Bookstooge's Reviews On the Road: Standalone

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Wednesday, April 24, 2024

War Bodies (Polity #24) 3.5Stars

Title: War Bodies
Series: Polity #24
Author: Neal Asher
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 454
Words: 174K

Most of Asher’s books never grab me by the throat and choke me into enjoyment. It’s always on the re-read that I end up enjoying the story so much more. I still enjoy the initial read, but I’m not excited. War Bodies follows this pattern.

Lots of ultra violence and killing Prador (the giant xenophobic alien crabs that want to kill all humans) and techno-babble about the techno-scyenze inside Piper’s bones (Piper is the main character). We’re talking massive amounts of technobabble. Planck level of technobabble in fact.

This wasn’t as enjoyable as Weaponized because Piper had so much internal angst/emotions/thoughts all on display all of the time. There is a reason for it and it plays directly into the story but I didn’t want to read it. In some ways, it felt like reading someone else’s journal or private correspondence. You ever done that? If you have, you know the feeling I’m talking about. If you have done that and you don’t know that feeling, you’re probably a psychopath with no feelings or sense of shame and guilt.

I know I’m waffling a lot here. I can’t help it. I love the Polity books in their entirety but sometimes the specific books leave me less than 1000% enthused.

Changing subjects here. Reading order. Some people have asked what is the best place to start with the Polity, now that it is over 20 books long and broken up into sub-series and standalone novels. I always recommend Publication Order, just because. Read as Asher wrote them. But I stumbled across an internal chronological list and so wanted to give that out because I know that sometimes people like to read things in that order.

Weaponized (2300 AD)
Prador Moon (2310 AD)
Shadow of the Scorpion (2339 AD)
Gridlinked (2434 AD)
The Line of Polity (2437 AD)
Brass Man (2441 AD)
Polity Agent (2443 AD)
Line War (2444 AD)
The Technician (2457 AD)
Dark Intelligence (Circa. 2500 AD)[9]
War Factory (Circa. 2500 AD)
Infinity Engine (Circa. 2500 AD)
The Soldier (Circa. 2750 AD)[10]
The Warship (Circa. 2750 AD)
The Human (Circa. 2750 AD)
The Skinner (3056 AD)
The Voyage of the Sable Keech (3078 AD)
Orbus (3079 AD)
Jack Four
Hilldiggers (3230 AD)

You might notice there are only 20 books and that this reviewer calls this book the 24^th Polity book. That is because Asher didn’t include the various short story collections that I do include. Because I’m just that awesome. And I didn’t even charge you anything for it either. You are welcome.

★★★✬☆

From the Publisher & Bookstooge.blog

Long ago, the Cyberat left Earth to co-evolve with machines. Now, led by the powerful dictator Castron, their Old Guard believe that machines should replace the physical body. But these beliefs are upended with the arrival of the human Polity – and their presence ignites rebellion.

Piper was raised as a weapon against the Cyberat, implanted with secretive hardware. When his parents are captured by the Old Guard, the Polity offer him unexpected aid. Piper knows the Polity want more from him, but at what cost? The rebellion also attracts the deadly prador, placing an entire world in peril.

As war rages across the planet, Piper must battle with the unknown technology implanted in his bones. It may be the Polity’s answer to their relentless fight against the prador. It could also be civilization-ending Jain tech – or something far more extraordinary.

After the surrender of the Prador, Piper returns home, a war seasoned general with millions of loyal troops at his command. Castron has fully taken over the planet and subjected the cyberat to prador thralling techniques. With the help of an Agent and a sparkind unit, it will be up to Piper to set himself free from the entity inhabiting his bones and in the process destroy Castron and set the Cyberat free.

Tuesday, January 23, 2024

Weaponized (Polity #22) 4Stars

Title: Weaponized
Series: Polity #22
Author: Neal Asher
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 481
Words: 163K

It’s been almost two years since I read Jack Four, the previous Polity book by Asher. I still vividly recall that book though because of all the pooping. Thankfully, in Weaponized, Asher moves away from that. However, what he moves into is as close to body horror as I ever want to get. I’ll talk more on that later.

This novel takes place before and around the beginning of the Prador War. We follow one Ursula as she moves into the ennui stage of life (somewhere around the 200 year mark for most humans, kind of like a very deadly puberty phase of life), then beyond it and then into the present, where she is trying to colonize a world outside of Polity control. Asher slices the story up into Past, Near Past and Present and slices each time line up and interweaves them. So for Chapter 1, you’ll have Present, about Ursula fighting on the planet. Then we’ll switch to Near Past about the colonists discovering whatever they are fighting in the Present. Then we’ll go to the Past which starts with her going through the military and getting kicked out because of the ennui. While it was handled well, I didn’t like it. It was very different from his previous novels and I suspect he did it just to see if he could but I sure hope he’s done with that little “phase”.

