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 Pelican at Blandings Series: Blandings Castle #11 Authors: PG Wodehouse Rating: 4 of 5 Stars Genre: Humor Pages: 185 Words: 66K
From Wikipedia:
Lord Emsworth is in clover at Blandings, with the only guest, Howard Chesney, easily avoided by eating alone in the library. His peace is shattered by the arrival of his sister Connie, along with a friend she has met on the boat over from America, Vanessa Polk, and the news that Dunstable is soon to descend upon the castle adds to his misery. Desperate, he calls on his brother Gally for aid.
Gally is in London, meeting his godson Johnny Halliday, who announces his engagement to Dunstable’s niece Linda. He hurries to the castle, sharing a train carriage with Dunstable, who tells Gally how he has bought a painting of a reclining nude, having heard how anxious the wealthy Wilbur Trout is to buy it; Dunstable plans to bring Trout to Blandings to sell him the picture at a large profit.
At the castle, Connie urges Dunstable to cosy up with Vanessa Polk, her father’s wealth proving an easy lure, and Emsworth’s woes are compounded by his beloved Empress’ refusal to eat a potato. Gally hears from Linda that her engagement to Halliday is no more, and Halliday himself visits, to explain the incident, a grilling he was obliged to give Linda as a witness in a court case he was defending, which led to their split. He begs Gally to invite him to the castle, but Gally, explaining his position in Connie’s bad books, sends him home, promising to do his best on his behalf.
Wilbur Trout arrives, and we learn that Vanessa Polk was once engaged to him, and still harbours tender feelings. He tells her the tale of Dunstable’s treachery, and she hatches a plan to steal the painting. In London, Halliday hears from his partner Joe Bender that the painting sold to Dunstable was a fake, and he calls in Gally’s help. The capable old Pelican arranges to swap the real picture for the fake, but decides to take a bath before replacing the original in the empty frame.
Emsworth, visiting his pig after a worrying dream, falls into the muddy sty, then finds himself locked out, Gally having turned the key on his return from meeting Johnny. He enters the house via Dunstable’s rooms, waking up the Duke when surprised by a cat, and later returns to wake the Duke again when he sees the empty frame. When the rest of the household see the picture, now replaced by Gally, the Duke’s low opinion of Emsworth’s sanity persuades him to call in psychiatric help; Gally recommends Johnny, who he pretends is Sir Roderick Glossop’s junior partner.
Vanessa Polk, having spotted him for a crook, persuades Chesney to help her steal the painting, but he recognises Halliday, newly arrived at the castle, as the attorney who defended him after an earlier crime went wrong. He plans to leave to avoid being unmasked and return by night for the painting, but seeing Halliday at the top of the stairs, pushes him down. Halliday falls, taking Dunstable with him, and while he angers the Duke he endears himself to Linda, who finds herself kissing his face as he lies prone in the hallway. Linda, now firmly in favour of Halliday, reveals she cannot marry without Dunstable’s consent, which he refuses after the stairs incident, and also having recalled Halliday’s father, who he never got on with.
Connie calls Glossop’s office, finds Halliday is an imposter and ejects him from the castle. Trout and Vanessa meet up in the night to steal the painting, but Chesney fails to turn up, having crashed his car on the way. The two realise they love each other, and leave next morning to get married. Connie insists that Dunstable write to Vanessa proposing marriage; but the letter is intercepted by Gally, who shares with Dunstable his knowledge that Vanessa is not really an heiress, and makes the Duke allow the wedding of Linda and Johnny in exchange for the return of his letter, under threat of a breach of promise suit if it were to reach Vanessa. Connie is recalled to America by her husband, and the Duke returns home, leaving Emsworth once again master of his domain.
A nice light and amusing read that kept me happy for a couple of hours. That’s all I ask of these books and thankfully, they provide it in spades.
My only issue is that I know I only have one more Blandings Castle book to read. So that kind of cast a melancholic cloud over the time.
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 Yellow Sign Series: The King in Yellow Anthology #8 Editor: James Hodge Rating: 4.5 of 5 Stars Genre: Cosmic Horror Pages: 199 Words: 72K
From the Publisher & Bookstooge.blog
FBI Agent Erica Blaine has suffered more than most. After narrowly escaping being at the center of a cult sacrifice she’d been tasked with infiltrating, Erica has spent the last few months hitting the bottle, trying to avoid dealing with the trauma of what she experienced and those she couldn’t save. Her ruined hands, always gloved, are an unavoidable reminder of her pain and anguish.
