When it comes to books, I refuse to be one of the yapping drones parroting the same lines about the same books about the same authors that 1000 other bloggers are yapping about all at the same time. Yap, yap, yap…
Which is why I will read the books I do, in the very faint hope that just maybe ONE of those brainless drones will take a chance and try one of the books that nobody else reads any more and begin their own unique reading adventure through life.
STEP OUT OF LINE AND READ SOMETHING NONE OF YOUR PEERS ARE READING!!!
Of all the sorts of people in the world, I would have thought book readers would be the first to go their own way and do their own thing. Instead, all I see is a mass of faceless non-entities. Bowls of oatmeal, without even flavor to distinguish one from the next. Even their bowls are all exactly the same.
If I have to be a bowl of oatmeal, I will be a bowl of oatmeal like this:
Thankyou for listening. Just needed to get that out of my system. Crabby old hermit mode is powering down now. Normal functions will resume in 3….2….1….
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 Colour of Magic Series: Discworld #1 Author: Terry Pratchett Rating: 4 of 5 Stars Genre: Fantasy Pages: 270 Words: 89K
This is the 3rd time “officially” that I’ve read this. And I still really enjoy it. The humor is right up my alley and it tickles my funny bone. Definitely not for everyone. Rincewind the Wizzard isn’t everyone else’s favorite Discworld character, but he makes me laugh my head off.
This wasn’t so much one singular story as a series of adventures by Rincewind and Two Flowers, a tourist from the Counter-Weight Continent. They burn down Ankh-Morpork and then proceed across the land landing into trouble everywhere they go. It’s insane, crazy, discombobulated and you can tell Pratchett was writing for the pure joy of being silly. I loved it!
I was apprehensive about doing this re-read of Discworld, but this wonderful start has put my mind at ease and while I know I’m not going to enjoy every single book, I do think I am going to enjoy the series as a whole.
★★★★☆
From Wikipedia.org
The story begins in Ankh-Morpork, the biggest city on the Discworld. The main character is an incompetent and cynical wizard named Rincewind, who is hired as a guide to naive Twoflower, an insurance clerk from the Agatean Empire who has come to visit Ankh-Morpork. Thanks to the abundance of gold in his homeland, Twoflower, though only a clerk, is immensely rich compared to inhabitants of Ankh-Morpork. Initially attempting to flee with his advance payment for agreeing to be Twoflower’s guide, Rincewind is captured by the Patrician of Ankh-Morpork, who forces him to protect Twoflower, lest the tourist’s death provoke the Agatean Emperor into invading Ankh-Morpork. After Twoflower is kidnapped by a gang of thieves and taken to the Broken Drum tavern, Rincewind stages a rescue alongside the Luggage, an indestructible, enchanted and sentient chest belonging to Twoflower. Before this, Twoflower convinces the Broken Drum’s landlord to take out a fire insurance policy; the landlord subsequently attempts to burn down the tavern to claim the money, but ends up causing a fire that destroys the whole of Ankh-Morpork. Rincewind and Twoflower escape in the chaos.
Rincewind and Twoflower travel towards the city of Quirm, unaware that their adventures on this journey are actually the subject of a boardgame played by the Gods of the Discworld. The pair are separated when they are attacked by a mountain troll summoned by Offler the Crocodile God. The ignorant Twoflower ends up being led to the Temple of Bel-Shamharoth, a being said to be the opposite of both good and evil, while Rincewind ends up imprisoned in a dryad-inhabited tree in the woods, where he watches the events in Bel Shamharoth’s temple through a magical portal. The pair are reunited when Rincewind escapes into the temple through the portal, and they encounter Hrun the Barbarian, a parody of heroes in the Swords and Sorcery genre. The trio are attacked and nearly killed by Bel-Shamharoth, but escape when Rincewind accidentally blinds the creature with Twoflower’s magical picture box. Hrun agrees to travel with and protect Twoflower and Rincewind in exchange for heroic pictures of him from the picture box.
The trio visit the Wyrmberg, an upside-down mountain which is home to dragon-riders who summon their dragons by imagining them, and are separated when the riders attack them. Rincewind escapes capture but is forced by Kring, Hrun’s sentient magical sword, to attempt to rescue his friends. Twoflower is imprisoned within the Wyrmberg, and because of his fascination with dragons, is able to summon one greater than those of the Wyrmberg riders, who he names Ninereeds, allowing him to escape captivity and save Rincewind from being killed in a duel with one of the three heirs of the Wyrmburg. Twoflower, Rincewind and Ninereeds snatch Hrun, but as they attempt to escape into the skies, Twoflower passes out from the lack of oxygen, causing Ninereeds to disappear. Hrun is saved by Liessa, but Rincewind and Twoflower find themselves falling to their deaths. In desperation, Rincewind manages to use the Wyrmberg’s power to temporarily summon a passenger jet from the real world, before he and Twoflower fall into the ocean.