The pace here was just as unrelenting and furious as in Jack Four. Which leads into the body horror. This was also a Jain tech novel. By now, fans of Asher know how horrible Jain tech is, how pervasive, twisting and overpowering it is. But instead of the jain changing the colonists over a period of years, it happens within months, days and even hours. They change from humans to whatever is needed to survive, not only physically but also mentally and emotionally. It was degradation on every level. What made it worse is that they chose it, even if they were under the influence of the jain tech. It became so bad that a Polity golem sacrificed herself to set off the entire CTD arsenal in a prador dreadnaught. Ursula STILL managed to survive and the novel ends with her entity being taken to a Polity AI to be studied. It was brutal. Asher does a great job of showing that the Polity is not some benevolent technocracy but just a series of programs weighing what is the best outcome for the greatest number. There have been times it felt like he was promulgating the idea that they were truly benevolent, but either my perceptions have changed or his writing has changed. Either way, it feels much more inline with my worldview and I for one am ok with whatever the reality of the change actually is.

Another fantastic journey into the heart of a future as envisioned by Neal Asher. I continue to recommend this Polity series.

★★★★☆

From the Publisher

With the advent of new AI technology, Polity citizens now possess incredible lifespans. Yet they struggle to find meaning in their longevity, seeking danger and novelty in their increasingly mundane lives.

On a mission to find a brighter future for humanity, ex-soldier Ursula fosters a colony on the hostile planet Threpsis. Here, survival isn’t a given, and colonists thrive without their AI guidance. But when deadly alien raptors appear, Ursula and her companions find themselves forced to adapt in unprecedented ways. And they will be pushed to the very brink of what it means to be human.

As a desperate battle rages across the planet, Ursula must dig deep into her past if she is to save humanity’s future.

Wednesday, January 17, 2024

The Woman in White 1Star DNF@10%

Title: The Woman in White
Series: ----------
Author: Wilkie Collins
Rating: 1 of 5 Stars / DNF@10%
Genre: Fiction
Pages: 900 / 90
Words: 246K / 25K

If you read the synopsis down below, you’ll see this sounds like a great story and I would fully agree with you.

But Collins writing and his choice of characters is beyond what I can stand. Hartright is another young spineless jellyfish and the prose is purple enough that I immediately thought of The Boy and the Peddler of Death, a book I excoriated back in ‘15. There was NO WAY I was going to force myself to read 810 more pages of this drivel.

This one star rating is not for the story at all. I almost feel bad in fact because I think the story could have been really interesting and something I would have loved. But this Rating is Bookstooge’s Final Judgement on Wilkie Collins. He has been judged, found wanting and I assign him to the dreaded Authors to Avoid limbo where he will languish until I die, knowing he was a complete failure. Writhe in agony you miserable excrescence on the literary world, for one day you will be completely forgotten and nobody will have to suffer dealing with your complete tripe anymore.

★☆☆☆☆ DNF@10%

From Wilkie-Collins.info

Walter Hartright, a young drawing master, has secured a position in Cumberland on the recommendation of his old friend Professor Pesca, a political refugee from Italy. While walking home from Hampstead on his last evening in London, Hartright meets a mysterious woman dressed in white, apparently in deep distress. He helps her on her way but later learns that she has escaped from an asylum. The next day he travels north to Limmeridge House. The household comprises Mr Frederick Fairlie, a reclusive valetudinarian; Laura Fairlie, his niece; and Marian Halcombe, her devoted half-sister. Hartright finds that Laura bears an astonishing resemblance to the woman in white, called Anne Catherick. The simple-minded Anne had lived for a time in Cumberland as a child and was devoted to Laura's mother, who first dressed her in white.

Hartright and Laura fall in love. Laura, however, has promised her late father that she will marry Sir Percival Glyde, and Marian advises Walter to leave Limmeridge. Anne Catherick, after sending a letter to Laura warning her against Glyde, meets Hartright who is convinced that Glyde was responsible for shutting her in the asylum. Laura and Glyde marry in December 1849 and travel to Italy. Hartright also leaves England, joining an expedition to Honduras.