As is the voice that won’t allow her a moment of peace.
But when her old Army buddy goes missing under suspicious circumstances, Erica is pulled back into the Lovecraftian world of cult infiltration. The Yellow College welcomes her with open arms, but as her sanity crumbles beneath the weight of hallucinations, old traumas, and lost memories, how can she expect to save her friend when she can barely tell what’s real and what isn’t?
Have you seen the shores of Carcosa?
The Yellow College believes that Erica is the chosen vessel for the King in Yellow to manifest himself in. This will usher in a new age as the King reigns openly. What they don’t know is that the King has his own plans, for them, for Erica and for the world.
In the end, the college sacrifices itself in a feeding frenzy of madness and despair and Erica becomes a synthesis of herself and the King in Yellow, a new being called Nihilo. Who will bring death, destruction and madness everywhere she walks.
This starts out slow. But being familiar with how the mythology of the King in Yellow always works itself out, I was expecting that. I could see how that would be off putting to those who are either familiar with King in Yellow mythology or have not read much beyond the original 4 stories by Chambers. I would NOT recommend this as a starting place for people to read more of the King in Yellow.
This was published in ‘22 and I think I’ve made the right choice at placing it as #8 in this “series” about the King in Yellow. It is also a full novel. Most of what has been written before has been short stories. Those are easier to pull off and can rely on The Idea. A novel takes a lot more work and has other limitations that a short story doesn’t. Like characterization and plot.
I felt like Hodge did an admirable job of writing up a full length novel around the concept of the King in Yellow. With an FBI agent as the main character investigating cult like behavior, I wasn’t sure if he was going to try for the “happy ending” or the real deal King in Yellow type ending. Thankfully, he chose to go with a real King in Yellow ending and that pushed this from a 3.5star rating up to it’s 4.5star rating. I was very pleased with just how gruesomely this ended, with the promise of continuing madness (not that there is more story to tell, but that the character of Nihilo will continue on the Earth).
There are two things that kept this from getting a 5star rating from me. First and foremost, was the just plain gratuitous use of the word “fuck”. I felt like it was thrown around like a teenage girl uses “like yeah, duh”. It didn’t really convey anything except Erica’s dissatisfaction with a situation and that was already shown in other ways, so it just felt gratuitous. If you took them out, nothing would have changed. The second, which is more of a niggle than anything, was that Hodge’s interpretation of the King is more Cthulhu’ic than pure King in Yellow. When Erica meets the King, he is described in terms that are more fitting to an eldritch tentacled horror than the King of Madness as Chamber’s described him. I like my King in Yellow to be completely separate from the Cthulhu mythos, even while I realize that particular boat has sailed. Like I said, a mere niggle.
I believe this was Hodge’s debut work and as such I am planning to keep an eye out for anything else he writes. I couldn’t find a website for him, but I also didn’t look that hard. I’m not a fan of authors as people, just authors as authors.
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 Drawing of the Dark Series: ———- Author: Tim Powers Rating: 3 of 5 Stars Genre: Fantasy Pages: 311 Words: 111K
From Wikipedia.org
The year is 1529, and Brian Duffy, a world-weary Irish mercenary soldier, is hired in Venice by the mysterious Aurelianus to go to Vienna and work as a bouncer at the Zimmerman Inn, former monastery and current brewery of the famous Herzwesten beer.
Meanwhile, the Ottoman Turkish army under Sultan Suleiman I has achieved its most advanced position yet in their march into Europe, and is prepared to undertake the siege of Vienna. With the Turkish army travels the Grand Vizier Ibrahim, a magician who intends to use horrific spells as part of the siege.
Duffy spent time in Vienna years ago, and as he returns, he is haunted by memories of past events, and also finds himself having visions of mythical creatures and being ambushed by shadowy people and demonic monsters.
Upon arriving in Vienna, Duffy reconnects with Epiphany Vogel, a former girlfriend, and her father Gustav, who is working on a painting he calls “The Death of St. Michael the Archangel”. It seems the painting is never quite complete, and the elder Vogel is continuously adding additional detail to the work, causing it to gradually become more and more obscure.
Then Duffy finds himself not only drafted into the city’s defensive army, but also led by Aurelianus down mystical paths from the surprisingly old brewery to even more ancient caves beneath the city, in search of defenses against the approaching army and clues to Duffy’s very nature.