The two of them are taken to the edge of the Discworld by the ocean currents and nearly carried over, but they are caught by the Circumfence, a huge net built by the nation of Krull to catch sea life and flotsam washed in from the rest of the Discworld. They are rescued by Tethis the sea troll, a being composed of water who had fallen off the edge of his own world and onto the Discworld, where he was subsequently enslaved by the Krullians. Rincewind and Twoflower are then taken by the Krullians to their capital, where they learn that the Krullians intend to discover the sex of Great A’Tuin by launching a space capsule over the edge of the Disc, and plan to sacrifice Rincewind and Twoflower to get the god Fate to smile on the voyage, Fate insisting on their sacrifice after they caused him to lose the earlier game. Rincewind and Twoflower attempt to escape, but end up stealing the capsule, which is launched with Twoflower inside, the tourist wishing to see the other worlds of the universe. Rincewind is unable to get into the capsule in time, and falls off the Disc alongside it, the Luggage following them soon after.
The story segues into the beginning of The Light Fantastic
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: Beat to Quarters Series: Horatio Hornblower #1 Author: Cecil Scott Forester Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars Genre: Historical Fiction Pages: 204 Words: 76K
I have heard about the Horatio Hornblower series my entire life. Some friends of mine were big naval buffs and loved all the history of this series. That was enough, even back in highschool, to turn my interest away from it. Then I read some of the Seafort Saga, which was touted as “Hornblower in Space”. Seafort was an antihero who everything turned bad for. He rescues a space princess. She dies horribly and he’s sued by her brothers and his wife divorces him over it. That’s just a made up example, but that’s how Seafort went. There were no happy endings. So that turned me off of Hornblower yet again.
But here I am, 30 years later. My tastes have changed, broadened, narrowed and expanded. While readers/reviewers like Mogsy can churn through the latest pile of new releases like a voracious horde of piranhas, I am finding myself going the opposite direction. I don’t WANT the new books. Give me those old books! I used to think that meant the 1980’s. But with Riders introducing me to the Shadow and the fantastic luck I tend to have with those, well, the 1930’s started looking good. Throw in the original Conan stories by Howard, also in the ‘30’s and yeah, backwards in time seemed the way to go. And Hornblower was published in ‘37. So I gathered unto myself the collection of 12 novels, even if the last one wasn’t completed due to the author dying. Hmmm, sounds kind of like Sunset at Blandings, the final Blandings Castle novel.
Hornblower is a competent but totally self-conscious and utterly class aware kind of character. I had a hard time relating but just had to accept it. He had a bad experience trying to be friendly with an officer below him one time and the lesson he took from it was to be silent, enigmatic and uncommunicative with anybody on the ship. This makes him lonely and miserable. But all he can think about is how talking to his officers might somehow bring dishonor on him. It was utter balderdash. But it made Hornblower a real character. He HAD character.
I’ve also heard how wonderful these are for middle graders. That’s balderdash too. Hornblower is a married man but almost gets involved with a noblewoman who forced her way on the ship to get a ride home. Before he cuts things off for good, Forester tells how Hornblower has a train of thought that “ended in rapine and murder”. It was much darker than I was ever expecting. It wasn’t bad, but it was adult in its theme and was not at all appropriate for middle graders. We’ll see where Forester sends Hornblower in future books in that regards.
Finally, I am reading these in publication order and not in internal chronological order. While there can be benefits to reading books in chronological order, I have found that reading them as the author wrote them allows for a fuller journey in regards to how a series matures. Instead of skipping all over the place in terms of skill and even style, you simply walk along the path and experience the change as it happens. It’s not always obvious and many times might have zero bearing on one’s enjoyment of a particular author (Dickens for example), but for it sets my mind at ease knowing I’m reading the story the way author thought it. With this paragraph I am closing in on the 600 word mark for this section of the review. That’s too long so I shall end this now.
Except.
That cover. Is that awesome or what? Gaaaaahhhh! I shall commit seppuku with a dull spoon for dishonoring myself, my family and my cow for being so wordy. I just went to 639 words; make that spoon rusty!
★★★✬☆
From Wikipedia.org
June 1808 Hornblower is in command of the 36-gun frigate HMS Lydia, with secret orders to sail to the Pacific coast of Nicaragua (near modern Choluteca, Choluteca) and supply a local landowner, Don Julian Alvarado (“descendant” of Pedro de Alvarado by a fictional marriage to a daughter of Moctezuma), with muskets and powder. Don Julian is ready to revolt against the Spanish. Upon meeting Don Julian, Hornblower discovers that he is a megalomaniac who calls himself “El Supremo” (which Forester translates as “the Almighty”), views himself as a deity, and has been killing those who he regards as “unenlightened” because they do not recognise El Supremo’s divine status. El Supremo claims to be a descendant of Moctezuma, the holy god-made-man of the Aztecs, and also of Pedro de Alvarado, one of the Spanish invaders of Mexico.
