Bookstooge's Reviews On the Road

Monday, September 05, 2022

Ashes to Ashes – MTG 4th Edition

Sunday, September 04, 2022

The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare ★★☆☆☆

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 Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare
Author: G.K. Chesterton
Rating: 2 of 5 Stars
Genre: Christian Allegory
Pages: 215
Words: 58K

Synopsis:

From Wikipedia

In Victorian-era London, Gabriel Syme is recruited at Scotland Yard to a secret anti-anarchist police corps. Lucian Gregory, an anarchistic poet, lives in the suburb of Saffron Park. Syme meets him at a party and they debate the meaning of poetry. Gregory argues that revolt is the basis of poetry. Syme demurs, insisting the essence of poetry is not revolution but law. He antagonises Gregory by asserting that the most poetical of human creations is the timetable for the London Underground. He suggests Gregory isn’t really serious about anarchism, which so irritates Gregory that he takes Syme to an underground anarchist meeting place, under oath not to disclose its existence to anyone, revealing his public endorsement of anarchy is a ruse to make him seem harmless, when in fact he is an influential member of the local chapter of the European anarchist council.

The central council consists of seven men, each using the name of a day of the week as a cover; the position of Thursday is about to be elected by Gregory’s local chapter. Gregory expects to win the election but just before, Syme reveals to Gregory after an oath of secrecy that he is a secret policeman. In order to make Syme think that the anarchists are harmless after all, Gregory speaks very unconvincingly to the local chapter, so that they feel that he is not zealous enough for the job. Syme makes a rousing anarchist speech in which he denounces everything that Gregory has said and wins the vote. He is sent immediately as the chapter’s delegate to the central council.

In his efforts to thwart the council, Syme eventually discovers that five of the other six members are also undercover detectives; each was employed just as mysteriously and assigned to defeat the Council. They soon find out they were fighting each other and not real anarchists; such was the mastermind plan of their president, Sunday. In a surreal conclusion, Sunday is unmasked as only seeming to be an anarchist; in fact, he is a proponent of state power like the detectives. Sunday is unable to give an answer to the question of why he caused so much trouble and pain for the detectives. Gregory, the only real anarchist, seems to challenge the false council. His accusation is that they, as rulers, have never suffered like Gregory and their other subjects and so their power is illegitimate. Syme refutes the accusation immediately, because of the terrors inflicted by Sunday on the rest of the council.

The dream ends when Sunday is asked if he has ever suffered. His last words, “can ye drink of the cup that I drink of?”, is the question Jesus asks St. James and St. John in the Gospel of Mark, chapter 10, vs 38–39, a rhetorical question intended to demonstrate that the disciples are wrong to covet his glory because they are unable to bear the suffering for the sins of the world for which he is destined.

My Thoughts:

Man, how I have changed in 20 years. Much like my review of The Napolean of Notting Hill, I found that this time around I did not enjoy this book by Chesterton nearly so much as I did in my early 20’s. Part of that is that I’ve been exposed to a much wider school of Christian Apologetics and Thought but another part is that I am now comfortable with myself in what I like or do not like.

And the fact of the matter is that I do not like Chesterton’s style. It doesn’t mean it is good or bad but that I simply do not like it. I suspect I would not have liked him as a man either though and thus the good/bad debate has to be thrown out. Plus, I don’t like poetry and Chesterton starts the book off with a poem.

I have now read enough to figure that Chesterton is most likely not for me. I’m going to try one more book by him just to be sure but am not holding out any hope that he’ll suddenly change and become an appealing author to me.

The Man Who Was Thursday (2001 Review)

Saturday, September 03, 2022

George's Marvelous Medicine ★★★✬☆

Title: George’s Marvelous Medicine
Series: ———-
Authors: Roald Dahl
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Childrens Fiction
Pages: 63
Words: 12.5K

Synopsis:

From Wikipedia.org

While eight-year-old George Kranky’s parents are out grocery shopping, his elderly maternal grandmother bosses him around and bullies him. She intimidates George by saying that she likes to eat insects and he wonders briefly if she’s a witch. To punish her for her regular abuse, George decides to make a magic medicine to replace her old one. He collects a variety of ingredients from around the family farm including deodorant and shampoo from the bathroom, floor polish from the laundry room, horseradish sauce and gin from the kitchen, animal medicines, engine oil and anti-freeze from the garage, and brown paint to mimic the colour of the original medicine.

