Bookstooge's Reviews On the Road

Monday, May 08, 2023

Celestial Prism - MTG 4th Edition

Sunday, May 07, 2023

The Rogue Retrieval (Gateways to Alissia #1) ★★★✬☆

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 Rogue Retrieval
Series: Gateways to Alissia #1
Author: Dan Koboldt
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 263
Words: 90K

From the authors site & Bookstooge.blog

Stage magician Quinn Bradley dedicated his life to a single purpose: headlining for a major casino on the Las Vegas strip. But just before his dreams come true, two modern mercenaries show up to make him a puzzling offer. Half a million dollars for six months on a private assignment. Their corporate employer has discovered – and kept secret – a gateway to a pristine medieval world called Alissia.

For fifteen years, they’ve studied it beneath a shroud of secrecy. Now, the head of their research team has gone AWOL, with a backpack full of disruptive technology. They’re sending in a retrieval team, and they want Quinn Bradley to come along. His talents for illusion, backed with the company’s considerable resources, should make for some convincing magic.

It will need to be convincing. Because Alissia has the real thing.

The AWOL guy is now the King of the most powerful country on Alissia and Quinn finds out the hard way that impersonating a magician is a very serious matter. Quinn ends up in Magician Land and the rest of the crew try to make it back to the portal as they dodge assassins from a rival corporation.

Everyone who is still alive makes it back to Earth and the book ends with Quinn getting contacted for another mission, which he is eager to take.

Mogsy reviewed Koboldt’s latest book, Silver Queendom, back in October and that put him on my radar. Glad she did.

Portal fantasy. Pretty decent. Plan on reading the rest of the trilogy. Not much else to say. Not because anything was bad but because I’m tired of writing. Maybe I’ll have more to say about the next book. Probably depends on how many other reviews I write the same day.

Oh wait, there was an awesome He-Man easter egg in this book. I chortled quite jollily when I read it. Yep, now I’m done.

★★★✬☆

Saturday, May 06, 2023

Blogshido: The Way of the Blogger

Blogshido. The Art of Blogging. The Way of the Words Warrior. Keyboard Ninjitsu. This ancient art is as many faceted as there are people who practice it. I will not even attempt to cover everything associated with this wondrous art today, but instead I will focus on the specific kata known as The Monthly Review.

I have made this aspect of Blogshido fully my own. To the point where I have a kata all my own, which I call the Roundup & Ramblings. Now, it might surprise you (but hopefully not) to learn that I began to practice R&R not because everyone else was doing it and I wanted to be popular and fit in. Someone who is reading this may even think to themselves “Then what is the point?”. I forgive you and to show that I really have, I have a cookie, a nice glass of milk and your binky blanket just waiting for your nap-nap.

POINT ONE to Bookstooge-san for discombobulating his opponent

Other practitioners of the Monthly Review have their own reasons and methods. My goal is not to judge them. A true master of Blogshido knows what works for him may not work for others and accepts that knowledge, thus making him even more Masterly.

POINT TWO to Bookstooge-san for being so masterly

No, my goal in starting my Roundup & Ramblings were very simple. A very small force may redirect a larger force away from itself and thus Blogshido teaches us that small efforts not only can be effective but that they use less effort and thus prolong your stamina in a battle.

POINT THREE to Bookstooge-san for prolonging his stamina and thus being able to blog for years and years and years.

My blog is mainly a review blog of books with a smattering of non-review posts thrown in. Soon after being married it became evident to both Mrs B and me that she had zero interest in the books I was reading and reviewing but was very interested in the random thoughts that popped out of my head. This laid the foundation of me linking up all of my non-review posts in one easy to access place.

POINT FOUR to Bookstooge-san for thinking of his wife

Once I began doing that, I realized that it didn’t need to stay there and I could include lots ~~and lots of ads~~, errr, data. Thus the power of Blogshido came full circle. My kata of Roundup & Ramblings ended where it had begun. I was using my own energy to power others which in turn empowered me to overcome them all. Thus my mastery was complete.