After their honeymoon, Sir Percival and Lady Glyde return the following June to his family estate in Hampshire, Blackwater Park. They are accompanied by Glyde's friend, Count Fosco, who married Laura's aunt, Eleanor Fairlie. Marian Halcombe is also living at Blackwater and learns that Glyde is in financial difficulties. Sir Percival unsuccessfully attempts to bully Laura into signing a document which would allow him to use her marriage settlement of £20,000. Marian now realises that Fosco is the true villain and is plotting something more sinister, especially as Anne has reappeared, promising to reveal to Laura a secret which will ruin Glyde. Marian eavesdrops on Fosco and Glyde but is caught in the rain. She collapses with a fever which turns to typhus. While she is ill Laura is tricked into travelling to London. Her identity and that of Anne Catherick are then switched. Anne Catherick dies of a heart condition and is buried in Cumberland as Laura, while Laura is drugged and placed in the asylum as Anne Catherick. When Marian recovers and visits the asylum hoping to learn something from Anne Catherick, she finds Laura, supposedly suffering from the delusion that she is Lady Glyde.

Marian bribes the attendant and Laura escapes. Hartright has safely returned and the three live together in obscure poverty, determined to restore Laura's identity. Exposing the conspiracy depends on proving that Laura's journey to London took place after the date on the death certificate. While looking for evidence, Hartright discovers Glyde's secret. Several years earlier, Glyde had forged the marriage register at Old Welmingham Church to conceal his illegitimacy. Glyde attempts to destroy the register entry, but the church vestry catches fire and he perishes in the flames. Hartright then discovers that Anne was the illegitimate child of Laura's father, which accounts for their resemblance.

Hartright hopes that Pesca can identify Fosco but to his surprise finds that the Count is terrified when he recognises Pesca as a fellow member of a secret society. Hartright now has the power to force a written confession from Fosco and Laura's identity is restored. Hartright and Laura have married and, on the death of Frederick Fairlie, their son becomes the Heir of Limmeridge.

All of My “Wilkie Collins” Reviews

Tuesday, December 05, 2023

Basil 2.5Stars

Title: Basil
Series: ----------
Author: Wilkie Collins
Rating: 2.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fiction
Pages: 473
Words: 128K

This was head and shoulders far above Antonina. I was never bored reading this. And yet. Yes, that doomful “And yet”….

Basil is a spineless, cowardly, weak willed, weak minded nincompoop. He’s not a villain by any means. I’ve often wondered how stupid people go through life, what lens are they viewing it through? I feel like this novel answers that. He is constantly “struck dumb” by people asking him questions. Questions he should already have the answers to since he’s taking certain lines of action. It would be like me asking you why you just drank a gallon of gasoline when you know you are not an automobile and that gasoline is poison to humans. If you just looked at me with a cowlike expression on your face and stuttered, you’d be a stand-in for Basil, hands down. This particularly galling to me as he is a very articulate writer and never even THINKS to write down answers ahead of time to some questions he knows will be coming his way. He is also extremely passive. His older brother swoops in near the end of the novel to help him out and Basil mentions nothing to him about a madman who is out to kill him. He keeps absolutely silent on the issue. His reasoning for doing so are as fatuous as anything he had done previously. I wanted to wring his neck and kept hoping that the madman WOULD kill him, just to rid the world of one more stupid idiot. Sadly, that’s not how things turned out.

Collins is at his wordiest here. There was one time that a paragraph went on for a page and a half and part way through I realized it was all one sentence. No semi-colons, just lots of commas and parenthetical thoughts tossed in to stretch things out. Ain’t nobody got time for that!

I’m going to read The Woman in White next and if that doesn’t really impress me, I’ll have to think long and hard about reading any more Collins. As a reader, I feel that I can do better.

★★✬☆☆

From Wilkie-Collins.info

Basil is the younger son of a proud, stern father and comes of an ancient, noble family. He has a devoted younger sister, Clara, and a wild but good-natured older brother, Ralph. Travelling home, on impulse by omnibus, Basil falls in love at first sight with Margaret Sherwin, a linen-draper's daughter. He follows her home to the newly-built suburbs north of Regent's Park and, after contriving a meeting, asks her father for permission to marry; but because of his own father's certain opposition, the marriage should be kept secret. Mr Sherwin agrees on condition that the marriage takes place within the week but is not consummated for one year, since Margaret is only just seventeen. The delay will give Basil time to persuade his father to accept the marriage, and he cannot be forced to withdraw from it. The marriage duly takes place and Basil spends the next few months visiting Margaret every evening under the supervision of the mildly deranged Mrs Sherwin. He tries unsuccessfully to improve Margaret's mind and after overhearing two of her tantrums begins to doubt her character.

Sherwin's confidential clerk, Robert Mannion, returns from a business trip to France. Mannion's previous background is cloaked in secrecy and he has a strange power over the family. Nevertheless, he professes friendship and uses his influence for Basil's benefit. After a strained visit to his father's country house, Basil returns to find both Margaret and Mannion changed. On the evening before his year's 'probation' is completed, Basil is disconcerted that Margaret has gone to a party and will be escorted home by Mannion. He decides to collect her himself but sees her leave early with his rival. Basil follows them to an hotel and through a thin partition wall hears Mannion seduce Margaret. Basil waits and attacks Mannion, hurling him to the ground with such force that he is permanently disfigured and loses the sight of one eye. Basil collapses into delirium.

