Imperatoris Chronicorum III

 

Here we go, another thrilling post where Imperator Bookstooge wows you with thrills and chills and amazes you with his Indiana Jones style adventures. Oh wait, that's that other blog. Here we just sit around on the couch and complain about those kids playing their music too loud. Yeah, that sounds more like it.

Sunday started out like most Sundays, waking up about 6am. Have a lazy morning of blogging and sipping on a rockstar, deciding what sounds good for breakfast. That first choice of the week is the most important after all. We made our daily run to the local grocery store for donuts or apple turnovers and then we headed to church. All I can say is thank goodness for my Loop ear plugs! Those drums were LOUD. We had a little going away party for one of the families, who are moving to the deep south. Once we got home it was lunch, chores and then Mrs B took off for work. I continued the chores theme while doing blogging and watching tv. Sunday afternoon is the time I watch tv. That's it, so while I don't actually care that much WHAT I watch, I just like the routine of it.

Monday, I woke up with a food hangover. Because I'm by myself for Sunday afternoon and evenings, I tend to overeat and for whatever reason, it always makes me feel terrible Monday mornings. I blame the diabetes, even if my sugars stay good. The job for the day didn't help, as we were pretty much thrown a folder and told "figure it out" by the Company President. The site itself was covered in poison ivy. Most of the big pine trees had the 2inch thick hairy vines that are the signature of mature poison ivy. When we got back to the office we used a whole bunch of post-contact poison ivy wipes. And when I got home, I scrubbed down again with Tecnu. I've been using that stuff since the 20teens and boy does it work! Haven't had a serious case of poison ivy since starting it. I was exhausted though and I think I feel asleep around 8pm.

Tuesday I felt much better when I woke up. Then I got to work and found out we were setting "blue tops" (technically pink, like in the picture above) at a nearby site. They are a 8in nail with a bunch of colored "feathers" stick up so the heavy machine operator can see them without getting out of his bulldozer or driller or whatever. They aren't bad if you're hammering them into a lawn, as shown above. The problem was that the developer of the site we were working had pulled off all the good topsoil and replaced it with total garbage soil that was over 50% rocks the size of softballs and 25% of smaller rocks mixed in with the remaining dirt. Meant we had to use our power drill to get these pinktops into the ground. I also had to wear knee pads because there is no way you can kneel on those stones. So 125 pink tops later, the work day was done. And we had 125 to look forward to for the next day. With rain forecasted, whooowheee!

Wednesday continued the pinktop adventures. I took an Aleve as soon as I got up that morning to get ahead of the pain I knew I was going to be experiencing. And pain there was. My back hurt from bending over. My knees hurt from kneeling on stony ground. The back of my knees hurt from the strap of the kneepads I had to wear, because it chafed something fierce. My shoulders ached from using the power drill and then hammering the big nails into the ground. I came home and once I did some necessaries, went straight to bed.

Thursday was a rain day. Our office manager texted us all Wednesday evening that we weren't working Thursday because it was going to rain all day, quite heavy at times. Under those conditions, you just can't get anything done. Mrs B didn't have to go into work until midmorning, so we got up at our usual time and went to a local diner on the Oval. It was really nice to eat hot comfort food on a raw morning and to know we didn't have to rush. So we dawdled and then came home. Mrs B took a short, food induced, nap before heading off to work and I spent the day on the couch recovering from the previous two days. Did some blogging and watching the weather out the windows. It always cheers me up to watch it pour outside (we got close to an inch of rain that day) when I am comfortably ensconced inside.

Friday started out really well. We had 3 small jobs and we absolutely blew through the first 2. Then the third job hit and we just stalled and stalled hard. Both of us were grumpy by days end but we finished and went home. I ended up doing chores before Sabbath and then ate dinner. For whatever reason, food always tastes better to me when I'm grumpy. It's not worth it but it is a small consolation when I'm feeling like life is just roughing me up.

Saturday is obviously in the future, but I have it on good authority that I'll be going to men's meeting in the morning, that we will be going to the SDA church, that Mrs B will be leading the singing during service and that we will come home and do a whole lot of nothing. If that all pans out, I'll be ok with it!

Stay tuned for next month's installment, when Imperator Bookstooge will amaze you all by staying up until 10pm. Yes folks, it could happen!

