Neuromancer (The Sprawl #1) 1/2Star Hate Read

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 by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: Neuromancer
Series: The Sprawl #1
Author: William Gibson
Rating: 0.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Cyberpunk
Pages: 251
Words: 84K

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Because this might be seen by more than the usual suspects, I spoil my reviews. So read at your own risk. But if you’re reading Neuromancer, you deserve whatever you get. No sympathy from me. This is a rage fueled hate re-read of this book and I plan on venting my spleen at John Wick levels, and I have pencils. You have been warned.

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PART I
Chapter 1 – In which Bookstooge meets some Main Characters, and Hates them.

Having read this once before, back in 2011 (2011 Neuromancer Review) I was passably familiar with what I was getting into. My review back then left a lot to be desired, even by me, someone who is usually pithy and pointed and rather economical with my words. However, it bloody well sums up this whole first chapter to a flipping Tee. Maybe my pithy pointedness was more spot on than I realized.

We are introduced to Case, a drug addicted hacker who stole data from the wrong people (those employing him, dumbass!) and they burnt out his nervous system so he could never jack into the system (here called The Matrix. Hmmmmm, sound familiar?) again. Case is 24 and on such a downward trajectory that he’ll commit suicide by risky job within a month.

Everyone who Case knows, or comes into contact with, is as much a junkie and a loser as himself. We are talking scum of the Earth here. Case’s dealer is trying to steal from him, his ex-girlfriend lies to him to steal 3megabytes of RAM (oh, did I laugh out loud at THAT!!!). Case is so strung out that he can’t function without drugs.

Speaking of drugs, Gibson for sure was a damned junkie himself at some point. His use of terminology and slang is way too prolific to have been learned using a dictionary and thesaurus. I HATE drugs. They destroy the very essence of a person and leave them a shambling wreck that only causes pain and ruin to those around them. As far as I’m concerned, drugs are the physical embodiment of spiritual evil. And our main character Case has deliberately placed himself within that web of evil.

Rage fueled hate read? Oh, game on!

Chapter 2 – In Which Bookstooge meets some other characters

At chapter’s beginning we meet Case’s new employer, an Ex-Special Forces military guy and his crazy teched out assassin girl. Who has Wolverine style fingernails. Case gets his matrix jockey ability back, has sex with the tech assassin, watches his ex-girlfriend get whacked by a former employer and is disappointed that his new mods make drugs of no use to him any more.

Wow, what a bunch of scumbags killing each other. I wasn’t sad about that at all. Case proves what a man whore he is and between that and his former drug use, if he dies I’ll be happy. When you hate the main character from the get-go, and that hatred only grows in the second chapter, it just doesn’t bode well for the book as a whole.

Gibson really throws around a lot of tech terms in this chapter. I don’t know enough to tell if he was using some real terminology or if it was just mystical mumbo jumbo garbage. I think it was all complete bullshit, but then I’m not exactly unbiased about Gibson.

PART II

Chapter 3 – In Which Bookstooge reads a metric ton of technobabble and rolls his eyes a lot

I seriously thought of giving up in this chapter. Chase gets his online mojo back, has a lot of sex with Molly the ninja/assassin/thingy and finds out that he is biologically boobytrapped to help him stay loyal to his employer. Then Gibson throws around even MORE technobabble, to the point where it didn’t make any sense to me and my mind just skipped over it. And I didn’t feel like it made one iota of difference to the story.

Chapter 4 – In Which terrorists help our protagonist to steal something from a library

Booo! Stealing from a library, booo!!!!!! I don’t care if it’s some super duper secret locked down online only library, it’s just plain despicable to steal from one. Even if it’s a digital version of Case’s old mentor who taught him every cowboy trick he knew (apparently Gibson didn’t foresee that Brokeback Mountain would be a thing in the future and that we could make endless jokes about cowboys). While the graphic sex scene happened earlier in the book, there’s still pornographic levels of description included. Bad people, worse people, and then people I don’t know how to describe other than plain and simple evil, doing bad things, doing worse thing and doing evil things.

Chapter 5 – In Which Bookstooge learns that AI are really pulling the strings and Case meets the digital version of his old boss

I have such issues with how AI are used in stories and in popular culture. Digital selves as well. It all springs from the idea that our minds are self-existing containers and as long as you scoop all the info-goop, you can dump that goop somewhere else and still have that mind. I call it the harddrive fallacy. We are more than just containers for data. There is a reason every human is unique. Genes, dna, bits of broken biology, etc. It all comes together to make the person. We are our minds, our bodies and our wills/emotions/spirits. Take away one and it changes everything. Plus, the idea that sentience can come out of non-sentience is so bullshit that how any intelligent person can give it credence in real life is ridiculous. Most of the time I don’t mind, because it’s just a plot line like “aliens” or superheroes. We all know the X-Men aren’t real nor can they be. But imagine if people actually thought they could be and started irradiating themselves. And a whole culture lived that way. It would be madness. And our culture is descending into madness and the promise of “AI” is just one step down along that path.

Chapter 6 & 7– In Which Bookstooge just gives up.

I’m reading the rest of the book, but it’s not worth any more commentary than these blasted 1000 words I’ve already given it. Pure trash. Drivel. Garbage. Filth.

There, that’s three pencils in Gibson’s eye! I hope it hurts, a lot.

PART III

Chapter 8 – In which Bookstooge keeps writing

because that’s what I do. I don’t do drugs, or whore around or kill people. I write. So if I have to suffer this wretched book, then I’m going to make sure you suffer as much as I possibly can make you with my words. In fact, you are simply:

USELESS

LOSER

SCUMBAG

UNLOVABLE

WASTE OF SPACE

INSIGNIFICANT

STUPID

GULLIBLE

FAT

UGLY

STINKY

DIRTY

There, did I manage to hurt your feelings at all? I hope so. Now you don’t have to read this book and hurt your brain.

Chapters 9-16 – In Which Bookstooge wishes he was dead

This book is only 250 pages and it feels like I have spent a veritable eternity here. It’s horrible, just horrible I tell you! This is the book that simply will not end. No matter how much time I spend reading this, it just keeps going! It’s like I’m stuck in some sort of horror themed Dr Who episode where terrible things are happening just offscreen but the terror is palpable.

I guess, let me put it this way. Last month I had a needle stuck in each of my eyes. I would rather do that again than continuing this. But I am so tough, so macho, so manly and totally a man’s man that I’m going to cry like a little baby and keep on reading!

~strikes macho pose

Don’t even think about questioning my utter hatred of this absolute piece of moldering, maggot infested tripe. I hate this enough to finish it.

Chapters 17-End – In Which Bookstooge proves that nothing is more implacable than him.

I finished this. I finished this disgusting piece of shit and I feel bad. I feel terrible. I feel terrible that I wasted my time. I feel terrible that a person can exist whose mind is even capable of writing utter drivel and dreck like this. There is NO justification for this novel or it’s influence on Cyberpunk. But it explains why I’ve always hated cyberpunk. I probably blocked out the details of my previous read but my subconscious kept the truth just out of focus, but still there.

This is the exact scenario I imagine when I don’t listen to my gut and a read goes disastrously wrong. I knew I was going to hate this, based on my original read from years ago, but I had no idea it would be this bad. I know I haven’t given you analytical details. But when your eyeballs have been gouged out and your entrails are sliding out of your sliced up stomach, will you really tell someone “Oh boy, this really hurts. Gibson just scooped my eyeballs out, cut my abdomen open and is in the process of ripping my guts out.” No, you’d be screaming and clawing and too busy dying horribly. That is my experience with this book. Melodramatic? Absolutely! Is this is horrible book? Even MORE absolutely.