POINT SET, MATCH AND WIN for Bookstooge-san winning at Blogshido

I bow humbly before you all, as a true master.

Friday, May 05, 2023

Business (Bone #20) ★★★☆☆

Title: Business
Series: Bone #20
Author: Jeff Smith
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Comics
Pages: 21
Words: 1K

From Boneville.fandom.com/wiki/

Fone Bone, Thorn, and Gran’ma Ben continue their trek to Barrelhaven. Upon reaching an overlook of the village, Fone Bone remarks that the Barrelhaven looks peaceful, to which Gran’ma Ben warns that “looks can be decieving.”

At the tavern, dragons are on the villagers’ minds. When approached by Lucius with an offer of another round, Wendell and Euclid refuse, but immediately accept an offer from Smiley, as do other patrons. Lucius becomes infuriated at the town’s obsession, and Phoney and Smiley muse over their plans, with Phoney admitting he has no plans to slay a dragon, as they aren’t really dangerous. When Jonathan Oaks orders from their end of the bar, Lucius confronts Phoney in the pantry. To Phoney’s protests, he plans to call off the bet, as he doesn’t find it worth riling up a mob, and because Phoney is disrespecting the Dragons’ wishes to remain hidden. Phoney challenges Lucius to tell the villagers the truth, but leaves him fuming when he makes no action to do so.

In the woods, Gran’ma suffers an attack of the Gitchy Feeling. The trio is ambushed by one of the Two Stupid Rat creatures.

Phoney is scum of the earth. I mean, he’d make a perfect villain here. It is really tough trying to figure how to deal with him here. Yes, he’s Fone’s cousin and doesn’t seem to want to bring harm to Fone but on the other hand, he’s willing to do almost anything to anyone to get what he wants. His little talk with Lucius about “honesty” was the real kicker for me. He twists the meanings of words to make them do what he wants and he manipulates them so as to manipulate Lucius too. He’s exactly the kind of person that should be throttled, because he’s pure poison. We do find out from Lucius that the dragon wants to remain hidden. Why? We still don’t know.

The ending with Fone, Thorn and Gran’ma Ben getting ambushed by 2 rat creatures is supposed to be tension filled and create that “oh no, what is going to happen” feeling, thus leading you on to buy the next issue when it comes out. The rat creatures are so incredibly stupid though, so I’m expecting something very clownish to happen that’ll rescue Our Crew.

I’ve also decided that I’ll read up through issue 27 and then make the switch to the omnibus versions. Those contain 7-10 issues in each volume and thus you get a lot more story in a volume. But that won’t be until the end of this year at the earliest. I hope I can hold on until then 🙂

★★★☆☆

All My “Bone” Reviews

Thursday, May 04, 2023

World War Cthulhu (Cthulhu Anthology #9) ★★★★☆

Title: World War Cthulhu
Series: Cthulhu Anthology #9
Editor: Glynn Barrass
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre: Cosmic Horror
Pages: 365
Words: 137K

From the Publisher & Table of Contents:

The world is at war against things that slink and gibber in the darkness, and titans that stride from world to world, sewing madness and death. War has existed in one form or another since the dawn of human civilization, and before then, Elder terrors battled it out across this planet and this known universe in ways unimaginable.

It has always been a losing battle for our side since time began. Incidents like the Innsmouth raid, chronicled by H.P. Lovecraft, mere blips of victory against an insurmountable foe. Still we fight, against these incredible odds, in an unending nightmare, we fight, and why? For victory, for land, for a political ideal? No, mankind fights for survival.

Our authors, John Shirley, Mark Rainey, Wilum Pugmire, William Meikle, Tim Curran, Jeffrey Thomas and many others have gathered here to share war stories from the eternal struggle against the darkness. This book chronicles these desperate battles from across the ages, including Roman Britain, The American Civil War, World War Two, The Vietnam Conflict, and even into the far future.

