Cat Magic ★★☆☆☆

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Title: Cat Magic
Author: Whitley Strieber & Jonathan Barry
Rating: 2 of 5 Stars
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Pages: 353
Words: 134K

Ooooooh boy. * puffs out cheeks *

I’ve never read anything by Strieber before and wanted to give his writings a go. I knew he was horror’ish or real life aliens or something weird, so I thought I was prepared. I had no idea.

I saw the subtitle for this book on a later edition and it was “A Tale of Modern Witchcraft”. I really wish I had seen that before deciding to start with this book. I guess if I could sum up this book I’d go with “sexual orgies while children watch and the only sin is Guilt itself”. Ughhh. There was a lot of theological ideas put forth that I really had to disagree with. Not in an angry way but more in a “are you serious?” way.

While I have a bunch of Strieber’s books on tap, I think I’m going to try his Omega Point duology next. It’s about aliens somehow. If he puts forth more bad theology though, I’ll be done with him. I have no idea who this Barry fellow is or what part he played in writing the story. I wonder if he did the heavy lifting though.

Overall, this was not a good first impression and I certainly won’t be recommending Strieber even if his later books improve.

★★☆☆☆

Shogun (The Asian Saga #1) Unrated DNF@68%

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Title: Shogun
Series: The Asian Saga #1
Author: James Clavell
Rating: Unrated / DNF@68%
Genre: Historical Fiction
Pages: 1113 / 757
Words: 438K / 298K

When I read this in 2010, I loved it. It wasn’t perfect but the utter foreignness of the setting (1600’s I think, in Japan) made for an enthralling read.

This time, all I could read were the sailors swearing like sailors. The biggest part was that they would claim to be Christians and then take Jesus’s name in vain as part of their daily routine. I’m not blaming Clavell for including it, which is why I’m leaving this unrated, but it is not something I want to get comfortable with. It was starting to bug me and then it happened with several of the characters multiple times in just a few pages, so I decided I had had enough and dnf’d the book.

I don’t know why it bothered me so much this time and not so much back in ‘10. While I am older, I don’t feel like I can say I am more mature as a Christian, if anything I realize just how much in the shallow end of the pool I really am. My own temptation to swear at work is waaaaaay greater and thus harder to fight against. I’m less involved at church. I didn’t think much about it when I just dnf’d it, but now that I am writing, it is a puzzling aspect to me. I haven’t come to any conclusion but now I am curious. Something changed in me and I don’t know what it is. I’ll have to keep on cogitating on it.

I definitely won’t be re-reading the rest of the Asian Saga, as I remember not enjoying them nearly as much as I did Shogun back then. So another re-read that didn’t quite work out. I seem to have gone through a list of books like that in the last month or two. Good thing my tbr is close to 300!

Unrated DNF@68%

• Shogun (2010 Review)

The Best of Lester Del Rey ✬☆☆☆☆ DNF@74%

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Title: The Best of Lester Del Rey
Series: ———-
Authors: Lester Del Rey
Rating: 0.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF Short Story Collection
Pages: 350 DNF / 259
Words: 130K DNF / 96K

Synopsis:

TOC

“The Magnificent” [introduction] (Frederik Pohl)

“Helen O’Loy” (from Astounding Science-Fiction, Dec. 1938)

“The Day Is Done” (from Astounding Science-Fiction, May 1939)

“The Coppersmith” (from Unknown, Sep. 1939)

“Hereafter, Inc.” (from Unknown Worlds, Dec. 1941)

“The Wings of Night” (from Astounding Science-Fiction, Mar. 1942)

“Into Thy Hands” (from Astounding Science Fiction, Aug. 1945)

“And It Comes Out Here” (from Galaxy Science Fiction, Feb. 1951)

“The Monster” (from Argosy, Jun. 1951)

“The Years Draw Nigh” (from Astounding Science Fiction, Oct. 1951)

“Instinct” (from Astounding Science Fiction, Jan. 1952)

“Superstition” (from Astounding Science Fiction, Aug. 1954)

“For I Am a Jealous People!” (from Star Short Novels, Oct. 1954)

“The Keepers of the House” (from Fantastic Universe, Jan. 1956)

“Little Jimmy” (from The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Apr. 1957)

“The Seat of Judgment” (from Venture Science Fiction Magazine, Jul. 1957)

“Vengeance Is Mine” (from Galaxy Magazine, Dec, 1964)

“Author’s Afterword”

My Thoughts:

Several of these stories made quite clear what Del Rey thought about Christianity as a whole but I was able to read past them. Then I got to “For I Am a Jealous People” and it got downright blasphemous. I was teetering on dnf’ing and trying to make up my mind when another sentence hit me. A character is talking about the Bible and God and says something like “I just wish I knew where Jesus fit into all of this”. That did it. The Bible is crystal clear that Jesus is the second person of the Godhead, is not a created being AND is the only way for humanity to get to heaven. It was obvious that Del Rey knew exactly what he was doing as his deliberate misuse of Scripture by a character showed his was very familiar with it.

So dnf’d at 74% and 1/2star for blasphemy.

⭐

Rating: 0.5 out of 5.