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: Rock Jaw: Master of the Eastern Border Series: Bone #28-32 Author: Jeff Smith Rating: 3 of 5 Stars Genre: Comics Pages: 128 Words: 5K
My goodness, what a lot of back and forth. Between Roque Ja, locusts, Dream Kingdok, REAL Kingdok and various rat creatures, Fone and Smiley are on the run the entire time. If I had had to read this in five individual comic issues, I would have quit for sure. As it was, lumping these together gave me “just enough” of a story to feel like I hadn’t wasted my time.
But barely.
I have to admit, I really preferred the beginning of the series when it was just the Bone cousins having little mini-adventures in a new place and meeting new people. This whole “ancient battle between mega-powerful forces” is not what I want. At this point though, I simply don’t remember enough of the story to stop and I DO want to see how things end. Now that I’m not hobbling myself with an issue a month, I can bypass Smith’s stupidity and total jackassery at pacing and read at a clip that suits me better.
I do wonder if I’m going to see Roque Ja again or if Smith just used him as a one off character to write a side story. A gigantic mountain lion is pretty cool so I do hope we see him again, even if he isn’t necessarily one of the good guys.
On the funny side, there was another “stupid, stupid rat creatures” moment involving Roque Ja and the two rogue rat creatures. I just laughed my head off at Roque Ja’s expression here 🙂
★★★☆☆
From Bookstooge.blog (because the Boneville.fandom.com people are a bunch of pissant losers)
Fone and Smiley and Bartleby (the baby rat creature) escape the two rat creatures who want to turn them into quiches. In the process they run into a giant mountain lion named Roque Ja. He is against the dragons and the rat creatures but hates the dragons more. Fone, Smiley and Bartleby are rescued from him by the possum kids who get the two rat creatures into Roque Ja’s sight. All three go over a cliff. An enraged Roque Ja chases the Bones and various small orphan creatures into a cave.
The cave leads to an abandoned temple. Everybody starts to head down the mountain away from Roque Ja. Only to be discovered by the two rat creatures. Who are then in turn discovered by Kingdok the lord of the rat creatures. Everybody ends up on a ledge trying not to get eaten by Kingdok. A bunch of locusts show up and try to kidnap Fone. A medallion falls out of his backpack and banishes them. It also banished Kingdok, who was only a dream manifestation from the old temple they passed though.
Roque Ja finds them all and delivers them to the real Kingdok, who betrays Roque Ja by trying to kill him. In the scuffle the group of Bones and orphans escape to the treeline. Bartleby ends up with the rat creatures and the Bones begin the journey back to the village to figure out what is going on.
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 WordPresss & Blogspot by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission
Title: Mobsmen on the Spot Series: The Shadow #9 Author: Maxwell Grant Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars Genre: Crime Fiction Pages: 190 Words: 60K
We are introduced to yet another new agent for the Shadow. A former mob member who has spent time in jail for robbing a bank and killing a cop. Only the Shadow knows the truth about it all and uses the man to bring down a mastermind behind a bunch of protection rackets.
I thought this was really good. The Shadow maneuvers various levels of mobsters against each other and lets them spill their own blood. Things don’t go all his way though, as one good business man is murdered and the daughter of another is kidnapped.
The mastermind once again is pretty obvious once it becomes apparent that there IS a mastermind. That type of thing used to bother me, and under the right circumstances still might, but overall, I like a nice simple story where I don’t have to use my brain much. Working 9hrs in the heat and humidity really fries my mental capacity and I can appreciate a well told story that entertains me yet doesn’t expect me to turn into Sherlock Holmes to figure out what is going on.
If this was a Sandwich Rating, I would have probably given it the Toasted Tomato Sandwich rating. But it was missing the 1/2lb of black pepper that I usually dump on mine, hence the half star downgrade. Black Pepper makes a toasted tomato sandwich really pop and gives it that extra zing that makes me go “Yuuuuuuuum!”.
★★★✬☆
From the Publisher
Who KNOWS WHAT EVIL LURKS IN THE HEARTS OF MEN?
Who calls the shots for the country’s toughest gangsters? Who makes them dance to an offer they can’t refuse? Who is the invisible power behind the scenes of Manhattan’s billion-dollar protection rackets?