The First Distiller (The Russians) 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: The First Distiller
Series: (The Russians)
Author: Leo Tolstoy
Translator: Aylmer Maude
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Classic
Pages: 23
Words: 6K
Publish: 1886

A short morality play about the dangers of having too much and how alcohol is straight from the devil. Kind of like rock music ;-)

While I agree with both of Tolstoy’s points, I don’t agree with how he gets there or some of his other ideas evinced in this play. In many ways, this reminded me of Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters in that we follow the inmost workings of demons and hell. Now, Lewis was having fun with the whole higher education system that he was part of and applying that to hell and its denizens. With what Tolstoy is doing, I can’t quite come to the same conclusion. I don’t know enough about how Russian Christians viewed demons and hell in the 1800’s to be certain that Tolstoy isn’t being serious. Once again, I am saddened at the lack of Biblical knowledge in regards to how Tolstoy forms his ideas here. The Bible has a lot to say about alcohol (mainly about NOT getting drunk) and it also directly addresses materialism/consumerism.

This is an ongoing issue I have with these old school Russians. Is it just the culture they are from that the Bible is never directly used, or is it that they viewed it as a good piece of literature but ultimately empty, or is it something else entirely? I understand Dickens and his non-Christianity even while he crusaded for morality. He was a creature of his culture and couldn’t escape it. But Tolstoy? I simply do not know enough. Crap. This means at some point I’ll probably have to read some biographies and then I’ll find out more than I wanted to and regret it. I always do after all.

And for the record, Noah (of Noah’s Ark fame) was the first distiller that we know of.

★★★☆☆

From Wikipedia.org

The story opens with a peasant preparing to plow a field. Having gone without breakfast, he is careful to hide his dinner, a small crust of bread, under his coat. After plowing the field the peasant is hungry and ready for his dinner, but when he picks up his coat he sees that the bread is gone. It had been taken by a little devil, who was convinced that the peasant would become wrathful. Instead, the peasant decided that whoever took his bread must have needed it more than him, and he went on his way.

The little devil is brought before the Chief Devil, who is not pleased that the peasant was not corrupted. He threatens to douse the little devil with holy water if he fails again, and the little devil is sent out for another attempt at corrupting the peasant.

The little devil takes the guise of a pilgrim, and in this guise he gives the peasant farming advice throughout the seasons. The peasant grows a great surplus, and he begins to live much better than he had. One season, the little devil convinced the peasant to distill his extra corn into vodka, and the peasant takes his advice. The little devil then brings the Chief Devil to see the result of his works.

The devils witness a party hosted by the peasant, where all of the guests and the host himself indulge in several glasses of vodka. They start off joking and jovial, but as they consume more vodka, the party goers become more abusive and irate. When they finally leave the party they are thoroughly drunk, falling over each other and landing in the mud.

The Chief Devil is astonished. He is convinced that the drink must have been made from the blood of beasts to make the men act so beastly. The little devil explains that it was simply vodka, and he just needed to convince the peasant to turn God's gift of corn into idle liquor. The little devil knew that all men have a savage side inside of them, and when the peasant had just enough food to survive, the savage beast inside him was kept silent. But as soon as the peasant accumulates a surplus, corruption sets in. Convinced that the corruption of the peasants is complete, the Chief Devil awards the little devil a promotion.

• The Russians

• Leo Tolstoy

• Fyodor Dostoyevsky

• Ivan Turgenev

• Nikolai Gogol

The Ghost Pirates (Standalone) 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: The Ghost Pirates
Series: Standalone
Author: William Hope Hodgson
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Adventure
Pages: 179
Words: 50K
Publish: 1909

Long, slow and with barely a supernatural menace until right at the end. Of course, the end ends with the ship being dragged under the sea by ghost ships while the crew is murdered by either ghost pirates or transdimensional pirates. So it ends with a bang!

Lots of little things happen on the ship leading up to that, but it could all be chalked up to nerves or accidents. Except our narrator, and one or two other sailors, have seen insubstantial man shapes at various times at night. I guess this would be called a “slow burn” horror story and boy howdy, is it slow. At least with The House on the Borderlands we had the scary pig things almost from the get-go. Here it is just hints and little bits of unnerving happenings. Not nearly enough in my opinion.

I can see why Hodgson has been forgotten over the years. His writings were fully of his time and did not, and have not, transcended into that timeless realm that we associate with The Classics.

The cover here is pretty good. It represents the ending of book unfortunately. Something this scary should have been the foundation, not the widow’s walk.