As it turns out, Aurelianus knows more about Duffy and his past than Duffy himself knows, and his real purpose in hiring him is to protect the hidden Fisher King, secret spiritual leader of the western world, and to defend him and the West against the Turkish advance. And the real reason that Vienna must not be captured by the Turks is that it is the site of the Herzwesten brewery. Its light and bock beers are famous throughout Europe, but the dark beer, produced only every seven hundred years, has supernatural properties and must not be allowed to fall into enemy hands.
Meanwhile, others are drawn to Vienna in anticipation of significant events. The so-called “dark birds”, magically sensitive individuals from far flung corners of the world, arrive in the city hoping for a sip of the Herzwesten dark, and a small group of middle-aged Vikings have improbably sailed their ship down the Danube River to Vienna, having sensed that the prophesied final battle of Ragnarok will take place there.
This book can be summed up with the tabloid headline “Magical Beer Saves Western Civilization – read more on page 3”. It is ridiculous.
Not a bad novel, but I simply couldn’t get past the ridiculousness of the premise. Powers like playing with history and showing a “secret history” behind the events we all know and as such, I thought he did an excellent job here.
But I cannot get past Magical Beer saving civilization as we know it. I can’t. So 3 stars for a solid “secret history” fantasy but that’s as far as I’m willing to stretch here.
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: Web of Spiderman Annual #1 Writer: Ann Nocenti Rating: 2.5 of 5 Stars Genre: Comics Pages: 37 Words: 3K
From Marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Web_of_Spider-Man_Annual_Vol_1_1
Spotting a broken window outside of a jewelry store, Spider-Man swings inside to stop a robbery. Inside, much to his surprise, Spider-Man discovers that the robbery is being committed by a number of small humanoid robots. Chasing after the machines, Spider-Man watches as they begin to combine into a single large robot. When the masked hero tries to stop it, the robot begins to emit a high pitched noise that makes it hard for Spider-Man to concentrate. Through a force of will, Spider-Man is able to snare the robot with a web-line and the pull the robot to the ground. However, this only makes it worse, as the robot begins to flail around. The machine then rights itself, and with the sonic attack taking its toll on Spider-Man, the robot ropes him out and sprays him with knock out gas before fleeing the scene. Spider-Man manages to fight off the effects of the gas and breaks free from his bonds, and is able to sneak up on the robot and knock it out with a single punch. Recovering from the effects of the gas, Spider-Man recovers the robot’s severed head as a souvenir. As he leaves, the wall-crawler blames himself for not taking pictures of the battle as he could have sold them to the Daily Bugle. Examining the robot’s head, Spider-Man is impressed by its design and it reminds him of his of his days as a high school student. He then begins to chastise himself for allowing his identity as Spider-Man has been taking more priority to that of Peter Parker.
Elsewhere in the city, a young boy named Max is throwing out old sports equipment and toys into a nearby dumpster. A task made more difficult because of his leg braces and that his hands begin to cramp up. He suddenly hears a bunch of noise behind him, and when he turns around, Max discovers that some of his classmates have tied tin-cans to his legs. The kids chase Max, forcing him to run for it. When the intelligent child hurls insults at the other kids. Unable to understand Max’s vocabulary they threaten to beat him up, but he manages to flee the scene and get back home. Inside, Max has an advanced workshop where he conducts his experiments. Turning on his computers, it activates a robot that Max called “Future Max”. Max tells his robotic invention that his nervous system is slowly failing him, Max tells Future Max that he will eventually use mechanical parts to replace his own nervous system. Suddenly there is a tapping noise that comes from a brick wall. Max rushes to it, it is the girl who lives next door named Beatrice. He tells her about his day, making up a story about playing ball with his friends. Unaware of who Max really is, she hopes he wasn’t playing with the local bullies who she saw bullying a handicapped child. Beatrice then shows Max a surprise by pushing out one of the bricks that she chiseled loose so they can hold hands together. The idea of Beatrice learning the truth about him frightens Max. When she asks him to touch her hand, Max tries but his hands cramp up again and he accidentally hurts her. He apologizes but convinces her that he needs wants to keep the mystery of their friendship. Beatrice can’t understand it, but Max assures her that they can finally meet soon, but has to get back to work on his science fair project. It’s then that Max’s combining robots return home, and as he goes to work on repairing the damaged machine, he puts aside a letter from Reed Richards, declining his request for nerve restoration research due to time constraints.
