Bookstooge's Reviews On the Road

Sunday, March 12, 2023

Stories To Stay Awake By ★★★✬☆

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Title: Stories To Stay Awake By
Series: ———-
Editor: Alfred Hitchcock
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Crime Fiction
Pages: 198
Words: 78K

Table of Contents:
Introduction by Alfred Hitchcock (ghost written)

Success of a Mission by William Arden

The Splintered Monday by Charlotte Armstrong

Death by Judicial Hanging by Francis Beeding

Floral Tribute by Robert Bloch

Red Wine by Lawrence G. Blochman

Canavan’s Back Yard by Joseph Payne Brennan

A Murderous Slice by Marguerite Dickinson

The New Deal by Charles Einstein

Boomerang by Guy Fleming

Sleep is the Enemy by Anthony Gilbert

The Second Coming by Joe Gores

From the Mouse to the Hawk by Dion Henderson

Letter to the Editor by Morris Hershman

The Spy Who Came to the Brink by Edward D. Hoch

Second Talent by James Holding

The Ohio Love Sculpture by Adobe James

Homicide House by Day Keene

Every story here revolves around somebody dying or being killed or being a killer. I found them linked thematically quite well and they didn’t seem like random stories just lumped together.

I really liked the final story, Homicide House by Day Keene. As soon as the narrator revealed that he was bricking up the body of his murdered wife, I knew exactly where the story was going to end and it was ghoulishly delightful to watch as the story went down the path I had predicted.

This book was originally released in hardback with 35 stories and then later on was released in two paperbacks with each containing half the stories. The second paperback was called More Stories To Stay Awake By but I haven’t been able to track down an ebook version, not even a pdf scan, so I will probably not be able to read the other 18 stories from the original. What a shame.

★★★✬☆

All of My “Alfred Hitchcock” Reviews

Saturday, March 11, 2023

The Bookstooge Chronicles: The Junior Year

Back in November, I blogged about reading my Freshman Journal. Since that time I have made my way through my Junior Year from Bibleschool (it was a three year course so you had freshman, juniors and seniors). It was as tough as I thought it would be.

I came into contact with a couple of people that I absolutely could not stand and with it being a closed campus, there was no getting away from them. So I had to learn, quickly, how to deal with people whose very existence annoyed me. Them breathing the same air, in the same building as me, was enough to rile me up. So I learned some survival skills without even realizing it. I didn’t know I was an introvert’s introvert. I didn’t realize I needed alone time and time away from people. So I threw myself into everything I could, with all the gusto I could and ended up having some really miserable times.

I also had some fantastically wonderful times too. A local secular college would put on Selections from Handel’s “Messiah” every year and would hire 4 professionals for the solo parts and it was a joy to listen to. Nearly the first, and close to the last, time that music really moved me on a deep, visceral level. I also went hiking up a mountain one winter’s day and while looking back, that was incredibly stupid (I told no one where I was going, no cell phones, no real worst case scenario gear), it was also a time of solitude and balm for my soul that I still remember to this day.

Reading along I realized that in ’99 was when I was introduced to Land Surveying. My (future) boss came over and taught us some of the math and told us anyone who was interested could keep on going. So my friend and I worked on the math and experimented with some of the equipment. I had forgotten I had started this before graduation. And that summer I worked for him until college started back up in the fall. Good stuff!

Of course, one of the miserable things I alluded to above was that I had to deal with the reality of a broken heart and someone’s interest moving away from me. Between that and learning to exist alongside people I couldn’t stand, I did a lot of growing up in ’98 and ’99. Not by choice, but considering my personality, that was about the only way it would have happened.

My writing also took off during this time period. Besides my regular journal, I began keeping a notebook with meeting and sermon notes (long since lost) and I started a Happy Book where I noted 5 things every day that made me happy. That didn’t last too long, hahahaha. It soon turned into a heart broken sob journal where I could pretty much record how much I hurt every single day. Sigh, to be that young again. I also wrote a lot of emails and referenced them in my journal too, not realizing that I was entering a phase where I treated emails like disposable napkins. I think in this year of school I went through 3 or 4 with various companies? I even wrote down a couple of passwords. I tried to see if they were still active, but either I had changed the password at some later date or I had deleted the address altogether. It was a fun time though because I was exploring all that life had to offer me at the time.

