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: Conan the Destroyer Series: Conan the Barbarian Author: Robert Jordan Rating: 3 of 5 Stars Genre: Fantasy Pages: 170 Words: 57K
This was the novelization of the 1984 movie Conan the Destroyer. I had no idea until I went to google the synopsis. It also went a long way towards explaining why this felt like a second part of a story. Conan is constantly thinking about some woman he made a promise too and blah blah blah history history history. It made me wonder if Jordan had written another Conan book that I wasn’t aware of and needed to get to. But this revelation about the movie suddenly makes it all make sense.
But if I had never googled, I could never have told you this was a novelization. It read exactly like a pulp and all the previous Conan books by Jordan. To be honest, that’s a big positive in my books. Most novelizations are dry and lacking in artistic literary flair. Not this one.
My only quibble is the artifact this time, the Heart of Ahriman. I swear that has been used in another Conan novel. And ha, it has been, twice. First time I read about the heart of Ahriman was in Hour of the Dragon, an original Conan novel by Howard himself. The second time was in Conan and the Manhunters by John Maddox Roberts. What a wealth of useless knowledge I am! So yeah, it’s a MacGuffin and it didn’t work so hot for me.
Other than that, this was a typical Sword and Sorcery Conan adventure. You know what you’re getting and if you don’t like it, it’s your fault for reading this genre and character in the first place.
★★★☆☆
From Wikipedia.org
Queen Taramis of Shadizar promises to bring Conan’s lost love Valeria back to life if the Cimmerian will procure two magical items that she hopes will gain her ultimate power, a wizard’s gem and a horn that can awaken the dreaming god Dagoth. He undertakes the quest together with his thief partner Malak and Taramis’ niece Jehnna and henchman Bombaata. On their journey they are joined by two additional allies whom Conan saves from dire fates; the magician Akiro and the female warrior Zula. At their goal, the castle of the wizard Amon-Rama, Jehnna is kidnapped. Thanks to Akiro’s magic she is located in Amon-Rama’s lair and a way in is discovered. Inside, Conan is separated from the others and forced to battle a Man-Ape in a hall of mirrors, which he is only able to defeat by destroying the mirrors. He also mortally wounds the wizard, who is hiding behind one of them. Jehnna, who is the only person who can safely handle the wizard’s gem, retrieves the first magical item.
Afterward, the group beats off an attack by Corinthian soldiers and continues on to the fortress that holds the horn. It is retrieved at the cost of a battle with its Dagoth-worshipping keepers, whose leader Akiro defeats in a sorcerous duel. Bombaata and Jehnna escape through a tunnel, which the former closes to the others by starting a landslide. Back at Taramis’ palace, the queen conducts a ritual to awaken Dagoth that entails the placing of the horn on the forehead of the sleeping deity, and ultimately the sacrifice of Jehnna. Conan, Akiro, and Zula, having survived the landslide, interrupt the proceedings.
Conan fights and defeats Bombaata while Zula rescues Jehnna. In the absence of the sacrifice, Dagoth is an uncontrollable monster on his revival, eating Taramis and threatening the destruction of everything else. On the advice of Akiro, Conan rips the horn from Dagoth’s forehead, and the creature finally falls. In the aftermath, Jehnna succeeds to the throne of Shadazar and takes Zula, Akiro, and Malak as advisors. She offers Conan her hand and a place at her side as king, but the Cimmerian prefers to win his own kingdom.
I am currently working on my Author Index. It is going extremely well. I started at Z and am currently working my way through the D’s. Specifically, I am dealing with Charles Dickens right now. I have 56 reviews for that man. And I have to go through and find each post and see if it has the Dickens tag and if not, add it.
I was wondering, why do I do this to myself? And I realized that if I wasn’t doing this, I’d be doing something similar and complaining about that too 😀 I am just an organizational freak and I need to accept that fact. Whatever my current hobby is, I’m organizing it. When I was playing Magic the Gathering, I had all sorts of ways to organize those cards. I eventually gave up because 15,000 cards were simply too much for me. At least all my reviews are now electronic so I can deal with them a bit easier.