Table of Contents

Loyalty by John Shirley

The Game Changers by Stephen Mark Rainey

White Feather by T.E. Grau

To Hold Ye White Husk by W.H. Pugmire

Sea Nymph’s Son by Robert M. Price

The Boonieman by Edward M. Erdelac

The Turtle by Neil Baker

The Bullet and the Flesh by David Conyers & David Kernot

Broadsword by William Meikle

The Ithiliad by Christine Morgan

The Sinking City by Konstantine Paradias

Shape of a Snake by Cody Goodfellow

Mysterious Ways by C.J. Henderson

Magna Mater by Edward Morris

Dark Cell by Brian M. Sammons and Glynn Owen Barrass

Cold War, Yellow Fever by Pete Rawlik

Stragglers from Carrhae by Darrell Schweitzer

The Procyon Project by Tim Curran

Wunderwaffe by Jeffrey Thomas

A Feast of Death by Lee Clark Zumpe

Long Island Weird by Charles Christian

The Yoth Protocols by Josh Reynolds

Much, MUCH better than that stupid Black Wings of Cthulhu I read previously. This was proper cosmic horror with eldrich elder gods being summoned to our world. Of course, most of the stories end with the main characters being able to fight off the intrusions, but it came down more to the eldrich power simply not caring enough to make the effort to overcome the main characters. But the stories where the eldrich horrors do break through, oooooooh yeah, it gets baaaaaaad. And that is goooood!

One of the stories is a King in Yellow story, Cold War, Yellow Fever, and that is what elevated this from a pretty good 3 ½ star read to a darn good 4 star read. It was about what an extrusion of Carcosa into Cuba would look like during the 1960’s. While the King himself doesn’t make an appearance, his domain of madness is enough and I loved every second of it.

Even outside of that, the stories were pretty good. No fancy pants pretentious wankers writing balderdash but instead we had authors writing cracking entertaining stories about the madness hiding in the darkness, just waiting to devour us. THAT is what Cosmic Horror is about.

Glynn Barrass was one of the editors and so far, he’s done excellent work in the stories he’s chosen. Well done sir, well done. Now let’s have a cage match between him and that pustulent excrescence ST Joshi.

★★★★☆

All of My “Cthulhu Anthology” Reviews

Wednesday, May 03, 2023

Fullmetal Alchemist #7 ★★★★☆

Title: Fullmetal Alchemist #7
Series: Fullmetal Alchemist
Author: Hiromu Arakawa
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre: Manga
Pages: 187
Words: 9K

From FMA.fandom.com

“Where did Alphonse Elric go during the few short minutes he was wiped from existence, body and soul? From a secret lair in the city of Dublith, a group of outcasts kidnaps Alphonse to find the alchemical secrets of his creation! It’s up to Ed (and a certain housewife) to go into the Devil’s Nest and rescue his brother. But the criminals of the Devil’s Nest aren’t exactly human either. Now, Al must fight a homunculus-an artificial human being- and the streets of Dublith will run red with blood…”

This was good! We finally get some serious butt kicking going on by lots of various people, so it’s not just State Alchemists ka-blooey’ing people or Scar exploding bodies. We get chimeras, successful ones, unlike the poor girl and her dog a few volumes back. It did make me question WHY the alchemist that did that to his wife and then daughter wasn’t brought onto the project for the successful chimeras. Felt like sloppy story telling.

But Al, the big suit of armor brother, getting “kidnapped” and allowing it to happen for a chance to get a body back, well, he shows a lot of brains. And then when Ed comes rampaging in to take on the homunculus, we find out a LOT more about homunculi in general and we see why Ed is a state alchemist at such a young age. He’s not only powerful but also very smart.

Then we have President Fuhrer King Bradley getting involved. Once he overhears that there’s a homunculus involved, not only does he send down Major Armstrong (the biggest and handsomest State Alchemist) with a battalion of shock troopers, but he makes an appearance himself and almost single handedly takes down chimeras and the homunculus, without batting an eye. It’s easy to see the power he has harnessed has allowed him to become the leader of the country. But it’s also revealed that he has the symbol of the ourobouros (the snake eating its own tail) on his eye and so far, only homunculi have had that symbol. So either it can be used for other purposes OR Bradley himself is a homunculus. With the order to exterminate the nation of Shamballa, and therefore its attendant priests with their unique power (as we’ve seen through it’s misuse by Scar), coming directly from Bradley, it would appear that the power of Shamballa is something that the followers of the ourobouros fear. My vote is that Bradley is a homunculus. Which means he’s ultimately evil and if that plays out, I hope he gets his.