On recovering, he realises that Margaret is as much to blame as Mannion, despite threatening letters from Sherwin defending her. Basil confesses the ignoble marriage to his father who disowns him, tearing his name from the record in the family Bible. Mannion writes from hospital, revealing his secret past. His father was a gentleman who lived beyond his means. His patron was Basil's father, who refused to intervene to prevent his being hanged for forgery. Mannion had lived a miserable existence under assumed names until a friend arranged employment with Sherwin where he made himself indispensable. He had watched Margaret develop and despite her deceitful nature regarded her as his prize. Basil's marriage had compounded the family offence and Mannion resolved to take revenge by ruining his happiness and reputation.

Ralph returns from the Continent and visits Sherwin to buy his silence. He fortuitously obtains a letter written by Mannion which confirms Margaret's guilt. Margaret, visiting Mannion in hospital, contracts typhus from which she dies. Basil sees her when she is at the point of death, forgives her and leaves London for Cornwall. Mannion forces him to leave the fishing village where he is staying and confronts him on the cliff tops. While gloating over his revenge, Mannion falls to his death on the rocks below. The shock causes Basil to collapse. He is brought back to London by Ralph and Clara and reconciled with his father. After writing his history, Basil retires to the country to live quietly with Clara.

All of My “Wilkie Collins” Reviews

Saturday, October 28, 2023

The Innocent 3Stars

Title: The Innocent
Series: ----------
Author: Harlan Coben
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fiction
Pages: 338
Words: 105K

This wasn’t nearly as complicated as Gone for Good, and I’m very thankful for that. But at the same time, it is very obvious that Coben has a list of “include these plot points” and he just rolls a couple of dice to figure out which ones to put into the story. While not exactly recycled, there are just too many similar points for such a reader as myself. Not to brag (which usually means the person is about to brag), but I’ve read enough books, both good, bad, really good and really bad, to see this kind of thing coming from a mile away. And I wear glasses.
~buffs nails

At the same time, I’ve decided that I will start reading a series with a central main character instead of these standalone stories. They might work fine for those who read 5 books a year, but I’m sorry, I’m way out of those peoples’ league. And I need Coben to write at my level, not theirs.
~buffs nails again

Yep, letting my reading snob show here. I don’t care. I have standards. I really do my best to keep that snobbery from showing when it comes to other people, but when it is about the books “I” read on “my” blog, well, I get sick and tired of holding it in all the time. Darn this curse of good taste, it is a real burden on my shoulders.
~buffs both set of nails

Ok, I’m done now. The snobbery can go back in its box for another year or two. Maybe three if I can get on a good roll.

★★★☆☆

From Wikipedia.org

Matt Hunter is a seemingly ordinary man in suburban New Jersey with a pregnant wife, Olivia. But Matt's past is not so ordinary. In his late teens, Matt tried to break up a fight involving his friend, and wound up unintentionally killing the other fighter. While his friends spent time in college, Matt was behind bars serving time for negligent manslaughter. Now nine years after being released from prison, Matt is a paralegal in his brother's law firm and his life is looking up. However, the past won't seem to go away. As Matt and Olivia try to buy a house in his old neighborhood, neighbors and local authorities make it clear he is not welcome. After Matt receives disturbing photos from his wife's phone, a man who is tailing Matt ends up dead. Matt soon learns that Olivia also has a past that she'd like to forget. Unable to trust anyone, Matt and Olivia are forced to work outside the law to save themselves and their future.

All My “Harlan Coben” Reviews

Sunday, October 15, 2023

Antonina 2Stars

Title: Antonina
Series: ----------
Author: Wilkie Collins
Rating: 2 of 5 Stars
Genre: Historical Fiction
Pages: 629
Words: 167K

For anyone who doesn’t know, Wilkie Collins is known for writing The Moonstone, sometimes called the first detective novel. He was also a contemporary and friend to Charles Dickens. As you should know, Dickens was known as quite the wordy author, always using 5 or 6 words where 1 would have sufficed. Some find this trait of his insufferable, some love it. I happen to love it. When it is done by Dickens. This was also Collins’ debut novel and in it he tries to out-Dickens Dickens. If 1 word would suffice, Collins crams in 10-15. Usually of the most purplish prose possible too. I found it insufferable.

What is worse, this was also boring. Rome is surrounded by a barbarian horde of goths and everyone just sits there and starves to death. Collins can barely be bothered to scare up some drama for us.

