The Vindication of Man (Count to the Eschaton Sequence #5) ★★★☆☆

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Title: The Vindication of Man
Series: Count to the Eschaton Sequence #5
Author: John Wright
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 450
Format: Digital Edition

Synopsis:

Rania returns! And she is carrying new Monument coding from M3 that will bring peace to all of humanity in all its forms. Problem is, she's a false Rania and the coding will turn humanity into docile sheep who demand a ruling hand.

Montrose runs away and ends up fighting Blackie, again. They are forced to make peace as they want to go to M3 and find out what happened to the real Rania.

Blackie pulls a fast one and forces a duel, the apparent Final Duel, between them. Which they both want. However, Blackie has rigged the game and leaves Montrose in a dead ship with no energy while he continues on to M3 and Rania. The book ends with Montrose's intelligence shutting down to keep its coherence.

My Thoughts:

Unfortunately, this book was just plain boring. Wright delves deeply into philosophical and science fictional asides and the plot has barely advanced from the previous book.

By the halfway mark I could tell when it was safe to skip a page or two of SF-babble. When he does decide to actually plot, it is good. Montrose and Blackie are awesome characters, when they're actually DOING something. But my goodness there is so much talking about energy and various types of future technology that it became pointless. Nano-technology leads to pico-technology which leads to phenitol-technology which leads to fermo-technology which leads to poop-technology which leads to..., and on you go.

Thankfully, there is only 1 more book in this series and while I'm ok with reading it, I'm not “excited” to read it.

I follow Mr Wright on his blog, one of the extremely few authors I feel comfortable doing so. Once I'm done with this series he has a couple of others that I do plan on checking out.

★★★☆☆

• Architect of Aeons (Book 4)
• The Judge of Ages (Book 3)
• The Hermetic Millennia (Book 2)
• Count to a Trillion (Book 1)

Dinosaur Lake (Dinosaur Lake #1)

This review is written with a GPL 3.0 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 Bookstooge.booklikes. blogspot.wordpress.com by  Bookstooge's Exalted Permission.
Title: Dinosaur Lake
Series: Dinosaur Lake
Author: Kathryn Griffith
Rating: 2 of 5 Stars
Genre: Thriller
Pages: 439
Format: Kindle digital edition

Synopsis:

Henry, former New York City cop, now Chief Ranger, is dealing with budget cuts for his staff while the park he oversee's is dealing with some minor earthquakes. One of the tremors unearth's some heretofore unknown dinosaur bones and a group of archeologists descend on the find, like vultures on the rotting carcass of a cow. At the same time, long time members of the community are going missing, the group of local homeless people reports a monster eating some of their number and Justin, the ONE GOOD ARCHEOLOGIST, finds tracks leading from the water. Big tracks.

A dinosaur exists, it is smart and it wants to eat people, a lot of people. For some reason it is now exclusively up to Ranger Henry and his trusty cohorts [ex FBI Agent that would make Fox Mulder blush, older but stern submarine operator and of course, THE GOOD ARCHEOLOGIST] to go down into the subterranean caves, while a huge earthquake is predicted, and hunt down the dinosaur so that the namby pambies in the Gubba'ment can't capture it and cause even more havoc.

My Thoughts:

What I wanted:
a story where a dinosaur caused havoc, ate people and then died in glorious battle.

What I got:
a story where a dinosaur caused havoc, ate people and then died in glorious battle.
However, that was only the backdrop of the story. The real story was about how sensitive Henry, Justin and the other men were and how they all bonded and formed everlasting ties of friendship [until the dinosaur ate some of them of course] and with the POWER OF FRIENDSHIP, defeated the mean ol' dinosaur.

At the 60% mark I started skimming. At the 75% mark I started reading 1 page in 10. And by the end I still got the story but without all the clutter.

This was over 400 pages and it should have been cut down to just under 300. To do that however, the characterization would have had to have been axed, the action ramped up and a lot of the extraneous weight gotten rid of. I don't need to know about Henry's daughter's bad life choices and how she's getting her life back on track and how Justin is falling in love with her. I don't need to know the backstories or family histories of the 2 men driving the submersible. Sure, it makes them "real" characters but so what? Those 2 men were dinosaur food.