I have serious regrets about re-reading this book. It sucked all the joy out of reading for me for weeks on end. It has burned out my desire to write reviews and I don’t know when I’ll recover. But as I view the wreckage that is my literary self, I can cross my arms in satisfaction, KNOWING that I was tougher than this book. I beat it. I finished it. AND I BLOODY WELL WROTE ABOUT EVERY EXCRUCIATING EXPERIENCE. I am scalped, I am gutted, I am sliced to pieces but I stand here, screaming out into the internet, I STILL STAND!!!! I am tougher than this book. I am more determined than Gibson ever could be. I am victorious because I beat this book to a bloody pulp and it’s not getting up and walking away from this, while I am.

This was a crucible experience and now I am on the other side. Let the healing begin.

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This post was brought to you by SciFiMonth2024 and hosted by various individuals. I’ll hold Bookforager responsible this time though 😉

✬☆☆☆☆

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From Wikipedia

Synopsis – click to open

Henry Dorsett Case is a low-level hustler in the dystopian underworld of Chiba City, Japan. Once a talented computer hacker and “console cowboy”, Case was caught stealing from his employer. As punishment, Case’s central nervous system was damaged, leaving him unable to access the virtual reality dataspace called the “matrix”. Case is approached by Molly Millions, an augmented “razorgirl” and mercenary on behalf of a shadowy US ex-military officer named Armitage, who offers to cure Case for his services as a hacker. Case agrees, and his nervous system is repaired, though sacs of poison are placed in his blood vessels. If Case completes the job, Armitage will have the sacs removed; if not, they will burst and cripple him again.

Armitage has Case and Molly steal a ROM module that contains the saved consciousness of one of Case’s mentors, legendary cyber-cowboy McCoy Pauley.

Case and Molly discover Armitage’s former identity as Colonel Willis Corto. Corto was a member of “Operation Screaming Fist,” meant to disrupt Soviet computer systems. As his team attacked a Soviet computer center, EMP weapons shut down their flight systems. He and a few survivors escaped over the Finnish border, but their helicopter was shot down, killing everyone except for Corto. After months in a hospital, Corto was visited by a US government official, who returned him to the United States to receive psychotherapy and reconstructive surgery. After providing what he came to realize was false testimony, misleading the public and protecting corrupt military officers, Corto snapped, killed the official who contacted him, and disappeared into the criminal underworld, becoming Armitage.

In Istanbul, the team recruits Peter Riviera, a sociopathic thief and drug addict. The trail leads Case to Wintermute, an artificial intelligence created by the Tessier-Ashpool family. The Tessier-Ashpools spend their time in cryonic preservation at Freeside, a cylindrical space habitat which functions as a Las Vegas-style space resort for the wealthy.

Wintermute reveals itself to Case and explains that it is one half of a super-AI entity planned by the family. It has been programmed with a need to merge with its other half, Neuromancer, and has recruited Armitage and his team since it cannot achieve this goal by itself. Case is tasked with entering cyberspace to pierce the software barriers with an icebreaker program. Riviera is to obtain the password to the lock from Lady 3Jane Marie-France Tessier-Ashpool, the CEO of the family’s corporation.

Armitage’s personality starts to revert to the Corto personality as he relives Screaming Fist. It is revealed that Wintermute had originally contacted Corto through a computer during his psychotherapy, creating his Armitage persona. As Corto breaks through, he is uncontrollable, and Wintermute ejects him into space.

Riviera meets Lady 3Jane and tries to stop the mission, helping Lady 3Jane and Hideo, her ninja bodyguard, capture Molly. Under orders from Wintermute, Case tracks Molly down. Neuromancer traps Case within a simulated reality after he enters cyberspace. He finds the consciousness of Linda Lee, his girlfriend from Chiba City, who was murdered by one of his underworld contacts. He also meets Neuromancer, who takes the form of a young boy. Neuromancer tries to convince Case to remain in the virtual world with Linda, but Case refuses.

With Wintermute guiding them, Case goes to confront Lady 3Jane, Riviera, and Hideo. Riviera tries to kill Case, but Lady 3Jane is sympathetic towards Case and Molly, and Hideo protects him. Riviera flees, and Molly explains that he is doomed anyway, as she had spiked his drugs with a lethal toxin. The team makes it to the computer terminal. Case enters cyberspace to guide the icebreaker; Lady 3Jane is induced to give up her password, and the lock opens. Wintermute unites with Neuromancer, becoming a superconsciousness. The poison in Case’s bloodstream is washed out and he and Molly are profusely paid, while Pauley’s ROM construct is apparently erased at his own request.

Molly leaves Case, who finds a new girlfriend and resumes his hacking work. Wintermute/Neuromancer contacts him, claiming it has become “the sum total of the works, the whole show” and is looking for others like itself. Scanning recorded transmissions, the super-AI finds a transmission from the Alpha Centauri star system.

While logged into cyberspace, Case glimpses Neuromancer standing in the distance with Linda Lee, and himself. He also hears inhuman laughter, which suggests that Pauley still lives. The sighting implies that Neuromancer created a copy of Case’s consciousness, which now exists in cyberspace with those of Linda and Pauley.

Mostly Harmless (THGttG #5) 1Star

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 by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: Mostly Harmless
Series: THGttG #5
Author: Douglas Adams
Rating: 1 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 148
Words: 64K

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In the first book, I stated that the philosophy of Hedonistic Nihilism portrayed by Adams disturbed me. That got some good comments going.

Well, I feel flipping vindicated. The book ends with the Vogons destroying every version of Earth on every possible space/time continuum. And Arthur just sits back and enjoys the thought of the coming total nonexistence coming his way.

I cannot state strongly enough how abhorrent I find that attitude.

★☆☆☆☆

ps,

Two sub-2star books in a row is a REALLY BAD WAY TO START THE MONTH!!! Just saying…

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From Wikipedia

Synopsis – click to open

Arthur Dent plans to sightsee across the Galaxy with his girlfriend Fenchurch, but she disappears during a hyperspace jump, a result of being from an unstable sector of the Galaxy. Depressed, Arthur continues to travel the galaxy using samples of his bodily tissues/fluids to fund his travels, assured of his safety until he visits Stavromula Beta, having killed an incarnation of Agrajag at some point in the future at said planet. During one trip, he ends up stranded on the homely planet Lamuella, and decides to stay to become a sandwich maker for the local population.

Meanwhile, Ford Prefect has returned to the offices of the Hitchhiker’s Guide, and is annoyed to find out the original publishing company, Megadodo Publications, has been taken over by InfiniDim Enterprises, which are run by the Vogons. Fearing for his life, he escapes the building, along the way stealing the yet-unpublished, seemingly sentient Hitchhiker’s Guide Mk. II. He goes into hiding after sending the Guide to himself, care of Arthur, for safekeeping.

On Lamuella, Arthur is surprised by the appearance of Trillian with a teenage daughter, Random Dent. Trillian explains that she wanted a child, and used the only human DNA she could find, thus claiming that Arthur is Random’s father. She leaves Random with Arthur to allow her to better pursue her career as an intergalactic reporter. Random is frustrated with Arthur and life on Lamuella; when Ford’s package to Arthur arrives, she takes it and discovers the Guide. The Guide helps her to escape the planet on Ford’s ship after Ford arrives on the planet looking for Arthur. Discovering Random, the Guide, and Ford’s ship missing, the two manage to find a way to leave Lamuella and head for Earth, where they suspect Random is also heading to find Trillian. Ford expresses concern at the Guide’s manipulation of events, noting its “Unfiltered Perception” and fearing its potence and ultimate objective.

