His Last Bow (Sherlock Holmes #8) ★★★✬☆

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: His Last Bow
Series: Sherlock Holmes #8
Author: Arthur Doyle
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Mystery
Pages: 233
Words: 67K

I went into this thinking this was the final entry in the Sherlock Holmes canon by Doyle. Another fine collection of short stories. But when I clicked the button on my kindle to turn what I thought was the final page, it appears that there is another whole book, The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes, after this one. I must admit, that stuck in my mind more than any of the stories in this collection did.

There was not a bad story here. I don’t remember thinking, even once, “Man, I wish this story had been cut”. But at the same time, nothing was very memorable either. I hesitate to call this collection mediocre but it is really leaning that way. If it weren’t for Sherlock Holmes being such a foundational character to the whole mystery genre, I think I would have labeled this mediocre.

I have not been tagging any of these Holmes reviews with the “classic” tag because I have not really enjoyed the stories. But the truth of the matter is that these stories have shown they have staying power and still interest people today. So I am adding that tag to this review and am mentally adding it to my previous reviews (mentally only, because I don’t care enough to go and do the actual work. Ain’t nobody got time for ‘dat!).

Thinking about my feelings about Doyle and his whoring out by writing more Sherlock stories even when he was done with the character brought to mind his modern counterpart and opposite, GRR Martin. Doyle tried to kill off his series and end it while Martin has simply refused to finish his series and admitted that the tv show ending is all that fans are going to get. On one hand I castigate Doyle for being a literary whore and on the other I castigate Martin for being a bastard. Authors just can’t win with me. Which is why I like my authors either dead or as names only and not as people.

The reason I write that is because reading a book, or a series of books, involves more than just the words on the page. Our emotions are part of the process, whether good or bad and we have to realize that. Which is why it is important to follow a blogger over a longer period of time (more than a week, for goodness sake!) to see how they judge things. Just because somebody likes Dune by Frank Herbert doesn’t mean my tastes are going to align with theirs most of the time. And just because I rate a favorite book of yours highly doesn’t mean I’m going to review books that you want to see reviewed. The whole intersection between book reviewing and blogging is still on my mind and so these peculiar thoughts pop up at the oddest times and I have to get them out where I can so I don’t forget about them. I realize it can overshadow the book itself (I think I’ve written more about this than the actual book) but I don’t read books in a vacuum and is part of the whole blogging experience. Trying to divorce myself from that aspect of writing is what led me to take off the whole month of October this year.

When I read a book, tangential thoughts pop up like moles. And when I go to write about that tangential thought in the review, it can lead me down paths that have almost nothing to do with the book in question. I do try to be careful and post the road signs so I’m not just jumping from one random thought to another, but sometimes that happens because it happens in my head.

All of that is a roundabout way of saying that just because a particular review might be short doesn’t mean I don’t have a boatload of thoughts on the book. Most of the time I just don’t want to go down the rabbit trails and all the various cliffs they inevitably lead to. Sherlock Holmes might be able to read my mind by knowing my word choice, but I don’t expect any of you who follow me to do such a thing.

And if you think this review was incoherent and chaotic, you’re correct. I had to do a 12hr fast for blood work labs and was wicked hungry when I wrote this. Tough to think straight when all you can have is water :-/

★★★✬☆

• All of my “Sherlock Holmes” reviews

[Repost] 50 Questions Answered by the Inestimable Bookstooge

I was looking through some of my older posts before I came fully to WordPress and ran across Answer All these Random Questions one. It made me laugh so I thought I’d share again. Ahhh, I do miss Booklikes….

This was Originally Posted in 2016.

1. Do you sleep with your closet doors open or closed?
Open. Too much effort in the morning to have to open them again.

2. Do you sleep with your sheets tucked in or out?
I roll around in my sleep, a lot. So they end up un-tucked.

3. Have you ever stolen a street sign before?
No.

4. Do you cut out coupons and never use them?
Yep. Then I quit when I realized what a time waster it was for me.

5. Would you rather be attacked by bears or bees?
In the woods: a bear. at least I could fight it off with my machete.
In the non-woods: bees. Easy to get treatment for.

