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 and the Shipyard Series: Groo the Wanderer #16 Author: Sergio Aragones Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars Genre: Comics Pages: 24 Words: 2K
From Bookstooge.blog
Groo tries to find work as a guard at a flying ship yard. They need no guards as they have a whole pack of savage dogs. So Groo joins as a common laborer and pegs and caulks a ship. To the usual Groo standards.
He runs across Taranto and his crew who have been pillaging and plundering. They steal an airship only to find out it is the one Groo work on. So it falls apart and they all go crashing to the ground.
Ahhhh, appropriately silly and asinine. Just what every Groo comic should be.
What was interesting was the Checklist ad though. It has the latest GI Joe comic and it’s the introduction for Sgt Slaughter:
I remember Sgt Slaughter because he was also a World Wrestling Federation actor at the time and boy did Hasbro make a big deal about promoting his character to sell all the toys. His picture, real or as the animated version, was yelling at everyone to do everything, all at once. And he did it all first so he could yell at you for not doing it fast enough.
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: Cassilda’s Song Series: The King in Yellow Anthology #7 Editor: Joseph Pulver Rating: 4 of 5 Stars Genre: Cosmic Horror Pages: 241 Words: 92K
Table of Contents:
Introduction by Joseph S. Pulver, Sr.
Black Stars on Canvas, a Reproduction in Acrylic by Damien Angelica Walters
She Will Be Raised a Queen by E. Catherine Tobler
Yella by Nicole Cushing
Yellow Bird by Lynda E. Rucker
Exposure by Helen Marshall
Just Beyond Her Dreaming by Mercedes M. Yardley
In the Quad of Project 327 by Chesya Burke
Stones, Maybe by Ursula Pflug
Les Fleurs du Mal by Allyson Bird
While The Black Stars Burn by Lucy A. Snyder
Old Tsah-Hov by Anya Martin
The Neurastheniac by Selena Chambers
Dancing the Mask by Ann K. Schwader
Family by Maura McHugh
Pro Patria! by Nadia Bulkin
Her Beginning is Her End is Her Beginning by E. Catherine Tobler and Damien Angelica Walters
Grave-Worms by Molly Tanzer
Strange is the Night by S.P. Miskowski
This was a collection centered around the character of Cassilda, the former queen of Carcosa that the Yellow King subjugate/co-opted/seduced depending on which story you decide to hold to. In some of these stories she is fighting against the King in Yellow, other times the story is about her influence in our world and in some instances it’s just a feminist story wrapped in the liturgical wrappings of the King in Yellow.
I actually started to read this back in January, but with everything that was going on medically at the time, stories that dealt with despair and madness and hopelessness were way more than I could handle at that time. But now that we appear to be on the other side, I could dive into this cesspool with nary a shudder or twinge of disgust.
Two stories stood out to me. Not that they were the most enjoyable ones, but I felt like they encapsulated the best and worst of the King in Yellow mythology.
In the Quad of Project 327 was about a group of school kids who find the play The King in Yellow and one girl reads it. Unlike everyone else who has ever read it, it doesn’t drive her crazy but gives her psychic powers and she in turn gives these powers to the other kids. They use the power to make their Quad (apartment building area) a better place and to make their white male teacher hate Columbus and be a “nicer” guy. This exemplified the worst in my opinion. The author wrapped up her white male hatred and used some of the literary terms used in the King in Yellow stories. But she either didn’t understand or chose to ignore that the play has to drive people mad, or it isn’t The King in Yellow. As such, this didn’t have that hopeless, the walls are closing in, claustrophobic feel that a genuine KiY story should have. There is no hope, there is no betterment, there is no strength in a King in Yellow story. And if you choose to go outside of those bounds, then your story isn’t a KiY story. It wasn’t necessarily a bad story, but it was missing that downward punch that was needed.
Old Tsah-Hov was a story about a dog that ends up being owned by a woman named Cassilda, in Jerusalem. She adopts him as a stray and gets married and has a kid and then a war breaks out and her husband breaks under the strain and tries to hit her. The dog intervenes, only the son tries to stop him and the dog ends up biting the son by accident instead of the father. So he’s taken away to be put down. Once he’s put down, he awakens in Carcosa, where a mob is waiting for him, with hands filled with stones. To kill him. Again. Now THAT is how you tell a KiY story. The dog is loyal to Cassilda, loves the little boy and is doing his best to protect and serve. And his reward? To be killed again by the King in Yellow. The pure perversity of the entire situation, the twistedness of it, is exactly how a KiY story should be written.
