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: Hands in the Dark Series: The Shadow #10 Authors: Maxwell Grant Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars Genre: Crime Fiction Pages: 187 Words: 55K
Ha! Proof positive. The Shadow wears his girasol jewel on his left hand. It was stated explicitly in this book. This matters because Riders and I had a conversation about which hand it was on and neither of us could show a book which proved right or left. So here we go, the question is settled for all ages, or at least until I forget and forget that I answered the question here. So 2-3 months should do it!
Apparently, our conversation centered around which FINGER it was not, not which HAND. Sigh. The Quest for Knowledge must continue then. And back to the unimportant stuff like talking about the book I read. Man, this book reviewing thing isn’t all I was led to believe. However, it has allowed me to read TWO The Shadow books this month, so that’s definitely a check on the positive side of the life column.
This was a pretty gutsy book in that a regular joe schmoe gangster (well, he is pretty smart but still, he’s not super villain league smart) goes up against the Shadow on purpose. And he doesn’t do a bad job of it either. Millions of dollars in loot are at stake and a Great Love between Boyman and Girlwoman is at stake too. And the Shadow cleans house like the vigilante he is. Booyah!
That is why I keep reading these. Bad guys do really bad guy things and the Shadow puts a stop to it and bad guys usually die in droves. If that doesn’t count as a happy ending, I don’t know what does.
I’m just glad there’s no Vicki Vale kind of character. That would have ruined things completely.
★★★✬☆
From the Publisher:
WHO KNOWS WHAT EVIL LURKS IN THE HEARTS OF MEN?
It was a message from a dead man. A small piece of paper worth a fortune in blood. Eight mysterious symbols that marked the beginning of a chain of violence executed by gangsters willing to kill for a code they did not understand. Only one man called the shots for this riddle: The Chief, whose reputation made any further identification unnecessary–and lethal.
Obviously a case for THE SHADOW–a cryptic message, a series of baffling murders, seemingly unrelated, and an invisible mastermind who choreographed killings for the highest stakes in town. THE SHADOW was on a trail leading straight to a brilliant trap–and a face-to-face encounter with a criminal genius determined to beat him at his own game!
Likejitsu, silent but deadly. The Art of Likejitsu is wildly divisive art because it can be used in so many ways. From a non-verbal “I acknowledge your presence” to a full blown “I LOVE YOU AND EVERYTHING YOU DO IS PURE AWESOMESAUCE” (I know most of you use it that way, and no worries, no offerings or worship needed), Likejitsu is one of the most versatile weapons in the arsenal of all Blogshido practitioners.
I use Likejitsu as an all purpose weapon. Sometimes I use it to acknowledge that someone wrote the post, or comment. Sometimes I just don’t have the words for what you wrote. While I might be a very wordy person, even I sometimes either run out or simply don’t have things to say. When you write a post about the accidental romance book you read, what am I supposed to say? I hate romance. But you read it and blogged about it. I think that deserves an acknowledgement.
Some people will take that to the extreme. You all know the type. The blogger who goes through and “likes” about 30 of your posts in 30 seconds. Most of those aren’t real people anyway. They’re just scumbags or bots. Either of those deserve to be chopped in half with a big fat ninja sword.
Other bloggers eschew likejitsu entirely because they feel it is too easy, entirely misused. I don’t blame them at all. I understand their viewpoint entirely. Of course, if they don’t ever comment, I don’t even know that they show up because they are invisible. So if that’s you, leave a flipping comment once a year or so, okay? Thanks.
However you use Likejitsu, just make sure you’re not expecting everyone else to use it in the exact same way as you do. Down that road lies madness 😉
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: True Believer Series: Terminal List #2 Author: Jack Carr Rating: 3 of 5 Stars Genre: Action/Adventure Pages: 512 Words: 154K
While the Terminal List was a revenge story about a special forces military man, this was just a military story about a military special forces man. It was also 25% longer. Mainly because we get the extended edition of James Reece sailing the ocean running away from Da Man and then becoming a guide and conservation hunter who traps poachers with his expert military knowledge. While all of that is going on the author weaves all the backstory of the badguys and their dastardly deeds so when Reece gets approached to join the CIA to take down said bad guys, we are fully up to date on just how dastardly and badguy’y they really are. It felt bloated to me. Necessary but bloated.