★★★☆☆

From Wikipedia

The novel is presented as the transcribed testimony of Jessop, who we ultimately discover is the only survivor of the final voyage of the Mortzestus, having been rescued from drowning by the crew of the passing Sangier. It begins with Jessop's recounting how he came to be aboard the ill-fated Mortzestus and the rumors surrounding the vessel.

Jessop then begins to recount the unusual events that rapidly increase in both frequency and severity. In the telling of his tale, Jessop offers only sparse interpretation of the events, spending most of the time relating the story in an almost journalistic fashion, presenting a relatively unvarnished description of the events and conversations as they occurred.

He describes his confusion and uncertainty about what he believes he has seen, at times fearing for his own sanity. He eventually hears other members of the crew speak of strange events, most of which the rest of the crew pass off as either bad luck or the result of the witness being either tired or "dotty". Jessop only offers brief personal interpretation; he states that while he cannot discount the idea that the beings plaguing the ship may be ghosts, he presents his theory that they may be beings from another dimension that, while sharing the same physical space as theirs, are normally completely separated to the extent that neither dimension is aware of the existence of the other. He offers only vague, superficial suggestions as to the cause of his theorized dimensional breach.

Llanowar Elves - MTG 4E

 

Not your friendly neighborhood elves, that's for sure.

When elves go bad, they don't start out looking like this guy. It's a slow process, that starts with them going Steampunk, then full on punk. It takes a couple of generations to go from Steampunk Elf to Llanowar Elf. Let that be a lesson to us all.
*bows head in show of piety while wagging a finger at you all

Afterlife (Resident Evil #4) (2010 Movie)

 

Movie Details:

Title - Afterlife
Series – Resident Evil #4
Director – Paul WS Anderson
Release – 2010
Rating – R
Time – 1hr 37min

My Thoughts:

At the end of RE: Extinction, Alice finds a laboratory chock full of clones of herself. Afterlife starts with Alice, apparently alone, attacking the Japanese headquarters of the Umbrella Corporation. It doesn’t take long for us viewers to realize there are a bunch of clones and their goal is the Head of Umbrella, Chairman Wesker. He escapes on a superplane and destroys the headquarters with some sort of super implosion bomb and kills all the Alice’s there. The original Alice is hiding on the plane and attacks Wesker and he injects her with a super-anti-virus serum that takes away all of her super human abilities. They then crash into a mountain (eye roll moment) and Alice walks away, despite being “just regular human” now. The rest of the movie then begins. You can read about in the synopsis if you wish.

The opening to this movie was spectacular in my opinion. It shows the spread of the T-virus in Japan and just shows some Japanese lady standing in the rain while everybody walks by her. The scene ends when someone makes eye contact and she attacks the poor schlub. The music was a heavy tempo and matched the rain atmosphere perfectly.

There is a lot going on on this movie. Japan, then Alaska, then Los Angeles and then a boat in the ocean. Comparing it to the original Resident Evil movie, I found that I liked the claustrophobia and smallness of the first movie over this sprawling and wide open kind of movie. Zombies don’t feel like much of a threat when you have the entirety of Los Angeles to hide in. Of course, the director gets around that by having every single zombie in the city surrounding the one place the survivors are hiding. And the zombies are evolving so they can dig through concrete and are smarter. Oh, and some of them can thrive in a water environment. I really didn’t think about that and if I were you, I wouldn’t either. Or your brain might shutdown from “Doesnotmakeanysensitus”.

In this movie, we get two souped up badguys who are infected with the T-virus. First up is the Axeman and boy is he a bigboy! He reminded me of the Nemesis monster from the second movie, RE:Apocalypse, just bigger and badder.

The second is Chairman Wesker after he infects himself with the T-virus. He looks normal, just like Alice did when she was infected, but just like her, he’s faster, stronger and just “more”. He also has some sort of carnivorous plant thingy inside him that keeps trying to come out of his mouth. It was disgusting, in other words, it was perfect for a Resident Evil movie, hahahaa.

The ending is pitch perfect Resident Evil. Alice and her cohorts have destroyed the badguys, rescued a lot of innocent people and are about to start looking for more innocents to rescue, when all of the sudden, da da dum, Umbrella Corporation literally swoops in at the last second to ruin everything! And that is how the movie ends. Awesome!