Wow, this has gone on longer than I thought. I would sum up that year as one of forced growth that was ultimately the best thing for me. My character, not exactly jello even at this point, was further cemented into the mold that shapes me even today.

I chose not to include a particular quote like I did last year because either the day was utterly banal or so intensely personal. I had no middle ground at that time and it has taken me these 3 months to read through it. This is why I journaled though, I didn’t want to forget the times that formed me into the man I am today. I hope to talk more about that idea next Saturday when I do another post about why I still paper journal.

ps,
Apparently I have not created a “journal” tag yet. I have corrected that with this post and now I have to go through my previous entries and add it to the correct ones. Man, being a blogger is tough and definitely not for the faint hearted.

Friday, March 10, 2023

Conceptualization Alpha

Whaddya think?

Thursday, March 09, 2023

Pigs Have Wings (Blandings Castle #9) ★★★★☆

Title: Pigs Have Wings
Series: Blandings Castle #9
Authors: PG Wodehouse
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre: Humor
Pages: 176
Words: 70K

From Wikipedia:

Lord Emsworth, his brother Galahad and butler Beach, hearing that devious neighbour Sir Gregory Parsloe-Parsloe has done the unthinkable and brought in a new and enormous pig from Kent, are in turmoil. Galahad and Beach are desperate to secure their savings, confidently invested in a wager on the mighty Empress, while Emsworth is as ever suspicious of his gloating neighbour.

Parsloe, meanwhile, is regretting becoming engaged to Gloria Salt, who has put him on a diet. His suspicions of Galahad lead him to put his pig man, George Cyril Wellbeloved, on a drink-ban too, a move of which Wellbeloved wholeheartedly disapproves; he also, on Connie’s advice, orders a large quantity of “Slimmo”, a slimming product, to aid his diet. Hearing about this suspicious purchase, a worried Galahad calls in Beach’s niece Maudie, an old acquaintance and now proprietor of a Detective Agency, to keep an eye on things.

Penelope Donaldson heads up to London for the day, planning to meet up with her man, under cover of a dinner with an old friend of her father’s. Jerry Vail, however, is forced to entertain his old flame Gloria Salt and cancels the date. Salt tells him Emsworth needs a secretary, and suggests talking pig to the Earl will get him the cash he needs to buy into a health farm and make his fortune.

Vail heads to Blandings, but Connie is suspicious, having heard his name when he called to cancel his date with Penny. Penny is furious, having been taken to Mario’s by Orlo Vosper and seen Jerry with the attractive Gloria. When Jerry explains, she is suitably chastised, especially as, thinking her man had betrayed her, she had accepted Vosper’s proposal of marriage.

When Wellbeloved visits Blandings to ask Gally to provide him with a drink (all the pubs in Market Blandings having been forbidden to serve him), Gally takes the opportunity to snatch Parsloe’s pig, stashing it in the hut in the West Wood. Wellbeloved, finding the pig gone, nabs the Empress and puts her in the pen at Parsloe’s place to cover up.

Vosper and Gloria Salt, their old love revived, run off together to be married, after Gally helps Vosper get out of being engaged to Penny, and Gloria writes to Parsloe ending their engagement. Wellbeloved spots Beach furtively heading for the shed, but his call to tell Parsloe of his discovery is intercepted by Gally, who has Beach move the pig to a nearby house, recently vacated by Gally’s old friend “Fruity” Biffen.

Meanwhile, Emsworth, stricken with a cold, has been smitten by Maudie (posing as Mr Donaldson’s old friend Mrs Bunbury), and writes a letter to her declaring his love, which he has Vail place in her room. She, meanwhile, pays a visit to Parsloe, with whom she once had an understanding, planning to give him a piece of her mind, but all is soon cleared up and the two become engaged. Emsworth, on hearing this, sends Vail to retrieve his letter, but has misdirected him into Connie’s room; on finding Vail hiding in her closet, she promptly fires him.