6. Do you have freckles?
Yes

7. Do you always smile for pictures?
An emphatic no.

8. Do you ever count your steps when you walk?
Sometimes. More likely to count cars going the opposite direction from me when driving. Or count utility poles. Until I force myself to stop.

9. Have you ever peed in the woods?
Every workday. It’s just part of the job.

10. What about pooped in the woods?
Yes. Not fun, but circumstances leave you with no choice when you’re 1/2mile from any civilization.

11. Do you chew your pens and pencils?
No.

12. What’s your song of the week?
I don’t listen to music on the radio.

13. Is it okay for guys to wear pink?
As a man, I can speak authoritatively on this. And I will.
It is PERFECTLY OK to wear pink.
if you’re not a man.

14. Do you still watch Cartoons?
Absolutely. Spongebob never fails to entertain me.

15. What do you drink with dinner?
Usually one of those no-calorie flavored drink mixes you add to a 1/2 liter of water.
2022 Answer is: Vanilla Coke Zero!

16. What do you dip a chicken nugget in?
Nothing

17. What’s your favourite food?
Pizza.

18. Were you ever a boy/girl scout?
No.

19. Would you ever strip or pose naked for a magazine?
No. I have my dignity.
And I feel only sadness for those who do do such things. What kind of life are they living where they feel it necessary to do that?

20. Have you ever gotten a speeding ticket?
Yes. But not in the last 10 years.

21. Favorite kind of sandwich?
Bologna and cheese on whole wheat bread.

22. Best thing to eat for breakfast?
Rice krispies and hardboiled eggs. Quick, easy and almost no cleanup.

23. What’s your usual bedtime?
I start getting read by 9pm and if I’m good, 9:45pm. If I’m bad, I’ll stay up to 11 reading. And then I pay for it the next morning. I need 8hrs of sleep. Not 7.

24. Are you lazy?
Like you wouldn’t believe. We’re lucky if I vacuum the house twice a month.

25. What is your Chinese astrology sign?
I am theologically and philosophically opposed to mysticism. So I avoid this kind of thing like the plague.

26. How many languages can you speak?

Three:
American
Iglatinpay
Chinese-o.

27. Do you have any magazine subscriptions?
No. I haven’t had a magazine subscription since Scrye in the 90’s.

28. Are you stubborn?
Not at all. I’m the most laid back, easy to please, easy to get along with guy you’ll ever meet.

29. Are you afraid of heights?
Yep. Both hands on the ladder kind of guy.

30. Do you sing in the car?
I only listen to preachers and newsmen in the car.

31. Do you ever dance in the car?
How is that even possible?

32. Ever used a gun?
Absolutely. Own them too. Probably going to get my first sub-compact handgun this year in fact.
oh, little did I know when I wrote that answer. You can call me Mr Guns AND Ammo in 2022.

33. Last time you got a portrait taken by a photographer?
Highschool in the mid 90’s.

34. Do you think muscles are cheesy?
No.

35. Favorite type of fruit pie?
Banana cream pie or Pumpkin.

36. Occupation you wanted to be when you were a kid?
I don’t ever remember thinking about this.

37. Do you believe in ghosts?
Not in the sense of someone’s spirit being here in this world after death. Demons masquerading as said spirits, then yes

.
38. Ever had a deja-vu feeling?
Yes.

39. First concert?
Never

40. Nike or Adidas?
Don’t care

41. Ever take dance lessons?
No.

42. Regularly burn incense?
It is a fire hazard. So no.

43. Who would you like to see in concert?
Enya? But her music is multi-layered, so I’m not sure how well that would work out live in concert.

44. Hot tea or cold tea?
Iced chai. But that is it.

45. Tea or Coffee?
Coffee. Unless it is a hot afternoon, then I’ll take the iced chai.

46. Can you swim well?
No. Enough to save my life, but that is about it.

47. Are you patient?
Absolutely. In fact, in some circles I am known as Saint Bookstooge, patron saint of Patient People.

48. DJ or band at a wedding?
Neither. Both are too loud and annoying.

49. Which are better, black or green olives?
Black on pizza. but green with pimento’s straight out of the jar.

50. Would you rather live in a fictional world or the real world?
Real world. God I can trust. A human author, not so much.