The music fit the movie but sadly, the Manson Umbrella Corporation theme song was not part of this. As far as I’m concerned, that piece of music should have been in every movie, tying Umbrella together as the overarching enemy in the movie series. Plus, it is just a wicked cool piece of music. Ahhh well, life is just filled with disappointments ;-)

I don’t know if I enjoyed this movie more because of the previous one or if I just thought this was cool. Whatever the reason, I thoroughly enjoyed this. My only real complaint would be how big and wide open a lot of the movie was and I wasn’t a fan of that.

Stay tuned as Alice’s Adventures in Umbrella Corporation Land continues next month with the penultimate movie in this series.

Synopsis from Grokipedia:

Click to Open

In Resident Evil: Afterlife, set in a post-apocalyptic world devastated by the T-virus outbreak, Alice leads an assault on the Umbrella Corporation's Tokyo headquarters using an army of her own clones to target CEO Albert Wesker.[4] The clones overrun the facility, but Wesker triggers an explosion that wipes them out, then injects the original Alice with a serum during their aerial escape attempt, stripping her of her superhuman enhancements and leaving her as a normal human.[4] Their aircraft crashes, but Alice survives and begins a solitary journey across the wasteland six months later, tracking a distress signal from a purported safe haven called Arcadia in Alaska, which promises shelter and supplies to any survivors.[4]Alice's search uncovers no living humans until she encounters a mind-controlled Claire Redfield on an abandoned beach; after subduing and freeing her from Umbrella's device, the two fly toward Los Angeles, where they crash-land on the roof of a maximum-security prison besieged by zombies.[4] There, they join survivors led by Luther West, including Angel, Bennett, and others, who reveal Arcadia is actually a cargo tanker ship anchored off the coast that has gone silent.[4] To escape the encroaching undead horde, including a massive axe-wielding mutant dubbed the Executioner, the group frees a imprisoned survivor, Chris Redfield—Claire's brother—who knows a path to the coast via the sewers.[4] Betrayed by Bennett, who kills Angel and steals their plane, Alice, Claire, Chris, Luther, and a few others battle through the tunnels; Luther is trapped in a collapse, presumed lost, while the rest reach the Arcadia, only to discover it as an Umbrella trap filled with experimented-on prisoners, including K-Mart from Alice's past allies, who was captured by Umbrella.[4]Exploring the ship, Alice learns of her cloned origins through Umbrella's records and confronts Wesker, now enhanced beyond control by the T-virus, who seeks to assimilate her as the perfect host to stabilize his cannibalistic urges.[4] Alliances form with Luther, who emerges alive to aid the group, and the survivors—including Alice, Claire, Chris, and K-Mart—engage in climactic battles against Wesker, ultimately impaling the latter and relocating a purge bomb to destroy his escaping helicopter, seemingly ending his threat.[4] However, as Alice broadcasts the Arcadia's location to draw more survivors and repurpose it as a true sanctuary, an Umbrella assault fleet arrives, led by the mind-controlled Jill Valentine, signaling ongoing conflict.

Warbound (Grimnoir Chronicles #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: Warbound
Series: Grimnoir Chronicles #3
Author: Larry Correia
Rating: 5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Pages: 385
Words: 149K
Publish: 2013

Ahhh, a big ol’ grand finale that wraps everything up in climactic showdown, In Space, hahahahaa.

I had forgotten how this ended, so as the threats kept ramping up, I kept wondering how Correia was going to wrap everything up in this one book. I knew he was going to (because I’d read the book before, silly!) but I just had no idea of how I was going to get from A to Z.

He does it in such a way that this trilogy is more than adequately wrapped up but has just enough hanging threads that he has openings to write more in this universe should he choose. Sadly, for me, he has not chosen too so far. He has made claims that he might write another sequel trilogy, but given how he operates, I’m not holding my breath.

The reason I like this trilogy so much is because of the characters. The story is great, the almost-cosmic horror (there are “empty men” in this book, suits of former men being controlled by an alien symbiote now) is top notch, the action is wonderful and the fighting is wicked cool. But Jake Sullivan and Faye Veirra give this a heart and soul and as important (to me anyway), brains. They are both smart cookies and do not react like 21^st century idiots online. They think, they plan, they have contingencies and when things inevitably go wrong, they do no panic. They are scared, worried, lonely, afraid but they do not allow their emotions to control them. The older I get, the more I see of people in our world today, the more I appreciate people who keep emotions in their proper place. This book is just chockful of that :-D

Reading Hard Magic, Spellbound and now Warbound all within two weeks of each other has really made me appreciate how much of one overall story they are but at the same time each novel is it’s own story. This trilogy is not one big story chunked up into three books but three distinct stories within one overarching story.