The next day, a street hustler named Alexis Sharp decides to play a small con by offering to walk an elderly woman across the street in order to pick her pockets. Unfortunately, the plan backfires when her pet poodle bites Alexis’ finger, forcing him to punt the dog across the street and flee. Checking out the newspaper, he finds an article about an upcoming science fair and decides to use his con-man skills to find an inventive child with a wealthy family to bilk on false promises of marketing their child’s invention. Later, at the science fair, Max is setting up his science fair project. He crosses paths with his intellectual rival, Chester, who has assistants to help him set up his own project. However, these assistants are more interested in playing video games and eventually abandon Chester, leaving him to set up alone. Also present is Peter Parker, who is impressed with the imagination and ingenuity the children have put on display. Peter is impressed by Max’s invention, a device that increases the strength of your grip. Peter introduces himself to Max, who is excited to meet Parker, as he knows that Peter used to attend the same school and won his share of science fairs. As they begin talking about Max’s invention, the boy is happy to finally speak with someone who understands him. Peter offers to try and convince his editor at the Daily Bugle to do an article on Max and his inventions. Max is briefly interested but soon becomes engrossed in his work.
No sooner is Peter gone, Alexis Sharp approaches Max’s display and is impressed by what he sees. Trying to convince the boy that he is an agent, Max declines his representation. Sharp isn’t ready to give up and spots a love letter to Beatrice and another from Reed Richards that gives him an idea on how to manipulate the boy to suit his needs. Alexis then tells the boy that he is a colleague of Reed Richards, and that he works with people on an exchange basis. He convinces Max to build an exoskeleton that Alexis can wear to prove that his invention works. This finally gets through to the boy and he accepts Sharp’s card. Later that evening, Max is working on his exoskeleton, having to cannibalize Future Max in order to construct it. Max hopes that Reed Richards is impressed with is invention and agrees to cure him so he can finally reveal himself to Beatrice. As he works, Max accidentally bumps a water tank, spilling water on his mechanical arm brace. This causes a jolt of electricity that Beatrice hears from the other side of the wall. Beatrice asks Max if he is okay, and suggests that they meet up the following day. Max tells her he can’t for now, telling her to trust in their love for each other.
Meanwhile, Spider-Man returns home to his apartment and discovers that a local stray cat has managed to get into his apartment again. As it rubs up against the severed robot head, it suddenly calatters to life. Peter examines it more closely and realizes that it is build using the same principals as Max’s grip enhancer at the science fair. Putting on his mask, Spider-Man decides to make a social call to young Max. At that moment, Max is putting the final the final touches on the exoskeleton for Alexis Sharp, who helped fund the construction by calling in some underworld markers. As Alexis begins to test out the suit, Max begins to become suspicious of Sharp’s credentials. Suddenly, the doorbell rings and Max goes to answer it. It turns out to be Spider-Man who has come to talk to the youth. Seeing the robot head, Max tries to explain his situation. Hearing about Sharp’s alleged relationship with Reed Richards, Spider-Man asks Sharpe if he had heard about what happened with Richards’ daughter. This is a trick, as Reed doesn’t have a daughter, and Spider-Man catches him in a lie.[Continuity 1] Realizing the jig is up, Alexis Sharp tries to escape in the suit.
Spider-Man follows after him, and Sharp decides to fight back. Seeing that the battle suit is heavily armed, Spider-Man lures Alexis to an area that is scheduled for demolition. With no innocent people around, allowing the pair to cut loose. Down below, Max arrives and attempts to use a device to deactivate the armor, but it short circuits. An officer arrives on the scene and gets the boy to safety as Spider-Man and Sharp fight on. As the battle rages on, Max manages to slip by the police and get close enough to Spider-Man to tell him about the exoskeleton’s vulnerability to water. Spider-Man tells Max to get to cover and then uses this knowledge to lure Sharp to a nearby water tower. Knocking the crook into the water shorts out his armor, leaving him immobilized. Spider-Man then webs up Sharp and leaves him hanging for the police. The next day, Peter Parker arrives at Max’s house to take photos of him for the Daily Bugle article. Max tells him that he can’t take the photos as he has a date with Beatrice. Admitting that he is nervous, Peter reminds him that he helped Spider-Man that he is more brave than he thinks. Sure enough, when Max goes to visit Beatrice, they hit it off immediately.
Oh goodness. This was supposed to be a double sized issue, which means 48 pages at a minimum. However, once all the ads are removed, it was a measly 37 pages.