Finding the Emsworth Arms uncomfortable, Vail lets the cottage with the pig in it. Fearing he will give the game away, Gally dashes round, but Vail has already been visited by a policeman and Wellbeloved. Gally removes the pig by car, but soon returns, having found the Empress in the Queen’s sty. They head back to Blandings to tell Emsworth, leaving Beach, exhausted from cycling over, sleeping in the cottage. On their return, Parsloe is there, having been told by Wellbeloved that the Queen was in the kitchen and had Beach arrested for stealing his pig.

Gally explains to Parsloe that the Empress is in the kitchen, and the Queen in her sty, scuppering Parsloe. He then persuades Emsworth to invest in Vail’s health farm, in gratitude for having found the pig, and Connie gives him another £500 for Beach, to prevent him suing Parsloe for wrongful arrest. Meanwhile, Parsloe’s butler Binstead, having been refused a refund on the Slimmo no longer needed by his master, feeds it to the pig in the sty, thinking she is still the Empress…

This was just the right book at the right time for me. I’m pretty sure this was not any funnier than the previous Blandings Castle stories, but I really needed something light, fluffy and downright stupid and that pretty much sums up Blandings Castle in a nutshell.

I mean, two rich guys biggest worry is whose pig is the fattest. How can you not laugh at that? 😀

★★★★☆

Groo and the Monks (Groo the Wanderer #15) ★★★✬☆

Title: Groo and the Monks
Series: Groo the Wanderer #15
Author: Sergio Aragones
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Comics
Pages: 23
Words: 2K

From Bookstooge.blog

Groo meets a battle taking place. He finally joins a side after they’ve won. But the winners are all going to commit ritual suicide for having killed their master and fellow brethren. Groo doesn’t want to die and so the last warrior tells him he can join a monastery to atone.

Groo finds the monastery and with predictable results. Chaos ensues. Silence is broken. Groo is kicked out to go earn money for them. He threatens the town until they give a lot of money. Groo then uses the money to carve a staircase into the mountain to the Monastery, hire belly dancers, buy wine and fine foods. Considering his duty done, he then leaves. Hahahahaa.

I think the following panel pretty much sums up this particular issue of Groo:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/i5sg64dm16p8zna/groo15-5.jpg

He doesn’t know what he is doing, or why, or even how, but because he’s Groo, he’s going to do it no matter what. Of course, apparently he can’t read any of the rules, or he’s just so dense that he doesn’t think they apply to him. It just goes to show that Groo causes chaos no matter where he goes or what he tries to do.

As much as I am really enjoying these, I think one a month is a great way to keep on liking Groo. Too much more and I’d probably get sick of his stupidity. Very funny in small doses, not so much in larger doses.

★★★✬☆

All of My “Groo the Wanderer” Reviews

Wednesday, March 08, 2023

Fullmetal Alchemist #3 ★★★☆☆

Title: Fullmetal Alchemist #3
Series: Fullmetal Alchemist
Author: Hiromu Arakawa
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Manga
Pages: 185
Words: 9K

Table of Contents & Backcover Synopsis:

Chapter 9: A Home with a Family Waiting

Chapter 10: The Philosopher’s Stone

Chapter 11: The Two Guardians

Chapter 12: The Definition of Human

Bonus Chapter: The Military Festival

Synopsis:

Accompanied by their bodyguard, Alex Louis Armstrong, our heroes seek out their closest friend, mechanic Winry Rockbell, to fix their battered “auto-mail” bodyparts. Soon their quest for the Philosopher’s Stone takes them to the great central library, where the Stone’s formula may be hidden…if the mysterious figure named Lust doesn’t get there first! But the secret of the Philosopher’s Stone may be even more frightening than the beings who guard it.…

So Ed and Al continue their quest to track down the Philospher’s Stone only to realize that it takes human life to create one. With that, they now face a philosophical quandary. Can they in good conscience try to use one knowing the cost of it’s creation? They also have to deal with the fact that the military higher ups are involved in creating them. This leads them to an abandoned factory where they end up fighting some soul embedded beings like Al. And the volume ends with Lust confronting Edward

Truth be told, I wasn’t really feeling it while reading this. Not a bad volume per se but I wasn’t spellbound, nor was I glued to the pages. I actually watched Shrek in the background while perusing this and ended up enjoying that more. I don’t know what it is, but this just doesn’t keep my interest that much. I hope future volumes work better for me.