Highly recommended if you already like Correia’s stuff and highly recommended if you want to check out his style of writing without committing to a 6book fantasy series (Saga of the Forgotten Warrior) or a 10+book urban fantasy series (Monster Hunter International).

★★★★★

From the Publisher

Gritty urban fantasy set in an alternate noir 1930s. A tough P.I. battles an interdimensional monster that wants to suck magic power out of the world. Sequel to Hard Magic and Spellbound.  Book Three in the Grimnoir Chronicles.Only a handful of people in the world know that mankind’s magic comes from a living creature, and it is a refugee from another universe. The Power showed up here in the 1850s because it was running from something. Now it is 1933, and the Power’s hiding place has been discovered by a killer.It is a predator that eats magic and leaves destroyed worlds in its wake. Earth is next.Former private eye, Jake Sullivan, knows the score. The problem is hardly anyone believes him. The world’s most capable Active, Faye Vierra, could back him up, but she is hiding from the forces that think she is too dangerous to let live. So Jake has put together a ragtag crew of airship pirates and Grimnoir knights, and set out on a suicide mission to stop the predator before it is too late. 

• Warbound (2013 Review)

• All of My “Grimnoir” Reviews

Mrs Pollifax Pursued (Mrs Pollifax #11) 4.5Stars

 

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: Mrs Pollifax Pursued
Series: Mrs Pollifax #11
Author: Dorothy Gilman
Rating: 4.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Thriller
Pages: 151
Words: 49K
Publish: 1995

This book really jumped up in my opinion. I bumped it up a whole star and even thought about giving it a rare 5star. Something about it just resonated with me and I enjoyed it thoroughly from start to finish. Part of that is that Mrs Pollifax is now an experienced agent and when something out of the ordinary happens at her own home, she takes charge. Of course, she gets embroiled in even more adventures but everything is tied together and at the end everything works out. Just like a Mrs Pollifax story should.

Tension was inherent in the story from almost the beginning and I wasn’t left wondering how things were going to go sideways for Mrs P. She is home in the US and not on assignment, so she can’t accidentally get in trouble. Trouble comes looking for her! We get African politics, Carney people and other stuff. Mrs P spends time at a carnival, which is also a CIA safehouse and ends up solving some attempted murders there.

And that is why this didn’t get the 5stars. Attempted murders. Of only the good guys. Some badguys get offed, but both of the good guys are going to make a recovery by books end. At least one of the two people should have died to keep the feeling of tension at the high point. It was just a little thing, but little things are why my 5stars are so rare.

Probably the best Mrs Pollifax book so far though. That’s high praise, as the whole series has been consistently good. It is fun, it is thrilling, it has great plot lines and most importantly, it has characters with brains instead of fluff. That is the highest praise I can give an author, that they wrote intelligent characters.

★★★★✬

From Wikipedia

Mrs. Pollifax discovers a young woman hiding in a closet of her Connecticut home on the same day that she observes a suspicious white van patrolling the neighborhood. Kadi Hopkirk says the men in the van have been following her ever since she met Sammy, a childhood friend from the African country of Ubangiba. Mrs. Pollifax hides Kadi in the car and takes to the highway but is unable to shake the van until she calls on her colleagues at the CIA, who send a helicopter to whisk them away to a traveling carnival in rural Maine. Mrs. Pollifax poses as a journalist, and Kadi becomes the lower half of the woman who is sawed in two, while the CIA pals find out who Sammy is and why he is being so heavily guarded. Mrs. Pollifax solves several mysteries, including a stabbing at the carnival, Kadi and Sammy's story and the abduction of a wealthy executive.

• All of my “Mrs Pollifax” Reviews

Brothers of the Wind (The Last King of Osten Ard #¾ ) 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: Brothers of the Wind
Series: The Last King of Osten Ard #¾
Author: Tad Williams
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Epic Fantasy
Pages: 252
Words: 105K
Publish: 2021

This book is extremely melancholic. One of the brothers, Ineluki, is introduced to the readers way back in Tad Williams epic tour-de-force Memory, Sorrow and Thorn trilogy as an undead spirit seeking revenge on humanity. This story is set 1000 years before that and chronicles Ineluki’s fall and how it affected his brother (the main character of the book) and set in motion the events we read about in MST.