It is basically a one shot story about a smart kid with some sort of degenerative nerve disease being tricked into building a suit of armor for some insane guy who quotes movies (I’m not even going to say anything because I already know what I think of movies in general) and Spiderman fighting the badguy and the kid going on a date with the girl next door.
Let’s discuss that boy/girl love interest thing, shall we? The kid is in highschool. He talks to this girl, who lives in the apartment right next door, through a brick wall, a brick wall that is one brick thick. But they have never seen each other. Ever. Never ever never ever. Not even when going to school or coming or going out of the apartment building. So when they finally have their date, she invites him inside her apartment for dinner. I realize this was 1985, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t customary for single women living on their own to invite underage boys into their apartments.
And speaking of apartments. This kid has an entire laboratory in the basement. Now, maybe he’s living in some sort of town house and not an apartment building. But his single mom is raising him and he’s got a degenerative nerve/muscle disease. But he builds an Iron Man suit from egg beaters and junk material (no, seriously, Spiderman sees an eggbeater and comments on it), with sonic guns AND mini-missiles AND a machine gun. In his basement. This isn’t suspending reality, but pure wish fulfillment. I could see my 14year old self eating this up and absolutely loving it. But now, it’s beyond ridiculous. I just laughed and rolled my eyes.
Dave and I are going to be taking a break from this comic series for a couple of months. Dave because of being busy at work and me because I really need to evaluate if I want to actually read any more. The story, and hence the writer, is what separates the good from the bad and ol’ Ann Nocenti didn’t appear to be up to the job on this issue. So this will be the last Web of Spiderman review for at least a couple of months.
Now, I know that news is going to devastate you all. I can only imagine the turmoil, angst and old fashioned pain you will suffer because of this. And because I am a responsible blogger, I just want to reassure you all, THAT I WILL BE LAUGHING IN GLEE EVERY SINGLE SECOND THAT YOU ARE IN MISERY. Then I will pat you on the shoulder and say something banal like “there, there, it’s ok”. That makes it all ok.
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 Queen of the Swords Series: Eternal Champion: Corum #2 Author: Michael Moorcock Rating: 5 of 5 Stars Genre: Fantasy Pages: 123 Words: 44K
From Wikipedia.com
On another five planes, the forces of Chaos – led by Xiombarg, Queen of the Swords – reign supreme and are on the verge on eradicating the last resistance from the forces of Law. The avatars of the Bear and Dog gods plot with Earl Glandyth-a-Krae to murder Corum and return Arioch to the Fifteen Planes. Guided by Arkyn, Corum, Rhalina and companion Jhary-a-Conel cross the planes and encounter the King Without A Country, the last of his people who in turn is seeking the City in the Pyramid. The group locate the City, which is in fact a floating arsenal powered by advanced technology and inhabited by a people originally from Corum’s world and his distant kin.
Besieged by the forces of Chaos, the City requires certain rare minerals to continue to power their weapons. Corum and Jhary attempt to locate the minerals and also encounter Xiombarg, who learns of Corum’s identity. Corum slows Xiombarg’s forces by defeating their leader, Prince Gaynor the Damned. Xiombarg is goaded into attacking the City directly in revenge for Arioch’s banishment. Arkyn provides the minerals and confronts Xiombarg, who has manifested in a vulnerable state. As Arkyn banishes Xiombarg, Corum and his allies devastate the forces of Chaos. Glandyth-a-Krae, however, escapes and seeks revenge.
Alternate Synopsis
In the planes over which she rules, Xiombarg—a Greater God and one of the Lords of Chaos, known as the “Queen of the Swords”—is winning the battle against the humanoid inhabitants. She continues the fight in Corum’s plane, sending Prince Gaynor the Damned to direct the barbarian armies.
Corum, with Jhary-a-Conel and Rhalina, crosses the planes and find a world claimed by Chaos with plains of dried blood and other outlandish geography. They meet the King Without A Country, the last of his people who is seeking the City in the Pyramid. They find the city which turns out to be a floating one that originated in Corums own world – and the inhabitants are his kin. The city is under intermittent attack and for the moment its superior technology defends it. It could return to Corum’s world but needs special minerals to provide sufficient energy. They are able to send Corum and his companions back to seek the minerals in his own world. There he finds the last human city under threat from a monstrous army of barbarians and chaos allies. He seeks out Gaynor and defeats him in single combat. With Gaynor banished the barbarian armies are largely leaderless but still a terrible threat. Arkyn, a lord of law, supplies the materials needed and they are sent back to Xiombarg’s worlds. At the same time the barbarian armies crash against the last city standing. At the last moment the Sky city comes between the planes to help the defenders. Driven by anger Xiombarg follows the Floating city through the rift between the planes. This is in violation of the Cosmic Balance and the balance sends her back and restores Donblas, Arkyn’s brother lord of law. The sky ships of the City destroy the barbarian armies with their wondrous weapons.