While Hornblower replenishes his supplies the 50-gun Spanish ship Natividad is sighted off the coast. Unwilling to risk fighting the much more powerful ship in a sea battle, Hornblower hides nearby until it anchors and then captures it in a surprise nighttime boarding. El Supremo demands that it be turned over to him so that he may have a navy. After hiding the captured Spanish officers to save them from being murdered by El Supremo, Hornblower, needing his ally’s cooperation, has no choice but to accede.
After offloading war supplies for El Supremo, Hornblower sails south. Off the coast of Panama he encounters a Spanish lugger, from which an envoy arrives to inform him of a new alliance between Spain and England against Napoleon.
When Hornblower visits Panama City to meet with the Spanish Viceroy, the Englishwoman Lady Barbara Wellesley, a (fictional) sister of Marquess Wellesley and Sir Arthur Wellesley (the future Duke of Wellington), comes aboard. The packet ship she was on in the Caribbean had been captured some time before. Freed by Spain’s changing sides, and fleeing a yellow fever epidemic ashore, she requests passage back to England. Hornblower reluctantly takes Lady Barbara and her maid Hebe aboard, warning her that he must first hunt and destroy the Natividad before El Supremo can capture a Spanish ship carrying funds crucial to the Spanish war effort from Manila to Acapulco.
In the subsequent battle Hornblower uses masterful tactics to sink the Natividad, though the Lydia herself is heavily damaged. Limping back to Panama to effect repairs, Hornblower is informed that, now that there is no further threat from the Natividad, he is not welcome in any Spanish American port. He manages to find a natural harbour on the island of Coiba, where he refits.
After completing repairs, Hornblower encounters the haughty Spanish envoy once again on the same lugger. He is invited aboard the lugger and finds El Supremo chained to the deck on his way to execution.
Hornblower sets sail for England. On the long voyage home he and Lady Barbara become strongly attracted to each other. She makes the first overt advances and they embrace passionately, but Barbara’s maid Hebe walking in on them brings Hornblower to the realisation that a ship’s captain must not indulge in sexual dalliance with a passenger. He tells Barbara, truthfully, that he is married. After her rejection Barbara avoids him as best she can. The Lydia arrives at Saint Helena soon afterwards and Lady Barbara transfers to a more spacious ship.
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
For anyone who doesn’t know, Wilkie Collins is known for writing The Moonstone, sometimes called the first detective novel. He was also a contemporary and friend to Charles Dickens. As you should know, Dickens was known as quite the wordy author, always using 5 or 6 words where 1 would have sufficed. Some find this trait of his insufferable, some love it. I happen to love it. When it is done by Dickens. This was also Collins’ debut novel and in it he tries to out-Dickens Dickens. If 1 word would suffice, Collins crams in 10-15. Usually of the most purplish prose possible too. I found it insufferable.
What is worse, this was also boring. Rome is surrounded by a barbarian horde of goths and everyone just sits there and starves to death. Collins can barely be bothered to scare up some drama for us.
The struggle between Paganism and Christianity, as portrayed, also betrayed Collins inherent apathy for either. He was no believer in anything. It should have had some real pathos, some “zing” instead of two old men living their lives out according to their principles.
This was the first book in one of those “Complete Author X” collections. Bad choice, even though I know they’re going alphabetically. If I hadn’t already read Moonstone and had my interest whetted by that, and this was my first Collins, I’d have tossed it into the rubbish heap and not read anything more by him. Really hope the next book is a little more interesting.
★★☆☆☆
From Wilkie-Collins.info and Bookstooge.blog
The plot revolves around two separate but related struggles. That of the old pagan and new Christian religions, seen as equally destructive, embodied in the opposing characters of Ulpius and Numerian; and that of the strong figure of the Goth, Goisvintha, (modelled on Norna in Scott’s The Pirate) seeking revenge against the weak heroine, Antonina.
In the Rome of 408 AD, the young Antonina lives with her father Numerian, zealous in his aims to restore the Christian faith to its former ideals. Numerian’s steward, Ulpius, brought up in the old religion, secretly lives only to restore the forbidden gods of pagan sacrifice. Vetranio, their wealthy neighbour, has designs on the innocent Antonina. When they are surprised by Numerian in an apparently compromising situation, Antonina flees outside the city walls just before Rome is blockaded by the encircling army of the Goths.