If Tad Williams didn’t model Ineluki after Lucifer himself, I don’t know what else his inspiration could be. Ineluki is Pride itself and every decision he makes is based on that. It doesn’t turn out well.

We follow this whole story as it is narrated by Kes, one of the changeling races who serve the Sithi (elves) race that Ineluki and Hakatri belong to. Kes is actually the main character of the book, but he is Hakatri’s servant and so self-effacing that he makes it mostly about Hakatri. But we see Ineluki and Kes’s own story play out and it is sad and tragic. Not cry your eyes out like a woman sad and tragic, but heart rending where all you can do is shake your head because it is deeper than tears.

I didn’t rate this higher than I did because I was so frustrated at the entire sithi race here. Everybody knows how Ineluki is, his moods, his anger, his humors, his disobedience, his rash vows, and they see how things always play out. But nobody does anything. First off, Ineluki’s parents. They chide, they admonish, they even command, but they never punish, ever. They let him grow up a selfish spoiled wretch and then washed their hands of him. I despised them for their ethereal outlook while the rot of their race was sitting right in front of their eyes. Second, Ineluki’s brother Hakatri. He does try to do things, but it is to cover for Ineluki, to ameliorate the effects of Ineluki’s bad decisions, to soften his angers and cozen him. He never lets Ineluki suffer the consequences of his vows or actions. His is the opposite issue from his parents. Hakatri ends up suffering physical and mental agonies beyond measure for the choices that Ineluki makes and he still tries to shield Ineluki from all consequences of those actions. Hakatri might not have been as proud as Ineluki, but his own weaknesses were just as profound and were just as responsible as Ineluki for the downfall of the Sithi race as a whole. Finally, there is Kes. He enables Hakatri through the entire story, which allows Hakatri to continue his enabling of Ineluki. Even when Kes falls in love with another of his race, he chooses to serve Hakatri and go away on some mad scheme “across the ocean”. It isn’t until the very end of the book when he is washed overboard and abandoned by the Sithi that he realizes his is nothing to them. That allows him to go back to the woman and make a life for himself.

It is all just so sad. It is almost Russian-like, but without that childishness that I find tends to characterize the Russian melancholy.

I don’t know how this will tie into the Last King of Osten Ard storyline, but considering Williams wrote this story half-way through that four book series, I am sure it will have a large part to play in the later part of series. Definitely not a book I would recommend on its own. The thing is, it “could” be read on its own. Williams does an excellent job of explaining the wider world here but without the foreknowledge of having read MST the impact of Ineluki and Hakatri’s story will not have the same punch.

★★★✬☆

From the Publisher

Pride often goes before a fall, but sometimes that prideful fall is so catastrophic that it changes history itself.

Among the immortal Sithi of Osten Ard, none are more beloved and admired than the two sons of the ruling family, steady Hakatri and his proud and fiery younger brother Ineluki -- Ineluki, who will one day become the undead Storm King. The younger brother makes a bold, terrible oath that he will destroy deadly Hidohebhi, a terrifying monster, but instead drags his brother with him into a disaster that threatens not just their family but all the Sithi -- and perhaps all of humankind as well.

Set a thousand years before the events of Williams's The Dragonbone Chair, the tale of Ineluki's tragic boast and what it brings is told by Pamon Kes, Hakatri's faithful servant. Kes is not one of the Sithi but a member of the enslaved Changeling race, and his loyalty has never before been tested. Now he must face the terrible black dragon at his master's side, then see his own life changed forever in a mere instant by Ineluki's rash, selfish promise.

• All of My Osten Ard Reviews

Living Lands - MTG 4E

 

This is the same exact kind of card as Kormus Bell, except it is a green spell instead of an artifact and it affects forests instead of swamps. The fact that it is a green spell affecting forests leads me to believe it was meant to turn your own forests into creatures at the end of the game and overwhelm your opponent in one last wild, mad rush.

It would have made a great cover for Kenneth McKenney's "The Plants" too. I read that at about the same time I was getting into Magic. It was an obvious ripoff of du Maurier's The Birds, but I hadn't read that yet, so it was all good to my teenage self. I've never been tempted to re-read The Plants though ;-)

Loop Earplugs - Experience 2 Plus

 

(This is a product review that is not endorsed by Loopearplugs.com)

All Mechanical, the way Nature Intended!