★★★☆☆

All My “Fullmetal Alchemist” Reviews

Tuesday, March 07, 2023

Pebble in the Sky (Galactic Empire #3) ★★★☆☆

Title: Pebble in the Sky
Series: Galactic Empire #3
Authors: Isaac Asimov
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 174
Words: 70K

From Wikipedia:

While walking down the street in Chicago, Joseph Schwartz, a retired tailor, is the unwitting victim of a nearby nuclear laboratory accident, by means of which he is instantaneously transported tens of thousands of years into the future (50,000 years, by one character’s estimate, a figure later retconned by future Asimov works as a “mistake”). He finds himself in a place he does not recognize, and due to apparent changes in the spoken language that far into the future, he is unable to communicate with anyone. He wanders into a farm, and is taken in by the couple that lives there. They mistake him for a mentally deficient person, and they secretly offer him as a subject for an experimental procedure to increase his mental abilities. The procedure, which has killed several subjects, works in his case, and he finds that he can quickly learn to speak the current lingua franca. He also slowly realizes that the procedure has given him strong telepathic abilities, including the ability to project his thoughts to the point of killing or injuring a person.

The Earth, at this time, is seen by the rest of the Galactic Empire as a rebellious planet — it has rebelled three times in the past — and the inhabitants are widely frowned upon and discriminated against. Earth also has several large radioactive areas, although the cause is never really described. With large uninhabitable areas, it is a very poor planet, and anyone who is unable to work is legally required to be euthanized. The people of the Earth must also be executed when they reach the age of sixty, a procedure known as “The Sixty”, with very few exceptions; mainly for people who have made significant contributions to society. That is a problem for Schwartz, who is now sixty-two years old.

The Earth is part of the Trantorian Galactic Empire, with a resident Procurator, who lives in a domed town in the high Himalayas and a Galactic military garrison, but in practice it is ruled by a group of Earth-centered “religious fanatics” who believe in the ultimate superiority of Earthlings. They have created a new, deadly supervirus that they plan to use to kill or subjugate the rest of the Empire, and to avenge themselves for the way their planet has been treated by the galaxy at large. Citizens of the Empire are unaware of Earth’s lethal viruses, and mistakenly believe it is Earth’s environment that causes them “Radiation Fever,” and that Earthlings pose the Empire no threat.

Joseph Schwartz, along with Affret Shekt, the scientist who developed the new device that boosted Schwartz’s mental powers, his daughter Pola Shekt, and a visiting archaeologist Bel Arvardan, are captured by the rebels, but they escape with the help of Schwartz’s new mental abilities, and they are narrowly able to stop the plan to release the virus. Schwartz uses his mental abilities to provoke a pilot from the Imperial garrison into bombing the site where the arsenal of the super-virus exists.

The book ends on a hopeful note — perhaps the Empire can be persuaded to restore the Earth and reintroduce uncontaminated soil.

This was a much better book than the previous two Empire novels and thus I enjoyed it a bit more. Sadly, that still doesn’t mean it was a really good book. While it wasn’t frozen yoghurt, it was more akin to a McDonald’s softserve icecream, when what I was hoping for was some Haagen Daz.

I’ve got Asimov’s Fantastic Voyage duology available to me and I am still really waffling about if I want to read them or not. Based on these books, I really don’t expect much.