THE SHADOW KNOWS only that the criminal mastermind who controls the waterfront, the warehouses and the garages, is about to invade the theaters of the world’s most volatile city, where the root of crime flourishes, gangland-style.
THE SHADOW stalks his man with cunning, stealth and brilliance, and the eerie laugh that is his hallmark. The laugh that aims to chill all who have ever tasted the bitter fruit of the weed of crime: The Underworld, whose secrets belong to this Master of Darkness!
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: Choose Your Enemies Series: WH40K: Ciaphas Cain #10 Authors: Sandy Mitchell Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars Genre: SF Pages: 338 Words: 107K
We get introduced to the Eldar Reavers here, or Raiders, or whatever. They’re Space Pirate Elves. That’s all we really need to know. Because Cain fights them, helps them unknowingly and with their help takes down a full Chaos Demon. Meanwhile, Chaos Cultists are taking over the leadership of a Forgeworld with the usual results, hence the demon.
I enjoyed this quite a bit. It was bittersweet knowing this was the last Cain book for some time. Supposedly there is a new novel due out this year and an omnibus of short stories due at the same time, but there is no actual release date, so I’ll believe it when I see it. Choose Your Enemies was published in 2018, so even if a new Cain book comes out this year, chances are good it will be another 5 years before the next one. So this is the last Cain book in my opinion.
One thing I have liked about the Cain books is the little glimpses, usually VERY little, of various non-Empire of Humanity beings. We’ve seen chaos cultists, demons, orks, necrons, tau, tyranids and now eldar. While I would have liked to see a bit more of each, the little glimpse I had felt like enough to give me familiarity with them so I at least knew their name and what kind of creature they were.
These books are not great literature and I don’t expect that. I just want a cracking good adventure story and for the most part, Sandy Mitchell (or whatever his real name is, I simply don’t care if a stupid author uses a stupid pseudonym for some stupid reason because he’s stupid) has always written fast paced, exciting boom boom, shoot shoot, chop chop stories. Kind of like those tasty baskets of bread and butter that restaurants give you before your appetizers and entree can be cooked and served.
★★★✬☆
From Wh40k.lexicanum.com
Commissar Ciaphas Cain and the Valhallan 597th are in the thick of it again, putting down an uprising of Chaos cultists on an Imperial mining world. Though their mission is a success, they find evidence that the corruption might have spread to other planets, and that the forge world of Ironfound could now be at risk. The munitions Ironfound produces are vital to the Imperial war effort in the subsector; its safety must be assured at all costs. As battle explodes across the planet, Ciaphas Cain and his regiment come up against allies and enemies old and new in their fight for victory against the forces of Chaos.
The first X-Men movie was pretty darn good! It was fun, it was a good origin story for everyone and it wasn’t filled with pretentious twaddle. This rewatch held up very well.
(there is a lot under this section, as I just kind of blab on and on and on)
This month flew by. Had some eye laser going on. Got sick in the middle of the month and was out of work for a couple of days with some sort of stomach bug. It was baaaaaaad. Food poisoning bad.
Lots of little stuff went on that just wore me out. I was tired during the week, never recovered over the weekends and carried on. I think I need to seriously consider cutting my caffeine intake, probably to zero. I feel like an engine revving while in neutral. Our new mattress is also killing both of us, so we are in the process of getting a different one. But that won’t be here until the second week of August. Oy vey, it’s going to be a long 2 weeks!
Being tired has left me emotionally on the edge. I’ve made a couple of bad decisions because of that. Thankfully, they were all small and Mrs B helped me realize what was going on before I made any medium or big mistakes. It is discouraging to realize that even an hour of sleep, or the lack thereof, can have such a big negative impact on my life. It makes me feel like I have to walk on eggshells for my own good. And that’s exhausting too. Hahahahaa.
Meatboy Intern continues to work out fantastically. I swear, that kid is great doing land survey work. Too bad he has to go and be an engineer. Just because it pays almost twice as much. That’s no reason to make MY life harder, now is it? Kids these days, no respect for their elders. In all seriousness though, he’s doing a wonderful job and I’m just trying to enjoy working with someone so competent. Once he leaves to go back to school we’ll see what happens.