Reporter Tricia McMillan is a version of Trillian living on an alternate Earth who never took Zaphod Beeblebrox’s offer to travel in space. She is approached by an extraterrestrial species, the Grebulons, who have created a base of operations on the planet Rupert, a recently discovered tenth planet in the Solar System. However, due to damage to their ship in arriving, they have lost most of their computer core and their memories, with the only salvageable instructions being to observe something interesting with Earth. They ask Tricia’s help to adapt astrology charts for Rupert in exchange for allowing her to interview them. She fulfills their request and conducts the interview, but the resulting footage looks so fake that she fears it will destroy her reputation if broadcast. She is called away from editing the footage to report on a spaceship landing in the middle of London.

As Tricia arrives at the scene, Random steps off the ship and begins to yell at her, mistaking Tricia for her mother. Arthur, Ford, and Trillian arrive and help Tricia to calm Random. They remove her from the chaos surrounding the spacecraft and take her to a bar. Trillian tries to warn the group that the Grebulons, having become bored with their mission, are about to destroy the Earth. Random disrupts the discussion by producing a laser gun she took from her ship. Arthur, still believing he cannot die, tries to calm Random, but a distraction causes her to fire the weapon, sending the bar into a panic. Arthur tends to a man hit by the blast, who drops a matchbook with the name of the bar – “Stavro Mueller – Beta” – and Arthur realizes that this is the scene of Agrajag’s final death. He sees Ford laughing wildly at this turn of events and experiences a “tremendous feeling of peace”.[1]

The Grebulons destroy the Earth, believing that their horoscopes will improve if it is removed from their astrological charts. It is revealed that the Vogons designed the Guide Mk. II to achieve their desired outcome by manipulating temporal events. As a result, every version of the Earth in all realities is obliterated, fulfilling the demolition order that was issued in the first novel. Its mission complete, the Guide collapses into nothingness.

• “The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide” (2009 Review)
• All of my “Douglas Adams” Reviews

False Flag (Jason Trapp #2) 1.5Stars

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 by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: False Flag
Series: Jason Trapp #2
Author: Jack Slater
Rating: 1.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Action/Adventure
Pages: 362
Words: 114K

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This was an absolute piece of garbage, trash, whatever word you’d like to refer to it as. I’ll be done with this writer after this.

To give any of those of you who have hung around for awhile a comparison, this reminded me exactly of the Agent Zero series and the Jet series, both of which were also about supposedly super duper secret agents written by authors who obviously don’t know a thing about that subject, and I do mean absolutely nothing about it.

I ended up emailing Fraggle to run some things across her radar to make sure I wasn’t completely out to lunch. I wasn’t. So I’m going to copy/paste the majority of that email to show just how stupid this author this and why a brick wall is smarter than he supposedly is.

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I didn’t start taking notes until later. I wish I had started from the get-go. But I’ll try to list the chapter, the relevant sentence or sentences in italics and then my question or comment.

I also had a ton more notes after where I leave off, but most of it was around Trapp being wildly inconsistent in his methodology (who he kills, why, etc) that shows he’s not a professional at all. We’re just told that he is. I was getting steamed, again, so figured I’d leave off 😀

Plus a lot more pro-China stuff. The President of the United States would NEVER lower himself to talk to some random ambassador. He’d be on the Red Phone, or whatever color it is, with the General Secretary (ie, China’s president) himself. And this is an instance of the author just not getting the American mindset. Whether it is of Trapp or anyone else, they do not THINK like Americans who are in those positions. It is Hollywood’ized beyond even Hollywood.

Chapter 14: about Trapp

“Maybe he was being irrational, but he couldn’t help it.“

The “best in the business” agent, like Trapp supposedly is, has that kind of feelingzzz trained out of him. He CAN help it, or he would have been dead long before this.

Chapter 23: about Ikeda (female agent)

“Alstyne was her first kill. He deserved it, but the CIA operative was no psychopath. She should have been flown directly to an Agency shrink after completing the operation, for a debrief to check he mental state.”

Is equating killing of any kind with being a psychopath. I can’t even begin to describe how wrong that mindset is. Especially for those in a military/black ops situation.

Killing is part and parcel of an agents job. It is beyond unbelievable that she would have immediately flown back to have her little feelingz coddled. She’d get a 10min exam to make sure she didn’t enjoy it and that would be it. She’d spend more time on paperwork for the poison lipstick. And only a naive idiot in the business would think otherwise. Or an uninformed writer.

Chapter 28: about Trapp arriving in China

“he knew that if America picked a fight with this country, it would be like Germany invading the Soviet Union in 1941, or Napoleon doing the same a hundred and fifty years earlier.”

Choice of the word “picked a fight”. The whole book is pro-China, anti-America and no agent of the United States black ops would even THINK that way.  And numbers aren’t everything. Sure, China has 4 times the US’s population, but 9/10ths of them are still uneducated peasants, because China’s communist party keeps them that way to control them.  We’d kill the leadership and let the country wallow like a ship without a rudder. I’m a civilian and even I know that much military doctrine.

Chapter 39: about Trapp and his boss talking about Ikeda

““Ikeda isn’t the priority,” Mitchell said sharply. “She knew what she was signing up for. Those are the risks in this business.”
Trapp’s fist clenched, and a pang of anger shot through his body. He knew that Mitchell wasn’t saying anything that he himself didn’t believe. Hell, he’d said exactly the same to others many times.
But this, somehow, was different. It wasn’t academic, or cut and dry. He had sent Eliza into that room and hadn’t been able to protect her.
She might have known what she was signing up for. But she couldn’t possibly have expected to have been failed in that way.
This was Trapp’s mess. And he damn well intended to clean it up.“

He obviously doesn’t believe it, otherwise he wouldn’t be “reacting” this way.  He’s no professional. It isn’t different. Every agent can expect to die on a mission, and to be tortured first. Trapp knows this, Ikeda knows this.  And it isn’t Trapp’s job to “protect” Ikeda, she’s a full fledged agent after all. Nor is it his “mess”. His job was to kill the scumbag and recover the info/flash drive. He did both of those. Rescuing Ikeda is a good thing, but it’s not priority, just like his boss says at the beginning. 

Chapter 42:

“”But in all those years, at least since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the real threat had come from terrorists, not nation states.“

And those terrorists were and continue to be, funded by Nation States. It’s a series of proxy wars. 9/11 was funded by the Saudis. Libya trained and funded terrorist cells all during the 70’s and up until Qaddafi died. And a “trained agent” would know this and not make asinine statements like the above. 

★✬☆☆☆

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From Devilreads.com

Synopsis – click to open

They say revenge is a dish best served cold.
But Jason Trapp is losing his taste for it. For six months, his personal crusade has taken him around the world, mopping up the last of the Bloody Monday conspirators. There’s only one left, and after the crooked financier Emmanuel Alstyne meets his maker, Trapp’s debt will be paid in full. He vows he’s done with the business of death.
Unfortunately, it isn’t done with him.
After a simple kill mission goes sideways in Macau, leaving a CIA spy kidnapped, half a dozen Chinese agents dead, and America’s satellites burning in the skies, Trapp is propelled back into the game. Eliza Ikeda was taken on his watch, and he’s determined to get her back–no matter the cost. The problem is, he has no idea who took her, why, or what they plan to do next.
Trapp knows he’s being played. And with the world’s only two superpowers hurtling toward the precipice of war, time is running out…

ps,
Due to work, my online presence for the next couple of days will be very sporadic.