Black Ward - MTG 4th Edition

Lucia’s Progress (Mapp & Lucia #5) ★★★✬☆

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: Lucia’s Progress
Series: Mapp & Lucia #5
Authors: E.F. Benson
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Humorous Fiction
Pages: 289
Words: 84K

So Lucia takes center stage again. Mapp, having married the Colonel, is now trying to domesticate him AND still be the preeminent woman of the town. She fakes being pregnant, runs for Town Council (and loses right along with Lucia) and generally continues to make a nuisance of herself. Lucia meanwhile, works in the background and pretty much succeeds at everything she does. While she also loses the election for Town Council, she wheedles her way into it after the fact and by the end of the book is probably going to be the first female Mayor. She also marries Georgie, of all people. Talk about an Odd Couple.

I think I enjoyed this book a little bit more than some of the previous ones. Most of it was because the drama, while “big”, was handled in such a way that it was almost matter of fact and not raising my blood pressure.

I also had to practically chortle over Lucia and Georgie getting married. He’s as fuddy duddy and yet dandy’ish as you could ask for in a middle aged gentleman who still thinks that nobody knows he dyes his hair. He likes to knit and do water colors too. He just wants a comfortable life and for someone else to do all the driving. Lucia is more than glad to take charge and considering she and Georgie play the piano together and do almost everything together, them getting married was more of a convenience thing than a passionate midlife crisis thing. Like I said, it made me laugh and that was good.

While I did say I enjoyed this more than most of the previous books, there were still some things that bugged me so I couldn’t really give it 4stars. My main issue remains how backstabb’y, petty and plain vindictive both Mapp and Lucia are towards the other. That is not how people should be. Even if you were to feel like that towards someone, you fight against it and don’t give in to it. It is wrong and to see that wrong’ness marginalized is what bothers me.

There is only one more book in this series and after that I think I’m going to have to go search out some more stuff by Edward Benson. I have enjoyed these very much and so I don’t see why I shouldn’t enjoy some other stuff by him. Of course, that assumes he did actually write other stuff. I have zero knowledge about that and I guess I’ll be finding out in a couple of months.

★★★✬☆

• All My “Mapp & Lucia” Reviews

,

PSA: How To Read 100+ Books A Year

I was “exploring” on WordPress the other month and came across Ahaquir and his blog, Books of Brilliance. He had done a post on how many books an average person in the UK or the US read and I found it interesting. I left a comment, as I usually do and he asked me if I would be interested in writing a guest post detailing how I manage to read 100-150 books a year. If you follow me (and if you don’t, here’s a Quick Primer on Me) you know I have been able to keep this kind of reading pace up for years. I was looking at my Calibre Library (which is a great way to manage your reviews offline if you are so inclined) and noticed that I started reading 100 books in 2006 and haven’t looked back since.

In the interest of “fairness”, because there are people out there who are picky and will be quick to discredit anyone, anytime over any issue for any reason, I must note that I include individual short stories if I read them as standalones and not part of a collection (say from a writer’s website) as well as manga and individual comic books. To compensate for this, I also track the number of pages read as well as the number of words read. So that gives me 3 metrics to measure by, That’s a lot of work and not something most people are going to do, but I wanted you to know how I do things 😀

My method is Simple, but it is not Easy. It is not for everyone and if it is not for you, then you need to be strong enough to admit it. Otherwise you will beat your head against the wall and cause yourself nothing but frustration and possibly anger and that defeats the whole purpose of reading for fun. So without further ado, here is my magic list of how to Read 100+ Books in a Year.