In many ways, I think the success of this book is because of its contrast with the Elric books. Elric is also an aspect of the Eternal Champion, but he is fighting on the side of Chaos. In fact, his patron is Arioch, the Prince of Swords, whom Corum killed in the previous book. Corum is fighting for Law but there are several times where he and Elric team up together as a greater aspect of the Eternal Champion, thus they are on the same side. That dichotomy is fun to read about but Moorcock doesn’t make it a point here, you have to have read his other stories for it to actually be seen.
The other fun thing is seeing how each eternal warrior views the other side. In Elric, he at one point goes to a world completely governed by Law. It is presented as a dead and static world with nothing alive, just monuments that last forever. In this book, Corum goes to a world completely run by Chaos and it is simply random destruction and presented as untenable for a stable mind. In both worlds, in both stories, each respective Lord of Chaos/Law lectures their Champion about the dangers of untrammeled Other. Chaos warns Elric of Law freezing the universe into a static perfection and Arkyn warns Corum about the entropy of Chaos which will lead to ultimate destruction.
This is also where the Companion is introduced. The Eternal Champion usually has a companion to help him and said companion is as eternal as the Champion. But where the Champion doesn’t remember his other aspects, the Companion sometimes does and this allows him to be of great use. But his end is usually as sad as the Champions. Jhary-a-Conel is as much a plot device as a real character but is nonetheless integral to the story. In many ways, he’s more fleshed out than Corum’s human love interest, but once you start reading more Eternal Warrior stories and see what happens to the Companion, you also realize what a completely melancholic character he has to be. So there’s almost no point in fleshing him out because you know he’s going to disappear into the next realm at some point (the best scenario) or he’s going to die horribly and be reincarnated again. Poor guy.
This is just as good this time as the previous time I read these. I think Corum really is one of Moorcock’s best creations and I sure hope the rest of the series holds up as well.
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: Gear Series: One Piece #40 Arc: Water Seven #9 Author: Eiichiro Oda Rating: 2.5 of 5 Stars Genre: Manga Pages: 225 Words: 10K
From Wikipedia:
“Casualties”
“Power Level”
“Enies Lobby Main Island Express”
“Fired”
“Demon Lair”
“Luffy vs. Blueno”
“Signal the Counterattack”
“There Is a Way”
“Unprecedented”
“Gear”
“Gear Two”
The Straw Hats lay waste to Enies Lobby, defeating anyone who tries to keep them from Robin. As the rest of the crew deals with the less formidable guardians of the island, Luffy goes ahead and calls out to CP9. Only one member of CP9, Blueno, agrees to fight him, remembering how quickly Luffy was defeated in their last encounter. As the battle progresses Luffy demonstrates his ability to use one of CP9’s abilities. After using his “Gear Two” and before demonstrating his “Gear Three”, Luffy defeats Blueno and calls out to Robin that he is there to rescue her.
This could have been a fantastic volume. It was one massive battle as the Straw Hat Pirates and Frankie’s “family” came to rescue Robin and Frankie from the stronghold of the World Government. I could actually follow most of the action, which isn’t a given with how swirly the manga-ka usually does his battles. I also thought how the various crew members getting stronger was well done. Even Usopp, excuse me, I mean “Sniper King” is getting better at surviving extinction level events. And Luffy’s battle with one of the CP9? It went fantastically.
But.
There were simply too many double paged spreads. That might work in a paper magazine or even in a tankouban (the manga you see in a bookstore) just fine. But I’m reading this digitally, on my computer. And my options are to either shrink to a 2 page spread (and lose a ton of details and possible what the characters are saying) or to stick to 1 page at a time and have to flip back and forth to get the full picture of the action as it is spread across 2 pages and goes from top to bottom. It was incredibly frustrating.
In the manga-ka’s defense, digital wasn’t nearly as big when this was originally published. But I’m reading it now, not 13 years ago. And even then, trying to open a tankouban fully usually meant breaking the spine or having details on the inner edge being lost to view. SO NOT GOOD. THEN OR NOW!!!!!!!!!!!! HERE ME RAWWWWWWR!