Despite my complaining, I am enjoying myself immensely. Which is why I am complaining. I just can’t enjoy something fully unless I’m miserable about it. Yeah, I rolled my eyes at myself too, but hey, that’s just how I’m wired so I’m learning to roll with it. So join me in celebrating by being miserable with me, hahahahaha! Dickens for the win!
We got an intern for the summer. Which means a new meat bag to grind up. It was my privilege to do the grinding this time and that meant I was back to working 45+hrs a week instead of 40. Which is wonderful for the paycheck.
We really needed it. We had to buy a new mattress because our previous one was from ’06. Mattresses cost a lot more than they used to, that is a stone cold fact! Plus, the first mattress we bought ended up giving both of us back pain and bad dreams (it was simply too firm), so we’re in the process of exchanging it for another that is a good bit softer.
We also found out that we need to replace a couple of windows in our condo because of frame rot, so that is going to be a bundle too. So everything I’m earning by getting overtime is already being spent before I’ve earned it. I just hope our cars don’t break down.
So because of my extra working time, my reading time dropped. It is probably going to stay that way through August. That lack of reading time is really going to take care of my problem about posting so much. So no need for an extra blog or to come up with some other convoluted solution. As one wise commenter said (even though I think they were being snarky) “Post less”. Sometimes the simplest solutions are the best.
Now for the not so easy (for me) stuff.
My eye. It continued to be effected for most of the month. On the 21st the Doctor decided that it WAS getting better and thus surgery (slicing and dicing kind of eye surgery) wasn’t necessary and that the regular treatments of laser cauterizations and chemical injections were still the order of the day. You have no idea the weight that was taken off of my shoulders with that decision.
There were 1 or 2 blogging things that revolved around people that got me down too. Any other month I probably would have just shrugged it off, but with the potential bills piling up, my eye still not working correctly and being tired from crew chief’ing at work, I just didn’t have the buffer to deal with things. It hit me a lot harder emotionally than normal. While reading is my main personal hobby, blogging is my main social outlet and I rely on it a lot more than I care to admit sometimes. My need for people isn’t great, but it is intense. I am much more akin to the SS Minnow than I am to the USS Destroyer and so even little waves can swamp me.
Cover Love:
Strange Company takes the award for Cover Love easily. While I didn’t like the book (2stars and I felt like I was being generous), that cover is just awesome.
Plans for Next Month:
Well, July is going to be a very different month in terms of blogging. I didn’t post quite so much in June as I did in May. That trajectory is going to be continuing, but more deliberately. I have one more One Piece review for July and then I’m taking a break from manga. I really need it. Not just different manga, but a cessation from it. I’ll still be reading my comics though. So starting the second week in July Tuesdays are going to be left open. Not for “extra” posts but just as a blank space so I don’t feel pressured.
I am leaving Saturday and Sunday’s open for misc posts and if one of those days come up and I haven’t written anything, that’ll be another blank day. I just don’t expect to be around the blogosphere quite as much in July. Not on my blog anyway. I’m still going to haunt yours and threaten you all with a strontium bat studded with depleted uranium nails.
Because what are friends for after all?
I am going to be starting some of the X-Men movies as my next movie review series. I’ll do the original trilogy and probably the Wolverine trilogy. Remind me of when Superhero movies were still fun :-/
I have started the process to get my site indexed fully by Google. It is going to be a massive undertaking and is going to be one of those misc projects I have going on in the background for the next couple of years. None of you should notice anything though. Except my ego getting even bigger as I finally get the google recognition I know I deserve 😉
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
Oh yeah!!!! THIS is how the series should have been going all along. Non-stop action with talk’y bits to explain stuff, but it is all on topic! Every single thing advanced the story line and I wasn’t having my chained yanked with stupid kids running around an abandoned city playing pranks or other such crap. Lust appears to be killed. For real. Now, whether she stays dead or whatever I have no idea, but Roy Mustang destroyed the philosophers stone that was her heart, so I hope she’s dead for good.
We found out for sure that the creator of the homunculi is Big Daddy Elric. He unplugs himself from a massive machine and goes to his house where Edward meets him at the end of the volume. More mentions are made of the “human sacrifice” needed and Edward comes across a country that was destroyed in one day. He finds a wall carving that looks very similar to alchemical circles but slightly different. My guess is that the leaders of the country opened the Big Scary Door and it destroyed their country. We’ll see.
