Bookstooge's Reviews On the Road

Sunday, January 29, 2023

Three Doors to Death (Nero Wolfe #16) ★★★✬☆

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Title: Three Doors to Death
Series: Nero Wolfe #16
Author: Rex Stout
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Mystery
Pages: 151
Words: 65K

A collection of three novellas. I am finding that I do not enjoy these collections nearly as much as the full novels. There is nothing wrong with the novellas collected together but it is like getting one serving of eggnog (1/2cup, misers!) when I want to simply chug about 3cups worth of the stuff.

Plus, in one of the stories not only does Wolfe leave his house, but he goes blundering about in the dark, in the snow, through a stream, to break into a house. I found it too unbelievable. It would have been like me recommending the Tripitakas to all of you. Inconceivable!

I am tempted to skip all of the books with “Three” in the title so I don’t have to deal with this, but the fact is that I still do enjoy these and skipping them would make me sad. So it’s time to pull up my big boy pants and just read the books. All of them. The Great and Powerful Bookstooge will never be accused of not manning up.

★★★✬☆

All My “Nero Wolfe” Reviews

Saturday, January 28, 2023

PCP: The Cover & Intro

The Cover

The Intro

So there’s the beginning of Project Christmas Present. Obviously, our names have been very cleverly redacted and with my grand computer graphics skills nobody will be able to tell what was even edited.

All “Project Christmas Present” Posts

Friday, January 27, 2023

Cain’s Last Stand (WH40K: Ciaphas Cain #6) ★★★✬☆

Title: Cain’s Last Stand
Series: WH40K: Ciaphas Cain #6
Authors: Sandy Mitchell
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 326
Words: 110K

This really should have been called Ciaphas Cain versus Space Hitler. Cain is retired and teaching on the world where the Shadow artifact is and suddenly a chaos fleet is on its way to take over the planet and find the artifact. They are led by a small, dumpy guy with a small mustache who can turn even the most ardent Emperor Botherer (Cain’s description) into a full supporter of chaos, who is Space Hitler. It was pretty blatant and made me laugh. Unfortunately, he and Cain only have one encounter and Cain wins by pushing him over a cliff. Yeah, for real. And it made me laugh too. But I was hoping for more fighting between them. Oh well

You’d think from the title and the fact that Cain is in his late 100’s (hadn’t hit 200 yet I don’t think) that this was going to be the last book, but nope, there are at least 3 more and I think I saw that a 10^th one recently came out?
* elevator music *
Ok, so it was 2018, but that’s recent as far as I’m concerned.

I was pleased by my read of this and if I could find some more non-Space Marine Warhammer 40K stories, I’d be very tempted to dive into them after this series. Wanting to read more is usually a good sign.

★★★✬☆

All My “Ciaphas Cain” Reviews

Thursday, January 26, 2023

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #13 ★★☆☆☆

Title: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #13
Authors: Peter Laird & Kevin Eastman
Rating: 2 of 5 Stars
Genre: Comics
Pages: 47
Words: 2K

So, this is not written OR drawn by Eastman or Laird. Some guy I’ve never heard of is heading the helm. Don’t have a good feeling about this.

Space President Queen Chick ambushes Space President Peasant Chick, who crashes to Earth and is rescued by the boys. Space Elections are apparently decided by combat. So everybody fights and President Peasant defeats President Queen by branding her with what appears to be a weiner (seriously, I kid you not). President Peasant promises justice and fairness for everyone and the local Space Spaceship takes her back to rule her planet. The end.

This was pretty bad. The story was about what I’d expect FROM a fifth grader and the artwork, well, it was on par with the number 2 pencil drawings I’ve seen so far. I’m going to give this series until #15 to improve and if it doesn’t (and I’m not very hopeful) then I’ll be cutting my losses and trying to find some other comic to read.

Once again, if anyone has any ideas for comics for me to try out, shoot me a comment please.

★★☆☆☆

All My “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” Reviews

Wednesday, January 25, 2023

Better Off Dead (Victor the Assassin #4) ★★★☆☆

Title: Better Off Dead
Series: Victor the Assassin #4
Authors: Tom Wood
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Action/Adventure
Pages: 257
Words: 115K

Victor helps out the daughter of a Russian Mob Boss who he used to have ties with. Said Mob Boss was also married to a woman who Victor loved from afar, because he knew no woman could survive being involved with him. So while the daughter isn’t his daughter, she is emotionally. And it turns out it is because the daughter read a legal brief that mentioned a high ranking British Intelligence woman who is trying to clean up her past, by any means necessary.

Lots of killing ensues. And car chases. And big russian mobsters getting cut to rags by corrupt american special forces. And Victor killing them in turn.

This series has a very simple premise and Wood does a good job of sticking to it and not trying to turn Victor into something he’s not. I appreciate that simplicity.

★★★☆☆

All of My “Victor the Assassin” Reviews

Tuesday, January 24, 2023

Boyhood (The Russians) ★★★☆☆

Title: Boyhood
Series: (The Russians)
Author: Leo Tolstoy
Translator: Unknown
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Autobiographical Fiction
Pages: 98
Words: 28K

A quick sketch of Tolstoy’s tween and teen years. I believe this is the middle part of a trilogy (childhood, boyhood and youth) and as such, should have been read together. This just abruptly ends after a chapter and that makes it obvious this was chopped up into the 3 volumes for no good reason. Also, this “complete collection” of Tolstoy’s works are put together alphabetically and thus it will be a little bit before I get to Childhood and VERY long time before I hit Youth.