After cooking the ingredients in the kitchen, George gives it as medicine to his grandmother, who grows as tall as the house, bursting through the roof. When his grandmother doesn’t believe it was George who made her grow so tall, he proves it by feeding the medicine to one of his father’s chickens, which grows ten times its original size. As they return home, George’s parents can’t believe their eyes when they see the fattest chicken ever and the grandmother. George’s father grows very excited at the thought of rearing giant animals. He has George feed the medicine to the rest of the farm’s animals, causing them to become giants as well. However, his grandmother begins complaining about being ignored and stuck in the roof, so Mr. Kranky hires a crane to remove her from the house. Her extreme height has her sleeping in the barn for the next few nights.

The following morning, Mr. Kranky is still excited about George’s medicine and announces that he and George shall make gallons of it to sell to farmers around the world, which would make his family rich. George attempts to recreate it but is unable to remember all the ingredients. The second version makes a chicken’s legs grow extremely long, and the third elongates a chicken’s neck to bizarre proportions. The fourth has the opposite effect of the first and makes animals shrink. George’s grandmother, now even more angry she’s sleeping in the barn, storms over and starts complaining loudly that she’s once again sick of being ignored. She sees the cup of medicine in George’s hand and erroneously mistakes it for tea. Much to his and Mrs. Kranky’s horror, and Mr. Kranky’s delight, she drinks the entire cup and shrinks so much that she vanishes completely. At first, Mrs. Kranky is shocked, confused and distraught about the sudden, and very strange disappearance of her mother, but soon accepts that she was becoming a nuisance anyway. In the last page, George is left to think about the implications of his actions, feeling as though they had granted him access to the edge of a magic world.

My Thoughts:

I am coming to the conclusion that this will probably be my final read of Dahl’s body of work for my own enjoyment. Not that I am disliking them but I do want “more” and these don’t offer that any more. I feel that in my multiple reads I have plumbed the depths of these stories and I would rather explore a new author or series than to re-tread material this familiar to me.

That is in no way a denigration of Dahl’s skill as a writer or a story teller, but I’ve realized that I’ve done a bit of growing up in the last 15 years and I cannot go back. Reading these books have been an attempt to see if I could actually go back, but as we all know, time only flows in one direction.

I have to admit, I am surprised this was published as is. George puts in a LOT of nasty stuff into his medicine and even I know that some of them would kill you outright. If I read this to a kid, I’d be keeping an eye on them for the next week or two to make sure they didn’t try to experiment on themselves or others 😀

All My “Roald Dahl” Reviews

Friday, September 02, 2022

Feast and Famine ★★✬☆☆

Title: Feast and Famine
Series: ———-
Authors: Adrian Tchaikovsky
Rating: 2.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: SFF
Pages: 157
Words: 60.5K

Synopsis:

From the Inside Cover and TOC

In Feast and Famine Adrian Tchaikovsky delivers an ambitious and varied collections of stories. Ranging from the deep space hard SF of the title story (originally in Solaris Rising 2) to the high fantasy of “The Sun in the Morning” (a Shadows of the Apt tale originally featured in Deathray magazine), from the Peter S Beagle influenced “The Roar of the Crowd” to the supernatural Holmes-esque intrigue of “The Dissipation Club” the author delivers a dazzling array of quality short stories that traverse genre. Ten stories in all, five of which appear here for the very first time.

Contents:

1. Introduction

2. Feast & Famine

3. The Artificial Man

4. The Roar of the Crowd

5. Good Taste

6. The Dissipation Club

7. Rapture

8. Care

9. 2144 and All That

10. The God Shark

11. The Sun of the Morning

12. About the Author

My Thoughts:

That’s right, there’s a reason I’ve been avoiding Tchaikovsky for the last year or two. While he can tell some good stories, he also really digs the knife into Christianity. Not organized religion, or Buddhism, or Islam, or any other religion, just Christianity. I “think” I could handle it if he were an equal opportunity mocker, but he’s not. He really lets fly with the story “Rapture” and I realized that while the other stories might be interesting that my time with him is done for good now.