Knowing my luck though, the manga-ka will pull an old fashioned switch-a-roo and reveal some info that changes everything at the worst possible moment. So I’m not placing my dollar just quite yet.

Ahhh yes, the art. Blah, blah blah. The symmetry was totally blah, blahh but I found the use of different pen styles blah, blah, blah. In short, blah, blah blah unless you’re really into that stuff and then I’d probably have to say blah, blah, blah, but just like with Bradley getting my vote for being an evil homunculus, don’t hold me to blah, blah, blah because it might just change to blah, blah, blah at any time. That’s the wonderful thing about art, it can totally blah, blah, blah.

★★★★☆

All My “Fullmetal Alchemist” Reviews

Tuesday, May 02, 2023

The Silent Seven (The Shadow #7) ★★★✬☆

Title: The Silent Seven
Series: The Shadow #7
Authors: Maxwell Grant
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Crime Fiction
Pages: 142
Words: 46K

From Thelivingshadow.fandom.com

A violent crime wave swept New York — ingenious, well-planned escapades masterminded by the Silent Seven, a vicious underworld conspiracy. Hooded criminals, meeting in secret, known to each other by an ancient ritual and matching scarab rings, they plotted to terrorize the city.

Detective Joe Cardona was baffled. First one murder, death by poison pin prick; then another, a cold-blooded execution. The sole clue to both, a pair of dice showing seven. He knew only man could penetrate the inner sanctum of the den of evil — The Shadow. Moving with an uncanny stealth, the master crime fighter carefully lays a brilliant trap. if his cunning were enough to defeat these evil angels, the last laugh, that eerie chuckle, would be his once again!

Another good Shadow read. I was thinking about giving this 4stars because I really enjoyed the idea of the Shadow taking on a whole group of hidden crime masterminds but then they ended up acting pretty stupid and so I bumped it down that critical half-star. Plus, allowing themselves to be infiltrated by some schlub didn’t measure up to the mark of Master Villain in my mind.

Harry Vincent almost getting crushed to death in a room with a descending ceiling though, that was great. That guy is the world’s foremost idiot and I like to see him suffer. I know the chances of him actually dying are zilch, but I can always hope. Without hope, life is miserable 😉

Nothing about this book, aside from the villains not living up to my expectations, was a hindrance. It was smooth sailing and a good adventure story. Keep’em coming Grant!

★★★✬☆

All of My “The Shadow” Reviews

Monday, May 01, 2023

Cave People - MTG 4th Edition

Sunday, April 30, 2023

April '23 Roundup & Ramblings

Raw Data:

Novels – 13 ↓

Short Stories – 0 ⭤

Manga/Graphic Novels – 4 ⭤

Comics – 7 ⭤

Average Rating – 3.25 ↓

Pages – 4049 ↓

Words – 1123K ↓

The Bad:

Captain of the Monte Cristo – 1star of pure crap

Web of Spiderman #6-9 – 2stars of drivel and bologna

The Good:

The Knight of Swords – 5stars of Eternal Champion’ness

Murder by the Book – 4.5stars of Nero Wolfe. ’nuff said

Galahad at Blandings – 4.5stars of Wodehouse succeeding at making me jovial.

Movie:

Shrek 2 was a great movie. While not quite as “deep” as the first movie, I found it to be funnier. Looking forward to talking about the third one in May.

Miscellaneous Posts:

Personal:

Mrs B was fully asymptomatic so she was back to her regular self. Working, eating, visiting, she was back. I hadn’t realized how much of a burden it was until even the shadow of her illness was gone.