Now, the humor wasn’t lacking in this issue. It was just saved for the “extras” at the end, where it belongs! I laughed my head off.
Chapter 41: On the Palm of an Arrogant Human Being
“Barry the Chopper, the psychopathic killer whose soul is encased in a suit of armor, has been captured by Colonel Mustang’s troops. Fearing he will reveal the Philosopher’s Stone conspiracy, Gluttony and Lust decide to kill him, using Barry’s own original soulless body to track him down! Though Colonel Mustang has anticipated their moves and set up an ambush, Gluttony and Lust prove too powerful and easily fight their way through to Barry, who is being protected by Al and Lieutenant Hawkeye. In a terrible battle, a badly injured Colonel Mustang sacrifices all in a last-ditch attempt to stop Lust!”
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: Strange Company Series: Strange Company #1 Author: Nick Cole Rating: 2 of 5 Stars Genre: SF Pages: 419 Words: 150K
~huff~ Well then. When I was reading the Forgotten Ruin series, I wondered which author to blame for the style it was written in, Jason Anspach or Nick Cole. This book answered that in spades. It fell squarely on Nick Cole’s shoulders. It was all his fault and this book was completely his fault, as he was sole author here.
Let me be clear. This was not badly written. It was not poorly executed. But it was written in a style that I detest and in a manner that I’ll only read over my own dead body from here on out. Much like Solzhenitsyn’s Experiment, this was my own Literary Experiment in Masochism. It was a complete success. Or failure, if you’re a normal person.
And that cover? I love that cover. A lot! If the book had been even 1/10th as awesome, well, it would have been awesome. Pooh.
This was some SF space version of Forgotten Ruin. We have our narrator who tells us everything except that cool action’y stuff we want to read about. Do you want to know the big secret lie that the nigh immortal rulers of the galaxy have been hiding and is about to be divulged to Strange Company? Too bad. You get the story of why a kid joined Strange Company. Who promptly dies on the next page. Now is that awesome or what? And can I get a “please repeat that gung-ho military as many times as possible please” while I’m at it? I can? Fantastic. Nothing is more awesome than a catch phrase used ad nauseum.
This has confirmed to me that Jason Anspach is the storyteller behind the Galaxy’s Edge duo and that Nick Cole is whatever he is. It also has shown me that if I start a new series by them and I don’t like the first book, that series will never change and I will never end up liking it. That’s not a bad thing to learn.
There is a second book, but I would rather cut my own throat with a rusty spoon, scoop out my esophagus with said spoon and then eat it than read that second book. Nick Cole gets no more chances from me.
★★☆☆☆
From the Publisher
Stack bodies, get paid, get to the ship.
“If you can survive Reaper Platoon in the Strange, then Ghost or Dog Platoons will get you for their own. Best to steer clear of the freaks in Voodoo, kid.”
Surrounded and outgunned, a group of private military contractors known as “Strange Company” find themselves on a remote planet at the edge of known space, and on the losing end of a bad contract. Orbital D-beam strikes, dropships bristling with auto-guns, missiles, and troops – even Monarch space marines in state-of-the-art advanced battle rattle – will try to prevent the company from reaching the exfil LZ and getting off-world.
For Strange, that means it’s time to hang tough and get it on with as much hyper-kinetic violence as they can muster to get clear of the whole mess. And what the Strange can’t get done by violent assault and crazy firefights, they’ll get done by the freaks of Voodoo Platoon – operators who have been changed by the Dark Labs into powerful and unnervingly unnatural asymmetrical weapons.
This is the Strange Company. Because in the Strange, it’s always really Strange. Join them – and get ready for full auto combat at the furthest limits of human exploration
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 Greater Good Series: WH40K: Ciaphas Cain #9 Authors: Sandy Mitchell Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars Genre: SF Pages: 307 Words: 102K
First off, that supposed synopsis from the Lexicanum is just the cover blurb and it is pathetic. I have no idea why some Cain fan hasn’t written an indepth synopsis seven pages long. I mean, this book came out in 2013, that’s been a whole decade for some basement dweller to get bored enough to do that. Come on guys, you’re letting me down here!