We get all the “Brand X” name dropping I expect from books written by special forces guys. I know I talk about it, but I simply don’t understand. Does the general populace care? Or are you writing for other special forces guys? Because that seems like a very small market. And my polling shows that 100% of the general reading populace (namely, myself) doesn’t care if you use a spiderco folding knife XT-305 or if you just write that the character used a folding knife. I can kind of understand when it comes to the gun-side of things, but even then, dial the fanboy back a notch, ok? I don’t need to know that your Jannhauser 3000KtY rocket propelled grenade launcher uses the side rail system with the Bugaboo xts targeting system with the modified Cobra trigger upgrade to reduce the pull to two pounds. Just tell me Side Character Y blew up the russian oligarch with the Jannhauser 3000 rpg and we’re all good. Or a rocket launcher, or whatever. Joe Public (the anonymous pseudonym of that great master we all know and adore, ie, me) doesn’t care.
I know I’ve complained a lot. But you can still enjoy a good military book and have complaints like this. The above are the reasons this doesn’t get higher than the 3star rating. It doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy the story or the action or the pow pow, bam bam, slice slice. It just means I won’t be rating this higher.
I plan to continue this series and I suspect all the above issues will be in the next books as well, so I’m not expecting this series to suddenly “get better”. It is what it is and I’m ok with reading a series that is 3stars for a couple of months. It does make me wonder about going back and trying the tv show again. Just don’t know if I can get past that awful grey tone overlay. It really bugged me.
★★★☆☆
From OfficialJackCarr.com
SOMEWHERE A TRUE BELIEVER IS TRAINING TO KILL YOU.
HE DOESN’T CARE HOW HARD IT IS. HE ONLY KNOWS THAT HE WINS OR HE DIES. HE ONLY KNOWS THE CAUSE.
When a bomb goes off during a holiday fair in London, the body count is horrific and the nation’s market goes into a tailspin. This, it turns out, is just the beginning of a series of coordinated and murderous attacks against the whole of the Western world. As the scope of the mayhem grows ever wider, pulling in country after country, the United States goes on the offensive. Who is pulling the strings? What is their motive? And most important of all, how can the attacks be stopped before bloodshed and economic freefall bring America and her allies to their knees?
There is just one man who stands a chance of answering these questions. Former Navy SEAL James Reece is the only and crucial connection to a shadowy former Iraqi commando who could provide leads the CIA desperately needs. Reece might be America’s last hope. Unfortunately, he is also America’s most-wanted domestic terrorist. To rein him in, a bargain is struck and Reece becomes the reluctant tool of the United States government, traveling the globe to target terrorist lead- ers and unraveling a geopolitical conspiracy involving a traitorous CIA officer and a sinister assassination plot with worldwide repercussions. There is always another true believer out there willing to kill for his cause. James Reece will be there to stop 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: Walpurgis III Series: ———- Author: Mike Resnick Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars Genre: SF Pages: 173 Words: 59K
While I enjoyed this little standalone in Resnick’s universe, it just goes to show that inverting something doesn’t always work out well. In this book, everything takes place on Walpurgis III (hence the title), a planet that was settled by all the satan worshippers from Old Earth who felt oppressed that society wouldn’t let them do their thing in peace (like human sacrifice, rape, etc). So they settled their own planet and kept everybody else out.
Which sounds great in theory. But as Resnick shows in his writing here, it simply can’t work out that way. We have a world where woman are ritually raped on altars, “voluntarily” of course, where people just sit there and watch as someone else gets gutted by a knife and at the same time we’re supposed to think that the main cop guy is a moral guy who wants to track down the assassin (Jericho, who is here to kill Conrad Bland, the biggest mass murder in the history of humanity) because he killed 5 random people. I’m sorry, but those two things simply don’t co-exist. Evil doesn’t get compartmentalized like that. That juxtaposition of compartmentalized evil really distracted me. It was like a world of meat eaters decided to kill a vegetarian because he ate some fish and that was just too horrible for them to contemplate. Yeahhhhhhhh.
Other than ALL OF THAT, I enjoyed this. Jericho is a master of disguise and this story was all about him making his way to Conrad Bland’s stronghold so he could kill him. Each town he made it to held its own little adventure. In that regards, this was more like a serialized story but Resnick does pretty good at telling that kind of story, so it worked out well.
The fact that I still enjoyed the story despite the premise means this was a complete success, especially since I have such wishy washy luck with Resnick (I was not a fan of his Dead Enders or Starship series). Every time I read a story by him that I enjoy, it gives me a shot of encouragement to dive into something else by him. Right now, I have a choice of either going for his John Justin Mallory trilogy or his Weird West series. I read a sequel about JJM and I didn’t really enjoy it, so I’m leaning towards the Weird West stuff. I don’t know if it will be Steampunk or Cthulhu’ic or something else entirely.