Therefore I am going to be inventing time travel so I can send Oda-sensei this review, so that he flipping knocks it off. There’s no need for double page spreads. Period. And if he continues them, well, then you’ll know the REAL reason why Kyle Reese and the T800 went back in time.
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 Final Hour Series: Victor the Assassin #7 Authors: Tom Wood Rating: 4 of 5 Stars Genre: Action/Adventure Pages: 321 Words: 106K
From the Publisher
SOMETIMES THE ONLY WAY TO LIVE…
Victor is the ultimate predator. He surfaces to kill, then disappears into thin air. But he’s a disposable commodity for the powerful people he works for–both the good guys and the bad. And no one has his back. Especially now that doing black bag jobs for the CIA has put a target on his head…
…IS TO DIE.
Antonio Alvarez, a high-ranking US intelligence official, is determined to clean house and find the legendary killer who slipped away from him during an operation in Paris. There’s only one person Victor can turn to for help: a lethal female assassin whose life he once saved. And now Victor wants her to return the favor–by killing him….
In The Darkest Day, Victor ran across another assassin, one who was as beautiful as she was deadly. And Victor kills her but with just once chance for her to survive. She survives. She not only survives Victor, but she survives the amorphous Company that wants her dead. So when Victor needs to die, to get all the Alphabets off his back, he knows she can handle it.
Meanwhile, a new, powerful hotshot Homeland Security Director (man, I HATE Homeland Security. We did not need yet another powerful governmental agency destroying our rights and freedoms in the name of safety. And they are as rapacious about power as the now politically weaponized FBI and as crooked as the CIA that has spied on its own citizens) wants Victor dead, even without knowing exactly who Victor is.
This was a tight rope of a story. Miss Assassin recovery and surviving to Victor being hounded to the inevitable massive explosion that Victor hopes will convince his enemies that he is dead. And he still walks away from Miss Assassin. But. He doesn’t kill her this time. That was a huuuuge step towards Victor being an actual human 🙂 But no worries, he still tells her that if he sees her again they are enemies and he will kill her. Now THAT’S the Victor I’ve come to know and love, hahahaa. What a guy.
I really like this no holds barred action series. While Victor is completely immoral (he might say he’s amoral, but killing other people is immoral by even the most hardened and jaded of criminals standards), he’s in the business of killing other immoral people. Evil devours itself. That is its nature after all.
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Title: Speaker for the Dead Series: Enderverse #2 Authors: Orson Card Rating: 2.5 of 5 Stars Genre: SF Pages: 500 Words: 136K
From Wikipedia.com
Eight years after the Descolada virus is cured, Xenologer Pipo and his thirteen-year-old son and apprentice Libo have developed a friendship with the Pequeninos. They allow Novinha to join their science team as the colony’s only xenobiologist after she passes the test at age thirteen. After accidentally sharing information about human genders with a male Pequenino named Rooter, the scientists find Rooter’s body eviscerated, a sapling planted within it. Guessing this may be a torturous sacrificial ritual, restrictions on studying the Pequeninos are enforced, barring the humans from asking questions directly at Pequininos.
A few years later, Novinha discovers that every lifeform on Lusitania carries the Descolada virus which, though lethal to humans, appears to serve a beneficial purpose to native lifeforms. When Pipo learns of this, he suddenly has an insight, and before he tells the others, races off to talk to the Pequeninos. Libo and Novinha find Pipo’s body cut open just as Rooter’s had been, but with no sapling planted. As Pipo’s death appears unprovoked, the Pequeninos are now considered a threat by the Starways Congress and restrictions on studying them are tightened. Distraught, Novinha makes a call for a Speaker for the Dead for Pipo. She is in love with Libo but fears that if he sees her files of research he will make the same discovery as Pipo and meet the same fate. She marries another colonist, Marcos Ribeira, so as to lock her files from being opened.