• Make Time For Reading
  -You can do this by the following:
• Turn off the tv
  -seriously. If you watch movies or shows on your laptop, turn that off too. Or your phone.
• Delete your Social Media accounts
  -not just don’t use them, but delete them. If you have trained yourself to go watch kitty videos on Communist-tok or Youtube, that temptation will be too great to overcome. You will have to go cold turkey and it will take time to re-train your brain to accept activities in chunks of time greater than 5 minutes. This is not a diss to those who do such things, but a cold reality.
• Reduce time spent on your other hobbies
  -Do you knit? Play video games? Play card or board games? Cook? Realize that you have to juggle all of them and if reading is the most important hobby to you, give it the time it needs
• ALWAYS carry reading material with you
  -In the spring through fall, I carry my kindle Oasis everywhere I go. When I walk out the door, I check that I have my wallet, my keys, my phone, my insulin pump/meter and my kindle. For the 6 months of winter we have here in New England, I make sure I have a paper book that I can read at a moment’s notice anywhere, anytime.
• When in a social situation, always choose reading over people.
  -People come and go but you only have that year to read those 100 books. Priorities, priorities, priorities.
• Finally, hang out with readers
  -You are influenced, for good or bad, by those you spend time with. Choose people, whether online or in real life, who will help you towards that 100+ goal and not hinder you.

Now, while this has all been slightly tongue in cheek, reading 100+ books a year is completely up to you and within your power. It is not for everyone though. Some people are just too social and they NEED more interaction with people. I have been blessed with an introspective misanthropy, so that’s not a problem for me. But maybe you are one of those poor benighted people who is just full of sunshine and rainbows and loves being around and interacting with people. Then you need to admit that weakness to yourself and accept it. Just like I accept that when I go grocery shopping, I can’t reach the top shelf. There is no shame as long as you accept responsibility for your own shortcomings.

Whether this post helps you to read more or not, I hope it has opened your eyes to the fact that reading is completely within your grasp. There is no magic short cut. You have to put in the time. But you can do it. So go forth and read!

And a big thankyou again to Ahaquir for giving me the shove needed to write this out.

• All of My PSA Posts

Judgment at Proteus (Quadrail #5) ★★★☆☆

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: Judgment at Proteus
Series: Quadrail #5
Authors: Timothy Zahn
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 415
Words: 163K

Let’s get the important issues out of the way first. For this re-read I have been complaining about the covers and how Frank Compton and Bayta look like some 2D design from a spastic 10 year old. So of course the final cover doesn’t have them and it bugs the ever living daylights out of me. I want consistency in my covers, even if the odds are against that. While I HATE the new covers for this series (they have all the artistic merit of a 2year old in the middle of a bout of diarrhea) they at least follow the same formula for every cover. I just can’t win.

And speaking of not winning, Zahn doesn’t really win here either. It is a satisfactory wrap up to the series but it’s so monotone. I feel like Frank Compton’s voice is coming from a drivethrough for a fastfood franchise and he’s a bored teenager who doesn’t want to be at work or helping you. The supposed acceptance of a relationship between Frank and Bayta had all the warmth and humanity of a cold, dead space slug. A GIANT cold, dead space slug in fact. It is the kind of relationship I would want to see between my grandparents (may they rest in peace).

This re-read has solidified in my mind that I am done with Zahn, old or new. I will probably re-read Cobra next year just to see if it holds up or fails like some of the Old Guard did for me in November (Galactic Odyssey, Sentenced to Prism) but other than that, it is time for me to accept that I need to move on.

Getting older sucks, you know that? All of these books and authors that were the foundations of my literary world are suddenly becoming completely irrelevant to me now. It is like if I was a Red Sox fan in 1920, when Babe Ruth moved to the Evil Empire, the Yankees. Babe Ruth who? Timothy Zahn who? Exactly. These changes are new enough to me that I’m not inured to them yet. That will happen, thank goodness, but until it does, it’s just low level misery. It’s like getting a flu shot and suffering for the weekend.

Overall, a decent story and a decent series. Just not for me any more.

★★★☆☆

• Night Train to Rigel (Book 1)
• The Third Lynx (Book 2)
• Odd Girl Out (Book 3)
• The Domino Pattern (Book 4)
• Judgment at Proteus (2012 Review)

Groo Meets the Thespians (Groo the Wanderer #12) ★★★✬☆

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: Groo Meets the Thespians
Series: Groo the Wanderer #12
Author: Sergio Aragones
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Comics
Pages: 23
Words: 2K

Groo ends up with a group of actors without realizing they are actors and saves the evil king in the play. This sends the audiences into stitches and Groo becomes famous. After many, many, many attempts, the actors finally get across to Groo that it is all fake and he’s just supposed to stand there as a guard and not do anything.