The struggle between Paganism and Christianity, as portrayed, also betrayed Collins inherent apathy for either. He was no believer in anything. It should have had some real pathos, some “zing” instead of two old men living their lives out according to their principles.

This was the first book in one of those “Complete Author X” collections. Bad choice, even though I know they’re going alphabetically. If I hadn’t already read Moonstone and had my interest whetted by that, and this was my first Collins, I’d have tossed it into the rubbish heap and not read anything more by him. Really hope the next book is a little more interesting.

★★☆☆☆

From Wilkie-Collins.info and Bookstooge.blog

The plot revolves around two separate but related struggles. That of the old pagan and new Christian religions, seen as equally destructive, embodied in the opposing characters of Ulpius and Numerian; and that of the strong figure of the Goth, Goisvintha, (modelled on Norna in Scott's The Pirate) seeking revenge against the weak heroine, Antonina.

In the Rome of 408 AD, the young Antonina lives with her father Numerian, zealous in his aims to restore the Christian faith to its former ideals. Numerian's steward, Ulpius, brought up in the old religion, secretly lives only to restore the forbidden gods of pagan sacrifice. Vetranio, their wealthy neighbour, has designs on the innocent Antonina. When they are surprised by Numerian in an apparently compromising situation, Antonina flees outside the city walls just before Rome is blockaded by the encircling army of the Goths.

Antonina is captured by the chieftain, Hermanric, who falls in love with her. His sister, Goisvintha, was the sole survivor of a Roman massacre in which her children perished and has vowed revenge on Rome and its people. She attempts to kill Antonina but is prevented by Hermanric who allows Antonina to escape. During the weeks of the siege, she lives in a deserted farmhouse, visited nightly by Hermanric. Goisvintha betrays her brother to the Huns who kill him, while Antonina escapes for a second time.

Ulpius, meanwhile, has discovered a breach in the city wall and attempts to betray Rome to Alaric in exchange for his destruction of the Christian religion. Alaric is interested only in humbling his enemies into surrender and seizing a large tribute of gold. Returning towards the city, Ulpius discovers Antonina and accompanies her to Rome where she finds her overjoyed but starving father. Antonina begs the last morsels of food from Vetranio at a macabre and suicidal 'Banquet of Famine', preventing him from making a funeral pyre of his palace.

Antonina is stabbed but recovers, her father stays alive, Ulpias dies, Goisvintha goes completely insane and Vetranio retires to the country side.

Sunday, September 03, 2023

Gone for Good 2.5Stars

Title: Gone for Good
Series: ----------
Author: Harlan Coben
Rating: 2.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fiction
Pages: 319
Words: 120K

My goodness, this was more jam packed than a mexican soap opera. Let me see if I can summarize the utter madness.

We start out with the Main Character’s mother dying from cancer.
The main character’s brother, 12 years in the past, sleeps with his girlfriend and then either kills her or is killed and removed from the scene. The main character thinks he is innocent and alive, but has no proof.
MC’s current girlfriend disappears without a trace.
Her fingerprints are found at a double murder scene
Her body is subsequently found by the side of the road and identified by her parents
When the MC goes to the funeral, the body in the casket is not his girlfriend
the Girlfriend is alive but somebody else
The MC investigates things with the younger sister of his murdered previous girlfriend (12 years ago GF)
they uncover that the brother is alive and that some of his associates are high rollers and one is a big time assassin.
Witness Protection is involved
The older brother cut a deal, then ran to protect his current girlfriend and newborn baby
The assassin is after the older brother
WitSec is after the older brother
The Mob Boss is after the older brother
MC just wants to see and protect his older brother
MC and younger sister girl are kidnapped but escape, thus crushing the plans of both the Assassin and the Mob Boss
Everyone is happy
Everyone meets up for a secret meeting to welcome back the older brother.
IT’S A TRAP!!!!!!
The older brother turns out to be a murdering rapist
Who stole the MC’s baby from the old girlfriend
it was all witnessed by the younger sister
Assassin was in love with Older Sister and had vowed to protect her
Assassin then kills Older Brother
MC has a girlfriend who he doesn’t know much about and a 12 year old daughter who thinks he’s her uncle

TADA! No hablo burrito taca el grande mucho. Mucho mucho mucho grande taco burrito!!!

See, more drama than you can shake a big taco at. I was ready to quit this about 10 times, every time a new revelation happened. It didn’t help that the main character was a fething pansy. He couldn’t protect himself, much less anybody else. But he still kept bleating platitudes about protecting his girlfriend or the younger sister, while failing spectacularly every time. When it’s revealed at the end that he has a 12 year old daughter, maaaaaan, did I feel bad for her. Her daddy is a big fat wuss and she better learn to protect herself real quick!

And yet I will read more by Coben. Of course, if he keeps using pansy wussies for main characters, I suspect I won’t last many more books. He better write some better characters pronto. Mucho pronto in fact.