Andrew Wiggin, unbeknownst by others to be the Ender Wiggin responsible for the Formic xenocide, lives innocuously on the planet Trondheim. He responds to Novinha’s call, parting with his sister, Valentine, who has traveled with him but is now settled with a family. He travels with an artificial intelligence named Jane who communicates with Ender through a jewel earring; she was born in the Ansible network that enables faster-than-light communications and keeps her existence secret. After relativistic travel, Ender arrives at Lusitania 22 years later (1970 S.C.), finding that Novinha canceled her request for a Speaker five days after sending it. In the intervening time, Libo died in the same manner as Pipo, and Marcos succumbed to a chronic illness. Novinha’s eldest children, Ela and Miro, have requested a Speaker for Libo and Marcos. Ender, gaining access to all of the appropriate files, learns of tension since Pipo’s death: Novinha has turned away from xenobiology to study crop growth and had a loveless relationship with Marcos; Miro has secretly worked with Libo’s daughter Ouanda to continue to study the Pequeninos, breaking the law to share human technology and knowledge with them. Miro and Ouanda have fallen in love. With Ender’s arrival, Miro tells him that one of the Pequeninos, Human, has taken a great interest in Ender, and Ender becomes aware that Human can hear messages from the Formic Hive Queen. Ender discovers that Marcos was infertile: all six of Novinha’s children were fathered by Libo. Ender also learns what Pipo had seen in Novinha’s data.
As word of Miro’s and Ouanda’s illegal sharing of human technology with the Pequeninos is reported to Congress, Ender secretly meets with the Pequeninos. They know his true identity and they implore him to help them be part of civilization, while the Formic Queen tells Ender that Lusitania would be an ideal place to restart the hive, as her race can help guide the Pequeninos. Congress orders Miro and Ouanda to be sent off-planet for penal action and the colony be disbanded. Ender delivers his eulogy for Marcos, revealing Novinha’s infidelity. Miro, distraught to learn that he is Ouanda’s half-brother, attempts to escape to the Pequeninos, but he suffers neurological damage after he tries to cross the electrified fence. Ender reveals to the colony what Pipo learned: every life form on Lusitania is paired with another through the Descolada virus, so that the death of one births the other. In the case of the Pequeninos, they become trees when they die. The colony leaders agree to rebel against Congress, severing their Ansible connection and deactivating the fence, allowing Ender, Ouanda, and Ela to go with Human to speak to the Pequenino wives, to help establish a case to present to Congress.
The Pequenino wives help Ender corroborate the complex life cycle of the Pequeninos, affirming that the death ritual Pipo observed was to help create “fathertrees” who fertilize the Pequenino females to continue their race. The Pequeninos believed they were honoring Pipo, and later Libo, by helping them become fathertrees, but Ender explains that humans lack this “third life”, and if the Pequeninos are to cohabitate with humans, they must respect this difference. To affirm their understanding and agreement, Ender is asked to perform the ritual of giving Human “third life” as a fathertree.
Miro recovers from most of the physical damage from his encounter with the fence, but he is partially paralyzed; Ender transfers Jane to him, and she becomes Miro’s companion. Valentine and her family decide to travel from Trondheim to Lusitania to help with the revolt and will arrive in some decades due to relativistic travel; Ender has Miro meet them halfway. Novinha finally absolves herself of her guilt for the death of Pipo and Libo. She and Ender marry. Ender plants the Hive Queen as per her request, and he writes his third book, a biography of the life of the Pequenino, Human.
This is a very different beast of a book than Ender’s Game. In subject matter, tone and even philosophically. There is no outside threat uniting humanity but only a potentiality of a threat. That “threat” is the pre-industrial piggies that the Commonwealth of Humanity now wants to keep locked onto their one world. At the same time Ender is seeking redemption for his xenocide of the formics by finding a planet where the buggers can be reborn live again.
Card really dives into what makes a sentient being and the various ways different sentient creatures view each other and how they interact. He comes at it from a completely humanistic and evolutionistic viewpoint. Everthing in the book springs directly from those two ideas.
There is also an odd side story about Jane, an AI that spontaneously came into being with the use of the ansibles, the faster than light communication system. She seems to have some sort of relationship with Ender until she abruptly takes up with one of the side characters. It felt very forced and something that Card uses to bridge to the next book.
This felt like a closing on the Andrew Wiggin (Ender) character. I have my doubts about him being in the future books. I am ok with that, because Card has turned Ender into a prototype Beta-Male like Ross from the tv show Friends. Ender stays in the background, even psychologically, the entire time. It is so different from the previous book and I didn’t like that change. I almost wish Card had used a different character instead of turning Ender into what is shown here.
I will definitely be reading the rest of the original Enderverse books. However, I suspect I will not be enjoying them nearly as much as I did Ender’s Game or Card’s Pathfinder trilogy. This book felt much more akin to his Alvin Maker series than to the Formic Wars novels. Cerebral navel gazing instead of doing.