While the alien Tau are touted (their whole culture relies on the principle of The Greater Good), they don’t actually have much to do with the novel itself. One of them goes along with Cain as a political liason when Humanity fights a boatload of Tyranids, but that’s it. I was hoping for a whole novel of Cain and some guard units fighting them.
Instead, we get some ultra-stupid Cogboys (the Adeptus Mechanicus) and Ultra-Marines who think they can experiment on the tyranids in safety. Of course, whenever someone makes a dumb decision about the gene-stealing tyranids, that is a big fat sign that someone has been infected by them. And surprise, surprise (no it actually isn’t!), the head cog-girl was infected from some other time. So the planet is not only being invaded by tyranids from space, but it is also being potentially over-run by others already on the planet. What a mess. Cain is able to get everyone to work together and kill so many tyranids that I lost count and hurray and frabjous joy, The Imperium of Man pulls a win out of its collective backside.
This was fun to read. There is no shortage of action, tons of bolter blasting by the ultra-marines, tons of Cain cutting up tyranids with his chainsword and plenty of his aid Jurgen stinking up every room he goes into. In short, this was a perfect Ciaphas Cain novel. Since the last CC book, I have managed to track down the last CC novel so I’ll be reading that next. Then I have a book of short stories about various Tau characters and then I’ll take a break from Warhammer 40,000 until next year.
For various reasons, I have decided to put the ‘synopsis’ part down below. This will be my new SOP for reviews from here on out. End Report ~ Commissar Bookstooge
★★★✬☆
From Wh40k.lexicanum.com
When the world of Quadravidia comes under attack by the insidious tau, only one man can defeat the aliens and save the planet in the Emperor’s name: the legendary Hero of the Imperium, Commissar Ciaphas Cain. When the aliens call for a ceasefire, Cain expects the worst, and his fears are answered in the form of the dread menace of the tyranids. As a hive fleet approaches Quadravidia, Cain must try to forge an alliance between the Imperium and the tau – but can he truly trust the inscrutable xenos?
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 Castle of Llyr Series: The Prydain Chronicles #3 Author: Lloyd Alexander Rating: 5 of 5 Stars Genre: Fantasy Pages: 102 Words: 43K
From Wikipedia.org
Eighteen months after the destruction of the Black Cauldron, Dallben the enchanter has decided that Eilonwy, as a princess and last of the line of the House of Llyr, needs a proper royal lady’s education that he cannot provide. He sends her to reside at Dinas Rhydnant, a royal court on the Isle of Mona, in the west of Prydain. Taran and Gurgi escort her to Mona on a ship belonging to Prince Rhun, a cheerful but incompetent youth. Taran is finally aware of his feelings for Eilonwy, but is saddened that he is a commoner and she a princess and envies Rhun’s noble birth.
While Eilonwy is introduced to the tedium of life at court, Taran encounters his old companion Fflewddur Fflam—a minor king who lives as a wandering bard—and a shoemaker who turns out to be Prince Gwydion, traveling incognito. Gwydion tells Taran that Eilonwy is in grave danger, very likely from the evil sorceress Achren, from whom Taran and Eilonwy escaped in The Book of Three. Taran and Gwydion witness Chief Steward Magg leave the castle at night to signal a ship at sea. The next morning, Magg and Eilonwy do not show for breakfast and it is concluded that Magg has kidnapped the princess. King Rhuddlum organizes search parties, with Prince Rhun in charge of one. The king assigns Taran to the same group and personally asks him to protect his son Rhun during the search, confiding to Taran that he and Queen Teleria hope to betroth their son to Eilonwy. Although resentful and envious, Taran vows to ensure Rhun’s safety.
Shortly before dusk, Rhun separates from the group. Taran, Fflewddur, and Gurgi pursue, and the next morning they find Rhun at an abandoned hut in the woods. Inside, they find a small book of blank pages that Rhun keeps for himself, along with a sheaf of notes belonging to the former resident, Glew, a man who experimented with size-enhancement potions. As the companions prepare to leave, they come face to face with Llyan, a mountain cat that Glew made larger than a horse, seemingly intending to eat them. Fflewddur entrances the cat with his harp playing, allowing the companions to escape.
