Bookstooge's Reviews On the Road: Short Story

Showing posts with label Short Story. Show all posts

Tuesday, September 12, 2023

Dedication of the High Priestess (The King in Yellow Anthology #10) 2Stars

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Title: Dedication of the High Priestess
Series: The King in Yellow Anthology #10
Author: Ephraim Unger
Rating: 2 of 5 Stars
Genre: Cosmic Horror / Short Story
Pages: 33
Words: 10K

This was a short story that the author was kind enough to give me a free copy of. It would have fit into a KIY anthology just fine but since that probably won’t be happening anytime soon, I figured I’d take a stab at a standalone short story. While I enjoyed this in expanding the King in Yellow lore, there were a couple of things that dragged this down to the two star level for me.

The biggest issue was that the main character was 12 years old and has visions of being embraced by the King in Yellow. While cosmic horror should be disturbing, I felt like this crossed into territory that I wasn’t comfortable with. At all.

The second issue was a more technical issue. The story was written in the first person perspective and there was a lot of “he did, she wore, they said”. While some of that is inherent to that perspective, there are ways to mitigate sounding like a sports announcer at a tennis match.

I really wanted to like this more and give it a higher rating. But it is what it is. I do give props for that cover though. Ohhhhh, that is some good art right there.

★★☆☆☆

From Bookstooge.blog

A 12 year old ballerina is drawn into the world of the King in Yellow and becomes his high priestess. She brings him into our world and ushers in a new age of cosmic horror.

Monday, February 20, 2023

Traitor’s Gambit (WH40K: Ciaphas Cain #6.5) ★★★✬☆

Title: Traitor’s Gambit
Series: WH40K: Ciaphas Cain #6.5
Authors: Sandy Mitchell
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 32
Words: 9K

Cain gets involved in stopping a group of renegade humans who want to help the alien Tau by destroying the flagship that is protecting the human’s world. They all die, Cain and Jurgen escape and Cain looks like a hero.

I like that these Cain stories deal with other villains than just the Ruinous Powers (ie, the demons from the warp) that characterized the Gaunt’s Ghost series. It is also quite interesting to see humanity rejecting the Tau because they are aliens and not humans. Their tech is better, their world/universe view seems to have a greater chance of surviving in the long term but even Cain just rejects them categorically. It shows how much the Empire of Man has truly become an Empire of the Emperor. Kind of depressing, but then, the whole point of the Warhammer 40K universe is to be depressing. Thank goodness Cain lightens things up.

★★★✬☆

All My “Ciaphas Cain” Reviews

Monday, February 13, 2023

The Vicar of Nibbleswick ★★★✬☆

Title: The Vicar of Nibbleswick
Authors: Roald Dahl
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Childrens Fiction
Pages: 6
Words: 1K

I have no idea how this story got to be on its own instead of being folded into some sort of collection. Be that as it may, this feels like a good ending to my Dahl re-read. Short and sweet and amusing.

The Vicar says words backwards and Dahl has a blast figuring out language tricks to make things sound not just nonsensical but actually correct grammatically while being totally wrong in what the poor Vicar is trying to say. One funny instance is him trying to tell the congregation not to “park” their cars alongside the front of the church but to use the back parking lot. I laughed, as it comes out like telling them to not krap in front of the church, hahahhaa. Good stuff!

Having started my Dahl re-read back in December of ‘21 with Matilda, which is close to being one of his longest books, like I mentioned at first, this short story felt like a great way to finish things up. I’ve enjoyed this almost year and a half journey of exploring Dahl all over again but I’ve realized that I probably won’t do it again on my own. I feel like Dahl has a magic circle that his books work in and I’ve simply aged out of that circle. They are still wonderful and amusing stories and I’ll remember them very fondly, but I am now done.

★★★✬☆

Wednesday, August 03, 2022

The Beguiling (WH40K: Ciaphas Cain #1.7) ★★★☆☆

Title: The Beguiling
Series: WH40K: Ciaphas Cain #1.7
Authors: Sandy Mitchell
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF Short Story
Pages: 21
Words: 6K

Synopsis:

From The Black Library & Me

On Slawkenberg, Ciaphas Cain is a long way from the front lines and that’s precisely what he wanted. However, Chaos is present on Slawkenberg and Cain finds himself back in the firefight against his better judgement. And ends up almost being seduced by a vampire/agent of a chaos god.

My Thoughts:

Despite only giving these short stories 3stars (yeah, like 3stars is somehow bad, sigh. See, that’s how the culture creeps in and twists and warps your own value system, no matter how much you may rage and fight against it), I am thoroughly enjoying them. Most of them are collected in one single volume called Hero of the Imperium or something, but without another ground pounder Warhammer 40K series lined up after this, I have to admit that I am trying to stretch out my time with Cain.

And while I’m being brutally honest (because aren’t book reviews supposed to be full of pathos, drama and personal connections to make you think that I care about you? I obviously don’t, but I can play that game, watch me. Look me in the eye and tell me I don’t care about you. * ba-dump * That was your heart skipping a beat as we made eye contact and had “a moment”. Forget the Geico Lizard, I can do “fake connections” better than anyone), dang it, that fake connection totally made me forget what I was going to write. Wow, I am even better than I thought! Oh, oh, I remember! Ha, steeltrap McBookstooge they called me in ye olde countrye. I am totally making up the series numbers for the short stories. I have ZERO idea where any of them actually fit in with regards to the full novels, but in 10 years, I’m not going to care and in 1 day you’re probably not going to care either. So I’m not sweating it. If you’re sweating it, get a better antiperspirant. Mitchum, I’ve heard of that, so use it.

It was really weird to see vampires in a Warhammer 40K story. I’m so used to just tech and the chaos gods that all the other manifestations of them always take me by surprise. It is interesting how urban fantasy or straight up fantasy (orks anyone?) are woven into a far future story and presented as non-mystical.

With this short story I realized that I have read some of Mitchell’s Warhammer novels a couple of years ago (The Blood on the Reik trilogy) and sort of enjoyed them. So after I’m done Cain I might have to see what else Mitchell has written in the WH:40K universe as chances are decent that I’ll enjoy them.

If anyone reading this has read a bunch of Warhammer 40K and has some recommendations that are similar to either Gaunt’s Ghosts or Ciaphas Cain, please, let me know.