Black Stars on Canvas, a Reproduction in Acrylic, the lead story, is a great KiY primer. If you can read that story and like it, The King in Yellow is for you. If you read it and don’t like it, or aren’t interested, I sincerely doubt you’ll like much else in the King in Yellow mythology. I’ve never been tempted to write a book, or even a short story, but if I ever did, it would be something to do with the King in Yellow.
The main reason I didn’t give this a 4 ½ rating was because one of the stories was poetry. Poetry is an essential element in the play The King in Yellow, but I don’t like poetry and I don’t have to.
I’ve included a large version of the cover below as it is hard to see in the little one I include with most reviews.
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: Tom Series: One Piece #37 Arc: Water Seven #6 Author: Eiichiro Oda Rating: 3 of 5 Stars Genre: Manga Pages: 229 Words: 11K
From Wikipedia:
“Six Powers”
“Fighting Power”
“Ordinary Citizens”
“The Warehouse Under the Bridge”
“Klabautermann”
“Tom’s Workers”
“The Legendary Shipwright”
“Sea Train”
“Spandam”
“Mr. Tom”
“Cutty Flam”
The Straw Hats arrive on the scene and find Robin with CP9. Although she claims to want nothing more to do with them, Luffy and company attack CP9 so that they can talk to her. They are quickly defeated, and CP9 departs to look for Franky. As the Aqua Laguna approaches, Franky has given Usopp and the Merry shelter. Soon enough CP9 arrives looking for Franky and his blueprints. Because his teacher, entrusted him with the blueprints years earlier, and forfeited his own life to insure Pluton never fell into the government’s hands, Franky refuses to reveal their location.
The World Government wants the strongest ship and is willing do anything to get it. The showdown between CP9 and Luffy is so one sided that it’s not even funny. He gets tossed around like a broken rag doll. It was getting rather interesting when suddenly the last half of the volume is an extended flashback about 2 of the side characters who are linked to this power ship.
That was rather dull. It was the usual “wah, wah, we wanna be powerful and argue like kids” story about 2 boys growing up. I’m sure it gave world building fans an orgasm, but I want to read about Luffy and the Straw Hats and everyone else is incidental. I don’t need to know about side characters. The focus shouldn’t BE on side characters. As such, this little (big really, because it was close to 120 pages) flashback not only didn’t work for me, but it actively annoyed me. The flashback hadn’t finished up by the time this volume ended, so I already know I have to deal with it in the next volume. And I’m sure I’ll be finding out how Franky became a cyborg. Not that I care one bit.
I really did enjoy the parts with the Straw Hats. Usopp has an extended showing here where he talks to Franky about he knows the Merry Go (the ship) is doomed but that he can’t accept it and that’s why he keeps trying to repair her. I think Franky finally gets through to him but I obviously won’t know because of that flipping flashback! And Luffy and Zoro are totally beaten down but not dead, so how will that resolve? WE DON’T KNOW BECAUSE OF THAT FLIPPING FLASHBACK!!!
Yeah, not real happy with that half of the volume.
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: Fantastic Voyage Series: Fantastic Voyage #1 Authors: Isaac Asimov Rating: 2.5 of 5 Stars Genre: SF Pages: 195 Words: 69K
From Wikipedia:
The United States and the Soviet Union have both developed technology that can miniaturize matter by shrinking individual atoms, but only for one hour.
A scientist. Dr. Jan Benes, working behind the Iron Curtain, has figured out how to make the process work indefinitely. With the help of American intelligence agents, including agent Charles Grant, he escapes to the West and arrives in New York City, but an attempted assassination leaves him comatose with a blood clot in his brain that no surgery can remove from the outside.
To save his life, Grant, Navy pilot Captain Bill Owens, medical chief and circulatory specialist Dr. Michaels, surgeon Dr. Peter Duval, and his assistant Cora Peterson are placed aboard a Navy ichthyology submarine at the Combined Miniature Deterrent Forces facilities. The submarine, named Proteus, is then miniaturized to “about the size of a microbe”, and injected into Benes’ body. The team has 60 minutes to get to and remove the clot; after this, Proteus and its crew will begin reverting to their normal size, become vulnerable to Benes’s immune system, and kill Benes.