★★★☆☆

All of My “Galactic Empire” Reviews

Monday, March 06, 2023

The Darkest Day (Victor the Assassin #5) ★★★☆☆

Title: The Darkest Day
Series: Victor the Assassin #5
Authors: Tom Wood
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Action/Adventure
Pages: 293
Words: 90K

Ol’ Victorewsky is hired to whack an arms dealer. Only it turns into an ambush and Victor is almost killed by another assassin. The CIA operative who set up the original hit lets Victor know the other assassin is a rogue agent and one of the best. Victor sets out on her trail and in the process sets himself up as a dupe in a potential terrorist attack by the aforementioned CIA operative. Victor and Miss Assassin ally and take down a group of special forces who are going to use a dirty nuke in New York City. They give the evidence to Victor’s handler so everything is ship shape. Then Miss Assassin tries to hook up with Victor, because being an assassin is lonely business. And Victor kills her because she knows too much about him. Ohhhhhhh, snap!

I was enjoying the first part of this book immensely. Victor almost getting offed and realizing there is somebody else as good as him was great. But once he hits NYC and hooks up with Miss Assassin, it all went to the crapper. Most of that is because Victor gets chased through the city and the cops keep finding him. Now, that doesn’t sound so bad does it? BUT! There is a blackout. There is a massive rainstorm. Everybody is stuck on the road because of the blackout. And the flipping cops keep finding Victor like he’s the prize in a box of cracker jax. It was just too much for me. NYC, even just the part that is Manhattan Island, is too big and busy for cops to find one guy in those circumstances. It was like Woods was treating NYC like some little sleepy one street European town. While I avoid big cities, I’ve been in a couple (and never want to do it again if I can help it) and the thought of the cops being able to find me at the drop of a hat is just ludicrous.

So that really took down my enjoyment. A lot. To the point where I was thinking about giving this 2 stars. But then the ending redeemed it when Victor shows what an absolute psychopath loner he is. It made me say outloud, “Oh, that is BRUTAL!” But it was consistent with how he had lived his entire life and it wouldn’t have made sense at all for Victor to get romantically involved with another assassin who could identify him. This series has been consistently good and I am glad Wood (the author) didn’t skimp here and try to make Victor some sort of “relatable” guy. He’s a successful assassin, period.

★★★☆☆

All of My “Victor the Assassin” Reviews

Brainwash - MTG 4th Edition

Sunday, March 05, 2023

Curtains for Three (Nero Wolfe #18) ★★★★☆

Title: Curtains for Three
Series: Nero Wolfe #18
Author: Rex Stout
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars Appended to 4
Genre: Mystery
Pages: 149
Words: 70K

This is another collection of 3 novellas and consists of:
The Gun with Wings
Bullet for One
Disguise for Murder

While I enjoyed this collection, part of that was because I was determined to overlook the novella aspect and simply enjoy the stories for what they were instead of what I wanted them to be, ie full novels. So I dinged a half-star right out of the gate. Then the final story, Disguise for Murder, had appeared in a previous collection and while it was still a good story, I dinged a good star and a half off for wasting my precious time on old material when I wanted new stuff.

So still happy with this read but not as happy as I could have been if it was all new stuff. Of course, now I’ll actually pay attention to the names of the novellas as I suspect this will happen again. Can’t trust publishers not to make an easy buck by gypping their customers. Bunch of lowlifes. If I was Archie Goodwin I would bust their chops for doing such a thing to me.

Ahhh, the life of a book reader/reviewer isn’t for the faint of heart, that’s for sure. Thankfully, since I’m doing all the drama, you don’t have to. But feel free to chime in. So, if any of your “father’s brother’s nephew’s cousin’s former roommates” had any drama too, let me know. I’m all about those family drama stories after all.

★★★☆☆ Appended to ★★★★☆

All My “Nero Wolfe” Reviews

Appended:
It turns out that I had read the story “Disguise for Murder” as “The Affair of the Twisted Scarf” in the Alfred Hitchcock Collection “I Want My Mummy” back in June of 22. Because I didn’t pay enough attention to figure out what I had read when, I am un-penalizing this collection because it’s my own fault. Thanks to Fraggle for setting me straight on this.