Taran’s pet crow Kaw spots Magg and Eilonwy heading for the river Alaw on horseback. Reaching the river, Rhun finds Eilonwy’s bauble and tracks indicating Magg and Eilonwy continued their journey by boat. The companions hastily construct a raft to follow downstream, but it disintegrates before reaching the mouth of the river. While repairing the raft, Rhun tumbles into a deep pit and causes a landslide that traps the group. Exploring nearby caverns, the companions eventually find Glew, who is now a giant trapped in the caverns by his enhanced size. The companions promise him Dallben’s aid in creating an antidote to his potion, while Glew promises to lead them out of the caverns. Instead, Glew takes the companions to a dead-end and traps them. Glew explains he already knows how to make an antidote that will decrease his size, but he must kill one of the companions for a final ingredient. Glew leaves, promising to free the others if one of them agrees to be a sacrifice for his antidote. Rhun surprises everyone by volunteering to sacrifice himself, believing he is burden to all and incompetent to rule.
Before Glew returns, the companions notice an exit above their heads and convince Rhun to let them help him reach it. As he escapes, Rhun promises to return to the city and bring help. When Glew returns, Taran, Fflewddur, and Gurgi break out and attack him. Rhun does not leave the area but instead doubles back, guided by the light of Eilonwy’s bauble. Having grown accustomed to the darkness of the caverns, Glew is overwhelmed by the bauble’s light, allowing the companions to escape. Taran discovers that under the light of the bauble, Rhun’s book of blank pages is revealed to be filled with writing, though none of them can read the language.
Reaching the mouth of Alaw on the reconstructed raft, the companions reunite with Gwydion, who reveals that he has visited the northeast offshore ruin of Caer Colur, the ancestral home of the House of Llyr, where Eilonwy’s grandmother Queen Regat was the last in the line of women to reign. Against Regat’s wishes, Eilonwy’s mother, Angharad, married the common man Geraint and left Caer Colur, taking a book of the House of Llyr’s most powerful enchantments, as well as the Golden Pelydryn necessary to read them. Gwydion tells Taran and the companions that Eilonwy’s bauble is, in fact, the long-lost Golden Pelydryn, and that the book of seemingly blank pages found in Glew’s house is actually Angharad’s book of spells. Gwydion explains that Eilonwy had not been sent to live with Achren to study magic as a child, as Eilonwy had believed; rather, Achren had kidnapped the princess and taken her to Spiral Castle with the intention of harnessing the House of Llyr’s magic for her own ends.
Gwydion explains he has seen Achren, Magg, and Eilonwy arrive at Caer Colur with several mercenary guards. Achren hopes to rule Prydain by controlling Eilonwy’s mind while also awakening her full ancestral magical power. That night, Gwydion rows their raft to a point of land below the seaward walls that protect the ruins of Caer Colur from the being flooded by the ocean, hiding the book and bauble before they begin their search for the princess. Taran climbs to the tower room where Eilonwy resides, only to find that she does not recognize him or the names of her former companions. She flees from her room and Taran follows, but he is arrested by Magg. Gwydion, Fflewddur, and Gurgi then struggle with Magg and several guards, until Eilonwy and Achren appear, the princess now fully under the witch’s control. Achren needs the spell book to master her control of the House of Llyr’s magic, and Rhun stupidly reveals that he and the companions know its location. Achren turns to Taran and offers a bargain: she will restore Eilonwy’s memories of him and allow them to wed if the young man helps her acquire the book and bauble. Rather than force Taran to decide or be punished for refusing, Gwydion reveals the location of the items.
Eilonwy is given the two heirlooms and begins to examine the book in the light of the bauble. While doing so, she begins to resist Achren’s spell. Calling upon the full power of the Pelydryn, she incinerates the book in a column of crimson flame rather than let it be abused. Achren aims her fury at Magg, who responds by opening the gates that protect the castle from the sea. He then escapes on the only ship with his surviving guards. As the castle floods, Taran loses consciousness.