The crew faces many obstacles during the mission. An undetected arteriovenous fistula forces them to detour through the heart, where cardiac arrest must be induced to, at best, reduce turbulence that would be strong enough to destroy Proteus. As the crew faces an unexplained loss of oxygen and must replenish their supply in the lungs, Grant finds the surgical laser needed to destroy the clot was damaged from the turbulence in the heart, as it was not fastened down as it had been before: this and his safety line snapping loose while the crew was refilling their air supply has Grant begin to suspect a saboteur is on the mission. The crew must cannibalize their wireless radio to repair the laser, cutting off all communication and guidance from the outside, although because the submarine is nuclear-powered, surgeons and technicians outside Benes’s body are still able to track their movements via a radioactive tracer, allowing General Alan Carter and Colonel Donald Reid, the officers in charge of CMDF, to figure out the crew’s strategies as they make their way through the body. The crew is then forced to pass through the inner ear, requiring all outside personnel to make no noise to prevent destructive shocks, but while the crew is removing reticular fibers clogging the submarine’s vents and making the engines overheat, a fallen surgical tool causes the crew to be thrown about and Peterson is nearly killed by antibodies, but they are able to reboard the submarine in time. By the time they finally reach the clot, the crew has only six minutes remaining to operate and then exit the body.
Before the mission, Grant had been briefed that Duval was the prime suspect as a potential surgical assassin, but as the mission progresses, he instead begins to suspect Michaels. During the surgery, Dr. Michaels knocks out Owens and takes control of Proteus while the rest of the crew is outside for the operation. As Duval finishes removing the clot with the laser, Michaels tries to crash the submarine into the same area of Benes’ brain to kill him. Grant fires the laser at the ship, causing it to veer away and crash, and Michaels to get trapped in the wreckage with the controls pinning him to the seat, which attracts the attention of white blood cells. While Grant saves Owens from the Proteus, Michaels is killed when a white blood cell consumes the ship. The remaining crew quickly swim to one of Benes’ eyes and escape through a tear duct seconds before returning to normal size.
I went into this thinking it was an original story by Asimov that was later adapted to the 1966 Movie, Fantastic Voyage. Little did I know that the book was based on the screenplay and was just a novelization of the movie.
And it was all the stronger for it. Because Asimov can’t write a great novel to save his life. (considering that he’s dead, I’d say that’s a strong piece of evidence right there).
At the same time, this was boring as a vanilla fudgsicle made out of tap water. I can see this being a visually appealing movie, but as a book, it was just boring.
Asimov wasn’t happy with doing a novelization and decided to write his own book, which was later released as Fantastic Voyage II: Destination Brain. I will not be reading that however. This was boring enough and I can only imagine that a solo Asimov venture would only take a downward trajectory.
The following is the ending of a Resurrection Day Sermon preached by Bishop Melito sometime in the late AD 200’s.
Who is my opponent? I, he says, am the Christ. I am the one who destroyed death, and triumphed over the enemy, and trampled Hades under foot, and bound the strong one, and carried off man to the heights of heaven, I, he says, am the Christ. Therefore, come, all families of men, you who have been befouled with sins, and receive forgiveness for your sins. I am your forgiveness, I am the passover of your salvation, I am the lamb which was sacrificed for you, I am your ransom, I am your light, I am your saviour, I am your resurrection, I am your king, I am leading you up to the heights of heaven, I will show you the eternal Father, I will raise you up by my right hand.
This is the one who made the heavens and the earth, and who in the beginning created man, who was proclaimed through the law and prophets, who became human via the virgin, who was hanged upon a tree, who was buried in the earth, who was resurrected from the dead, and who ascended to the heights of heaven, who sits at the right hand of the Father, who has authority to judge and to save everything, through whom the Father created everything from the beginning of the world to the end of the age. This is the alpha and the omega. This is the beginning and the end–an indescribable beginning and an incomprehensible end. This is the Christ. This is the king. This is Jesus. This is the general. This is the Lord. This is the one who rose up from the dead. This is the one who sits at the right hand of the Father. He bears the Father and is borne by the Father, to whom be the glory and the power forever. Amen.
The Peri Pascha of Melito. Peace to the one who wrote, and to the one who reads, and to those who love the Lord in simplicity of heart.
