Bookstooge's Reviews On the Road: Metaframe War

Showing posts with label Metaframe War. Show all posts

Saturday, August 10, 2024

The Dragon’s Den (The Metaframe War #3) 2Stars

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Title: The Dragon’s Den
Series: The Metaframe War #3
Author: Graeme Rodaughan
Rating: 2 of 5 Stars
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Pages: 219
Words: 85K

This is where I DNF the series and add Rodaughan to my list of Authors to Avoid

This read exactly like some mindless action video game, with “missions” and “side missions” that don’t make ANY sense if you give them more than a cursory examination.

In the previous book the Leader of the Order of Thoth (one faction of super humans who are fighting against the Vampires) was kidnapped by the Vampires and this book was all about the main characters trying to rescue him.

Once again, the author just doesn’t know how to write effective, mature leaders. The guy who Anton (the main character, The Chosen One) is following is as effective a leader as one of the Minions from the Despicable Me movies.

The Minion in the middle is the “Leader”…

He doesn’t lead, he doesn’t plan, he doesn’t do anything other than say obvious things like “Ok, we have to rescue the boss” or “Ok, we have to attack the vampires”. When Anton goes off the rails, he doesn’t corral him in any way. At the end, when his wife dies, he just gives up and Anton takes over as leader. We’re not talking about some jamoke with an office job here. This is supposed to be a guy who has successfully fought vampires for possibly decades. And he is a complete and utter joke.

In this same area, the other leaders are as much a joke as he is. There is a military guy working for the Vampires who totally gets outsmarted by Anton, in a helicopter duel. Then the kidnapped leader, while being corrupt, is also monumentally stupid and every decision he makes is bad. And finally, a group of Super Assassins from the Red Empire (another faction of super humans fighting the Vampires) are led by a guy who decides that keeping his word to a Vampire General is the thing to do even when she turns him and his entire team into vampires. They literally become the thing they were created to destroy and they don’t instantly kill each other in a death pact? That’s stupid. That’s beyond stupid, it’s 100% asinine.

Now we come to the biggest reason that I am stopping the series. Anton Slayde, the main character. He’s reckless, impulsive, anti-authority, selfish, self-centered, ignorant (which I can forgive, because ALL teenagers are ignorant, it’s why they have to be taught) but worst of all, he’s stupid. He’s beyond even asinine stupid. I’m debating whether it’s worth it to list all the things that led me to that conclusion.

1) His best friend is captured while allowing the rest of the group to escape the clutches of Shadowstone (the human military wing of the Vampires). So Anton insists on rescuing him with no real plan and puts everyone in jeopardy all over again.

2) His “plan” to rescue his friend involves hijacking a super tank and driving around the compound shooting stuff while looking for his friend, forcing the group to back him up or risking him being captured as well.

3) When that rescue doesn’t happen, he decides he still needs to rescue the guy, this time from an armored convoy that has four military equipped helicopters attached to it. He jumps out of the tank and onto the prison truck, once again forcing his team mates to follow or risk him being captured too.

4) All of this happens WHILE the leader of the Order is captured and being interrogated by Vampires. What’s the best way for a Vampire to interrogate a human? To turn him into a vampire of course, which then means his loyalty is now to the Vampires. Does Anton consider ANY of that, at all? Nope. Operational security, secrets, codes, it can all go take a flying leap because Anton has to rescue his friend, WHO VOLUNTEERED KNOWING THIS COULD HAPPEN IN THE FIRST PLACE!!!!!

5) Anton’s real goal is to kill the Vampire, General Armitage because she killed his parents. He can barely face a regular vampire, but fully expects to just waltz in and kill the most talented Vampire ever? He’s seen her in one fight, where she killed his mentor, who was about 100 times a better fighter than Anton. He has no idea of her style of fighting, her weaknesses or disposition. He knows nothing but is convinced by Plot Armor that he will be The Chosen One, to kill her.

6) I’m getting myself worked up, so I’m just going to stop.