★★✬☆☆

From Wikipedia.org

As a boy, Will Klein had a hero: his older brother, Ken. Then, on a warm suburban night in the Kleins' affluent New Jersey neighborhood, a young woman—a girl Will had once loved—was found raped and murdered in her family's basement. The prime suspect: Ken Klein. With the evidence against him overwhelming, Ken simply vanished, spending the next decade as the elusive subject of rumors, speculation, and an international manhunt. When his shattered family never heard from Ken again, they were sure he was gone for good.

Now, eleven years have passed. And Will, who always believed in his brother's innocence, has found evidence that Ken is alive—even as he is struck by another act of betrayal. His girlfriend suddenly disappears, leaving behind compelling evidence that she was not the person Will thought she was. As the two dark dramas unwind around him, Will is pulled into a violent mystery, haunted by signs that Ken is trying to contact him after all these years. Will can feel himself coming closer and closer to his brother... and to a terrible secret that someone will kill to keep buried. And as the lies begin to unravel, Will is uncovering startling truths about his lover, his brother, and even himself.

Tuesday, August 29, 2023

Silver Queendom 1Star DNF@60%

Title: Silver Queendom
Series: ----------
Author: Dan Koboldt
Rating: 1 of 5 Stars DNF@60%
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 350/ 210
Words: 114K/ 68K

DNF’d at 60% for the usual reasons, sigh.

★☆☆☆☆

Thursday, August 24, 2023

Walpurgis III 3.5Stars

Title: Walpurgis III
Series: ----------
Author: Mike Resnick
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 173
Words: 59K

While I enjoyed this little standalone in Resnick’s universe, it just goes to show that inverting something doesn’t always work out well. In this book, everything takes place on Walpurgis III (hence the title), a planet that was settled by all the satan worshippers from Old Earth who felt oppressed that society wouldn’t let them do their thing in peace (like human sacrifice, rape, etc). So they settled their own planet and kept everybody else out.

Which sounds great in theory. But as Resnick shows in his writing here, it simply can’t work out that way. We have a world where woman are ritually raped on altars, “voluntarily” of course, where people just sit there and watch as someone else gets gutted by a knife and at the same time we’re supposed to think that the main cop guy is a moral guy who wants to track down the assassin (Jericho, who is here to kill Conrad Bland, the biggest mass murder in the history of humanity) because he killed 5 random people. I’m sorry, but those two things simply don’t co-exist. Evil doesn’t get compartmentalized like that. That juxtaposition of compartmentalized evil really distracted me. It was like a world of meat eaters decided to kill a vegetarian because he ate some fish and that was just too horrible for them to contemplate. Yeahhhhhhhh.

Other than ALL OF THAT, I enjoyed this. Jericho is a master of disguise and this story was all about him making his way to Conrad Bland’s stronghold so he could kill him. Each town he made it to held its own little adventure. In that regards, this was more like a serialized story but Resnick does pretty good at telling that kind of story, so it worked out well.

The fact that I still enjoyed the story despite the premise means this was a complete success, especially since I have such wishy washy luck with Resnick (I was not a fan of his Dead Enders or Starship series). Every time I read a story by him that I enjoy, it gives me a shot of encouragement to dive into something else by him. Right now, I have a choice of either going for his John Justin Mallory trilogy or his Weird West series. I read a sequel about JJM and I didn’t really enjoy it, so I’m leaning towards the Weird West stuff. I don’t know if it will be Steampunk or Cthulhu’ic or something else entirely.

I chose this cover (which while hard to see, depicts a ritual sacrifice of a woman by one of the death cults) because the current cover is just a grinning skull on a red background. It was the most boring, uninformative cover ever. Reminded of something Amazon would do when they release those free classics but still charge 99cents. So instead I’m showing the cover that is the coolest. You are welcome.

★★★✬☆

From the Publisher

Conrad Bland has slaughtered tens of millions, a butcher vastly worse than Hitler. He has never considered not killing anyone who stood in his way.

He takes refuge on Walpurgis III, a planet settled by various cults of devil worshippers. He is the manifestation of the evil they revere, but now that they have come face-to-face with their beliefs, the cults desperately want Bland to be removed from their lives, their world, and entirely from existence.

So Walpurgis III contacts Jericho, the greatest assassin in the galaxy, to rid them of Conrad Bland. But once the assassin arrives and begins to make his bloody way toward Bland’s headquarters, the people—especially John Sable, the top policeman on the planet—must face an excruciating choice.

Who is more dangerous, the man who kills from compulsion? Or the man who kills from calculation?