This was a bit of a tough read because Tolstoy is honest about portraying himself as a teenager and man, I always forget what self-absorbed twat-heads teenagers are. There’s a reason I don’t even attempt to help out with middle or highschool sunday school 😀 It doesn’t help that there is a good bit of class awareness going on here and that is so foreign to me that it’s very jarring. I also don’t know how much is straight biography and how much is fictional.

The ironic thing is I can identify with a LOT of what he writes, even from the teenage perspective. Self-absorbed introverts have a lot in common, no matter the country, the culture or the time they lived. Of course, I’m not going to go on and become a world famous author whose works live on to shape the future, but you know, I’m really ok with that. That would be a lot of pressure and I don’t mind saying I ain’t got no time for dat!

Judging this portion, Boyhood, on its own, I wouldn’t like Tolstoy as a person. But that’s true of most teens, so it doesn’t surprise me, hahahahaa 😀

On a final note, that cover is totally misleading. This book records him from about 12-15 or so. He’s not a child in this and I find the cover set my mind down a path of him being a child. Of course, the only other covers I could find showed him as a full adult with the big white russian beard, so that was even worse in my opinion.

★★★☆☆

Monday, January 23, 2023

Blue Mana Battery - MTG 4th Edition

Sunday, January 22, 2023

James and the Giant Peach ★★★★★

Title: James and the Giant Peach
Authors: Roald Dahl
Rating: 5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Childrens Fiction
Pages: 131
Words: 26K

I don’t know what it was this time around, but this read was perfect in every sense of the word. It was amusing. It was appropriately macabre in the proper Dahl fashion (James’ aunts get squashed by the giant peach after all). It was silly. And it had a happy ending.

I doubt I’m ever going to re-read this again, and considering this was perfect this time around, I’m perfectly ok with leaving my memories of it in pristine condition. Sometimes when life is tough, you need a simple story where everything works out ok. That’s what this was for me this time around. I hand out a literal handful of 5stars each year, so when I do, you know I’m serious.

Sometimes life is hard. It can be messy and complicated and no path is the best one. As adults we all know this, have experienced it and we know we can’t shut our eyes and pretend it away. It doesn’t work that way. And we see what happens to people who do try to pretend it away. Drugs, drinking, excess in some form or another. But while I read this for the 60minutes it took, I could shut my eyes, take a breath, let it all slide from me and when I was done, head right back into the roles and responsibilities I have to deal with. This is why I read mainly fiction. It allows me to escape in a controlled manner. Let’s me catch my breath so I can keep on swimming.

★★★★★

Saturday, January 21, 2023

The Christmas Present - Intro

In my December R&R post, I made mention of a gift for Mrs B that took some time to create. It was small book, about 20 pages or less where I told a fable’ized version of our initial meeting and what came after. I commissioned some art work for it and with some help used Snapfish to put it all together.

With it being so many pages, I have decided to post a page or four each Saturday until I’ve put it all up. I won’t be able to use the gothic font or marble’ized background, and I’ll be changing the names, but other than that….. hahahaaa. I even tried to see if I could go back into Snapfish and download it as a series of images, but no cigar. Since I ordered it, they won’t let me edit it or work on it.

I thought about taking pictures of it all, but since it has our real names and real names of some of our friends, well, that’s just not an option either. Sometimes it is tough to be paranoid 😉 I am hoping to have this all posted by the end of February.

Cheers!

Friday, January 20, 2023

Violence of Action (Forgotten Ruin #3) ★★★☆☆

Title: Violence of Action
Series: Forgotten Ruin #3
Author: Jason Anspach & Nick Cole
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Military Fantasy
Pages: 249
Words: 85K

Hey, would you look at that? There’s an actual story in this book! AND. I only counted 2 instances of Anspach and Cole (the authors) rimming the rangers. Talk about a relief.

So the rangers have to take down Smog the evil green dragon who is in an alliance with other evil powers that menace the kingdom of men. They take him out and rescue a bunch of captive elves and find the King of the Elves, who Last of Autumn is betrothed to. So no more googly eyes for the narrator at his elven lady love. Awww, so sad. Honestly, I was expecting her to die a horrible death, so at least this way she stays alive. Hard core military types are married to the Service and a wife comes in a distant second. Very few relationships can survive that.

This was the kind of story I was waiting for since the very beginning. Special Forces setting themselves an objective and then killing everything that stands in the way of them accomplishing that objective. I am definitely going to keep reading the series now but I simply can’t recommend it to anyone else. The first 2 books just destroy any chance of that. I’ve never been in this situation before, where the first couple of books are absolutely terrible and then improve dramatically. Usually I’m done with a series before that point (or it never does improve, which is what usually ends up happening).

I also can’t recommend starting here because then you’d be lost. Why is the Ranger Captain a were-tiger? Who is Last of Autumn and why is it so shattering to the narrator that they rescue her betrothed? Who is this evil Vampire SEAL? All of the big points get covered, so in that regards you could start here, but all those little things like what I mention, well, good luck. I guess this is for super-hard-core Anspach & Cole fans OR super duper military types who like annoying narrators. I’m glad I stuck through to this point but it pretty much ate up all the goodwill A&C have built up with me. They don’t get any more chances from me.

After the main story is a small “prequel” story that starts to introduce why everything in the Ruin is so Dungeons and Dragons. Long and short, a crazy genius woman, whose only good memories were of a summer when she got to play some D&D with other normal kids, goes off the rails completely and uses nanotech to start changing the world. It was complete “scyenze” but it sounded cool and was good enough for me. And since this is pure fiction and not “A Message From They Who Know Better Than Poor Plebian Me” masquerading as a story, I have no problem with said scyenze being used.

★★★☆☆

All My “Forgotten Ruin” Reviews