The Expanding Universe #1 1Star

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 by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: The Expanding Universe #1
Series:
Editor: Craig Martelle
Rating: 1 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 432
Words: 178K

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Where do I even start? That’s the thought that kept running through my head as I waded through this pile of utter drek. Every new story would bring me hope that maybe “this” writer would write a good story and then the first paragraph would show me they were just as much a talentless hack as the previous writers.

I had seen Martelle’s name in the Larry Correia collection No Game for Knights. I am always on the lookout for SF anthologies of short stories and thought I’d give this a try. It was a big mistake.

My first clue to the impending disaster to come was the big fat inclusion of Michael Anderle’s name on the front cover. He wrote the introduction. If you don’t know, Anderle is a whore who writes bad space vampire fiction and will put his name on anything, written by anybody. He has no talent, no shame and no limits. But he just wrote the introduction I reasoned, I can’t blame the other authors for that. I do now.

This was published in 2016, and Martelle hadn’t written anything on his own before ‘16 as well. He’s one of those turn and churn authors. But even a mediocre author can be a decent editor, or so I thought. Martelle also belongs to an organization of Indie Writers who support each other. Apparently, what that means is that if one of them edits an anthology, they will automatically include stories from other writers in the organization, no matter how terrible or badly written those stories might be. Martelle could have gone to any Science Fiction forum on the internet, copy/pasted some of the fan fic on there and he couldn’t possible have done a worse job than he did with these stories.

Another issue was that almost all of these stories took place in existing universes or storylines of the writers and were not standalone stories at all. They were prequels, sequels, side stories, to already established storylines and were nothing more than advertisements by the writers waving their wares obnoxiously in my face. Over half of these had some sort of “and if you want to find out how the story resolves, read the writers other books”. That really got my goat.

Another issue is that many of these stories were not actually science fiction. They were modern dramas set on a spaceship or had some fantasy element. Putting a spaceship into a story doesn’t automatically make it a science fiction story. I’m afraid that all of these authors do not understand that very fundamental concept and I’m also afraid that they will never learn it. Because they are all chowderheads with no talent.

The lack of skill here was atrocious. I mentioned internet forum fan fiction early and this is that level of writing. These stories are the things you write when you are practicing to learn the very basic basic of writing. None of these stories should have seen the light of day. Some were definitely better than others, but not a single one of them deserved to be in print. There’s a reason these writers belong to that organization that Martelle belongs to.

Then you had the moral content. I knew going in that since this was published in 2016, that the chances of at least one of these authors would be some woke dill head pushing a perverted agenda was high. I made it almost to the end and was pleasantly surprised that perversion hadn’t reared its ugly head when bam. Sho’ nuff, one writer just had to add it to their story, for no apparent reason either. It was the literal expression of “check box” writing.

Finally, I want to highlight the worst two of the stories here.
Taken for a Walk describes itself thusly:

“The short story that follows is Justin’s teaser for a novel he hopes to one day write in what he thinks will be something like Alien meets The Matrix meets Braveheart. The short story is at times silly, but leads into a very serious moment and situation”

The only good thing about this story was that I think it was the shortest of the collection. It was just plain bad.

Worlds Revealed has this for its intro:

“This is a brand new story in the Alpha Alien Abduction Tales series. It starts out with the couples we know from the first two books in the series, Worlds Away and Worlds Collide. But it quickly goes back to the summer of 1947 when a spaceship crashed in Roswell, New Mexico. Venay’s grandfather was the Commander of the ship that was involved in that nightmare. But it wasn’t the V’Zenians, or even the Zateelians, who crashed on Earth! You can expect to learn the true story of the Roswell Aliens, and who they really were.”

When I read that intro, I immediately made a note in my kindle along the lines of “Frak No!” Aliens abduct human women, use their mind powers to make them fall in love with them and then marry and mate them. Just for the record, the author is a woman. This is not some man’s fantasy, it’s a woman’s fantasy.

To end, I had several of these collections lined up, but after this Titanic level of reading disaster, I’m dumping them like a pile of nuclear waste.

★☆☆☆☆

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Table of Contents

Click to Open

• Fear Peace – Craig Martelle
• Taken for a Walk Justin Sloan
• Fall to Earth TJ Ryan
• Blue Eyed Devil Spencer Pierson
• Those Who Breathe Under the End James Osiris Baldwin
• Pilgrim Andrew Dobell
• DROP Andrew Broderick
• Worlds Revealed J.L. Hendricks
• Within a Phrygian Sky Jim Johnson
• And the Kat Came Back RJ Crayton
• The Signal and the Boys Felix R. Savage
• Smuggler for Hire Bradford Bates
• Light in the Dark H.J. Lawson
• Origins of the Gemini Project E.R. Starling
• An Attitude Adjustment Taki Drake
• The Iron and the Mud James Aaron
• The Last Human: Fire of Truth E.E. Isherwood
• New Beginnings Paul C. Middleton

Children of the Mind (Enderverse #4) 1Star

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Title: Children of the Mind
Series: Enderverse #4
Authors: Orson Card
Rating: 1 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 334
Words: 108K

Man, when I finished up Xenocide, I didn’t think Card could get any worse, which is why I dived into this book with a headstrong attitude, convinced I was bigger, badder and stronger. Well, Card sure showed me.

This was a 20 page short story jam packed into 334 pages of complete blather and blither. I was going to still give this 2 stars because of the technical side of things, but then he made one little remark about Jesus that showed the heresy of the Mormon belief about God and so I knocked it down a star. (Here is a run down of the basic 8 issues that separates Mormons from Christianity – Link Here)

With that, I think I am done with Card as an author. While I enjoyed the First Formic Wars trilogy, the fact that the second trilogy has been stuck on book 2 for many years couple with my distaste of the original Enders series means I simply will ignore whatever new book comes out with his name on the cover.

Ugh. I hate when this happens in a series. I thoroughly enjoyed Ender’s Game and to see it end like this (Ender dies in this book, so even though there are 1 or 2 more direct sequels, it is pointless even if I didn’t hate this now with a passion) was simply disappointing and maddening all at the same time.

After Xenocide, several people asked what books by Card I did enjoy. To answer everyone all at once, I’ll list them here:

• Ender’s Game
• The First Formic War trilogy
• The Pathfinder trilogy
• Ender’s Shadow

And that is that…

★☆☆☆☆

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From Wikipedia.com

At the start of Children of the Mind, Jane, the evolved computer intelligence, is using her newly discovered abilities to take the races of buggers, humans and pequeninos outside the universe and back instantaneously. She uses these powers to move them to distant habitable planets for colonization. She is losing her memory and concentration as the vast computer network connected to the ansible is being shut down. If she is to survive, she must find a way to transfer her aiúa (or soul) to a human body.