Christ’s death and resurrection was for you. I am praying that anyone who reads the above will be moved by God’s Spirit to seriously consider that.
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 Knight of the Swords Series: Eternal Champion: Corum #1 Author: Michael Moorcock Rating: 5 of 5 Stars Genre: Fantasy Pages: 147 Words: 52K
From Wikipedia.org/The_Swords_Trilogy
The Knight of the Swords is the first appearance of Corum, last survivor of the Vadhagh race. After his family is butchered by a group of Mabden (men) led by the savage Earl Glandyth-a-Krae, Corum tries to take revenge, but is captured instead; his hand is cut off and his eye put out before he escapes. He goes to Moidel’s Castle, where he is taken in by a very different sort of Mabden, the Margravine Rhalina. Corum and Rhalina fall in love, but their romance is interrupted when Glandyth leads an assault on the castle. Rhalina uses sorcery (which Corum had never believed in) to summon a ship of the dead which drives off the barbarians. However the bargain required means that she must go with the ship’s captain. Corum joins them and the ship takes them to the island of Shool, a near immortal and mad sorcerer who takes Rhalina hostage.
Shool trades Corum two artifacts to replace his lost hand and eye, the Hand of Kwll and the Eye of Rhynn. The Eye allows Corum to see into an undead netherworld; the Hand serves to summon the last beings killed by Corum, to fight for him. Shool explains that Corum’s ill fortune has been caused by a Greater God, Arioch, one of the Sword Rulers. When Arioch and his fellow Chaos Lords conquered the Fifteen Planes, the balance between the forces of Law and Chaos tipped in favor of Chaos. Corum is sent to steal the Heart of Arioch, which will give the sorcerer power to become a great god himself. After an adventurous journey which teaches him more about the metaphysics of Chaos, Corum reaches Arioch’s palace. There he finds the Heart, at which point Shool’s unknowing role as an agent of Arioch is revealed. The Hand of Kwll crushes the heart, killing Arioch. Corum returns to the island to rescue Rhalina. As it turns out, Shool’s powers were entirely of Arioch’s gift, so he can no longer threaten Rhalina or Corum. The couple return to their home on Moidel’s Mount.
It has been 23 years since I last read the Corum books by Moorcock. I have always meant to re-read them much sooner, but it always seemed that something else was pushing to the front of the line. Once again, they were a staple of my highschool and college days. Back then I read all 6 books in 2 collected omnibuses entitled Corum: The Coming of Chaos and Corum: The Prince with the Silver Hand. This time around I wanted to make sure to read each individual story so there would be as little blurring in my mind as possible.
This was great. The Vadhagh, the race that Corum belongs to, is very unlike the Melniboneans (of which the Eternal Champion aspect of Elric is a member) and thus their destruction was sad and melancholic instead of fiercely just. It makes Corum a much nicer protagonist and makes his fears and desires that much more relatable.
Having read this before, and several of the other Eternal Champion aspect series, I was familiar with the whole Cosmic Balance that Moorcock hangs everything on. Corum isn’t so much a rogue agent trying to do his own thing but is an unwitting agent of Law because he hates what Chaos has done (killed off his entire race!). As such, his adventures feel very much like he is a ball being batted back and forth without trying to forge his own path. While it can make the read feel a bit unsettling, it is also rather a comforting feeling because you know that Corum is as much along for the ride as the reader is.
My only quibble is the romance side of things. Corum has gone on for hundreds of years (I can’t remember if it ever says how old he is, but his father was close to 1000 when he was killed at the book’s beginning) without being interested in romance with another Vadhagh but suddenly, he’s shacking it up and risking his life for a human woman? It wasn’t that it rang false so much as it just felt very quick. Of course, in a story that is under 150, that is kind of to be expected I guess. Which is why it is only a quibble and not a real issue 😀
But for a sword and sorcery, it gave me everything I wanted. Corum gets his eye plucked out and his hand cut off. And then gets mystical items to replace them. Which allows him to call forth those he has killed from a kind of hell to fight on his behalf. He’s not a great swordsman OR magician, which ties into the idea of him being batted around. But as a reader we get our fill.
I am already looking forward to Corum’s next adventure as he battles the Queen of the Swords.
