The Tree of Day and Night promised much power to whoever could sit upon the Throne of Chains. But while chains may be forged of steel or of flowers, nonetheless they are chains. The Mage of Shadow found the Throne of Chains deep within the Forest Refuge and claimed it as his own. Little did he realize the cost of such an act. From his humble beginning as a forest lord to his transformation to the Emperor of Shadow, he had no idea what he would pay for the power he would come to wield. But even if he had known, he still would have made the same choice.
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: Prisoner’s Base Series: Nero Wolfe #21 Author: Rex Stout Rating: 4 of 5 Stars Genre: Mystery Pages: 164 Words: 61K
Ooph, this was a kick in the pants. Two women are killed and while both Wolfe and Archie deny it, they bear some responsibility for the murders being able to happen at all. It wasn’t a big happy fun time to read about.
And yet, the mystery of what happened was fantastic to read about. Money, greed, people’s egos, big business, murder and false identities. This story had it all and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Of course, I’ve enjoyed every Nero Wolfe set of stories I’ve read so far, so I guess I kind of expect a good story by now. Rex Stout has not let me down.
Do you know how many other authors I can say that about? NONE. Nobody. Brandon Sanderson has mired himself in worldbuilding, unnecessary complicatedness and moral ambiguity. Adrian Tchaikovsky has let his politics not just creep into his stories but roll on through like tanks through Tienanmen Square. Edith Pargeter ended up boring the living daylights out of me by the end of the Brother Cadfael books. Alan Dean Foster lost me when the Pip and Flinx stories kept on going beyond all reasonableness and plot plausibility. Rex Stout is a rock in the turbulent sea of authors who have disappointed me and let me down. A veritable stony island that resists all attempts at disappointment.
★★★✬☆
From Wikipedia:
After an argument between Archie and Wolfe over Archie’s weekly paycheck, a young woman arrives at the brownstone with an unusual request. She wants to rent a room until June 30, one week away, without revealing her identity or presence to anyone. Wolfe rejects the idea, but before he and Archie can send her away, a lawyer named Perry Helmar arrives. He is the legal guardian of Priscilla Eads, a young woman who has gone missing, and he wants to hire Wolfe to find her before June 30. The photographs he has brought with him convince Archie that Priscilla is the house guest.
The terms of her father’s will state that Priscilla is to inherit 90% of the stock in Softdown, a major towel manufacturer, when she reaches her 25th birthday on June 30. However, her ex-husband, Eric Hagh – currently living in South America – claims that she signed a document giving him half of her property. In addition, several Softdown officers are concerned about Priscilla suddenly becoming a majority stockholder.
Wolfe sends Helmar away without an immediate decision, then offers Priscilla a choice. She can either pay the same fee Helmar offered and stay at the brownstone incognito, or she can leave and Wolfe will accept Helmar’s terms and begin tracking her down the following morning. She chooses to leave, but before Wolfe can call Helmar the next day, Inspector Cramer brings news that both Priscilla and her maid, Margaret Fomos, have been strangled to death. Margaret had keys to Priscilla’s apartment, but they were not found on her body, leading the police to conclude that the murderer targeted her first in order to gain access to Priscilla.
While Archie feels guilt at his involvement in the events that led to Priscilla’s death, Wolfe takes no interest in the case, having no client and no prospect of a fee. Infuriated, Archie storms out to begin investigating on his own. He barges into a meeting of Softdown personnel, four of whom are officers who will inherit Priscilla’s stock in her place, and learns from them that Helmar will receive shares as well. Before he can learn much more, Lieutenant Rowcliff arrives and arrests him, based on claims that he had impersonated a police officer to get into the building.
While being questioned, Archie learns that thanks to Rowcliff’s pettiness and overeagerness, Wolfe has been taken into custody as a material witness. Outraged, Wolfe states that he does now have a client – Archie – and the two are released. From Lon Cohen, Archie learns about Priscilla’s background, her marriage and time spent living in South America, and her best friend Sarah Jaffee, who owns the remaining 10% of the Softdown stock. Sarah tells Archie that Priscilla had planned to oust the company’s board of directors and replace them all with women, including herself, Sarah, and Margaret. Archie urges her to file an injunction blocking the four Softdown officers from exercising the voting rights on the stock they hold until the murders have been solved, but she turns down the idea. He also tries to question Margaret’s husband Andy, but without success.
Shortly after Archie returns to the brownstone, a lawyer named Albert M. Irby arrives and asks to see Wolfe. He represents Hagh, who is due to arrive in New York the following afternoon. That next morning, Sarah decides to act on Archie’s suggestion of legal action; Wolfe arranges representation for her by Nathaniel Parker, his lawyer. He uses the decision as leverage to bring all of the involved parties – the four Softdown officers, Helmar, Sarah, Parker, Andy, Hagh, and Irby – to his office for a meeting that night.
The meeting yields little of use, but after everyone has left, Sarah calls Archie from her apartment to report that her keys are missing. Suspecting that the murderer may have stolen them and is lying in wait, he instructs her to leave the phone off the hook and exit so that he can clearly hear her; when the line goes silent, he rushes to her building and finds her strangled to death in the apartment.