I have a strict “No Stupid People” policy when it comes to the characters I read. I don’t mind if a minor side character is stupid, that just makes them fodder and I’m ok with fodder in my books. But for the main character to be like this, that’s only ok for 12-15 year olds. Anton is not in that age bracket.

The series has been toe’ing that Line of Stupid ever since book one, but it crossed it completely in this book. So I am done. I simply don’t care how the story ends because Plot Armor will overcome everything and I won’t read more Stupid.

★★☆☆☆

From the Publisher

Synopsis – click to open

IT’S A TRAP! – Anton Slayne knows it’s a trap. One laid for him by his most powerful opponent – Chloe Armitage, rogue general of the Vampire Dominion.
The chase is on. Agents of the Red Empire and the Vampire Dominion have abducted Ramin Kain, the Head of the Order of Thoth. Anton and the Mirovar force team are the only ones in a position to act. They know Ramin is bait, but have to rescue him before he’s forced to reveal everything he knows to the Order’s sworn enemies.
Will Anton and his friends in the Mirovar force team rescue Ramin Kain, or will Chloe Armitage discover the secrets of the Order of Thoth, destroy the Mirovar force team, and enslave Anton to her will?

Friday, July 26, 2024

[Reblog] Cosmic Desire or My Week VI

The entirety of the cosmos feels better with you present,

I travelled several parts of it,

Chasing your essence;

Which leaves me gasping every time for more,

Tomorrow is a vain concept without you.

~reblogged from The Master Procrastinator from “Pink and Blue”

Some weeks are busy and full and give me stories to tell. Even if I have to embellish “a little” bit. Those make for great blogging weeks. But boy, do they suck for actually living. Other weeks are a nice slow roll of hour after hour, day after day, night after night. Not much happens during those kind of weeks. I get up, I go to work, I come home, I eat, I read, I blog. I do unfun things like pay bills. I do fun things like watch “Keeping Up Appearances” (for those who don’t know, KUA was the absolute zenith of 90’s British sitcoms. It was the Queen of them all). I really prefer those kind of weeks.

And lo and behold, it was that kind of week. I got some new art for next month, I bought some plane tickets for a family visit later this year, I read the next Metaframe War book (spoiler, the review will NOT be pretty). I ate chili cheese hotdogs. Yes, you read that right. They have the technology, I have the money, and hoo yah, it’s a party in my mouth!

Oscar Mayer now makes Chili Cheese Hotdogs.

This is the kind of week I crave. Nothing putting pressure on me, no emergencies, no “oh no, I HAVE to do X”, nothing but get up and go to work. I might complain about my job at times, but I actually enjoy being a crew chief of a land survey crew. I am contributing something concrete and useful to society, I am not being a parasite or a scumbag. And I can go to bed at night feeling good about it.

One of the fun things I did was starting to investigate a higher capacity 9mm handgun. Right now I own a Sig P938, a subcompact that holds 7 bullets and is small enough for me to wear inside my waistband without printing (ie, having it outlined through my clothes). The only problem is that I’m only accurate with it to about 25ft (8meters) because of the short barrel. That is about 8-12 steps for most people. It means that to cover the doors into our church, I have to sit in the back row. That really has never been a problem because since our church has gone full hog into the streaming mania, the back row was the only place it was easy to avoid the cameras. In the last month we have gotten a 3rd camera that has removed that blind spot. Which means half my reason for sitting in the back is now gone. So it just feels like I am tethered to the back now because of my accuracy issues. The way to overcome that is to buy a full sized 9mm pistol, with a much higher magazine capacity and a longer barrel.

I’ve been looking at a CZ P-10 F, a Czech made pistol that holds up to 19 rounds with a standard magazine. The biggest issue is if the grip will be too fat for my hands or not. I have small hands and most full size pistols are just not comfortable for me to hold. If it fits my hands ok, I could easily sit 3 or 4 rows closer to the front if I wanted to. But right now, this is just all in my head. I don’t have $400 to throw down on a gun at the moment. But I enjoy doing my “homework” on the issue.