If I need any more fixes of Tchaikovsky, I’ll just go and re-read the Shadows of the Apt decology.

All of My “Adrian Tchaikovsky” Reviews

Thursday, September 01, 2022

Conan the Bold (Conan the Barbarian) ★★★✬☆

Title: Conan the Bold
Series: Conan the Barbarian
Authors: John Maddox Roberts
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 175
Words: 80K

Synopsis:

From Wikipedia.org & Me

A young Conan’s prospects for a domestic existence are destroyed, along with his intended fiancé, by the renegade Taharka of Keshan. To achieve vengeance, the Cimmerian joins forces with a one-eyed warrior woman, Mad Kalya, also wronged by Taharka’s outlaws. The couple pursue their enemies across several nations, from Croton’s fighting pits to the Ophirian plains, overtaking them in time and again only to see Taharka slip through their fingers. The chase ultimately culminates in a battle to the death.

Kalya dies in Conan’s arms but Taharka gets his just desserts. Conan decides to keep exploring the other lands and to find out what other adventures await him.

My Thoughts:

I enjoyed this story quite a bit. This was an origin story for Conan and shows how he came to be exploring lands other than Cimmeria. I suspect if I read enough Conan stories though that I’ll find multiple “origin” stories. So I’m not holding this as canon or anything.

There is some cosmic horror involved, as both Conan and Taharka are accosted by priests of elder gods and told they both have “great destinies”. Taharka allows this to go to his head and acts accordingly while Conan simply scoffs and tells the priests no one, or no thing, will ever control his actions. Of course, Taharka dies and Conan doesn’t. So much for those elder gods prescience, right? Hahahahahaa.

In terms of action, this is all over the place geographically and it keeps things fresh. We get to see a glimpse of Conan as a river pirate, hinting at his future as a real pirate later on. That is one story I’ve never read about Conan, his time as a pirate. It’s always just referred to. I hope JMR writes at least one story about that.

The “Essential Conan” Trilogy
All of My “John Maddox Roberts’ Conan” Reviews

Wednesday, August 31, 2022

August '22 Roundup & Rambling

Raw Data:

Novels – 15 ↑

Graphic Novels – 6 ⭤

Average Rating – 3.33 ↑

Pages – 4125 ↓

Words – 1162K ↓

The Bad:

One Piece #28 – The only under 3star rating this whole month!

The Good:

A Season in Carcosa – 4.5stars of Almost Perfect cosmic horror

Movie:

The 2015 tv revival of T he Muppets made them rude and crude instead of laughable and lovable.

Miscellaneous Posts:

Personal:

Batched the first week of the month as Mrs B was still out in California visiting family. Got sick in the middle of the month for a couple of days and then worked and read, worked and read. I just felt super busy the whole month even when things were going fine.

Had a baptism at church, which was really nice, went to a company lunch one friday (which was great because we still got paid but didn’t have to work those 3hrs), visited the SDA church one Saturday and tried to get a game of boardgame Doom going with my brother.

WordPress “updated” in the background at some point this month and they broke the ability to copy/paste multiple items into the Title bar of a post. Since I c/p the title, series and rating, I had to figure out an alternate way. I emailed WP and they confirmed it was the update doing the breaking and they also confirmed it wouldn’t be fixed at least until the next update. So I had to start using blogger as my primary blog and then WP as the backup. Blogging is just becoming a hassle and WordPress seems fixed on their course of driving away the casual blogger. I am really stressed about it. It is cumulative stress too, so it doesn’t go away. The block editor, which I am used to, still makes me angry to use, WP’s various shenanigans with their plans and addons and crap and now something “basic” isn’t working. It feels like I am dragging a ball and chain behind me every time I go to blog and I am starting to really, really, really hate it.