After being questioned and released from custody, Archie discovers that Wolfe has brought Saul Panzer in on the case and provided him with expense money. He observes the interrogation of several people who were at the meeting, with Cramer’s permission, then relays a suggestion to re-enact the night’s events at the office. To his surprise, Wolfe accepts.
The gathering takes place at noon that same day, with Saul present as well. Wolfe dismisses the police’s initial theory that Margaret was killed only to get her keys and/or because she recognized her attacker. Saul had traveled to South America, carrying a photograph of Hagh that Sarah had given to Archie, and learned that he had died three months earlier. The man claiming to be Hagh is in fact Siegfried Muecke, an associate who left South America shortly after Hagh’s death. Muecke had learned of the document Hagh and Priscilla signed, witnessed by Margaret, and traveled to New York to collect half her property. He killed all three women because they had seen the real Hagh, either in person or through photographs, and could expose his deception.
Archie vents his frustration by punching Andy when he lunges at Muecke, who is quickly arrested.
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: Pirates vs CP9 Series: One Piece #42 Arc: Water Seven #11 Author: Eiichiro Oda Rating: 2.5 of 5 Stars Genre: Manga Pages: 207 Words: 10K
A lot of fighting between the Straw Hats and the CP9. It goes to one vs one battles or two vs two in some cases, as the fighting spreads all over the place. The premise is ridiculous. Robin is handcuffed and one of the CP9 has the key. They all split up so the Straw Hats have to split up to recover each key in hopes it is the correct one.
So a lot of swirly fighting going on. If you like fighting, then this volume will be right up your alley.
★★✬☆☆
From Wikipedia:
“The Key to Freedom”
“Pirates vs. CP9”
“Handcuffs No. 2”
“Mr. Chivalry”
“Franky vs. Fukurô”
“Power”
“Life Return”
“Monster”
“Monster vs. Kumadori”
“The Terrifying Broadcast”
The Straw Hats and Franky break off and engage CP9 in battle. Unsuited for the initial pairings, the crew exchanges opponents to improve their chances of victory, allowing two members of CP9 to be defeated. Meanwhile, Luffy follows Robin’s captors, CP9 leader Spandam and CP9’s strongest member Rob Lucci. Lucci fights Luffy in order to give Spandam time to take Robin to the government’s inescapable prisons. Instead, while trying to call for help, Spandam accidentally triggers the destruction of the Straw Hats, summoning the world government to destroy Enies Lobby and whoever is on it.
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 Price of Liberty Series: Empire Rising #4 Author: David Holmes Rating: 3 of 5 Stars Genre: SF Pages: 388 Words: 155K
From the Publisher
War has been declared. The Indian Star Republic has landed ground troops on the newly discovered colony of Haven as they seek to seize access to the alien worlds of Vestar and Kulthar. The British Star Kingdom has reacted. A battle fleet has been formed with orders to drive off the Indians and retake Haven.
Cleared from a highly-politicized court martial and now newly married, Captain James Somerville leads Endeavour to join up with the fleet going to liberate Haven. Yet he is not entirely welcome for not everyone is happy with the outcome of the court martial.
Meanwhile, Major Johnston commands a small marine special forces unit stranded on Haven itself. Caught in the middle of a gruella war, he must use all his skills to help the resistance weaken the Indian invaders in anticipation of a British ground assault.
As the war quickly heats up, both men will learn the true price of liberty.
Something has changed. Either I have or the writing has. Or I’ve just noticed the writing. Many of the conversations were awkward and stilted, like they had been written, sigh, instead of just recording what was said between 2 people. There were also 2 letters written in this story that I simply skipped because they were pages long and was nothing but blather that didn’t actually do anything for the plot. As Polonius would have said “Brevity is the soul of wit”. (that’s Shakespeare for those not familiar with Hamlet) There was no brevity here.
The story is longer and is actually almost 2 stories. One about Cpt Somerville doing spaceship stuff and another about the super british marine who leads the insurgency on Haven. Both enjoyable but neither needed some of the padding that the author stuck in.
Now that the idea of “Space Kingdoms” has been introduced and the idea of this universe explored, I am afraid I am going to start focusing on the skill of the author in regards to wordsmithing. As Asimov proved, ideas might work fantastically for short stories, but you need solid plotting, characters and writing to successfully pull off a novel. I felt like I saw some cracks in the foundation of the writing part. I don’t expect every author to be as good as Rex Stout, the author who I now consider the preeminent wordsmith against who I judge every other author, but I do expect a bit more than simple “He said. She said.” kind of conversations. I realize also that writing from a first person view is different from a third person omniscient viewpoint but the point remains is that Holmes didn’t handle things nearly as well as I “remember” him doing in previous books.
This is one of the reasons I am not a big fan of long, ongoing series, especially for indies. Pedestrian writing can only go so far and then it becomes a bigger hindrance than anything, especially for me. I expect good quality in the books I read, not just basic skill.
I realize I have complained a lot here. The story is still good. The action was exciting. If I can set my mind to judge this based on that alone, I might be ok for the long haul. I suspect I’ll know my answer one way or another within 2 more books. I’ll either be able to paper over the cracks I’ve seen or they’ll just get bigger in my view and I’ll have to stop.
And with having close to 400 Books on my TBR , I’m getting to the point where just dropping a series midpoint doesn’t bother me anymore.
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.–Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
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!”
