Bookstooge's Reviews On the Road

Monday, December 12, 2016

Devil Bat Ghosts (Eyeshield 21 #12) (Manga Monday)

This review is written with a GPL 3.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at Wordpress, Blogspot, Booklikes & Librarything by Bookstooge's Exalted Permission.
Title: Devil Bat Ghosts
Series: Eyeshield 21 #12
Author: Riichiro Inagaki
Artist: Yusuke Murata
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre: Manga
Pages: 208
Format: Digital Scan

Synopsis:

The Devil Bats finish their game against the Amino Cyborgs. With Sena back in the game, the whole team is re-energized and they crush the Cyborgs.
The Tournament is going well and various teams are competing for the Glory of the Christmas Bowl. We see several games and the outcomes go from the silly to the serious. They were all a bit short, just enough to showcase some of the players for future games.
The Devil Bats play a final game against the Yuhi Guts, a weak team. The Guts have several 3rd year players, so this is their final chance at the Christmas Bowl as well. With pressure from above, most of the regular Guts are benched and top athletes from other sports are brought in. That goes "well" and the Devil Bats just trounce the newbies. In desperation, the coach brings back the regular players, who make a valiant effort to fight back. Unfortunately, one team must lose and the Guts just don't have enough skill.
With this game the Devil Bats truly realize just how many players' dreams are on the line and that it is not only their team who is striving.

My Thoughts:

This showcased so many different games that they tended to blur together or be so short that I couldn't get a good feel for things. It felt VERY full and not in a good way.

I am certain that future games will span full volumes, if not more but I do hope that there will be storylines outside of the games. These boys need to be more well rounded and while playing football is a great start, I want more than JUST that.

Friday, December 09, 2016

Alternate: Complete Omnibus

This review is written with a GPL 3.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at Wordpress, Blogspot, Booklikes & Librarything by Bookstooge's Exalted Permission.
Title: Alternate
Series: -----
Author: Ernie Luis
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: SFF
Pages: 206
Format: Kindle digital edition

Synopsis:

Time Travel Exists. And there is a company self-tasked with keeping the Time Line on track. But when one man is sent back in the past to stop a rogue agent and sees his daughter saved, he will do whatever is necessary to keep her alive this time.
Unfortunately for Grey, he is a newcomer and a pawn in a much larger game that will determine if Humanity has a future, or not.

My Thoughts:

Whoooowheeee!!!! This was one wild ride. We follow several viewpoints throughout the story but Grey is the main character and the death of his daughter is THE defining moment in his life. It is the point around which everything, past, present and future, revolves for Grey. That aspect came through beautifully. His love for Hanna, even to the point of giving her up to her alternate "him" so that his alternate wouldn't have to go through the pain of losing Hanna like Grey did, was perfect.

Even while that was the main story, the Real Story was about the man who invented Time Travel, Rickman, and his search for Redemption for allowing his friend to die in the first time travel incident. The book takes place in 2030, with 2020 being the second line and 2010 where everything starts. It gets messy and complicated and hit things just right for me. Rickman's long game is to stop time travel altogether. I thought how the author dealt with alternates/paradoxes/etc was masterfully done and he'd obviously put some thought into how things might work.

Now, with all that praise, this book still lacked some polish and that special "something" that just makes a book great. I don't have any complaints about the book except that it could have been better. This was Luis's debut novel and while it showed, it also showed GREAT promise for any future writing. He does have several short stories under his belt, but I'll be waiting for his next novel.

Wednesday, December 07, 2016

The Tropic of Serpents (A Memoir by Lady Trent #2)

This review is written with a GPL 3.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at Bookstooge.booklikes. blogspot.wordpress.com & librarything.com/catalog/BookstoogeLT by Bookstooge's Exalted Permission.
Title: The Tropic of Serpents
Series: A Memoir by Lady Trent #2
Author: Marie Brennan
Rating: 1 of 5 Stars
Genre: SFF
Pages: 332
Format: Kindle digital edition

Thus proclaimed Bookstooge, the Sage of the Diet of Sohdah and Utterer of Deep Mysteries, whilst traveling upon the highways and byways.

3 Dooms I pronounce against thee! Let all hear and tremble at my words.

DooM

21st Century Cant spewed, out of Time and Place
My soul loathes such an abomination

DoOoM

Where 10 words would do, yay 5 would suffice, 30 were squandered
Garner not my attention with vain repetitions and overly long descriptive paragraphs, for such things the Indies do, thinking to make their books be read on high
In the end, I cast them down into the pit, into the mire, to languish and such shall be done to thee

DoOoOoM

Bore. Me. Not.
Am I a god? Am I not mortal, like thee, with a mortal's lifespan?
Waste not my time, thou wretch, lest thou be consigned to the Dust Heaps of History

Here ends the 3 Dooms of Bookstooge

Tuesday, December 06, 2016

The Hermetic Millennia (Count to the Eschaton Sequence #2)

This review is written with a GPL 3.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at Bookstooge.booklikes. blogspot.wordpress.com & librarything.com/catalog/BookstoogeLT by Bookstooge's Exalted Permission.