A couple of months ago I was talking with one of the elders at church and he mentioned how his kids had gotten him some earplugs for Christmas that allowed him to get rid of background noise while still listening to people talk to him. It was strictly mechanical, without any electronic doodads or mucking around with your phone kind of garbage. I was very interested, as the "worship" time at our Sunday church has come to resemble a low level rock concert and the noise is enough to make me want to storm out. (for the record, I have, multiple times)

They have about 12 different products, or more and I settled on the Experience 2 Plus option. It is meant for a music scene, to damp down the noise without actually cancelling any of it. I got the "Plus" because it comes with an added "mute" ring to reduce the noise even further.

As you can see in the above picture, there is a black rubber ring inside the metallic ring. That is the "mute" and provides up to 17dB protection, as opposed to just the 12dB of the regular Experience 2.

There are various sized ear pieces depending on your ear size. It came with "regular" (I guess?) and I replaced them with the extra small. Fits very comfortably in my ears without making me feel like I was trying to jam a carrot in them. If you've worn those disposable foam earplugs, you'll know what I mean.

They fit tightly in a little clamshell case. As you can see, I got the silver edition and added the white mute plugs to them.

This shot is to give you a "little" perspective on just how small these are. I keep them in my messenger bag and right before the worship time starts, I pry them out of the clamshell and pop them into my ears.

Due to biometric security, I do NOT use pictures of my own eyes, ears or nose. This poor schmuck doesn't seem to care though. Bully for him.

I put them in and then rotate them backwards, so they fit snugly in my ear canal and the metal ring is in that open area leading to the ear opening.

Now the important part, do they work? Yes they certainly do! I could still hear everything, the piano, the singers, the guitars, the drums, the people around me singing, but it was much softer and didn't feel like I was being assaulted. There have been times in the past where I am just gripping the pew in front of me as hard as I can and white knuckling through the worship time. Now? While I don't enjoy the worship time (that's a completely different matter), I can stand there and not stress out or freak out. My shoulders aren't hunched up and my fists aren't clenched. What's even better, I can still hear when one of the singers speaks or the Pastor gets up and says something between songs, as is his wont. I will say that when I'm wearing these with the mute plug, I do not feel comfortable trying to carry on a conversation, as I can't judge the volume of my own voice. But I haven't walked out of a worship service in over two months, so that alone makes this an unqualified success in my books.

I have not used these in any other situation except the one described above. I could experiment and try removing the "mute" plug and see if I could wear these in a crowded area to improve hearing the person I'm talking to, but I have zero desire to remove and add a little piece of rubber, as I know I would lose it. If I wanted to use these in conversation, I'd probably buy the "Engage 2" version and just carry the 2 pair around. I'm seriously thinking about doing that, as I want to be able to talk while wearing them. Sometimes at potluck it gets down right noisy (with over 120 people packed into one area) and if I can cut that background noise down, it would be great.

These can be bought on their website (loopearplugs.com) or online at Amazon, Walmart or Target. I hope if this has been an informative post and possibly helpful. If you've got questions, ask away in the comments and I'll do my best to answer. 

Spellbound (Grimnoir Chronicles #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: Spellbound
Series: Grimnoir Chronicles #2
Author: Larry Correia
Rating: 5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Pages: 402
Words: 150K
Publish: 2011

Another home run. This Grimnoir trilogy just hits all my good buttons and I’m as happy as a clam.

There’s threats from a government agency, there’s threats from the Imperium (japanese), there are threats from other Actives (what magical users are called in this trilogy) and finally, you have threats on a cosmic scale.

Correia does a good job of balancing all of the threats, while expanding the cast of characters. We also get a good twist with one of the Imperial Iron Men (the ultimate bad guys in the previous book) helping out the Grimnoir because he knows the cosmic threat is real and only the Grimnoir are taking it seriously.

When I read this back in ‘13 I had an extremely visceral reaction to the first reveal of the major villain of the book, code named Crow. It was so intense that I had to put the book down back then for an entire day. I was extremely interested in how I would react this time. Oh man. I reacted the exact same way. Even down to putting the book down for 24hrs. I knew what was coming, but even so, it hit me like a runaway freight train. It’s good to know that some things about me haven’t changed.