My Librarything usage has also been dropping and since the few people I interacted with on a social level had dwindled as well, I began cutting back at LT soon after the month began. Starting this week I’ve cut the cord completely. One less place I have to copy/paste and keep track of information. I feel like I’m re-trenching on multiple fronts. That’s not good, because you only retrench when you’re in a war, and usually only when you are losing that war. Reviewing has become a war that I’m losing. While I know my moods affect how I feel about blogging, the fact that I am feeling this way at all about it is a big fat warning sign to me. I’ll be giving it all some serious consideration over the coming months.

Plans for Next Month:

September is going to be a very full blogging month. So much so that I’ll be double posting on Mondays. One will be the typical Magic the Gathering post and the next one will be a book review, hopefully at noon. Might be some timing issues due to WP being idiotic but it will at least go up on my site at noon.

I’ve got to write about September 11 and do the next Muppets thing and everything else will be book reviews, book reviews, book reviews. I have GOT to get caught up, so September gets to be the month I pack them all in. I know book review posts aren’t as fun to read, but my backlog has almost doubled between the reading time I had while in California and the sick time I had this month. So prepare yourselves to be socked between the eyes. If I feel the need to write some other non-book review stuff, well, then that’ll be another double posting day as well.

Tuesday, August 30, 2022

Wyper the Berserker (One Piece #28) ★★☆☆☆

Title: Wyper the Berserker
Series: One Piece #28
Arc: Skypiea #5
Author: Eiichiro Oda
Rating: 2 of 5 Stars
Genre: Manga
Pages: 185
Words: 8K

Synopsis:

From Wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_One_Piece_chapters_(187_388)

“Wyper the Berserker”

“Dial Battle”

“The Many Souths”

“Pirate Zoro vs. Warrior Braham”

“Pirate Luffy vs. Berserker Wyper”

“Warrior Genbo vs. Heavenly Warriors Commander Yama”

“Pirate Chopper vs. Vassal Gedatsu”

“Pirate Nami and the Weird Knight vs. Heavenly Warriors Subcommanders Hotori and Kotori”

“Warrior Kamakiri vs. Kami Eneru”

With the war’s start, Eneru decides to make a bet: of the eighty-one combatants currently on Skypiea (the Straw Hats, the Shandians, and his own forces), only five will remain in three hours’ time. The Shandians engage Eneru’s forces, the remaining priests fight the Shandians, and the Straw Hats fight whoever is left. After two hours, the number of active combatants dwindles to twenty-five. Luffy mistakes a giant snake’s mouth for a cave.

My Thoughts:

This is just about 180 pages of people fighting each other while screaming how impossible everything the other person is doing. Over and Over and Over again. I am at the point in my life where displays like this don’t do a thing for me. And splitting everyone up so I get to see 3-5 different fights REALLY doesn’t do it for me.

This was the last volume I read back when I was reading One Piece as it was released in english. I can totally understand why I stopped here. Big, flashy and confusing fights simply do not hold my attention. Not anymore. It’s not like I’m going to stop this time but I must admit, Oda-sensei better get off his keister and start telling a story again.

All My “One Piece” Reviews

Monday, August 29, 2022

Armageddon Clock - MTG 4th Edition

Sunday, August 28, 2022

Richard III ★★★✬☆

Title: Richard III
Author: William Shakespeare
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Play
Pages: 312
Words: 90K

Synopsis:

From Wikipedia

The play begins with Richard of Gloucester describing the re-accession to the throne of his brother, King Edward IV of England, eldest son of the late Richard, Duke of York (implying the year is 1471):

Now is the winter of our discontent

Made glorious summer by this sun of York;

And all the clouds that lour’d upon our house

In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.

Richard is an ugly hunchback, “rudely stamp’d”, “deformed, unfinish’d”, cannot “strut before a wanton ambling nymph”, and says he is “determined to prove a villain / And hate the idle pleasures of these days.” Through a prophecy, that “G of Edward’s heirs the murderer shall be”, he has contrived to have his brother Clarence conducted to the Tower of London (the king interpreted the prophecy as George of Clarence, but the prophecy could just as easily refer to Richard of Gloucester). Speaking to Clarence en route, Richard blames the queen and says that he will himself try to help Clarence. Richard continues plotting:

I’ll marry Warwick’s youngest daughter.