And that should be a wrap! From Poetry to Hotdogs to Guns. Just need an apple pie to make this 100% American 😉

Tuesday, June 25, 2024

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

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

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.

★★★☆☆

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?

Tuesday, May 28, 2024

A Subtle Agency (The Metaframe War #1) 3Stars

Title: A Subtle Agency
Series: The Metaframe War #1
Author: Graeme Rodaughan
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Pages: 212
Words: 84K

When I featured this series in a Shelf Control post, I was under the impression that the final book was coming out this year. I later found out it had been released at the end of ‘23. That decided me right away and I added the series to my kindle to read. Waiting seven years for the series to be written was long enough in my opinion.

Unfortunately, for me, it didn’t start out so well. I featured a quote in a Currently Reading post and it was pretty much the epitome of an indie urban fantasy and it encapsulated every single reason why I tend to avoid UF as a genre. Thankfully, for the book and author, things did improve after that disastrous start, but it never truly recovered in my mind.

The writing was decent, nothing bad stood out, no egregious grammatical errors or butchering of the English language. At the same time, it wasn’t very good writing either. It didn’t flow. It was choppy. There were quite a few instances of “He said, she said, he did, she did” kind of writing. Rodaughan came across as an author who was working hard to do the right thing, but was someone who didn’t have an instinctual grasp of the art of writing. “General Chloe Armitage” made a lot of appearances, with that title attached every time.

The ideas presented were what saved this book. Things start off in Ancient Egypt, with two brothers. The wife of one of them has just died and he is using the power of the Metaframe Engine to bring her back to life. His brother is trying to stop him. She is revived, as a vampire and thus the race of vampires is born and the hidden course of history is set. The surviving brother starts a hidden group bent on fighting the vampires to keep humanity free. That group, over the years, has schismed into two groups, one that wants to fight the vampires and protect humanity and the other, which just wants to fight the vampires. Oh, the vampires secretly rule the world too. We get to follow a possible “Chosen One” on his “Coming of Age Journey”. All tropes that I really enjoy.

I definitely plan on continuing the series and hope that as the years passed for the author, that his skill increased. I guess I’ll be finding out in the coming months 😀

★★★☆☆

From the Publisher

Synopsis – Click to Open

ACTION STATIONS! A Thrilling Suspense-Filled Fantasy Action Adventure in a complete series of seven books.

Hunters and vampires are fighting a secret war for control of the fabric of reality. Whoever acquires mastery of the reality shifting powers of the Metaframe will become the new gods of the universe.

“Imagine if you could change the rules of the game, what rules would you choose?”

Witness to a brutal murder, eighteen year old Anton Slayne is inducted by the mysterious Mr Wu into the secret society of vampire hunters, the Order of Thoth. He soon discovers that vicious local gangsters, determined Boston Police Detectives, and relentless Shadowstone operatives pale into insignificance as he is drawn into the machinations of the enigmatic vampire general, Chloe Armitage.

Heir to a legacy of extraordinary powers, Anton joins a team of hunters, but that is no guarantee of survival against the most powerful vampires in the world, especially when they’re equipped with the latest available technology and super weapons.

Thursday, May 09, 2024

Currently Reading & Quote: A Subtle Agency

He walked downstairs in his socks, wearing a simple gray, long sleeved BU Hockey T-shirt, and jeans that hid the rugged athleticism of his six feet one-inch frame. Anton arrived at the front door just as the doorbell rang for the third time.
He opened the door; before him stood the most beautiful woman that he had ever seen in his life.
She was tall, nearly the same height as Anton, brunette with vivid blue eyes, flawless complexion, wearing a professional black business pants suit with a short jacket, and a translucent scarlet silk chiffon shirt that displayed the round curves of her breasts within a stylish black bra.
Just standing still, she was a seductive mix of poise, elegance, and class, with a face that demanded attention.

I started A Subtle Agency, by Graeme Rodaughan, the first book in the Metaframe War series. I know it involves vampires, but that quote from the first chapter does not bode well. I swear, if “rippling abs” make even ONE appearance, I’m dnf’ing this like it has the bubonic plague.