spell on her. The family decides to move Gammer into the home of one of her sons and sell Woods House, the family home.

Meanwhile at Chrestomanci Castle Janet and Julia Chant have persuaded Chrestomanci that they must have a horse, whilst Roger Chant gets a new bicycle. Cat isn’t interested in either of these things until he meets the horse, named Syracuse, and discovers that he has a sort of psychic connection with him. As Cat explores the countryside with his new friend he discovers that the roads are bespelled to send him back to the castle, and meets the terrifying Gaffer Farleigh who warns him off.

When Marianne returns to Woods House to look for Gammer’s cat Nutcase she meets Cat as well as Jason and Irene Yeldham who are looking to buy the house. Cat notices that Marianne is easily put down by her relatives so he tells her that she has strong magic. They search for Nutcase in the attics and find a mysterious object to which Cat is strongly drawn. Marianne agrees to let him keep it. Meanwhile, Marianne’s brother Joe, who has been working as a boot boy in the Castle, has made fast friends with Roger and they are trying to invent a flying machine together.

There is trouble at the Castle when Chrestomanci disappears. No one will listen to Cat when he tries to help so he goes off to find Chrestomanci by himself. On the way he meets a mysterious man with a unicorn in the woods. Chrestomanci has been trapped behind a magical barrier and it takes all of Cat’s strength as well as Chrestomanci’s to get free. There is trouble in Ulverscote as well, and it appears that someone has put an ill-chancing on the Pinhoes. Marianne becomes convinced that the Farleighs have done it, but only because Gammer Pinhoe has been setting terrible spells on them. She tries to tell her family but no one will believe her, and she gets into a fight with some righteously angry Farleigh girls. Then her father finds out that she gave Cat the mysterious object, which was a griffin egg, and is very angry.

Marianne flies to Chrestomanci Castle by broomstick at night to ask for Joe’s help, but finds Cat instead. She tells Cat everything, and asks him to help. She also meets the griffin Klartch who hatched from the egg. Cat promises to find a way to help, but struggles to think of anything. They agree to meet at Woods House the next day. On his way Cat meets Gaffer Farleigh who is very angry about Cat getting through the misdirection spells and threatens to shoot Klartch. Cat stops him, but then Roger and Joe’s flying machine appears in the sky and Gaffer Farleigh shoots at that. Cat turns Gaffer Farleigh into a stone tree and sends him away.

Cat takes Marianne to the mysterious man in the woods, who turns out to be her grandfather, Gaffer Pinhoe, who she had believed was dead. He tells them that there is a barrier keeping all the magical creatures trapped, and Cat and Marianne pull it down together.

The story ends with a battle between the Farleigh and Pinhoe families which is stopped by Chrestomanci, who was injured when Gaffer Farleigh shot at the flying machine. Chrestomanci takes away the Farleigh family magic and makes a deal with the Pinhoes that they can keep their magic if they allow his staff to study dwimmer. Marianne and Joe agree to go to Chrestomanci Castle to be educated and teach Chrestomanci about dwimmer.

– All of My “Diana Jones” Reviews

If Death Ever Slept (Nero Wolfe #29) 3.5Stars

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: If Death Ever Slept
Series: Nero Wolfe #29
Author: Rex Stout
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Mystery
Pages: 171
Words: 60K

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This was fun even while Wolfe has only a tiny part. Most of it is Archie running around and “detecting” unsupervised. Wolfe ends up catching a murderess but because of her looks and personality he knows she won’t get the electric chair. Too bad.

It’s very hot while I’m writing this review, so that is draining my desire to write. So that’s all she wrote folks!

★★★✬☆

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From Wikipedia:

Synopsis – Click to Open

Millionaire Otis Jarrell offers to hire Wolfe to get his daughter-in-law Susan out of his house. He is convinced that she has ruined several of his business deals by leaking confidential information to his competitors, and he suspects her of infidelity toward his son Wyman. Wolfe refuses to get involved in what he sees as a marital disagreement, but accepts a $10,000 retainer from Jarrell to hire Archie as a live-in secretary. Taking the alias “Alan Green,” Archie is to replace the previous secretary, whom Jarrell had fired one week earlier on suspicion of being the source of the leak.

Arriving at the Jarrell penthouse on the following Monday, Archie meets the rest of the family and associates, including Jarrell’s wife Trella; his grown children, Wyman and Lois; Wyman’s wife Susan; Trella’s brother, Roger Foote; and Jarrell’s stenographer, Nora Kent. Over the course of the week, Archie learns from Trella that Jarrell had made a pass at Susan but was rejected; he also encounters James L. Eber, Jarrell’s former secretary, having a private conversation with Susan. Nora explains that he had visited the penthouse in order to retrieve some papers from his desk.

Shortly after Archie sees Eber, Jarrell discovers that someone has sneaked into his library and stolen a .38 revolver from his desk, holding up a rug to foil a security camera at the doorway. Jarrell believes that Susan is responsible for the theft, but Archie reports to Wolfe the next day and is dispatched to investigate Eber’s apartment. There he finds Eber’s body, shot in the head; news of the murder reaches Jarrell the following morning, throwing him into a panic that the police may begin digging into his private affairs. Archie learns from Lon Cohen that the fatal bullet is a .38, and Wolfe has him bring everyone involved to his office that evening. Included in the group is Corey Brigham, a rival of Jarrell who benefited from the information leaks and who had been to dinner at the penthouse when the gun was stolen.