What, though I kill’d her husband and her father?

Lady Anne attends the corpse of Henry VI with Trestle and Berkeley going from St Paul’s Cathedral. She bids them set down the “honourable load” then laments. Richard appears, and Lady Anne says that “Henry’s wounds […] bleed afresh”. He confesses the murder, and she spits at him. He offers himself to her sword, but she drops it. He offers to kill himself at her order, but she accepts his ring. Richard exults at having won her over so and tells the audience that he will discard her once she has served his purpose.

The atmosphere at court is poisonous. The established nobles are at odds with the upwardly mobile relatives of Queen Elizabeth, a hostility fueled by Richard’s machinations. Queen Margaret, Henry VI’s widow, returns, though banished, and she warns the squabbling nobles about Richard, cursing extensively. The nobles, all Yorkists, unite against this last Lancastrian and ignore the warnings.

Richard orders two murderers to kill Clarence in the tower. Clarence relates a distressing dream to his keeper before going to sleep. The murderers arrive with a warrant, and the keeper relinquishes his office. While the murderers are pondering what to do, Clarence wakes. He recognises their purpose and pleads with them. Presuming that Edward has offered them payment, he tells them to go to Gloucester, who will reward them better for having kept him alive. One of the murderers explains that Gloucester hates him and sent them. Pleading again, he is eventually interrupted by “Look behind you, my lord” and stabbing (1478).

The compacted nobles pledge absent enmities before Edward, and Elizabeth asks Edward to receive Clarence into favour. Richard rebukes her, saying: “Who knows not that the gentle duke is dead?”. Edward, who has confessed himself near death, is much upset by this news and led off. Richard blames those attending Edward. Edward IV soon dies (1483), leaving Richard as Protector. Lord Rivers, Lord Grey, and Sir Thomas Vaughan, have been imprisoned. The uncrowned Edward V and his brother are coaxed (by Richard) into an extended stay at the Tower of London.

Assisted by his cousin Buckingham, Richard mounts a campaign to present himself as the true heir to the throne, pretending to be a modest and devout man with no pretensions to greatness. Lord Hastings, who objects to Richard’s accession, is arrested and executed on a trumped-up charge of treason. Richard and Buckingham spread the rumour that Edward’s two sons are illegitimate and therefore have no rightful claim to the throne, and they are assisted by Catesby, Ratcliffe, and Lovell. The other lords are cajoled into accepting Richard as king despite the continued survival of his nephews (the Princes in the Tower).

Richard asks Buckingham to secure the death of the princes, but Buckingham hesitates. Richard then recruits Sir James Tyrrell who kills both children. When Richard denies Buckingham a promised land grant, Buckingham turns against Richard and defects to the side of Henry, Earl of Richmond, who is currently in exile. Richard has his eye on Elizabeth of York, Edward IV’s next remaining heir, and poisons Lady Anne so he can be free to woo the princess. The Duchess of York and Queen Elizabeth mourn the princes’ deaths. Queen Margaret meets them. As predicted, Queen Elizabeth asks Queen Margaret for help in cursing. Later, the Duchess applies this lesson and curses her only surviving son before leaving. Richard asks Queen Elizabeth to help him win her daughter’s hand in marriage. She is not taken in by his eloquence, and stalls him by saying that she will let him know her daughter’s answer in due course.

The increasingly paranoid Richard loses what popularity he had. He faces rebellions, led first by Buckingham and subsequently by the invading Richmond. Buckingham is captured and executed. Both sides arrive for a final battle at Bosworth Field. Prior to the battle, Richard is sleeping and visited by the ghosts of his victims, each telling him to “Despair and die”. They likewise attend and wish victory on Richmond. Richard wakes, screaming “Jesus”, then realises that he is all alone and cannot even pity himself.