I chose this cover (which while hard to see, depicts a ritual sacrifice of a woman by one of the death cults) because the current cover is just a grinning skull on a red background. It was the most boring, uninformative cover ever. Reminded of something Amazon would do when they release those free classics but still charge 99cents. So instead I’m showing the cover that is the coolest. You are welcome.
★★★✬☆
From the Publisher
Conrad Bland has slaughtered tens of millions, a butcher vastly worse than Hitler. He has never considered not killing anyone who stood in his way.
He takes refuge on Walpurgis III, a planet settled by various cults of devil worshippers. He is the manifestation of the evil they revere, but now that they have come face-to-face with their beliefs, the cults desperately want Bland to be removed from their lives, their world, and entirely from existence.
So Walpurgis III contacts Jericho, the greatest assassin in the galaxy, to rid them of Conrad Bland. But once the assassin arrives and begins to make his bloody way toward Bland’s headquarters, the people—especially John Sable, the top policeman on the planet—must face an excruciating choice.
Who is more dangerous, the man who kills from compulsion? Or the man who kills from calculation?
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: 13 More Stories They Wouldn’t Let Me Do On TV Series: ———- Editor: Alfred Hitchcock Rating: 3 of 5 Stars Genre: Crime Fiction Pages: 180 Words: 70K
I had already read The Most Dangerous game several times, but I found myself reading it again anyway. It is really that good of a story.
There was a story by Roald Dahl here and I must say, it got this collection the “disturbing” tag. While Dahl might be a fantastic children’s author, when he lets his mind run unbridled, like he does with this adult stories, it is not a pretty sight. It wasn’t some sort of supernatural grotesquerie, but a case of one human acting in the most abominable way towards another. I don’t think I could have ever of thought of a story like this. It disturbs me that someone could imagine that.
The final story is one translated from a russian fellow and it was just as disturbing as anything else. It felt like a shoddy story but I suspect that shoddy translation work was more to blame. Either way, it was a typical russian story ending in madness and death. Andreyev was no master though and there’s a reason his name isn’t proclaimed alongside Dostoyevsky, etc.
Overall, this balanced out to a decent but not wonderful read.
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 Victorious Series: Conan the Barbarian Author: Robert Jordan Rating: 3 of 5 Stars Genre: Fantasy Pages: 227 Words: 81K
Conan gets poisoned and has to face down two wizards, a demon, a bunch of soldiers and lots of adventure.
This was Robert Jordan’s final Conan novel and I rather enjoyed it. I didn’t rate it any better than his previous books because it’s a Conan pastiche and even when I’m thoroughly enjoying them, they just aren’t good literature. They are good adventure stories though. Fantastic pulp if you ask me.
Conan getting poisoned and then double crossed by a wizard who he thought was on his side was pitch perfect. Conan has always hated magic and magic users and we’re shown a perfect reason for that kind of thinking here. I know that Jordan has shown a wizard or two as not being bad, but they are always the outlyers and not the norm. As it should be. Wizards and the powers they consort with are evil and if you see one, make sure you run him through with your trusty steel sword and then chop his head off just in case. You can’t be too careful after all.
I do wish that Jordan had taken a stab at telling a story about Conan’s time as a sea pirate. That is referenced several times in the original stories by Howard and it is one time in Conan’s life that I am actually curious about. Oh well. But if Captain Conan ever steers his ship into Commodore Bookstooge’s area of influence, well, there will be a bloody battle to tell your kids about. And if Conan just stays a land lubber in all the other stories I plan on reading, well, no one can blame even him for being afraid of the Dwead Piwate Bookstooge!
★★★☆☆
From Conan.fandom.com/
Naipal, court wizard to King Bandharkar of the city-state of Ayodha in Vendyha, prepares to bargain with a demon, Masrock, to win control of the kingdom and rid himself of his rivals, the Black Seets of Mt. Yimsha. Meanwhile, in the Turanian city of Sultanapoor, a Vendhyan-supported plot has resulted in the assassination of a prince. Conan, employed in guarding a smugglers’ ship, is rumored to have been hired to commit the crime. Turanian spymaster Lord Khalid sends his apprentice, Jelal, into Vendhya to find out if a northerner was truly involved.
Running for his life, Conan eventually makes it to the docks and to his friend/fellow smuggler Hordo, whom he met during his time with Karela the Red Hawk. Hordo suggests that Conan leave with him on his next delivery of “fish” and he agrees. While examining the chests, they feel strangely light and, when questioned, the Vendhyan merchant who owns the crates flees. However, as he escapes, the merchant accidentally slices Conan with a hidden blade. The crates contain nothing except dried leaves of an unknown origin. Unfortunately, the blade was poisoned and Conan discovers that the antidote may lie in Vendhya, the original destination of their cargo.