Peter Wiggin and Si Wang-Mu travel to the worlds of Divine Wind and Pacifica to persuade the Japanese-led swing group of the Starways Congress to revoke their order to destroy Lusitania. By tracing the decision-making trail backwards, they are able to show a philosopher his influence on the Starways Congress. After several complications, the philosopher persuades the Tsutsumi clan to exert their influence with the Necessarian faction in the Starways Congress to stop the Lusitania fleet. The admiral at the head of the Lusitania fleet, however, disobeys the Congress’s order and does what he believes Ender Wiggin, the perpetrator of the first Xenocide, would have done and fires the Molecular Disruption Device (MDD).

Upon Ender Wiggin’s death, Jane guides his aiúa to Peter’s body, while she is granted possession of Young Val’s body, and thus is not destroyed when the ansible shuts down. She is then able to continue transporting starships instantaneously by borrowing the vast mental capacity of the simple-minded Pequenino mother-trees. She transports a ship with Peter and Wang-Mu around the missile, then transports the missile and them to inside of the Lusitania fleet, where it is then disarmed and disabled. Peter and Wang-Mu’s efforts finally come to fruition, and the destruction of Lusitania is averted.

Jane falls in love with Miro, and Peter with Wang-mu. Both couples are married under one of the mother-trees of the pequeninos on the same day as Ender’s funeral.

• All My “Enderverse” Reviews

Nothing Lasts Forever (Joe Leland #2) 2Stars

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 by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: Nothing Lasts Forever
Series: Joe Leland #2
Author: Roderick Thorp
Rating: 2 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fiction
Pages: 145
Words: 67K

First off, this was the book that the movie Die Hard was based on. And let me say, the movie adaptation is a FAR superior action/adventure/thriller story than this book could ever hope to be.

This was a bitter, bitter book. Leland’s wife is dead, his daughter is working in LA for a big company and has 2 kids and is divorced. She’s sleeping with her boss and they’re both snorting coke like it’s 1980. Which it almost is. The company has made a huge massive deal with the Chilean government and has a vault full of millions in cash. The problem is, the deal is just a cover for the company to smuggle military grade weapons down to the Dictatorship. And some german terrorist group wants to put a stop to it AND steal all the money. So Leland has to fight the badguys all by himself, watch helicopters explode and good cops get killed by bad leadership and then watch as his daughter is dragged to her death by the leader of the terrorists as he falls out of the building from the 40^th story.

Leland is bitter, cynical, disillusioned and spouting off like a Democrat every step of the way while acting like “a good guy with a gun” (which is a myth according to democrats but a real thing in reality). It was very schizophrenic.

And while it was 1/3rd the length of the first book, it was still just as filled with navel gazing bull kaka as the first one. This was a literary novel filled with self-loathing, hatred and despair desperately trying to pretend to be an action thriller. And it flipping failed. If this hadn’t been turned into such a block buster of a movie, nobody would know this book or probably this author. Which might just be for the best. Thorp is (was?) a pretentious wanker and I hope he got a lot of beating from life. Self-pitying assholes who do nothing but whine like him deserve a good beating.

Now I’m off to watch Die Hard to wash the disgusting taste of this disgusting book out of my mind.

★★☆☆☆

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From Wikipedia.org

Retired NYPD detective Joe Leland is visiting the 40-story office headquarters of the Klaxon Oil Corporation in Los Angeles on Christmas Eve, where his daughter Stephanie Leland Gennaro works.

While he is waiting for his daughter’s Christmas party to end, a group of German Autumn–era terrorists take over the skyscraper. The gang is led by the brutal Anton “Little Tony the Red” Gruber. Joe had known about Gruber through a counter-terrorist conference he had attended years prior. Barefoot, Leland slips away and manages to remain undetected in the gigantic office complex. Armed with only his Browning pistol and in communication with Los Angeles Police sergeant Al Powell and his belligerent supervisor, Dwayne Robinson, Leland fights off the terrorists one by one in an attempt to save the 74 hostages, his daughter, and grandchildren.

Gruber and the terrorists kill Mr. Rivers, the CEO of the Klaxon building, and proceed to steal documents that will publicly expose the Klaxon corporation’s dealings with Chile’s junta. They also intend to deprive Klaxon of the proceeds of the corrupt deal of $6,000,000 in cash by attempting to access a safe. Leland interferes with this plan by stealing explosives and progressively killing terrorists and receiving multiple injuries in the process.

Leland kills most of the terrorists and, despite no help from the police, faces off with the leader of the terrorist group, Anton Gruber, who is holding his daughter hostage. Gruber falls to his death after being shot by Leland, taking Stephanie with him. Blaming Klaxon for the terrorist attack and his daughter’s death, Leland throws the cash out of the window himself. Once Leland is back on the street, the last terrorist, Karl, who was presumed dead earlier, returns and starts a shooting rampage, killing several police officers (including Robinson) and a doctor in the process, before Sgt. Powell finally kills him, allowing Leland to receive medical care.

– The Detective (Book 1)

Xenocide (Enderverse #3) 2Stars

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: Xenocide
Series: Enderverse #3
Authors: Orson Card
Rating: 2 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 671
Words: 182K

Man, when I read “The Detective” earlier this month I thought I had done my time in Navel Gazing Land and would be scot free. Phawwww. Card must have read “The Detective” and thought “Hold my beer Thorp, I’ll show you how to really examine all that lint in your belly button”. We also get an indepth look at Morman metaphysics and their ideas on what a “soul” is.

And Ender, now in his 60’s or 70’s I believe, is still so passive that he does nothing as his wife of 30’ish years just walks away from him. He just shrugs and is like “oh well, she is hurting really bad so I just have to understand her and let her be”. It made me sick. You fight for your marriage, you little cowardly sad sack of crap. I now have zero respect for Ender as a character. My respect was pretty low after the last book, but after this, he is now dead to me.

I do not understand how this Ender collection became so popular. It has zero connection with Ender’s Game and really, it’s boring and depressing. I have two more books in this series and I am seriously debating whether I actually want to continue or not. Forcing myself to read Shakespeare is one thing, trying to do the same for Orson Scott Card is quite another.

★★☆☆☆

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From Wikipedia.com

On Lusitania, Ender finds a world where humans and pequeninos and the Hive Queen could all live together. However, Lusitania also harbors the descolada, a virus that kills all humans it infects, but which the pequeninos require in order to become adults. The Starways Congress so fears the effects of the descolada, should it escape from Lusitania, that they have ordered the destruction of the entire planet, and all who live there. With the Fleet on its way, a second xenocide seems inevitable.[2]

Lusitania

Following the events of Speaker for the Dead, a group of characters are depicted living as members of a Brazilian Catholic human colony on Lusitania, a unique planet inhabited by the only other two known species of sentient alien life: the Pequeninos “little ones” and the Hive Queen. The pequeninos are native to the planet, while the Hive Queen was transplanted to this world by Ender, partly in penance for his near-total destruction of her Formic species in Ender’s Game.

After the rebellion of the small human colony on Lusitania in Speaker for the Dead to protect the future of the intelligent alien species, Starways Congress sends a fleet to Lusitania to regain control, which will take several decades to reach its destination. Valentine Wiggin, under her pseudonym Demosthenes, publishes a series of articles revealing the presence of the “Little Doctor” planet-annihilating weapon on the Fleet. Demosthenes calls it the “Second Xenocide,” as using the weapon will result in the obliteration of the only known intelligent alien life. She also claims it to be a brutal crackdown of any colony world striving for autonomy from Starways Congress. Public anger spreads through humanity, and rebellions nearly ensue on several colonies.