Taran awakes to discover the companions have reached the shallows alive, thanks to the still-enchanted Llyan pulling them up the beach. Eilonwy explains how she was kidnapped by Magg and lost her bauble en route to Caer Colur. Before leaving the sea, she finds a ceremonial horn that has washed ashore, remarking that this artifact is “all that’s left of Caer Colur.” She gives the horn to Taran as token of her pledge that she will not forget him during her tenure at Dinas Rhydnant. Having no gift of his own to give to her, Taran can pledge only his word in return, but notes that the word of an Assistant Pig-Keeper “shall do very well indeed.” Taran then mentions the hope of Prince Rhun’s parents that he and Eilonwy will be engaged. Eilonwy scolds him for taking such a hope seriously.
I am absolutely loving this re-read. Every book so far has lived beyond my expectations from my 2006 read. Simple but solid literary fare, lacking the seasoning of a Sanderson that book gluttons have come to expect now, but giving a reader everything they actually need without all the extraneous literary fat that eventually kills. We are a world of ultra-obese readers, enabling authors to shove literary fat directly down our throats. We are the enablers of our own destruction. Well, you all are the enablers. I’m a lone voice in the wilderness, eating locusts and honey telling you fatsos to kick the habit. I don’t expect you to listen to me though.
Ok, enough of that! (for this review anyway)
This introduced the romance element in an age appropriate manner. Both Taran and Eilonwy are growing up and to ignore this part of life would be an oversight on the author’s part. He is showing both these characters becoming adults and I think he handles it quite well. Besides the series long growth arc of both Taran and Eilonwy, we also got a mini-arc of Prince Rhun. He’s a bumbling doofus, not because he’s stupid, but just because he’s one of those people who don’t quite go as smoothly through life as the rest of us. But by the end you could see he was beginning to find his footing. That was really good to see.
While I suspect I would not be giving these books 5stars if I was reading them for the first time now, the fact that I am re-reading them, enjoying them and finding a much needed respite from bloated series, bloated stories and even, “world building” (gasp! Say it ain’t so!), means I having the time of my life with these.
On a side note, I am going to start using a regular star rating in the title of my posts. Google Search Console is choking its guts out over my use of “★” in the title because WordPress will redirect any search queries to a version of the page without them as it comes out as a long-ass string of text. I just have to go and complicate things, don’t I? Well, c’est la vie…
Previously on “Blogshido: The Way of the Blogger” I discussed my reasoning for doing my monthly roundup & ramblings posts. Today, I would like to discuss another aspect of blogshido, namely, commenting.
Taekwondo is a martial art form where, according to wikipedia, “punching and kicking techniques, with emphasis on head-height kicks, spinning jump kicks, and fast kicking techniques.” are the way to victory. That tells me that taekwondo isn’t fooling around. It is short, it is sharp, it is trying to get it’s job done in the fastest and deadliest way possible. In martial arts, you’re trying to destroy your opponent and taekwondo excels at that.
I rigorously practice taekommentdo every day. I might go so far as to say that besides the main art of blogshido, that taekommentdo is the particular art of blogging that I love the most. But just like all other aspects of Blogshido, it is highly personalized. I have gone so far down the path of taekommentdo that my mastery of this form might look completely different from another master’s form. My foundational belief is that no comment is wasted. Just like a punch, it doesn’t matter if it breaks your opponents ribcage or not, they are forced to react and thus you can control the battle. The same principle applies to taekommentdo. When I leave a comment on someone’s post, I have taken control of the blogging narrative. A good opponent will know how to roll with that and thus can begin a long and enjoyable battle. But sometimes a quick kick to the nads is all that is needed and the battle is done.
Whatever form you choose to master in taekommentdo, the most essential part is practice, practice, practice. Your words are your weapons. Only you can use them. Do not let them rust and tarnish from disuse. Keep them sharp and shiny by constant use. Thus you will grow the will of a warrior deep inside yourself. Plus, it’s easier to kick someone’s head off if you practice doing that everyday. Otherwise you’re liable to pull a hamstring. Do not let Master Fnog’s prophecy be true about you!
Sensei Bookstooge will now dismiss you all to practice.