We ate out a LOT this month. My mom and Mrs B were going to go to a women’s retreat at my former church one weekend but the entire staff came down with covid in about 24hrs, so it was cancelled. So mom stayed with my bro and sisterinlaw and we spent the weekend visiting a lot. We also took a young couple at church out to dinner to get to know them better. Man, it made me feel old. I’m only in my mid-40’s but they are in the early to mid-20’s and recently married and I was just laughing on the inside almost the entire time. It was great!

Part way through the month a memo went out that our hours were going to be changing to 48hrs per week. That was going to be a killer and I wasn’t sure how we were going to actually do that. Thankfully our office manager told us that the reality was our hours (field crew) were going to be staying the same and so I’m still at 40-45hrs, which is fine. That was a big relief.

On Resurrection Sunday we were invited to an Easter Dinner with a family at church. They also invited another couple. Unfortunately, the female half of the other couple tends to talk non-stop when she’s not completely comfortable, to the point of cutting other people off and not letting conversation flow. We were hoping that since she and her husband are comfortable with us (we’ve gone out to a great mexican place several times) that she’d be ok. It didn’t work out that way and our plans to get to know the host family came to naught. They nor us could get a word in edge-wise. It simply reinforced my view that people, even when you like them, are jackasses.

I did get pretty close to posting only 1 post a day for the whole month. Much better than in March. I’m proud for not going crazy again 🙂

Cover Love:

Cassilda’s Song edited by Pulver was the clear winner for the cover love this month. The tattered, yellowish robe is close to what I imagine the King in Yellow himself wears.

Plans for Next Month:

I know I have moved a lot into the visual medium a lot more than even 2 years ago. Comics, manga, MTG picture posts, I feel like my focus is shifting. I don’t know how comfortable I am with that. And I say that because I am thinking of adding a once a month post depicting some artwork. I’m still tossing that idea around in my head, so we’ll see if it happens this month or not.

Other than that, it’s business as usual. Book reviews on Tuesdays and Thursdays with the occasional but random Sunday and Saturday. Magic posts on Mondays, manga on Wednesdays and various comics on Friday. Then random stuff on random Sunday and Saturdays 😀 Routine is a great thing!

Saturday, April 29, 2023

Enders Game (Enderverse #1) ★★★★☆

Title: Enders Game
Series: Enderverse #1
Authors: Orson Card
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 251
Words: 106K

From Wikipedia.com

Humanity has mastered interplanetary spaceflight and they encounter an insect-like alien race called the Formics, and war breaks out. The humans achieve a narrow victory, but fearing future threats of a Formic invasion, create the International Fleet (I.F.) and train gifted children to become commanders at their orbiting Battle School.

Andrew “Ender” Wiggin is born a “Third”: a rare exception to Earth’s two-child policy, allowed by the government due to the promise shown by his two older siblings. The eldest, Peter, is a highly intelligent sociopath who sadistically bullies Ender. His sister, Valentine, is more sympathetic towards him. The I.F. remove Ender’s monitoring device when he is six years old, seemingly ending his chances of Battle School. He is bullied by a fellow student, Stilson, but Ender turns violent and attacks him. Unknown to Ender, Stilson later dies from his wounds. I.F. Colonel Hyrum Graff visits Ender after hearing about the fight. Ender attests that by showing superiority now, he has prevented future struggle. Graff offers him a place in the Battle School.

Once at Battle School, Graff and the other leaders covertly work to keep Ender isolated from the other cadets. Ender finds solace in playing a simulated adventure game that involves killing a giant. The cadets participate in competitive war simulations in zero gravity, where Ender quickly masters the game with novel tactics. To further wear Ender down, he is promoted to command a new army composed of raw recruits, then pitted against multiple armies at once, but Ender’s success continues. Ender’s jealous ex-commander, Bonzo Madrid, draws him into a fight outside the simulation, and once again seeking to preemptively stop future conflicts Ender uses excessive force, and like Stilson before him Bonzo dies from his injuries.

Meanwhile on Earth, Peter Wiggin uses a global communication system to post political essays under the pseudonym “Locke”, hoping to establish himself as a respected orator and then as a powerful politician. Valentine, despite not trusting Peter, agrees to publish alongside him as “Demosthenes”. Their essays are soon taken seriously by the government. Though Graff is told their true identities, he recommends that it be kept a secret, because their writings are politically useful.