After quelling much public discontent, Starways Congress finishes their analysis of the situation while the fleet is en route. Fearing the Descolada virus, further rebellions by colony worlds, and other possible unknown political motives, Starways Congress attempts to relay an order to the fleet to annihilate Lusitania upon arrival. After conferring with friends on whether a cause is worth dying for, Jane (a compassionate AI living in the interstellar ansible communication network) shuts off transmissions to the fleet to block the order. As a consequence of this action, she risks her eventual discovery and death, should the government shut down and wipe the interplanetary network. No known smaller computer system can house her consciousness.

On Lusitania itself, Ender attempts to find solutions to the looming catastrophes of the Congressional fleet, Descolada virus, and conflicts among the humans and intelligent alien species. Much on Lusitania centers around the Ribeira family, including Ender’s wife Novinha and her children. Novinha and Elanora, the mother-daughter team responsible for most of the biological advances countering the complex Descolada virus, are unsure if they can manufacture a harmless replacement virus. Conflicts arise on whether they should even do so, since the Descolada is intrinsically tied in with the life cycles of all Lusitanian organisms and may even be sentient itself. In addition, to try to devise methods to escape the planet, Lusitania’s leading, troublemaking physicist Grego is persuaded by Ender to research faster-than-light travel, despite Grego scoffing at the idea. The third biologista of the family, Quara, is convinced that the Descolada is an intelligent, self-aware species, and deserves attempts from the humans for communication and preservation. An additional sibling and Catholic priest, Quim (Father Estevão), is determined to use faith and theology to head off another form of xenocide: a group of warmongering Pequenino who wish to wipe out all Earthborn life via starship, carrying the deadly Descolada within them.

World of Path

Starways Congress wants its fleet back. After all else fails, it sends the dilemma of the fleet’s impossible disappearance to several citizens of the world of Path, a cultural planetary enclave modeled on early China. Path’s culture centers on the godspoken – those who hear the voices of the gods in the form of irresistible compulsions, and are capable of significantly superior intelligence. It later becomes clear that the godspoken of Path are victims of a cruel government project: granted great intelligence by genetic modification, they were also shackled with a form of obsessive-compulsive disorder to control their loyalty. The experiment is set in a culture bound by five dictates – obey the gods, honor the ancestors, love the people, serve the rulers, then serve your self. This is a further safeguard against rebellion. The superintelligent godspoken are considered the most devout and holy of all citizens, and any disloyal thoughts in a godspoken’s mind are immediately suppressed by overwhelming obsessive-compulsive behavior, believed to be a sign from the gods the thoughts are wrong. The most respected godspoken on Path is Han Fei-Tzu, for devising a treaty to prevent the rebellion of several colony worlds after the articles published by Demosthenes. Great things are expected of his daughter and potential successor Han Qing-jao, “Gloriously Bright”. While doubting the existence of the gods himself, Han Fei-Tzu promised his dying wife he would raise Qing-jao with an unwavering belief in the godspoken. The two of them are tasked by Starways Congress with deciphering the disappearance of the Lusitania Fleet. Han Qing-jao’s secret maid, Si Wang-mu, aids her in this task, her intelligence (partially) unfettered by the rigid caste system.

The young and naive Qing-jao eventually traces the identity of Demosthenes. Discovering that Demosthenes is Valentine Wiggin, Ender’s sister – but that Valentine has been on a starship en route to Lusitania for the last thirty years – Qing-Jao concludes that the only possible explanation is advanced computer software closely tied to the communication network. This software must be hiding Demosthenes and publishing her work, while also causing the disappearance of the Fleet. All but discovered, Jane reveals herself to Han Fei-tzu, Han Qing-jao and Si Wang-mu, telling them about their genetic slavery and begging forbearance on their report to Starways Congress.

Already harboring suspicions about the godspoken’s condition, Han Fei-tzu accepts the news of Congress’s atrocity, as does Si Wang-mu, but his daughter Han Qing-jao clings to her belief that Demosthenes and Jane are enemies of the gods. Feeling betrayed by her father, who is violently incapacitated by OCD from the disloyal thoughts, Qing-jao argues with Jane. Jane threatens shutting off all communications from Path, but Si Wang-mu realizes this would eventually lead to the planet’s destruction by Starways Congress. Understanding Jane to be truly alive and compassionate, through tears Si Wang-mu states Jane will not block the report. However, Qing-jao compares Jane to the servants in Path’s caste system, merely a computer program designed to serve humans, containing neither autonomy nor awareness.

Knowing she has exhausted her last possibilities of stopping Qing-jao, Jane sacrifices her future and life, unwilling to bring harm to Qing-jao or the people of Path. A triumphant Qing-jao reports the knowledge of Demosthenes, Jane, and the fate of the Fleet to Starways Congress. Qing-jao recommends a coordinated date set several months from the present, to prepare the massive undertaking of setting up clean computers across the interplanetary network, after which the transition to a new system will kill Jane and allow Congress full control again. Allowing the message to be sent, Jane restores communication with the Fleet, and Congress re-issues the order for the Fleet to obliterate Lusitania.

Han Fei-tzu recovers from the incapacitation of his OCD, despairing over his daughter’s actions, and his unwitting aid in deeply brainwashing her to serve Congress. He and Si Wang-mu assist Jane and those on Lusitania in finding solutions to their impending catastrophes. Planter, a Pequenino on Lusitania, offers his life for an experiment to determine whether the Descolada gives Pequeninos sentience, or if they have the ability innately. Eventually, Elanora Ribeira is able to come up with a possible model for a “recolada”: a refit of the Descolada that allows the native life to survive and retain self-awareness, but doesn’t seek to kill all other life forms. With the available equipment, however, the recolada is impossible to make, and they are running out of time against the soon-to-arrive Fleet.

Outside

While this research takes place, tragedies occur on Lusitania. Father Estevão Ribeira, the priest attempting to sway a distant warmongering sect of the Pequeninos from their goal of attacking humanity, is killed by the Fathertree Warmaker, who took Quim hostage and denied him the food with the anti-descolada chemicals, so the descolada infected and killed him on the 7th day of being hostage. Grego Ribeira spurs a riot of humans to burn down the warmaker’s forest, but the violent mob gets out of his control, and rampages through the neighboring Pequenino forest instead, massacring many of its inhabitants – the original friends and allies of humanity. Under the terms of the treaty with Pequeninos, the Hive Queen is brought in to hold the peace, setting a perimeter guard of hive drones around the human colony and preventing further escalation of violence between the two groups. Grego is locked in jail, despite eventually stepping between the surviving Pequeninos and his own riot. The town realizes their horrific rage, and constructs a chapel surrounding the fallen priest’s grave, trying to find penance for their actions.

Finally, a breakthrough is made. Knowing the Ansible communication network allows instantaneous transfer of information, and through knowledge of how the Hive Queen gives sentience to child queens, Jane, Grego, and Olhado discover the “Outside”. The Outside is a spacetime plane where aiúas initially exist. (Aiúa is the term given to the pattern defining any specific structure of the universe, whether a particular atom, a star, or a sentient consciousness.) Formic hive queens are called from Outside after birth, giving awareness to the new body. Jane is able to contain within her vast computing power the pattern defining the billions of atoms and overall structure comprising a simple “starship” (little more than a room), with passengers included, and take them Outside. By bringing them Outside, where relative location is nonexistent, then back “Inside” at a different spot in the physical universe, instantaneous travel has been achieved, finally matching the instantaneous communication of the Ansibles and Formics. They quickly arrange to take Ender, Ela, and Miro to Outside. While Ela is Outside, she is able to create the recolada virus, which is a safe replacement of the descolada, and a cure to the godspoken genetic defect. Miro envisions his body as it was before he was crippled by paralysis, and upon arrival in the Outside, his consciousness is contained within a new, restored body. Ender discovers, however, the surreal unwitting creation of a new “Valentine” and new “Peter Wiggin” from his subconscious, who embody idealized forms of his altruistic and power-hungry sides.