Title: The Hermetic Millennia Series: Count to the Eschaton Sequence #2
Author: John Wright
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: SFF
Pages: 400
Format: Kindle digital edition

Synopsis:

The smartest man in the world goes to sleep so he can survive until his wife comes back. However, his enemies, the Hermeticists, wake him up every couple of hundred years by running amok.
In the main story, Montrose is taken captive and used as a translator as his captors search for the Judge of the Ages, ie, Montrose. Montrose learns everything he can so he can wreak his awful and terrible vengeance upon these interlopers, only to realize in the very end that as smart as he is, he can still be outsmarted.
Ends on a cliffhanger.

My Thoughts:

I did not enjoy this as much as Count to a Trillion. Part of that was the dreamlike aspect of the sequence of time. It reminded me a lot of Wolfe's The Wizard Knight with it's asperger syndrome main character. It was disconcerting to have chunks of time and events passed over and simply ignored, for no apparent reason.

The overview of humanity over 7000'ish years was really interesting. Each Hermeticist got their chance to create a humanity they thought were best. Each time Montrose was awakened and set forth events to combat their ideas, which led to the downfall of said race and the arising of a new. Finding out that he was being tricked each time to reveal a strand of super-duper-puper math was something else. While Montrose is the main character and you are kind of rooting for him, he's still an arrogant jerk so the schadenfreude was strong in me.

Make no mistake about this though, this was humanistic to its core. As such it reflects the base values of such a system. There were also times where it just felt like the author was indulging himself a little too much in his own fancy.

The cliffhanger ending was not appreciated. That was the main reason I bumped this down 1/2 star. Anyone who had read both the books so far is definitely going to continue the series. To end it like that smacked of one book being artificially broken up.

Monday, December 05, 2016

Open Season (Eyeshield 21 #11) (Manga Monday)

Synopsis:

The Devil Bats make it back to Japan in time to start the Autumn Football season, which will end with the Christmas Bowl, the aim of so many of the players. A lot of character growth goes on and we see the ups and downs as players realize their limits and what they can and can't do.
The Devil Bats first game is against the Amino Cyborgs and their super science football players. Sena is late and it is up to the rest of the team to hold the line until their star runner can make it to the stadium.

My Thoughts:

This one was not all happy skippy. Some of the devil bats who made it through the Death march weren't picked for the team, as they just weren't good enough. Other members of other teams were having teenage crisis's of their own as they came up against the barriers of their own bodies. It was all very drama'y but in a very shounen way.

Mamori takes one step further toward's becoming Hiruma's love interest, as odd as it is to think of him having a love interest. So much is made of Mamori being like an older sister to Sena that at this point I'm resigned to her and Sena never getting beyond that "sibling" level.

We also see quite a bit of family interaction, at least compared to earlier volumes. Sena's homelife is exactly what you'd expect from someone like Sena in volume one. His mother's a harridan and his father's a weak "yes dear" kind of husband. It is good to see Sena growing beyond the barriers put up by his upbringing.

The game with the Cyborgs starts out very interesting. The Cyborgs just muscle their way through until the Devil Bat's coach reminds them about how they pushed the truck and suddenly, their training comes into play and they just tear apart the Cyborgs. But even with that, the Devil Bats can't score consistently on only a passing game.

And finally, that is where Sena makes his entrance. He gets on the wrong bus, and has to be driven to the stadium by one of the rival teams who want to beat Hiruma. Sena gets catapaulted into the stadium and makes a 3 point landing [foot, knee and hand] and looks wicked cool. It made me smile. Now the game, in the next book, can really begin!

Saturday, December 03, 2016

Under Fallen Stars (Threat from the Sea #2) (Forgotten Realms)

Synopsis:

Jherek continues to mope and feel bad, just about things. He does travel all over and have adventures, so at least he's preparing to fight against the Taker. The Taker continues his rise to power and using of the Sahugin. The priestess buries her doubts about the Taker doing Sekola's will. The old song guy gets more of the song in his head and hooks up with a peg leg dwarf [no, I am NOT kidding] and some old mystical elf. The various strands are starting to come together as each part moves closer to its final end.

My Thoughts:

This wasn't a bad read but my goodness, Jherek and his whiny'ness got to be a bit much. It was just too true to life. Man, I'm glad I'm not a teenage boy anymore. Makes me wonder how my parents stood it.