At the mouth of the Zaporaska River in Vendhya, the smugglers question a tribe of Vendhyan warriors who are receiving their cargo. After discovering their chests have been tampered with, the warriors accept Hordo’s explanation in a suspicious way. Moments later, Conan and his crew learn that the Vendhyans were planning to kill them once their cargo was delivered. Soon, an army of Vendhyan tribesmen attack and set their ship alight, stranding them. During the battle, Conan gets close enough to see a caravan loading their crates. Unsure if the caravan will be friendly or not, the crew split up, one will follow the caravan, another will return home by walking along the coast.
Conan’s crew eventually close the distance and, by nightfall, have come within feet from the caravan’s distant bonfire. Conan assumes the identity of a Vendhyan merchant and, after a brief conversation with the captain of the caravan guard, they learn that the owner will speak with them in the morning. During the night, a Khitan merchant approaches the smugglers and offers in hiring them as his guards.
In Vendhya, Naipal discovers Conan has become embroiled in his schemes. Believing Conan’s involvement is purposeful, he plans to kill both the Cimmerian and his companions. After his agents in the caravan attempt without success in slaying Conan, Naipal lays a trap for him in the lost city of Gwandikian. Soon, Conan takes the bait. Lured into an ancient tower, he’s attacked by a swarm of cobras and narrowly escapes. Afterwards, Conan searches for an antidote to his poisoned wound in a nearby forest, where he has been told it can be located. Soon, he discovers the herbalist who originally treated him and learns he was in fact cured by his first treatment; the man had lied about it then to secure the Cimmerian’s aid. He, presumably, is Naipal’s true adversary. A final conflict between the two sorcerers ensues, in which both end up dead at the hands of the demon each tried to control, and the demon itself is destroyed by the spells they had lain on it.
Conan, surviving, decides to return home. On the way, he encounters Lord Khalid’s agent Jelal. The spy has completed his investigations and cleared the Cimmerian of complicity in the Vendhyan plot against Turan. He gives Conan a parchment and instructs him to present it at the headquarters of the Turanian army on his return to Sultanpoor.
The second X-Men movie, subtitled X-Men United, follows right in the footsteps of the first movie. This time around Senator Striker is manipulating mutants with the end goal of taking over Cerebro and using its powers to kill all the mutants in the world. Nice guy right? At the same time Wolverine is on the hunt for his past and lost memories. Plus, there are a lot of little rabbit trails that are like crack to comic book fans of the time.
In this movie, the human/mutant interaction is really ramped up, the looming war seemingly right on the horizon and the threat to mutantkind almost realized. We also get a bunch more mutants but each one has very little screen time and almost no character development. Nightcrawler is the perfect example. He’s brought on board to the X-team but beyond being blue and able to teleport, he’s nothing.
I think Wolverine’s storyline was more interesting than the main one about Striker trying to kill all the mutants. While the “kill all the mutants” might be interesting to a 14 year old, with the promise of world wide chaos, I liked the more personal touch here. Probably explains why I enjoyed Origins so much. This just extremely busy. It’s one of the reasons I am not a big fan of Team Superheroes. I like the focus to be on one person.
I think Singer does a good job here. Not an excellent job, but a good job. I enjoyed watching this again but unlike the first movie, I’m not sure I’ll ever bother re-watching. This is definitely a comic book movie but not in the bestest way the first movie was.
The twist at the end where Xavier is set to kill all regular humans instead of mutants was about as subtle as a baseball bat to the head. But whatever, it fit with the comic book motif perfectly.
On a weird note, the actor who plays Striker is the same man who plays Boris the Russian diplomat in the RED duology. Hearing him speak with a slight southern drawl was very disconcerting as I’m used to him being all “Dah, Comrade” and whatnot. It was one thing I could not get past.
Overall, this was a good fun re-watch on a Sunday afternoon but not one I’d unreservedly recommend.
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 Quiet Man Series: Victor the Assassin #9 Authors: Tom Wood Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars Genre: Action/Adventure Pages: 338 Words: 94K
This was a good “killer does his thing” story but it just wasn’t a Victor the Assassin. The premise is based on Victor going against every survival instinct and rule that he’s ever had to help find a special needs boy who he promised to take fishing. This from the man who poisoned the woman he loved because she “might” turn on him at some random time in the distant future? Yeah, I didn’t buy it all, not one tiny bit.