We are also getting our windows replaced in our condo. The building is 40 years old and so things are starting to age out. We have to get very specific windows and man, they are expensive. Plus, being up on the 3rd floor means the installers are going to have to rent a boom truck, so we are spending money like we’re the government. Thankfully, unlike the government, we actually have the cash to back this all up. But it is really depleting our safety net.
I switched themes, so I am now using the Masu theme instead of the Penscratch 2 theme. That has made my home page look a bit different and has also affected how things look in my posts. My biggest question is, do you all see the links above as double underlined? Penscratch didn’t auto-underline links so I got into the habit of manually underlining my links. In the preview view, I see all my links as double underlined, as Masu seems to auto-underline links now. I am testing this in this post by NOT manually underlining a couple of links. I use chrome and the preview shows those links as single underlined and I was wondering what you all saw. If you wouldn’t mind, let me know what you see and what browser you use. Because of the change, I also lost a bunch of widget functionality, so there is no more boxes filled with the people I follow or the people who follow me. I also lost the simple Follow Button and am exploring options to get that back. Not everyone wants to subscribe via email, so that is getting that button back is my first order of business. While this theme is supposed to be a step forward, it really comes across as two steps backwards in terms of functionality. Which seems to be what WordPress.com is all about these days 🙁 I am slowly playing around to try to get some of that functionality back in other ways, so if I find anything, I’ll be posting about it.
Updated to add: Every function that I lost by “updating” to a new theme is no longer able to be done except by using html commands that only a “premium or above” subscriber can use. So what I used to be able to do for free, I now can’t do at all unless I cough up double the money to WP. That ain’t happening so my home page is pretty much staying how it is now. Every step that WP claims is forward progress always ends up being at least two steps backwards unless you pay more money. I am getting more and more discouraged by this continued behavior by WP.
On a positive side. We had our annual church picnic yesterday and there was a baptism. I am always super happy to go to baptisms, as it is that Christian’s public statement that they have accepted Jesus as their Savior. I also got to play over 2hrs of volleyball, straight. I LOVE volleyball. Helping the teens and kids get some self-confidence and learn to not be afraid of the ball is very rewarding. Just teaching them the basic skills gives me enjoyment too. Maybe they’ll end up loving it as much as I do but even if they don’t, we’ll all have had a wonderful time. Of course, this morning I am sore like you wouldn’t believe. But it was totally worth it. I would play volleyball every weekend if I could.
Plans for Next Month:
My reading is actually increasing a bit, so while I won’t be reviewing manga for another month, I have plenty of book reviews to fill all those days. So book reviews, book reviews, book reviews. You’re going to read book reviews until they come out your nose!
And please remember, the word “movie” is verboten in the comments. It will send your comment straight to the trash folder without passing the spam folder. That one day I got 100 spam comments was just too much. So I’m keeping this measure in place for at least another month.
A tiny change is that I’ll now be posting everything at 0600 eastern standard time. Having one time for week days and another for the weekend ended up causing me a tiny bit of grief (from being tired) and so I’m just going to make everything uniform from here on out. You all shouldn’t notice much of a change at all.
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 Terminal List Series: Terminal List #1 Author: Jack Carr Rating: 3 of 5 Stars Genre: Action/Adventure Pages: 406 Words: 123K
This reminded me a LOT of Dalton Fury’s Delta Team series, in that it was very military detail oriented. It was also like a huge product placement ad. Any specific gear that Reece used, we knew the exact blabbbity blab detail and the brand. He didn’t just drink from a camelback, he drank from the XJ-33R-V2 Camelback. When Reece wore sunglasses, he wore the Bookstooge 3000 Avionic sunglasses. I know it wasn’t product placement, it was a mark of authenticity from one professional to another, as Carr is a former SEAL. But it felt like product placement.
I actually started to watch the tv show first, as it was a Prime Original and so Amazon was shoving down everyone’s throat. I think I made it through 2-3 episodes before I gave up because of the grey color overlay they used. One scene was in the middle of the day in California (when it should be bright and colors popping out like anything) and I felt like I was watching something from Twilight just before it was going to rain. There was no need for that directorial choice so I quit the show. In the show you don’t know if there is a conspiracy against Reece if he’s genuinely cracked up. There is no such issue in the book. The prologue shows Reece taking out one of the guys who gave him a brain tumor, killed his team mates and had his family killed. I was glad that tension wasn’t there like it was in the tv show.