Adventure-wise, this was a cracking good one. Sahugin and pirates invade a city, a ship battle between pirates, an attempt to capture someone in a crowded tavern. Brawls, fights and maneuvers abounded!

There were a couple of references to the downfall of the Elven empire millennia ago and it made me want to search out to see if any books dealt with that. I do know that some of the Elminster books take place during that time, but I can't stand Ed Greenwood so I won't be reading any by him and I don't know if anything else was ever written. Forgotten Realms books are written about the era currently happening.

Friday, December 02, 2016

The Parasite

Synopsis:

Jack is a space miner and in the process of getting some space ice, gets infected with something. Something that heals him, makes him stronger, makes him smarter but also something that will control his reactions in dangerous situations. Problem is, the parasite thinks that any fear from Jack is a dangerous situation.
Jack was supposed to go into quarantine, but the head honcho didn't want the space ice to go into quarantine as well, so Jack walked free. Now the World Health is after him, as well as the Head Honcho trying to cover up his tracks. Because Jack is contagious, contagious beyond belief and people are dying by the bucketload.

My Thoughts:

This novella exemplifies everything I like and don't like about Asher, all boiled down into one little story. On the hand, we have action and violence literally exploding everywhere. Asher does Ultra-Violence with a deft hand that while occasionally making me cringe never feels overboard to me, unlike say the Jack Reacher books. On the other hand, you get the interminable whining about Free Will from at least one, if not more, character.

For me, just because I am not choosing to make my heart beat but it does it on its own, doesn't mean I don't have free will. Non-Total Autonomy doesn't negate Free Will for me. I suspect the differences we hold on Free Will boil down to our views and thoughts on God. Surprise :-D

On the story itself. If you've ever wondered about trying Asher but were intimidated by the 14'ish books divided up into sub series and so threw up your hands and never tried, THIS is the story to try to see if you'll like him or not. It is self-contained but show cases his writing style and his ideas in one easy to digest sitting.

Glad I got around to reading this because I have to wait until March of '17 for his next Polity book to come out.

Thursday, December 01, 2016

November '16 Roundup & Ramblings

This month was pretty good, in the scheme of things. Made my way through 20 books, 4 of which were manga and 1 graphic novel.

I did have 3 DNF's, which is higher than usual, but each was for a different reason, so that helped soften the blow of wasting my time on something I didn't/couldn't finish. To balance that out, I did have One 5Star read and Five(!!) 4Star reads. Getting even a single 5star is a good accomplishment and to have so many 4's is wonderful.

After 6 months I finally got Superman: Doomed scratched off my list. That was a real weight off my shoulders. I'd left it on the couch arm where I sit to remind myself to keep on trying to read it, even a page here or there. That just never happened, so I had to dive in, seize the beast by the throat and just choke it into submission.

In general terms, I solidified the next years reading plans, started the move from Booklikes to Wordpress and continued my reading of Don Quixote. All of which made for a busy but satisfying month.

In finishing, here are my two picks of the month for cover love:

I LOVE hooded figures on covers. They are just cool.

I have always been, and most likely always will be, a Superman fan. Even though I was disappointed by the storyline, the Idea of Superman and Doomsday as one is wicked cool.

Wednesday, November 30, 2016

Alien Morning DNF@20%

Title: Alien Morning
Series: -----
Author: Rick Wilber
Rating: 1 of 5 Stars
Genre: SFF
Pages: DNF
Format: Hardcover edition

My Thoughts:

Rick Wilber chose to include a lesbian couple that were "married" in the storyline. I abandoned the book at that point and will not be reading more by this author.

Tuesday, November 29, 2016

The Warrior's Path (Sacketts #3)

Synopsis:

Kin Sacket and his brother rescue a girl and young woman who were taken by indians. However, it turns out they were taken by white slave traders and that the head of said traders is a prominent man in the local community.
It is up to Kin, and Diana, to track down another kidnapped woman and get her sworn statement to bring the slaver to justice legally. But he isn't going down without a fight and it may be God's justice that he faces and not man's.

My Thoughts:

I gave this the "western" tag, as the Sackett boys are considering moving West by the end of the book, but it is more of a bridge between the historical fiction chronicled in Barnabas's story [their father] and the truly Cowboy Westerns later on.

This was fun. Kin ends up going to the Jamaican Islands and having adventures with pirates and then fighting off rogue slavers back at the Sackett settlement. A good adventure story.

There is the trademark L'amour monologuing which I think I have accustomed myself to, but I still feel like rolling my eyes at it. I can only take so much of it. Zoom through it and everything is ok though.