The recolada begins its spread across Lusitania, converting the formerly lethal virus into a harmless aid to native life. The cure to the people of Path’s genetic-controlling defect is distributed, yet Han Fei-tzu is tragically unable to convince his daughter Qing-jao this was the true course of action. Confronted with the possibility of being lied to all her life and dooming many sentient species to destruction, or an alternative of believing all she ever loved and trusted has betrayed her – Demosthenes, her father, her friend, her world – Qing-jao instead continues her godspoken rite of woodgrain tracing until her death and is honored by those on Path who still believe in the gods as the last true godspoken. She is elevated to god status after her death. Si Wang-mu sets off with Peter to take control over Starways Congress to stop the Fleet closing in on Lusitania. The new Valentine-persona journeys to find a planet to which the population of Lusitania can evacuate. The stage is set for the final book of the four-part series, Children of the Mind.

• All My “Enderverse” Reviews

The Detective (Joe Leland #1) 2Stars

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 by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: The Detective
Series: Joe Leland #1
Author: Roderick Thorp
Rating: 2 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fiction
Pages: 487
Words: 220K

Inner monologueing that, psycho-sexualization this, belly button lint beyond belief. I mean, some of the characters went on for pages and pages blabbing and blabbing and then they’d blab some more. The author would make very odd conversation connections that weren’t obvious to me as a reader and I really struggled to follow the thought processes. At the beginning Joe gets very upset that his wife left him a note asking some questions that they’d gone over the night before. It made zero sense to me why he was upset about it and it’s not explained, that I could see, why he was upset about it. Everything was referred to obliquely instead of head on. This book typifies everything I hate about books from the 60’s and 70’s. Bunch of pretentious, self-absorberd author replacement wankery.

The ONLY reason I read this is because the sequel is the novel on which Die Hard was based and I want to read that book. So when I learned it was the second book about Joe Leland, of course I had to read the first book. What kind of sicko only reads the second book in a duology, amirite? Those people might exist, but I am not one of them. After reading this, I almost wish I was though!

After I read the next book, I’ll never read another thing by Thorp if I can help it. I haven’t even looked up his body of work just so I can avoid it. I don’t care that much about him.

The final nail in the coffin was the ending. They figure out why the husband is dead and it’s a big fat reason and the book ends with the investigation just starting. Feth that! You don’t drag me through almost 500 pages and then just stop. That’s total bull caca in my opinion. So I’m giving this the “trash” tag.

★★☆☆☆

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From Wikipedia.com

Joe Leland, a private detective, begins investigating a case for the recently widowed Norma MacIver. Norma requests that Leland find out everything he can about her deceased husband. Norma requests Leland personally because her husband had mentioned knowing him in the past.

It turns out that Leland and Colin MacIver served in the same military unit during World War II, but at different times. Leland interviews Colin’s first wife, Colin’s mother, and the security guards at the track where Colin supposedly killed himself.

Norma introduces Leland to her neighbor and former therapist, Dr. Wendell Roberts. During their conversation, Wendell reveals that he knew Leland’s wife Karen. It is revealed that Wendell was friends with the man with whom Karen Leland had had an affair.

As Leland’s investigation deepens he uncovers evidence of corruption and murder. Eventually, Leland discovers that Colin was connected to a homicide during Leland’s earlier life with the police department as a detective. During the investigation of Teddy Leikman’s death, a confession was obtained from Felix Tesla, Leikman’s roommate. Tesla was subsequently executed by electric chair. It turned out that Colin MacIver was the true murderer. Joe’s partner, Mike Petrakis, managed to decipher Colin’s coded notes and reveal a paper trail of corruption.

Lapvona ✬☆☆☆☆

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 by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

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.

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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.

✬☆☆☆☆

The Captain of the Monte Cristo ★☆☆☆☆

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 by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: The Captain of the Monte Cristo
Author: Sarah Wilson & John Gunningham
Rating: 1 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 147
Words: 41K

From the Publisher

Love, betrayal, and revenge … in space.

Edmund Dante is a promising young officer in the Company, but when his loyalty to his ship’s captain endangers the crew’s future, his betrayal is inevitable. Years later, Edmund and his unusual bio-ship – The Monte Cristo – are out for revenge. Will Edmund be able to go through with it when he realizes what it will cost?

Lovers of space opera, classics, adventure, and LitRPG will love this action-packed short novel. Follow Edmund Dante and his sidekick Jack through the futuristic society in the Company and watch them accomplish his ultimate revenge.

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I knew going into this that it wasn’t going to be a fantastic read. At about 150 pages, it wouldn’t be feasible to expect a great story from one of the greatest stories ever told (The Count of Monte Cristo) but I did have hopes it would be a good story.

In all fairness, the potential for a good story was there. The idea that everyone dueled in the future via virtual reality game called Baccarre, while not original, was fun to read about. Having the Monte Cristo be a living spaceship was cool.

But.

The author’s idea that portraying Edmund at the beginning as a “good” guy because he won’t kill even pirates who are attacking their ship and putting everyones’ lives in danger? I was in complete agreement with the other characters about him (ie, it was the height of selfishness, self-centeredness and childishness). Baccarre was just another take on Yugioh and “It’s time to da-da-da Duel!” virtual fighting. The Monte Cristo as a super smart living ship came straight from the manga Gankutsuou. Then having Albert be Edmund and Mercede’s son and Mercedes dying, it was just too much of a change for no good reason.

Add in that the writing was simply workmanlike and in no ways brilliant? If you’re going to try to retell a classic story, your writing had better live up to original. Both Wilson and Gunningham, in terms of skill, belong to the group of people who write fan fiction and post it online, hoping some idiot will support them. It wasn’t even badly written, which almost makes it worse. It was just completely pedestrian.

I looked at other reviews online before posting this and people were giving it 5 stars and saying great and wonderful it was. Either they are shills, or they are idiots or they wouldn’t know a good book if I hit them over the head with it. This was NOT a good book. I don’t care if you liked this book, because taste is subjective (sadly), but it is not a good book in any way, shape or form. So don’t say that it is. It is trash and the authors should be ashamed of writing such subpar crap and sullying the good reputation of The Count of Monte Cristo. I’ve seen that they have done the same thing to Moby Dick but that was released in 2017 and there’s nothing else from the duo since them. But Wilson has managed to pump out 120 “books” on Amazon, so that should tell you all you really need to know.

★☆☆☆☆

Titus Andronicus ★✬☆☆☆

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 by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: Titus Andronicus
Author: William Shakespeare
Rating: 1.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Play
Pages: 219
Words: 63K

Synopsis:

From Wikipedia

Shortly after the death of the Roman emperor, his two sons, Saturninus and Bassianus, quarrel over who will succeed him. Their conflict seems set to boil over into violence until a tribune, Marcus Andronicus, announces that the people’s choice for the new emperor is Marcus’s brother, Titus, who will shortly return to Rome from a victorious ten-year campaign against the Goths. Titus arrives to much fanfare, bearing with him as prisoners Tamora, Queen of the Goths, her three sons Alarbus, Chiron, and Demetrius, and her secret lover, Aaron the Moor. Despite Tamora’s desperate pleas, Titus sacrifices her eldest son, Alarbus, to avenge the deaths of twenty-five of his own sons during the war. Distraught, Tamora and her two surviving sons vow to obtain revenge on Titus and his family.