At the Battle of Bosworth Field (1485), Lord Stanley (who is also Richmond’s stepfather) and his followers desert Richard, whereupon Richard calls for the execution of George Stanley, hostage and Lord Stanley’s son. But this does not happen, as the battle is in full swing, and Richard is at a disadvantage. Richard is unhorsed on the field, and cries out, “A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse”. Richmond kills Richard and claims the throne as Henry VII.

My Thoughts:

I ended up enjoying this more than I thought I would. Richard is a despicable character and I enjoyed seeing his rise to power because I knew his fall was sudden and immediate (at least in the play. In real life, no idea). At the same time, he is a mesmerizing character and it was baffling to see others fall into his clutches because of his honeyed tongue while his actions were in direct contradiction. He was a great example of unchecked power

However, this was very long. A play at over 300 pages seems excessive to me and trying to cram Richard’s entire rise and fall into one play, well, Shakespeare gave Henry VI 3 plays for goodness sake!Of course, if somethings had been cut altogether, it probably would have been better.

This play, while I enjoyed it, made me realize that my capacity for Shakespeare has definite limits. As such, I’m going to give him another break until next year. Then I’ll have to decide whether to do a 6month stint or to space them further apart (or is that “farther”? That’s one of those things I simply cannot get my head about. I’m good with “to”, “two” and “too” but further/farther, I’m lost). Any thoughts?

All My Shakespeare Reviews

Saturday, August 27, 2022

Angles of Attack (Galaxy's Edge: Dark Operator #5) ★★★☆☆

Title: Angles of Attack
Series: Galaxy’s Edge: Dark Operator #5
Author: Doc Spears
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Mil-SF
Pages: 330
Words: 113K

Synopsis:

From Galaxysedge.fandom.com & Me

The galaxy follows a logical structure.

Legion Dark Operator Kel Turner believed that.

To know the order of battle and how an enemy unit was organized was to know its purpose and how to destroy it. That logic existed down to the smallest scale, down to what made up life itself. To know a molecule’s structure was to know its function—they were one and the same. It was no different for Kel. He was Dark Ops and Dark Ops was him. Down to his last cell and very soul.

But the covert action arm of the Legion is changing. And so is he. And if Dark Ops is no longer the same, how could Kel be Kel?

From fighting a gray war against a cunning adversary bent on genocide, to slogging through a jungle hell full of rabid dog-men, Kel won’t stop until the mission is complete. He was his mission. But if the day comes when there would no longer be a Dark Ops for Kel, what would his mission be then?

Who would he become?

Once Dark Ops becomes public knowledge amongst the Legion, Kel realizes his time is done. He leaves the Legion and goes back to his girlfriend and her family.

My Thoughts:

This is the final Dark Operator book. It was chockfull of military adventure stuff and things were speeding along at about a million miles an hour. Then it just ends. The reader doesn’t even get the ending from Kel’s perspective, like the whole series has been. He leaves, leaves a letter and we get told all of it from Kel’s superiors.

I seriously thought about giving this one star for that kind of ending. It was like a right hook out of no where and it was not a pleasant experience. It showed me that “Doc Spears” doesn’t know how to write an ending to save his life. As such I’ll probably avoid any more GE books by him (I don’t think he’s written anymore thankfully) and I definitely won’t be checking out any non-GE books by him.

With all of that bellyaching out of the way, I can say that up until the ending, I was enjoying the ever living daylights out of this. There was boatloads of military action and Kel was kicking butt and slitting throats left and right. It was one of the best Dark Operator stories so far. And I think that is why the ending hit me so hard. It was like running at full speed and hitting a brick wall. That hurts a lot. Now if you were just walking, it would still hurt, but not nearly as bad.

This brings me face to face with the decision of where to go next with Anspach and Cole. Galaxy’s Edge season two has 2 more books before it finishes up. The penultimate book doesn’t come out until sometimes in September, so who knows when the final book will be published. That leaves me with A&C’s other series, Forgotten Ruins. There are currently 6 books in that series and book 7 will be published in December. See, talk about being caught on the horns of a dilemma. I trust you will all commiserate with me in this most difficult of times.

* cue dramatic yet totally manly pose *