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 Friend of the Family Series: (The Russians) Author: Fyodor Dostoyevsky Translator: Garnett Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars Genre: Fiction Pages: 190 Words: 60K
From Wikipedia:
Sergey Alexandrovich, the narrator, is summoned from St. Petersburg to the estate of his uncle, Colonel Yegor Ilyich Rostanev, and finds that a middle-aged charlatan named Foma Fomich Opiskin has swindled the nobles around him into believing that he is virtuous despite behavior that is passive-aggressive, selfish, and spiteful. Foma obliges the servants to learn French, and gets furious when they are caught dancing the kamarinskaya.
Uncle Yegor asks Sergey to marry the poor young girl Nastenka. It turns out Uncle Yegor is in love with her himself, but Foma wants him to marry the wealthy Tatyana Ivanova instead. Tatyana has several other suitors, including Mizinchikov, who confides in Sergey about his plans to elope with her.
The next morning Tatyana has eloped, not with Mizinchikov but with Obnoskin, who acted under the influence of his mother. After a pursuit Tatyana returns voluntarily. At Stepanchikovo Foma Fomich is furious because Uncle Yegor has been caught red-handed during an assignation in the garden with Nastenka. Foma leaves, but falls into a ditch. The inhabitants beg him to come back. A general reconciliation follows after Foma, manipulating as ever, gives his blessing to a marriage between Uncle Yegor and Nastenka.
This has an alternate title, The Village of Stepanchikovo, but I decided to go with the more western friendly title. Because there is no way I am EVER going to remember a title with Stepanchikovo in the title. 5 flipping syllables folks, for one word. While the title I chose has only 6 syllables in the entire title. Maybe if I was russian Stepanchikovo (I copy/pasted the alternate title from wikipedia and even now have to look at that to figure out to spell the blasted name) would roll off my tongue and be as easy to remember as, say, Quarryville, but I am not russian and so it doesn’t roll off my tongue and it is not as easy to remember as Quarryville.
This was supposed to be an amusing, ironic and biting read. We’re supposed to laugh at the idiocy of Foma ruling the roosts even though he is just a guest and a very poor guest at that. We’re supposed to chuckle at the poor Uncle who is over run by his mother, Foma (the “friend” in the title) and pretty much everyone.
Unfortunately, I didn’t find it particularly amusing. The Uncle and the Nephew (the narrator) are both spineless men who won’t stand up to anyone about anything. While the book is supposed to be showcasing Foma as a caricature, I really found the portrayal of the uncle and nephew more enlightening and rather sad. I wanted to shake both of them by the neck several times and by the end just wanted the story to end. Even though the uncle gets his way about getting married to the girl he loves, Foma still manipulates everything so he gets to stay in the house until he dies. What a free loader!
Speaking of the uncle and marriage. He’s in his mid-40’s I think (it’s kind of tough to tell but since his mother is still alive and he has a nephew in his 20’s, that seems right) and several times he’s just presented as this super old guy, even though Foma is older than him and his mother is still alive. And then he marries the poor governess, who is 17. They wuuuuuuv each other. But I just don’t see how that kind of age difference works out except in exceptional cases. I’m in my mid-40’s and know some teenagers and I’d sooner marry a grandma than one of them. No offense to them, but the generation gap feels very large every time I interact with them. For example. I was talking with some of them about movies and one of the girls brought up the movie Call of the Wild. I asked if it was based on the book by Jack London. None of them knew who Jack London was. Then I asked who was in the movie. Another girl named Actor X, who was in Movie/tv show Y. I had no idea who they were talking about. Once home I googled it. Flipping Harrison Ford was in the cast and that didn’t cross their radar at all. They don’t know who Han Solo is. They don’t know who Indiana Jones is.
I realize that with technology, generation gaps happen quicker and closer together now. Maybe back in Russia in the 1800’s it wasn’t the same, but Fathers and Sons explores that very issue and shows it WAS a real issue for them just as it is for me today. So that was a niggle in the back of my mind.
I can see why this isn’t famous like some of Dostoyevsky’s other works but it was a valuable read in terms of broadening my horizons and become more familiar with his works. We’ll see if I even remember anything about this story in 5 years though, hahahahhaa (when I’m senile!)