All of My “Mike Resnick” Reviews

Sunday, May 28, 2023

The Drawing of the Dark ★★★☆☆

Title: The Drawing of the Dark
Series: ----------
Author: Tim Powers
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 311
Words: 111K

From Wikipedia.org

The year is 1529, and Brian Duffy, a world-weary Irish mercenary soldier, is hired in Venice by the mysterious Aurelianus to go to Vienna and work as a bouncer at the Zimmerman Inn, former monastery and current brewery of the famous Herzwesten beer.

Meanwhile, the Ottoman Turkish army under Sultan Suleiman I has achieved its most advanced position yet in their march into Europe, and is prepared to undertake the siege of Vienna. With the Turkish army travels the Grand Vizier Ibrahim, a magician who intends to use horrific spells as part of the siege.

Duffy spent time in Vienna years ago, and as he returns, he is haunted by memories of past events, and also finds himself having visions of mythical creatures and being ambushed by shadowy people and demonic monsters.

Upon arriving in Vienna, Duffy reconnects with Epiphany Vogel, a former girlfriend, and her father Gustav, who is working on a painting he calls "The Death of St. Michael the Archangel". It seems the painting is never quite complete, and the elder Vogel is continuously adding additional detail to the work, causing it to gradually become more and more obscure.

Then Duffy finds himself not only drafted into the city's defensive army, but also led by Aurelianus down mystical paths from the surprisingly old brewery to even more ancient caves beneath the city, in search of defenses against the approaching army and clues to Duffy's very nature.

As it turns out, Aurelianus knows more about Duffy and his past than Duffy himself knows, and his real purpose in hiring him is to protect the hidden Fisher King, secret spiritual leader of the western world, and to defend him and the West against the Turkish advance. And the real reason that Vienna must not be captured by the Turks is that it is the site of the Herzwesten brewery. Its light and bock beers are famous throughout Europe, but the dark beer, produced only every seven hundred years, has supernatural properties and must not be allowed to fall into enemy hands.

Meanwhile, others are drawn to Vienna in anticipation of significant events. The so-called "dark birds", magically sensitive individuals from far flung corners of the world, arrive in the city hoping for a sip of the Herzwesten dark, and a small group of middle-aged Vikings have improbably sailed their ship down the Danube River to Vienna, having sensed that the prophesied final battle of Ragnarok will take place there.

This book can be summed up with the tabloid headline “Magical Beer Saves Western Civilization – read more on page 3”. It is ridiculous.

Not a bad novel, but I simply couldn’t get past the ridiculousness of the premise. Powers like playing with history and showing a “secret history” behind the events we all know and as such, I thought he did an excellent job here.

But I cannot get past Magical Beer saving civilization as we know it. I can’t. So 3 stars for a solid “secret history” fantasy but that’s as far as I’m willing to stretch here.

★★★☆☆

All of My “Tim Powers” Reviews

Thursday, May 18, 2023

Lapvona ✬☆☆☆☆

Title: Lapvona
Series: ----------
Author: Ottessa Moshfegh
Rating: 0.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 190
Words: 79K

From Wikipedia.com

In Lapvona, a corrupt medieval fiefdom, deformed 13 year-old Marek lives with his cruel shepherd father Jude and was nursed from birth by the village witch. When Marek commits a crime, the cruel lord Villiam demands that Jude give Marek to him as reparations, and Marek goes to live in his castle.

This was a perverse book without a single redeeming quality. I cannot fathom a mind that could create such filth. Needless to say I will not be reading anything else by Moshfegh ever again.

✬☆☆☆☆

Sunday, November 06, 2022

On Stranger Tides ★★★✬☆

Title: On Stranger Tides
Series: ----------
Author: Tim Powers
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 301
Words: 122K

Phewwwww, what a re-read. I read this for the first time back in '07. Then the Pirates of the Caribbean movie franchise used it as the basis for the 4^th movie.

This time, while I enjoyed it as much as the previous time, the magic used in the story really bothered me. I found the same thing when I read The Stress of Her Regards. The emotional content really hit me in the pit of the stomach. The inclusion of demoniacal beings in league with humans bothered me a lot more than last time too. Being older and seen more since then has made me realize that joking around about spiritual affairs, or trivializing them in fiction, has consequences.

Other than that, this was a cracking good read. I mean, we're talking about pirates and magic all rolled together. Plus the Fountain of Youth and ghosts that can run you through with a ghost sword. That is just good story telling right there :-D Add in that the hero's name is Jack Shandy, he gets the girl in the end AND he kills an immortal Black Beard the Pirate, well, if that doesn't do it for you then you should probably check your pulse.