Ender, now ten years old, is promoted to Command School. After some preliminary battles in the simulator, he is introduced to Mazer Rackham, a hero from the Formic war who saw key patterns in the Formic behavior. Ender participates in space combat simulations created and controlled by Mazer. As the skirmishes become harder, he is joined by some of his friends from the Battle School as sub-commanders. Despite this, Ender becomes depressed by the battles, his isolation, and by the way Mazer treats him.

For his final test, under observation by I.F.’s commanders, Ender finds his fleet far outnumbered by Formic ships surrounding their homeworld. Hoping to earn himself expulsion from the school for his ruthlessness, he sacrifices his entire fleet to fire a Molecular Disruption Device at the planet. The Device destroys the planet and the surrounding Formic fleet. He is shocked to hear the I.F. commanders cheering in celebration. Mazer informs Ender that the “simulations” he has been fighting were real battles, directing human spacecraft against Formic fleets via an ansible, and that Ender has won the war. Despite Graff congratulating him, Ender becomes more depressed, realizing that he has committed genocide and become just like his brother.

Ender spends several weeks isolated before recovering. He learns that war has broken out on Earth. Ender and Valentine join a group of space colonists.

On their new planet, Ender becomes the colony’s governor. He discovers a structure that matches the simulation of the giant game from Battle School, and inside finds the dormant egg of a Formic queen. The queen telepathically communicates to Ender that before the first Formic war, they had assumed humans were a non-sentient race, for want of collective consciousness, but realized their mistake too late. Instead, she had reached out to Ender to draw him here and requests that he take the egg to a new planet for the Formics to colonize.

Ender takes the egg and, with information from the queen, writes The Hive Queen under the alias “Speaker for the Dead”. Peter, now the leader of Earth and age 77 with a failing heart, recognizes Ender as the author of The Hive Queen. He asks Ender to write a book about him, which Ender titles The Hegemon. The combined works create a new type of funeral, in which the Speaker for the Dead tells the whole and unapologetic story of the deceased, adopted by many on Earth and its colonies. Ender and Valentine leave the colony and travel to many other worlds, looking for a safe place to establish the unborn Hive Queen.

After reading, and immensely enjoying, the First Formic War trilogy, I realized that I had never read the original Enderverse saga. I had read Ender’s Game and Speaker for the Dead, but never delved beyond that. Mainly I suspect because I’d read enough of Card’s other works that put me off of him (mainly the Homecoming series and Alvin the Maker series). But because I’m a completionist at heart, I realized there was a gap in my Enderverse reading that should be fixed. Plus, The Second Formic War trilogy appears to be on hold as the second book was published in ‘19 and there’s no definite date for the final book yet.

I’ve read Ender’s Game multiple times over the years. I’ve never read the original short story and I suspect I never will. I’ll stick to the fully fleshed out novel.

This time around, it struck me that the main theme of the story seems to be that survival of a species justifies any and all action. Don’t get me wrong, if the bugs had attacked Earth for real, I’d totally be advocating for complete and utter xenocide. But I don’t have to worry about that, so it’s the “idea” that Card plays with here and it’s as an “idea” that I reacted to. I do not believe that survival of a species is the be all and end all. That obviously comes from my worldview as a Christian. On an individual level, Christians have been tortured and killed for Millennia in attempts to get them to deny Jesus Christ. When they don’t, bad things happen. They give up their life because what they believe is greater than the circumstance of death or having their fingernails pulled out and their joints broken (a common tactic experienced by many Chinese Christians in the 20^th and 21^st century). So if an individual can hold that something is greater than himself, cannot an entire species do the same?

That was the thought process swirling around in my head as I was reading this time around. In the end, Card allows Ender to atone (even though it wasn’t Ender’s will that had destroyed the bugs, hence the “game” part of the title) by giving him a Formic queen egg.

Now I want to go re-watch the movie!

★★★★☆