Antonina is captured by the chieftain, Hermanric, who falls in love with her. His sister, Goisvintha, was the sole survivor of a Roman massacre in which her children perished and has vowed revenge on Rome and its people. She attempts to kill Antonina but is prevented by Hermanric who allows Antonina to escape. During the weeks of the siege, she lives in a deserted farmhouse, visited nightly by Hermanric. Goisvintha betrays her brother to the Huns who kill him, while Antonina escapes for a second time.
Ulpius, meanwhile, has discovered a breach in the city wall and attempts to betray Rome to Alaric in exchange for his destruction of the Christian religion. Alaric is interested only in humbling his enemies into surrender and seizing a large tribute of gold. Returning towards the city, Ulpius discovers Antonina and accompanies her to Rome where she finds her overjoyed but starving father. Antonina begs the last morsels of food from Vetranio at a macabre and suicidal ‘Banquet of Famine’, preventing him from making a funeral pyre of his palace.
Antonina is stabbed but recovers, her father stays alive, Ulpias dies, Goisvintha goes completely insane and Vetranio retires to the country side.
As the Shadow Emperor slowly conquered the land, as his unstoppable Warriors defeated town after town, district after district, stronghold after stronghold, resistance began. But resistance needs a spearpoint, a leader, a hero as it were. Unfortunately, heroes do not spring forth from the void, fully fleshed, trained and ready to do those hero’y things they do. This instance was no different. Our hero was battered. He’d had a foot cut off when his captain ran from the pirates and they exacted revenge on the entire crew for daring to resist them. The captain was dead by the way. Our hero had joined the pirates, because it’s pretty hard to swim in shark infested waters with a recently amputated foot.
The Stormcrow clan of humans was never a popular clan, but when the Steampunk Elves saw that there was nobody else with the ability to lead the resistance, even a rogue pirate captain starts to look good. And that, dear reader, is how A Hero Arises.
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: Groo and the Ambassador Series: Groo the Wanderer #22 Author: Sergio Aragones Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars Genre: Comics Pages: 24 Words: 2K
Groo gets into trouble, causes trouble and eventually just wanders out of the picture leaving death and destruction in his wake, as usual. Hhaahahahahaa!
Ahhhh, I love this comic 😀
★★★✬☆
From Bookstooge.blog
Groo the Wanderer is wandering around and at the same time an Ambassador named Gru is accidentally following the same path. Gru ends up taking all of the consequences that Groo creates by not paying for anything. Eventually war breaks out between two kingdoms and Groo is left wandering in the woods, clueless as ever.
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: Savage Son Series: Terminal List #3 Author: Jack Carr Rating: 3 of 5 Stars Genre: Action/Adventure Pages: 464 Words: 134K
This was a love letter to the short story “The Most Dangerous Game”. Carr starts his introduction talking about it in fact. He mentions that the idea came to him first, but he needed Reece to get to that point and so he had to write the first two books. If you liked TMDG, you’ll like this story.
Much like Carr’s previous books though, he takes a while to get to where he’s going. Reece faces down a large group of russian mobsters in some mid-western state out in the middle of no-where and it was awesome. But Carr felt like he had to set things up like a SEAL operative. Too much detail to things that don’t matter in a novel. This would have been a fantastic 350 page novel. I probably would have given it 4 stars. But there was simply too much setup.
I found the fight against the mobsters in the US to be the better fight, as the one in Russia on the deserted ice island where the Crazy Guy was hunting Reece and his buddy Raife turned out to be rather anti-climactic. Carr should have taken a page from TMDG and tried for a three day fight and flight narrative instead of a six hour in and out escape narrative.
Overall, I was pleased with this read and am satisfied with how it turned out. While I still have one more book to read, Jack Carr is doing a much better job with James Reece than “Dalton Fury” did with his Delta Force series. That might sound like faint praise, but praise is praise and Carr should be thankful.
★★★☆☆
From OfficialJackCarr.com
Deep in the wilds of the Russian Far East, a woman is on the run, pursued by a man harboring secrets, a man intent on killing her.
A traitorous CIA officer has found refuge with the Russian Mafia with designs on ensuring a certain former Navy SEAL sniper is put in the ground.
Half a world away, James Reece is recovering from brain surgery in the Montana wilderness of his youth, learning to live again, putting his life back together with the help of investigative journalist Katie Buranek and his longtime friend and SEAL teammate Raife Hastings.
For reasons both personal and professional, the Russian intelligence-mafia consortium has their sights set on removing a player from the board before he can return to the battlefield, targeting Reece on U.S. soil.
With an unknown entity inside the U.S. government compromised by Russian intelligence, Reece is forced to recruit a team of former commandos to bring his unique brand of vengeance to the Russian Mafia on their home turf, turning the hunters into the hunted.
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 Misfit Soldier Series: ———- Author: Michael Mammay Rating: 1 of 5 Stars DNF#28% Genre: SF Pages: 270/76 Words: 89K/25K