Like I said at the beginning, this reminded me of Delta Team. And that’s why this only got 3 stars. Reece’s family dies horribly and the author brings in a potential love interest plus several other hot chicks. Now while I’ve never been a SEAL, nor has Mrs B ever been mowed down in a blaze of machine gun fire, I have to admit that I don’t think I’d be thinking about hot chicks just weeks after it happened. But that’s just me. Thankfully, it’s all just potential. Because I suspect it would be handled like Dalton Fury handled romance, which is to say badly.
Overall, I enjoyed this but it was a book written by a military man who hadn’t quite mastered the literary side of things yet. A very good debut effort. Reece survives the tumor so there is another book. I’ll read it and see what I think.
★★☆☆☆
From OfficialJackCarr.com
THIS IS A STORY OF REVENGE
A Navy SEAL has nothing left to live for and everything to kill for after he discovers that the American government is behind the deaths of his team in this ripped-from-the-headlines political thriller.
On his last combat deployment, Lieutenant Commander James Reece’s entire team was killed in a catastrophic ambush that also claimed the lives of the aircrew sent in to rescue them. But when those dearest to him are murdered on the day of his homecoming, Reece discovers that this was not an act of war by a foreign enemy but a conspiracy that runs to the highest levels of government.
Now, with no family and free from the military’s command structure, Reece applies the lessons that he’s learned in over a decade of constant warfare toward avenging the deaths of his family and teammates. With breathless pacing and relentless suspense, Reece ruthlessly targets his enemies in the upper echelons of power without regard for the laws of combat or the rule of law.
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 World Out of Time Series: The State #1 Author: Larry Niven Rating: 2.5 of 5 Stars Genre: SF Pages: 170 Words: 75K
The only reason I read this was because I plan on re-reading The Smoke Ring and The Integral Trees by Niven and somewhere or other I saw they belonged to a “series” called The State and that this was the first.
For the most part, I am ok with skipping most SF from the 70’s and this really exemplifies why. It is dry and boring as watching concrete dry. The ideas might be cool but the characters are ideas on a stick and have about as much life of their own as a Muppet without a hand up its fundament. Not really an auspicious start, that’s for sure.
Thankfully, I wasn’t expecting much as I’ve been very hit or miss with Niven over the years. Even with lowered expectations, I still had hope and sadly, while they weren’t dashed to the ground like Icarus, there was zero soaring into the heavens on wings of imagination. Poooh.
★★✬☆☆
From Wikipedia.org
Jerome Branch Corbell has incurable cancer and is cryogenically frozen in the year 1970 in the faint hope of a future cure. His body is revived in 2190 by an oppressive, totalitarian global government called “The State”. His personality and memories are extracted (destroying his body in the process) and transferred into the body of a mindwiped criminal. After awakening, he is continually evaluated by Peerssa, a “checker”, who has to decide whether he is worth keeping. With the threat of his own mindwiping looming, Corbell works hard to pass the various tests.
Peerssa decides that Corbell is a loner and born tourist, making him an ideal candidate to pilot a one-man Bussard ramjet, finding and seeding suitable planets as the first step to terraforming them. Discovering it is a one-way trip and disgusted with the State’s treatment of him as an expendable commodity, Corbell hijacks the ship and takes it to the center of the galaxy. (It was at this point that the original short story ended.)
Peerssa fails to talk him out of it. Peerssa and The State resort to subterfuge; an artificial intelligence program based on Peerssa’s personality is secretly transferred into the ship’s computer using the link with Earth. Though the Peerssa AI opposes the detour, it cannot disobey Corbell’s direct orders.
After a lengthy journey (including a close approach to the super-massive black hole at the galactic axis), possible only due to the suspended animation devices on board, Corbell returns to the solar system. Although only about 150 years have passed on the ship, three million years have elapsed on Earth, due to relativistic time dilation. At first, he is confused and initially believes they might have come to the wrong system because it has changed considerably; the Sun has apparently evolved into a red giant and what might be Earth is in orbit around a super-hot Jupiter. Having followed a message clearly from humans (warning not to visit other human-occupied star systems), and being too old to survive going anywhere else, Corbell puts the ship into orbit around what is surely the Earth.