Meanwhile, Titus refuses the offer of the throne, arguing that he is not fit to rule and instead supporting the claim of Saturninus, who then is duly elected. Saturninus tells Titus that for his first act as emperor, he will marry Titus’s daughter Lavinia. Titus agrees, although Lavinia is already betrothed to Saturninus’s brother, Bassianus, who refuses to give her up. Titus’s sons tell Titus that Bassianus is in the right under Roman law, but Titus refuses to listen, accusing them all of treason. A scuffle breaks out, during which Titus kills his own son, Mutius. Saturninus then denounces the Andronici family for their effrontery and shocks Titus by marrying Tamora. Putting into motion her plan for revenge, Tamora advises Saturninus to pardon Bassianus and the Andronici family, which he reluctantly does.

During a royal hunt the following day, Aaron persuades Demetrius and Chiron to kill Bassianus so that they may rape Lavinia. They do so, throwing Bassianus’s body into a pit and dragging Lavinia deep into the forest before violently raping her. To keep her from revealing what has happened, they cut out her tongue and cut off her hands. Meanwhile, Aaron writes a forged letter, which frames Titus’s sons Martius and Quintus for the murder of Bassianus. Horrified at the death of his brother, Saturninus arrests Martius and Quintus and sentences them to death.

Some time later, Marcus discovers the mutilated Lavinia and takes her to her father, who is still shocked at the accusations levelled at his sons, and upon seeing Lavinia, he is overcome with grief. Aaron then visits Titus and falsely tells him that Saturninus will spare Martius and Quintus if either Titus, Marcus, or Titus’ remaining son, Lucius, cuts off one of their hands and sends it to him. Though Marcus and Lucius are willing, Titus has his own left hand cut off by Aaron and sends it to the emperor. However, a messenger brings back Martius’s and Quintus’s severed heads, along with Titus’s own severed hand. Desperate for revenge, Titus orders Lucius to flee Rome and raise an army among their former enemy, the Goths.

Later, Lavinia writes the names of her attackers in the dirt, using a stick held with her mouth and between her arms. Meanwhile, Aaron is informed that Tamora has secretly given birth to a mixed-race baby, fathered by Aaron, which will draw Saturninus’s wrath. Though Tamora wants the baby killed, Aaron kills the nurse to keep the child’s race a secret and flees to raise his son among the Goths. Thereafter, Lucius, marching on Rome with an army, captures Aaron and threatens to hang the infant. In order to save the baby, Aaron reveals the entire revenge plot to Lucius.

Back in Rome, Titus’s behaviour suggests he might be deranged. Convinced of Titus’s madness, Tamora, Demetrius, and Chiron (dressed as the spirits of Revenge, Murder, and Rape, respectively) approach Titus in order to persuade him to have Lucius remove his troops from Rome. Tamora (as Revenge) tells Titus that she will grant him revenge on all of his enemies if he convinces Lucius to postpone the imminent attack on Rome. Titus agrees and sends Marcus to invite Lucius to a reconciliatory feast. Revenge then offers to invite the Emperor and Tamora as well, and is about to leave when Titus insists that Rape and Murder stay with him. When Tamora is gone, Titus has Chiron and Demetrius restrained, cuts their throats, and drains their blood into a basin held by Lavinia. Titus tells Lavinia that he will “play the cook”, grind the bones of Demetrius and Chiron into powder, and bake their heads into two pies.

The next day, during the feast at his house, Titus asks Saturninus if a father should kill his daughter when she has been raped. When Saturninus answers that he should, Titus kills Lavinia and tells Saturninus of the rape. When the Emperor calls for Chiron and Demetrius, Titus reveals that they were baked in the pie Tamora has just been eating. Titus then kills Tamora and is immediately killed by Saturninus, who is subsequently killed by Lucius to avenge his father’s death. Lucius is then proclaimed Emperor. He orders that Titus and Lavinia be laid in their family tomb, that Saturninus be given a state burial, that Tamora’s body be thrown to the wild beasts outside the city, and that Aaron be hanged. Aaron, however, is unrepentant to the end, regretting only that he did not do more evil in his life. Lucius decides Aaron deserves to be buried chest-deep as punishment and left to die of thirst and starvation, and Aaron is taken away to be punished thus.

My Thoughts:

The last time I read some Shakespeare was last year in August when I made it through Richard III. I needed a break and so of course, once I’m back, I start out with Titus Andronicus, possibly the most violent, the most disturbing and the most outlandish of all his plays. I’m going to keep the “Synopsis” and “My Thoughts” format for Shakespeare even while I’ve abandoned it for all the rest of the books I read. I want a place I can put the entire synopsis from Wikipedia and then easily hide it with the details code. I don’t ever plan on reading Shakespeare again but I do want to know what each play is about.

Ugh. Titus murders his own son. His daughter is raped and maimed. He chops off his own hand. Another son is sent into exile. He kills the men who raped his daughter, bakes their flesh into a pie and feeds it to the mother of the men. He then dies himself.

Good times on the Good Ship Lollypop, eh? Not even Shirley Temple could have tap danced this into a happy story. There were several times I was just about ready to call it quits on Shakespeare and to let him rot in his mouldering grave. But I forged ahead because I was wearing my Big Boy Pants and that’s what you do. All I can say is that whatever I read next from Shakespeare had better be better than this play.

★✬☆☆☆

• All My Shakespeare Reviews

Universe 1 ★★☆☆☆

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 by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: Universe 1
Series: Universe Anthology #1
Author: Terry Carr (ed)
Rating: 2 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 213
Words: 63K

Man, I had forgotten what utter balderdash was written by hippy wannabe’s in the 70’s for SF. Bunch of prententious wanktards thinking sex and psychology are enough to sell a story without having to actually write a good story. There’s a reason most of the authors in this collection are completely forgotten today and probably made zero impact back in their own time. What a bunch of losers. People like them are what gave SF a bad name.

And yet.

There are at least 14 volumes in this series. I’ve got some random ones and despite my trashing above, I’m going to give the editor, Terry Carr, one more chance. But after this book, each one has to impress me or I’m dnf’ing the series and consigning Mr Carr to the dust bins of forgotten history, where he already appears to be though if I’m being honest.

★★☆☆☆

Unsouled (Cradle #1) ★✬☆☆☆

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 by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: Unsouled
Series: Cradle #1
Author: Will Wight
Rating: 1.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: YA Fantasy
Pages: 243
Words: 89K

This novel starts with a dedication “To Devin, who reads as many web novels as I do”. That right there is a big fat warning sign that I should have given more weight to. If you don’t know, web novels tend to be written by chinese authors, chapter at a time centered around the most tropey of tropes that you can possibly think of. It would be like if 1000 authors suddenly started writing like David Eddings about castles and princes and princesses and wizards and stuff. It’s not necessarily bad, but it is by no means good quality stuff.

The writing is just fine but I want nothing to do with web novel inspired trash. Call me a snob, but that’s what it is. And I don’t want to support it in any way. If a place like Royal Road is your jam, then this novel and this series might be right up your alley. But for heavens sake, please don’t tell me. I don’t want to know that I helped anyone in this regards :-/

★✬☆☆☆