The book ends in such a way that I kind of wondered if Correia had modeled it after The Empire Strikes Back, the second movie in the Star Wars trilogy. The good guys strike a dramatic blow but in the end are still scattered and on their own. That didn’t stand out to me last time and even now, I wonder if I’m reaching, but boy, it really had that feeling. In all fairness, it might also just be Correia using that kind of trope and not necessarily aping ESB directly. But he’s a couple of years older than me and could have seen ESB in the theatres and it would have struck him deeper than it did me. Who knows. It’s vague and baseless speculations like this that make re-reading so much fun :-D

The final battle was awesome. The Grimnoir, the cops, the airforce, all fighting against a demon god of a previously devoured world. And it all comes down to little ol’ Faye to stop it. Jake Sullivan the smart heavy can’t do it. Toru the renegade Iron Man can’t do it. Not even a full squadron of the American Airforce/Navy can do it. But Faye does it and she does it smart. That’s what I like about these books so much, the characters might make mistakes, but they aren’t obvious author created mistakes just to create hardship or drama. Or because the author is a stupid twit who can’t write themselves out of a brown paper bag. So go Correia, keep those smart characters coming!

★★★★★

From the Publisher

The Grimnoir Society’s mission is to protect people with magic, and they’ve done so—successfully and in secret—since the mysterious arrival of the Power in the 1850s, but when a magical assassin makes an attempt on the life of President Franklin Roosevelt, the crime is pinned on the Grimnoir. The knights must become fugitives while they attempt to discover who framed them.

Thing go from bad to worse when Jake Sullivan, former p.i. and knight of the Grimnoir, receives a telephone call from a dead man—a man he helped kill.. Turns out the Power jumped universes because it was fleeing from a predator that eats magic and leaves destroyed worlds in its wake. That predator has just landed on Earth.

• Spellbound (2013 Review)

• All of My “Grimnoir” Reviews

April '26 Circum et Pervagatus

 

Raw Data:

Novels/Novellas - 13 -

Short Stories - 0 -

Manga/Graphic Novels - 0 -

Comics - 1 -

Average Rating - 3.25 ↓

Pages - 2955 ↑

Words - 1088K ↑

The Bad:

Tower of Terror - 2.5stars of snoozefestapalooza!

14 of My Favorites in Suspense - 2.5stars of wallowing in the gutter

The Good:

Hard Magic - 5Stars of really good urban fantasy

Shadows Linger - 4stars of pretty good re-reading

Movie:

Resident Evil: Extinction, the third in the RE film series, really amps up the tension but falls down pretty hard in most other areas. Decent but my least favorite of the series.

Miscellaneous Posts:

• How Do You Follow Blogs?
• He is Risen!
• Lifelace - MTG 4E
• Off-Air
• Imperatoris Chronicorum II
• Lifetap - MTG 4E
• [Art] Seasonal Trees
• Lightning Bolt - MTG 4E
• The Dirge of Porky Chunkins
• Living Artifact - MTG 4E

Personal:

Paid our taxes. We have the minimum taken out, so we usually owe some at year's end. I began doing that a long time ago when someone told me that "getting a refund" from the Feds was just giving them an interest free loan with MY money. I've never looked at the "refund" the same again. Took me about an hour, as I had all the paperwork necessary on hand. Just glad it's over with for another year.

Spring is here and we're already in drought conditions. I really don't understand that, what with all the snow we got this past winter, but that's what the weather people say. Considering how early it is for that, I foresee a very uncomfortable summer with lots of ticks.

The bot views are back, with a vengeance. March had kind of tapered off and I was hoping maybe I could use April though the end of the year, but nope, after the first week I kept getting hit. 600-1200 views a day is NOT normal for this blog, especially when I see the same posts getting hit day after day 10 times a day. Makes me wonder what Wordpress is doing, besides absolutely nothing I mean.

My Devilreads experiment is going decent but no better. Not doing reviews has kept me out of reach of the wokescolds and other such finger waggers there. The feed is atrocious though. I can't customize what I actually see so I end up with a lot of garbage as people "update" the percentage of the books they are reading. Overall, the site is not conducive to someone as words oriented as I am or who wants one on one interaction.

Cover Love:

The Tower of the Elephant, a Conan novella by Robert Howard. While not quite accurate, it really does portray the situation very well. And it's just plain cool looking :-)