The Earth’s climate has changed, especially its surface temperature; the poles are now temperate, while the former temperate zones reach temperatures of over 50 degrees Celsius (120+ degrees Fahrenheit). The Earth’s axial tilt is still 23.5 degrees so the poles experience 6 years of night and 6 years of day. Almost all remaining life on Earth has adapted to live in Antarctica. Elsewhere life is extinct except for some evidence of biological activity in the Himalayan mountains.
When Corbell lands (in a modified biological probe), he is captured by Mirelly-Lyra, who is also a returned star ship pilot and refugee from the past—though from Corbell’s (and Peerssa’s) future. She explains that the human species has fragmented; it is dominated by a race of immortal, permanently pre-adolescent males (the Boys), who are created by advanced medical techniques. Some time in the past, they had defeated the equally immortal (though now extinct) Girls, in the ultimate war of the sexes. The Boys have enslaved the dikta, who are unmodified humans (though they have evolved somewhat), from whom they take boys to replenish their ranks.
Mirelly-Lyra had initially been a captive toy of the Girls. After their downfall, she obsessively searched in vain for the lost adult-immortality treatment, extending her life as much as possible using her own drugs and a form of zero-time stasis while waiting for another returning star ship and potential help. Because she could not stop the aging process entirely, she is an old crone by the time she finds Corbell. He manages to escape from her, only to be caught by the Boys, who take him to a dikta settlement. Corbell finds out that the solar system was engineered into its new configuration by the Girls in order to move the Earth to a habitable distance from the enlarged Sun (caused by war with colonies), and that an orbital error caused Jupiter to overheat and triggered the war that killed the Girls. With Gording, the dikta leader, Corbell escapes once more.
Eventually, Corbell discovers the adult-immortality treatment, albeit by accident and only realizing it after he himself has been exposed to it. He uses it to enlist Mirelly-Lyra’s help, which in turn finally gives him full control of his ship’s technology (the hostile Peerssa has decided that the woman is the last survivor of the State and will only obey her). The planet Uranus has been discovered to have been maneuvered to pass by the Earth and adjust its orbit by Peerssa the AI. Corbell arranges for the Earth’s distance from the super-heated Jupiter to be adjusted by Peersa to lower the Earth’s temperature without destroying the plants and animals that have adapted to the extreme conditions.
As the novel closes, he is plotting to liberate the dikta and enable them to regain control of their own destiny.
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 Gathering of Widowmakers Series: Widowmaker #4 Author: Mike Resnick Rating: 4 of 5 Stars Genre: SF Pages: 198 Words: 68K
Written seven years after the supposed end to the Widowmaker trilogy, Resnick handles it much better than he did with the sequel to Santiago.
It felt very 2 story line’ish. One was about the original Widowmaker teaching the newest Widowmaker a much needed lesson and the second was of all 3 Widowmakers fighting an outlaw who could multiply himself. They were semi-tied together but it came across more as 2 serialized stories being put together. The whole Widowmaker series IS pretty much a serial, so it wasn’t a big stretch but I just noticed it more this time around.
This pretty much completes my re-read of Resnick’s stuff that I enjoyed in the past, so what comes next will be all new to me. He’s got a 50% success rate, so I’m not expecting a lot. Just hoping I don’t get bored.
★★★★☆
From the Publisher
When every version of the most lethal bounty hunter in the universe comes out to play, you get three times the action from the Hugo and Nebula Award–winning author.
He may be retired from the bounty hunting game, but Jefferson Nighthawk is still one of the three most dangerous men alive. The other two? His clones.
Trained by Nighthawk himself, Jeff can take down men no one else can. His one flaw is his mind. Jeff can only see in black and white, which leads to him killing an innocent man—and shooting another version of himself.
That would be Jason Newman, the second clone, the one who gave Nighthawk the peaceful future he’s now enjoying. He may have a new face and a new name, but he’s Nighthawk through and through, with the brains and humanity to match. Which is how he winds up on the wrong end of Jeff’s burner. Now, Jason’s in the hospital waiting for his organs to regenerate.