Nora arrives by herself, well ahead of the scheduled meeting. With Archie observing through the office peephole and Orrie Cather posing as him, Wolfe tries to allay Nora’s suspicions that Jarrell hired Archie to investigate the family. During the actual meeting, Wolfe appeals to the group to produce the gun, without success. Over the weekend, Inspector Cramer visits the brownstone demanding to know why Archie is working for Jarrell under an assumed name. Wolfe tells Cramer nothing except that he had not been hired by Eber, but Cramer questions the family and learns about the arrangement. With the pretense dropped, Archie is called in for questioning by the district attorney; not long after he returns to the penthouse, a news report announces that Brigham has been found dead, shot in the chest.

Returning to the brownstone, Archie is soon called in for another round of questioning, during which he learns that Brigham was also killed with a .38. This fact prompts Wolfe to summon the principals to his office again and question them about their movements over a time period covering both murders. He returns Jarrell’s retainer, then calls Cramer to get permission for Archie to copy the statements they have given the police, reassuring him that Wolfe does not currently know the identity of the murderer. Lois tries to persuade Archie to corroborate a claim that she took Jarrell’s gun and threw it in a river in order to prevent anyone from using it, but he quickly realizes that she is not telling the truth.

Once Wolfe has the statements, he sends Archie, Orrie, Saul Panzer, Fred Durkin, Dol Bonner, and Sally Colt to investigate every location visited by the principals. Four days later, a man delivers a small package to the brownstone; it proves to contain a spent .38 bullet, which Wolfe turns over to Cramer for testing. Following a night of repeated attempts by the police to call Wolfe or gain entry, Wolfe learns from Cramer that the bullet came from the same gun that killed both Eber and Brigham. He announces that he is ready to deliver both the weapon and the murderer and has Cramer bring everyone to his office.

The group is joined by Cramer, Sergeant Purley Stebbins, and all five free-lance detectives. Dol hands over the missing gun, which she found in a locker at a women’s health spa and test-fired in order to obtain the bullet that was delivered to Wolfe. The locker belongs to Susan, who tries unsuccessfully to get Wyman to back her claim of being with him at the time the gun was stolen. Based on Jarrell’s testimony at her trial, the prosecution theorizes that she had persuaded Eber to steal information which she then passed on to Brigham. After Eber was fired, he learned of Brigham’s profit on the deal and realized what Susan had done; she killed him to keep him quiet, then did the same to Brigham. She is convicted, but Archie expresses doubts as to whether she will receive the death penalty.

As he pays Wolfe’s fee, Jarrell reiterates his belief that Susan is a “snake,” but Wolfe does not share it.

• All My “Nero Wolfe” Reviews

Elder Land Wurm - MTG 4E

Book Recommendations - The Intro Post

I was talking with Nic from DragonRambles.com the other month and we fell to discussing recommendations. I had asked for recs from people because of dnf’ing a series that just disappointed me. So she asked if I had a spread sheet of my data and I sent it her way. She then sent me a generous handful of recommendations and I was able to almost snap respond to all of them within 5-10minutes. She suggested that maybe I should make this a regular thing. Have people give me recommendations one month and then I make snap decisions about Yay’ing or Nay’ing them the next month while collecting more in the comments.

The only issue I have is that relies on other people. Over the years, I have found that I can only count on myself when it comes to blogging. Only I write short enough posts. Only I write just the right amount of posts each month. Only I schedule just the right amount into the future. Only I, Only I, Only I. You get the idea. I don’t blame other bloggers for not being me, but I do hold them to the edge of the sword that I hold myself to. Except when I don’t of course 😉

I’ve been thinking how I can engage you all and make you part of the process without frustrating myself or you. I like plans and the farther those plans reach, the better. So starting next month, for the Months of July, August and September, I will be doing Recommend Me Some Books/Authors posts where I simply ask for recommendations. I will save those up and once I feel I have enough to schedule them as I wish, I will begin doing some Answers to Recommendations posts. Under those I hope you will continue to recommend others.

Now, certain smartass bloggers who think they are funny will probably try to suggest such things as “Madam’s Bodice Ripping Adventures”. You may suggest that but be warned, it will get you a chartreuse flag and should you accumulate 3 chartreuse flags, I will no longer consider any of your recommendations in the future. In fact, I will take your recommendations as anti-recommendations and act accordingly.

An example of the Dreaded Chartreuse Flag

Now, if I can get enough suggestions sooner, I will begin my answering sooner. Your recommendations need not be books you have read. They can be books you are curious about and want some other sucker to try first. Maybe it’s your favorite book and you need validation by another blogger. Or maybe you just hate me and want me to suffer with your suggestion. Or you can be serious and try to tempt me with something. I will take them all. In your recommendation, please write the title, the author and if it is part of a series or standalone and why you are suggesting it. If I choose your suggestion, I will link to your blog and then answer your suggestion in a future post.

I will not actually be reading your recommendations. I will be making a gut level instinct about your suggestions and replying in an answering post. Just want to make that clear. But if a recommendation really clicks with me, I’ll be sure to add it to my TBR pile. It takes me a while to get to a book, but once it is in the tbr, I’d going to read it.

And just for the fun of it, there will be a section with a running count of those who get chartreuse flags. Your literary sins will not be hidden or forgiven. The Chartreuse Emperor is Mad after all and his wrath knows no limits of time or space.