★★★✬☆

On Stranger Tides (2007 Review)

Sunday, October 09, 2022

Starship Troopers ★★★☆☆

Title: Starship Troopers
Series: ----------
Authors: Robert Heinlein
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Mil-SF
Pages: 215
Words: 86K

★★★☆☆

Starship Troopers (2000 Review)

Tuesday, December 21, 2021

Jack Four (Polity #21) ★★★★☆

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, & Librarything by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission
Title: Jack Four
Series: Polity #21
Authors: Neal Asher
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 334
Words: 139K

Synopsis:

From the Inside Cover

Created to die – determined to live . . .

Jack Four – one of twenty human clones – has been created to be sold. His purchasers are the alien prador and they only want him for their experimentation program. But there is something different about Jack. No clone should possess the knowledge that’s been loaded into his mind. And no normal citizen of humanity’s Polity worlds would have this information.

The prador’s king has been mutated by the Spatterjay virus into a creature even more monstrous than the prador themselves. And his children, the King’s Guard, have undergone similar changes. They were infected by the virus during the last humans-versus-prador war, now lapsed into an uneasy truce. But the prador are always looking for new weapons – and their experimentation program might give them the edge they seek.

Suzeal trades human slaves out of the Stratogaster Space Station, re-engineering them to serve the prador. She thinks the rewards are worth the risks, but all that is about to change. The Station was once a zoo, containing monsters from across known space. All the monsters now dwell on the planet below, but they aren’t as contained as they seem. And a vengeful clone may be the worst danger of all.

My Thoughts:

Asher has never been shy about biological functions in his stories, what with jain tech invading like a cancer or the spatterjay turning someones tongue into a leech that wants to eat you to giant crabs mating. But in this book he seems to have an obsession with poop and the main character, Jack Four, is constantly voiding his bowels and Asher lets us know about it more than is necessary. Maybe Asher was having issues of his own and so it was on his mind? I don't know but if you do read this book, be prepared for bowel voiding like it is some sort of contest, hahahaha!

In this story, Asher brings most of his most dangerous creations (Jay Hoop level of hoopers, hooders and other monsters from his various books) altogether and has a prador scientist messing around with them trying to make them even more dangerous. The biggest scary was the prador trying to re-weaponize the hooders as war machines and thralled under prador control. It is scary as all get out but also immensely satisfying when the hooders overcome the thralling and turn on everybody.

It is pretty obvious (at least to me) who Jack Four was based on once you meet the template early on. I was wracking my brains to see if we'd been introduced to any Jacks who were ECS agents in earlier books but there my mind fails. I could probably go find some sort of Polity character list but I don't care THAT much.

By the end of the book I was exhausted. This felt like it was a non-stop ultra violent sprint. From Jack Four's awakening to the very end, the pace is relentless and Jack is on the run. With the runs a lot of the time (if you know what I mean) BA DUM TISH!

While I am pretty sure this is supposed to be a standalone Polity story, it is possible that this will turn into a trilogy. I hope it doesn't though. Asher is pretty good about telling one book stories and this is just fine the way it is.

★★★★☆

All of My "Polity" Reviews

Tuesday, September 28, 2021

The Last Mammoth ★★★✬☆

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, & Librarything by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission
Title: The Last Mammoth
Series: ----------
Authors: Manly Wade Wellman
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Western
Pages: 139
Words: 40K

Synopsis:

From the Publisher

Sam Ward was yearning for adventure when a Cherokee man arrived from a distant village with a tale of a monstrous hairy creature threatening his land. The formerly peaceful beast went rogue upon the death of its mate, and the chief of the Twilight People sent Otter to ask for help. Sam's quest quickly turns dangerous with new challenges and new enemies, but using their wits, skills, and courage, Sam and Otter finally face Giluhda, last of the living mammoths.

My Thoughts:

I was introduced to Manly Wade Wellman back in my middle grade days through his Silver John series, of which the library had several. In my desire to expand my reading circle I remembered those fantasy stories (or urban fantasy maybe?) and went alooking. Well, there don't appear to be any ebook version of Silver John and the hardcovers run up to $900, which is so out of my price range. Therefore I had to settle for some other stuff by Wellman and this is the first of the prizes I found.

This is an action/adventure Western about a woolly mammoth going mad and trying to destroy an indian village. The omens tell them they must find a white man to help kill the mammoth and so they gt our main character. He has a nice rifle given him by Daniel Boone and so of course it gets destroyed near the beginning of the story. Can't have the hero doing something silly like shooting the dang mammoth through the eye or something.

Overall, the interaction between the hero and his indian guide and friend was pleasant to read about. Seeing two brave men face danger together and overcome it is so much better than a lot of what gets written today.

At only 139 pages, this can slip into almost anyone's busy reading schedule, no matter who they are. Do you remember when books were regularly under 150 pages. Bookstooge remembers, and approves!

★★★✬☆