To teach the impulsive Jeff a lesson, Nighthawk lures him to a lawless planet where the galaxy’s most wanted are there for the taking. And where Jeff will learn how to match wits with both of the killers who came before him . . .
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: Asterix and the Great Crossing Series: Asterix #22 Authors: Goscinny & Uderzo Rating: 4 of 5 Stars Genre: Comics Pages: 53 Words: 3K
Asterix and Obelix end up in America, where Obelix almost gets hitched to a fat indian girl. Then they escape by getting kidnapped by Vikings. Then they rescue a fellow Gaul and make it home. All for fresh fish.
This was just light and breezy and it fit my need exactly. I needed the silliness, the lightness to help me out of a bad mood. This was not particularly better than any previous book, nor was it as mediocre as some of them had been, but it hit me just right at just the right time and that is why I’m giving it 4 stars.
★★★★☆
From Wikipedia.org
Unhygienix has run out of fresh fish. Since his stock has to be transported from Lutetia (modern-day Paris), it will be some time before the next delivery of fish. However Getafix says he can’t wait since he needs some for his potion. Asterix and Obelix volunteer to resolve the issue by going fishing, to which end they borrow a boat from Geriatrix. After a storm, they get lost, but despite Obelix’s concerns, they do not reach the edge of the world; instead, following a brief encounter with the pirates, they arrive on an island (which the reader surmises is Manhattan Island) with delicious birds that the Gauls call “gobblers” (turkeys), bears and “Romans” with strange facial paintings (Native Americans).
Soon they earn the “Romans”‘ affection, but they decide to leave after the “centurion” chooses Obelix as his rather rubenesque daughter’s fiancé. They go to a small island (which the reader surmises is Liberty Island). Seeing a boat coming, Asterix climbs a cairn of rocks holding a torch and a book like the Statue of Liberty to attract it. The crew are anachronistic Norsemen (with names like Herendethelessen, Steptøånssen, Nøgøødreåssen, Håråldwilssen, Irmgard, Firegård, and their Great Dane, Huntingseåssen) – who managed a Pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact and take the Gauls, who they thought to be the local natives, to their homeland as proof that there are continents beyond Europe.
The Gauls wanting to return home, and the Vikings’ eagerness to prove their story of a new world, results in a trip back to Europe to the Vikings’ homeland. The Vikings’ chief, Ødiuscomparissen, greets them and is skeptical of their stories, until he sees the Gauls. They plan a celebration, then attempt to sacrifice the “natives”, much to the chagrin of the other Vikings (“Why? They haven’t done anything!”).
Before this can be carried out, a Gaulish prisoner called Catastrofix, who can understand both Gallic and Norse, stirs up Ødiuscomparissen’s suspicion that Herendethelessen is a liar, causing a fight between the Norsemen with the assumption that Herendethelessen has simply gone to Gaul rather than to a new world. Meanwhile, the Gauls escape. This escape is conducive to their original purpose, since Catastrofix is a fisherman and hence able to procure some fish for the magic potion. Unhygenix, however, prefers the scent of his own stock; a preference that explains why his product is such a delicate topic.
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: Alive and Screaming Series: ———- Editor: Alfred Hitchcock Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars Genre: Crime Fiction Pages: 163 Words: 61K
There are times when I read this Hitchcock collections that I get really jazzed up. Other times, I simply sit back and enjoy the ride. My experience with this book was of the latter.
I enjoyed this while reading it but honestly, not a single story stood out. Even now, 2 weeks after I’ve read it, I couldn’t tell you from memory any of the storylines. It wasn’t that they were bad, they just “were”.
It’s like drinking a caramel latte. In and of themselves, they are just good. But sometimes you get that little “extra” something that makes it better and you remember those and wish that you could get that particular barista to make your caramel latte’s forever. But that doesn’t happen and you still enjoy the latte the next day. But after years of drinking them, it all kind of blends together in your mind. Except the bad ones or the REALLY good ones. That doesn’t mean you are dissatisfied with your daily latte though.
I guess my point is that this book was a caramel latte and Hitchcock would have been even fatter if he’d had caramel latte’s to drink back when he was alive. So here’s to looking at you kid. ~sips~