So that is why this got a halfstar knocked off it’s shiny metal aff. Other than that, this was great! Meth cooker gets burned by gangsters. Victor dukes it out with some lowlife thugs, cuts off all their fingers and delivers said fingers to the man who hired them. Victor takes on a whole team of special forces guys and kills them all. Oh yeah, that was pure awesome. It was stupid, because he was supposedly dying from a bullet wound to his thigh that nicked an artery or something, but hey, whatever. I’m also supposed to believe that Canadians are just so oh so polite and are the best people in the world? How that trucker convoy got handled shows the truth of that. But like I said, you don’t read these books for the realism.
Plus, the cover gives it all away. In case you don’t know, the maple leaf is actually a cabalistic symbol about ritualized secrets too horrible to divulge here in public. If I told you, your life wouldn’t be worth a plug nickel, heck it probably wouldn’t even be worth a penny, nay, not even a widow’s mite! And that’s taking the current inflation into account too. Since you won’t read any more reviews by me if you’re dead, I’m choosing to do the right thing (for myself) and not telling you the secrets. Feel free to thank me in the comments for sparing your miserable, misbegotten life. /s
Thus, this was another fantastic entry about a lethal killer lethally killing other lethal killers. Doesn’t get much more lethal than that. If it did, I’d have to kill you. Again.
★★★✬☆
From the Publisher
One day a man arrives in town. Unassuming. Quiet.
The assassin known as Victor is hiding out in a small motel in Canada after a job across the border. A few days laying low and he’ll be gone and leave no trace behind.
He doesn’t count on getting to know a mother and her boy who reminds him of his own troubled childhood. When both vanish, only Victor seems to notice.
Once he starts looking for them, he finds himself at odds with the criminals who own the town. They want him gone. Only Victor’s going nowhere until he discovers the truth and to them he’s just a quiet man asking the wrong questions.
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, & Librarything by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission
Title: Children of the Mind Series: Enderverse #4 Authors: Orson Card Rating: 1 of 5 Stars Genre: SF Pages: 334 Words: 108K
Man, when I finished up Xenocide, I didn’t think Card could get any worse, which is why I dived into this book with a headstrong attitude, convinced I was bigger, badder and stronger. Well, Card sure showed me.
This was a 20 page short story jam packed into 334 pages of complete blather and blither. I was going to still give this 2 stars because of the technical side of things, but then he made one little remark about Jesus that showed the heresy of the Mormon belief about God and so I knocked it down a star. (Here is a run down of the basic 8 issues that separates Mormons from Christianity – Link Here)
With that, I think I am done with Card as an author. While I enjoyed the First Formic Wars trilogy, the fact that the second trilogy has been stuck on book 2 for many years couple with my distaste of the original Enders series means I simply will ignore whatever new book comes out with his name on the cover.
Ugh. I hate when this happens in a series. I thoroughly enjoyed Ender’s Game and to see it end like this (Ender dies in this book, so even though there are 1 or 2 more direct sequels, it is pointless even if I didn’t hate this now with a passion) was simply disappointing and maddening all at the same time.
After Xenocide, several people asked what books by Card I did enjoy. To answer everyone all at once, I’ll list them here:
At the start of Children of the Mind, Jane, the evolved computer intelligence, is using her newly discovered abilities to take the races of buggers, humans and pequeninos outside the universe and back instantaneously. She uses these powers to move them to distant habitable planets for colonization. She is losing her memory and concentration as the vast computer network connected to the ansible is being shut down. If she is to survive, she must find a way to transfer her aiúa (or soul) to a human body.
Peter Wiggin and Si Wang-Mu travel to the worlds of Divine Wind and Pacifica to persuade the Japanese-led swing group of the Starways Congress to revoke their order to destroy Lusitania. By tracing the decision-making trail backwards, they are able to show a philosopher his influence on the Starways Congress. After several complications, the philosopher persuades the Tsutsumi clan to exert their influence with the Necessarian faction in the Starways Congress to stop the Lusitania fleet. The admiral at the head of the Lusitania fleet, however, disobeys the Congress’s order and does what he believes Ender Wiggin, the perpetrator of the first Xenocide, would have done and fires the Molecular Disruption Device (MDD).
Upon Ender Wiggin’s death, Jane guides his aiúa to Peter’s body, while she is granted possession of Young Val’s body, and thus is not destroyed when the ansible shuts down. She is then able to continue transporting starships instantaneously by borrowing the vast mental capacity of the simple-minded Pequenino mother-trees. She transports a ship with Peter and Wang-Mu around the missile, then transports the missile and them to inside of the Lusitania fleet, where it is then disarmed and disabled. Peter and Wang-Mu’s efforts finally come to fruition, and the destruction of Lusitania is averted.
Jane falls in love with Miro, and Peter with Wang-mu. Both couples are married under one of the mother-trees of the pequeninos on the same day as Ender’s funeral.