Now my main problem. Henry. Loving, gentle, caring Henry. Who is supposed to be an Ex New York City cop. Who got shot by a 10 year old and had to plug the kid. He is an emotional Gary Stu and really made me sick. In one instance, his wife sneaks into the danger zone to get pictures of the dinosaur to save the local paper even though Henry has reiterated over and over and over how dangerous and smart the dinosaur is. So of course she runs into the dinosaur and Henry's best friend saves her, at the expense of his own life. Does Henry get angry or upset? Oh no. He gently and carefully takes care of his wife because she almost died and he really needs to focus on that. Forget about that her selfish actions DIRECTLY caused the death of a good man, for no point. In fact, it was probably better that George died that way, so he wouldn't end up in a nursing home or something.  The "bonding" scene between Henry and the former FBI Agent was what made me throw up in my mouth though. FBI-man tells a story about a whole town going missing and how the gubba'ment covered it all up. It added pages to the book without adding one bit to the dinosaur eating people.

The dinosaur eating people was the blank canvas for everything else to be painted on. It was the paper while it should have been the painting. Frustrating as Phrack.

There are 2 more books in the Dinosaur Lake series, but since I'm guessing they're in the exact same vein as this, I'd rather cut off my toes than read them. Because if I can read 1 page in 10 and still get the story, something is very wrong.
`

Tron

This review is written with a GPL 3.0 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 Bookstooge.booklikes.blogspot. wordpress.com by  Bookstooge's Exalted Permission.
Title: Tron
Series: ----------
Author: Brian Daley
Rating: 2 of 5 Stars
Genre: Movie Novelization
Pages: 186
Format: Kindle digital scan

Synopsis:

Flynn came up with several smash hit games, only to have them stolen by another man who leveraged that fame into the position of CEO at Endcom. Flynn is on a crusade to prove that those were HIS games and that HE deserves that position. With the help of Bradley and Laura, friends who are still employed at Endcom, Flynn breaks in and starts to hack the system.
Little does he know that MCP has taken control of the company and it doesn't want Flynn around. Zapped into an electronic world, Flynn must hook up with Brad and Laura's alter ego's and take down the MCP from the inside. As a mythical User, Flynn has powers at his fingertips not known to mere programs. With the help of Tron the Warrior and Lori the shaper, Flynn is on a journey to survive and destroy the MCP.

My Thoughts:

I am a big fan of the movie Tron. I acknowledge it's complete 80'sness but that is part of the appeal. It is the Electronic 80's in all its Glory.

Sadly, this book was deadly boring. Boring that I really wanted to DNF this. But my love of the movie overcame and I soldiered on. Kind of wish I hadn't and started something else. Daley was a good author and his own works showcase that pretty well but this, it was just boring. I know I'm saying that lot, but that was what kept striking me in the face over and over.

Wouldn't recommend this at all and if it wasn't for the movie being so cool, I would give this an easy 1 Star.
`

The Jupiter Theft

This review is written with a GPL 3.0 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 Bookstooge.booklikes.blogspot. wordpress.com & Bookstooge's Reviews on the Road Facebook Group by Bookstooge's Exalted Permission.
Title: The Jupiter Theft
Series: -----
Author: Donald Moffitt
Rating: 2.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: SFF
Pages: 339
Format: Kindle digital edition

Synopsis:

Humanity has expanded to Mars but at the cost of a totalitarian regime back on Earth. A scientist discovers a mass moving towards our solar system and it turns out to be aliens, who are taking mass from Jupiter to power their ships as they hop around the galaxy.
A group of scientists, and some "Security" are tasked with finding out as much as possible about the aliens and so they take some nukes along with them. Stuff happens and a couple of people survive and humanity gets a new planet and some tech.
The End.

My Thoughts:

This was boring. Yes, at the end a lot happens, but it felt like I'd been traveling 100 miles at 25mph and then for the last 100 yards the driver floored it and accelerated to 60mph.  Books like this are why I've become more of a fantasy guy over the years.

If you enjoy having numbers and "science" thrown your way like heavy brick walls, then you might like this book. I didn't hate it, but I did end up creating a "Boring" shelf because that was my main impression by the end of the book.

And the hippy culture that permeates the future? That is what happens when you extrapolate the future from the present and don't even try to think through what changes "might" happen. Come on, Free Love and Joints for everyone? On a spaceship? I think the author was just writing his wish fulfillment of grabbing some tail while high.

Good or bad, this book did not entice me to read any more by Moffitt. Back to the dust heaps of anonymity for him!