So what happens next?

They go to a kingdom ruled by an evil king, where two of the actors have been hired to kill the king. Groo thinks it is all acting and even when the evil king says he’ll give Groo one third of his kingdom, he just stands by. So the actors kill the king, the two noblemen who hired them then turn on the actors to cover up their part in the plan and Groo turns on everybody when he realizes it was real and he could have been rich, rich, rich. I had to laugh even while wondering how someone this dumb could survive on his own 😀

There was also an ad for some cartoons. Maaaaan, that brought back some memories.

While we didn’t watch tv on Saturday (that was part of how we kept the Sabbath) and our tv during the week was strictly limited, the times I’d go over to a friends house (usually my friend Jimmy) I’d binge. Or, binge as much a kid could who had too much energy and needed to get outside and moving 😀 I do remember the Jetsons though. Poor George getting yelled at all the time by his boss and I can remember even having a crush on Judy, the teenage daughter. Ahhh, those were the days. The halcyon golden age of childrens television. Then Barney and the Teletubbies came along and ruined everything.

★★★✬☆

• All of My “Groo the Wanderer” Reviews

The Game (Victor the Assassin #3) ★★★☆☆

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 Game
Series: Victor the Assassin #3
Authors: Tom Wood
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Action/Adventure
Pages: 405
Words: 115K

Victor, now working for the CIA, kills a fellow assassin, who had taken out an American. Can’t let that kind of behavior stand, so Victor does the deed. Only for the CIA to find out that this merc had been recruited to pull off a “big job” and without him, they have zero leads. So Victor has to pretend to be the merc and find out what’s going on and to stop it if necessary. We get a new CIA liaison for Victor and I must say, she was simply incompetent and improbable. Every time she meets up with Victor she’s all worried about him and bemoaning that she placed him in “such a dangerous situation”. I think the author was trying to show that she wasn’t a ruthless scumbag like Victor’s previous handler, but man, it came across the wrong way.

So Victor has to join a group of mercs but he doesn’t know what the job entails. It gets to the point where he’s about to walk out the door because of the lack of details and suddenly the criminal mastermind reveals that he has kidnapped a woman and child who he thinks are Victor’s (as he is pretending to be another man), so as to blackmail him. As soon as Victor didn’t kill everyone, I knew where this was going and once another mercenary was killed by the top mercenary, I knew where THAT was going. Everything turns into an electric boogaloo doublecross, only Victor goes all noble and saves the wife and kid. And the big bad plot? To kill a russian security officer. It was kind of disappointing that it wasn’t a nuke, or a plague or something!

So nothing bad here, just a mundane action/adventure story. I think that’s how the whole series is going to be and so I need to adjust my expectations accordingly.

★★★☆☆

• The Killer (Book 1)
• The Enemy (Book 2)

Writing Prompts - How to Disable Them on Wordpress

In yet another totally incomprehensible and bone headed move, WordPress.com, in all its wisdom, decided that we needed “writing prompts” whenever we started a new post. As far as I know, nobody asked for this. No blogger needs this. If they do, they should go to some other social media where being completely brain dead is the norm. I was so angry (surprise, surprise) that I immediately fired off a patent pending “Angry Bookstooge” email to support to find out just what in hecker freckers was going on. They replied with their usual pablum and non-reasoning and so I figured I was stuck with this abomination of stupidity.

Patent Pending “Angry Bookstooge” Email

I received an email follow up from WP.com late last week informing me of an “update” where I could opt out of this filthy, disgusting and utterly vile practice. Here’s the steps so you can opt out too if you so choose:

• My Sites
• Settings
• Writing

Then you can toggle off the “show writing prompts”. Just make sure to save after doing that so your choice is saved.

I hope this has been helpful. As WP.com changes things, randomly, for no reason and against all good sense, expect more little posts like this as I navigate the minefields of trying to stay here while simultaneously wishing every person at WP.com was being worked over, and good, by Pinhead.

Black Vise - MTG 4th Edition