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: Things That Go Bump In The Night Series: Bone #19 Author: Jeff Smith Rating: 2.5 of 5 Stars Genre: Comics Pages: 25 Words: 1K
From Bookstooge.blog
Phoney reveals that Fone Bone knows the dragon and everyone at the tavern starts telling tales and believing that the dragons are now an infestation and going to take over. Phoney uses this interest to upstage Lucius and to outsell him. The idiots at the tavern follow Phoney’s lead.
Ted the bug delivers a message to Gran’ma Ben that a huge rat army is on its way and that the kingdom that is supposed to keep them away isn’t doing anything about. She gathers up Fone and Thorn and they prepare to set out that night.
This was a big step up from the previous issue but almost anything had to be. It still wasn’t great or exciting and I don’t know how much more of Smith’s “change the direction of a single item and pretend it’s a new panel” I can take.
Then you have Phoney running his next scam, ie, riling up everyone about the dragons to sell more than Lucius. I realize that Smith is trying to make a point here, but my goodness, are the villagers dumb as rocks! They’ve known Lucius their whole lives and they’ve been cheated by Phoney on multiple occasions but who do they listen to? Phoney of course.
But I do wonder, why is Lucius so vociferous in denying that dragons even exist? He was stoking the flames of the villagers by denying what they said so hard. He was acting like a liberal democrat politician, ie, telling everyone else what they should believe, what they should be doing and only he, Lucius, could dispense such wisdom. There is obviously some reason Lucius is denying the existence of the dragons, but it would be nice as a reader to at least have a hint of that reason.
But by the end of this issue, I still felt that I’ll take Web of Spiderman ANY day over this.
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: A Time To Die Series: Victor the Assassin #6 Authors: Tom Wood Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars Genre: Action/Adventure Pages: 316 Words: 100K
From Bookstooge.blog
Victor is now working for the British, since the CIA really doesn’t want someone who was implicated in trying to nuke New York City. His latest assignment is to erase an eastern european crime lord. In the process Victor tries to help a woman who’s been sold into prostitution. She dies, the crime lord dies and Victor kills the man who killed the woman. Then there’s the assassins who are trying to take the new bounty put out on Victor’s head by someone who has a LOT of details on him (well, one of his identities anyway). Victor goes mano-a-mano in a junk yard and emerges victorious by lying to his adversary and putting two bullets in him point blank.
Nobody lives happily ever after, hurray!
These are great books for what they are. Action packed adventures of an assassin with his own code of rules that he lives assiduously by. By this time though, he’s made enough enemies and somebody has sold his identity (well, one of them) so he’s not only trying to complete an almost impossible assignment for the British but he’s dodging assassins at the same time. I loved it.
At the same time, I wonder how many more books the author can stretch things out before Victor’s identity is irreparably compromised? While I have no problem with assassins constantly coming after Victor, there are only so many false identities he can burn through. For someone who needs to remain anonymous, every id burnt is another escape route now denied him. I feel like Victor is running down a hill with an avalanche right behind him. How long can he outrun it?
I don’t see him ever retiring and living his remaining days out on some sunlit beach with a cold drink in one hand and a gun in the other. He’s going work until he’s killed. Not exactly something to look forward to in the series but it fits with everything that has happened so far.
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
Ed, Alphonse, and their mechanic Winry go south in search of Izumi Curtis, the master alchemist who taught the brothers how to use alchemy. But in the boomtown of Rush Valley, an encounter with a pickpocket turned them down a different path in search of an auto-mail blacksmith whose handiwork is the best that Winry has ever seen. Then the action flashes back to the past to show how Ed and Alphonse first learned alchemy…”
Chapters
Chapter 17: The Boomtown of the Broken Down
Chapter 18: The Value of Sincerity
Chapter 19: I’ll Do It for You Guys!
Chapter 20: The Terror of the Teacher
Chapter 21: The Brothers’ Secret
I have a feeling this series is going to run at the 3star rating more times than not. At least until I get into new territory where I don’t vaguely recall stuff from the first Fullmetal Alchemist anime.
There was nothing at all bad about this volume. But there was nothing that made me laugh. Or cry. Or get excited. Or mad. Or depressed. It just kind of rolled along. I know I’ll read the whole series, because I’ve never actually known the ending (the original anime was produced before the manga was ended, so they made up their own ending) and I want to know it. But I can’t say I’m super excited when this rolls around to read.
