Emma 4Stars

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: Emma
Series: ———-
Author: Jane Austen
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre: Classic
Pages: 341
Words: 160K

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This is my least favorite of Austen’s body of work, including her unfinished stuff. Emma as a character embodies everything that I most dislike about young women. I didn’t care for the character back in 2006 when I first read this and I didn’t care for her this time around either. I think my biggest problem is how Emma is a busybody and thinks herself superior to everyone around her.

With that being said, I still enjoyed this book quite a bit. It was very much a “Manners Romance” story and the changes in society in regards to manners made me smile. In one instance, Mrs Elton (a new to the area woman who married and is trying to be the social queen) is talking to a single young woman and calls her “Jane”, which is her name. Emma and Janes’s secret fiance overhear and both are outraged that Mrs Elton would presume to talk to Miss Fairfax so familiarly on so little acquaintance. For me, it was like reading about them being outraged because Mrs Elton said “Purple Elephant” while wearing white shoes. It just struck my funny bone, thankfully.

Much like Edward from Sense and Sensibility, Mr Knightley as a romantic lead does not make up a large part of the story. He’s there to support Emma and is busy doing real life stuff. I fully support that. He’s not swanning off writing goopy poems about her eyes and letting his own business go. This was a second instance of Austen writing about a young woman (Emma is 20 when the story starts) getting romantically involved with an older man (Mr Knightley is 37) and things working out. Was this because Austen was into that or because “Society” itself liked that and so she wrote about it to sell her stories? Most of the married couples I know are within 0-10 years in age of each other. I’ve known a few other couples with great age disparities, but they all tended to be at a stage in life when that didn’t matter (if one is 45 and the other 70 for instance) nearly so much. I know if I had a friend who was in his mid-30’s and he was interested in some cute young thing, I’d caution him about a lack of common cultural relevancies. It might seem small, and in all fairness it CAN be overcome, but something as little as knowing the same movies and the same books can ease the friction of being with another person. You don’t even have to LIKE them, just knowing about them is a common tie. Once you move beyond a certain amount of time, you don’t have those common ties to help bind you to another person. The faster a society moves, the less time those ties have to cement, and vice versa. So in Austen’s time things moved slower so the commonality had many more years to exist, which would make it much easier for a greater age disparity in a marriage to work.

Austen’s prose still makes me work. I had to just slow down to engage with this. One sentence, with multiple commas, could carry on multiple thoughts concurrently and I had to follow them all or I’d miss something, like who was even present in the room. There was one instance where Emma was talking to someone and suddenly Mr Knightley interjects a comment and I couldn’t figure out for the life of me when he had come onto the scene. I had to go back about two paragraphs, and buried in the middle of a long paragraph was a short sentence obliquely referring to him having entered the room. I love and hate that. I love it because it shows skill and I hate it because I’m lazy.

It has been over 17 years since I first read Emma and I suspect it will be that long, if not longer, before I read it for a third time.

★★★★☆

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From Wikipedia.org

Click to Open

Emma Woodhouse’s friend and former governess, Miss Taylor, has just married Mr. Weston. Having introduced them, Emma takes credit for their marriage and decides that she likes matchmaking. After returning home to Hartfield, Emma forges ahead with her new interest against the advice of her friend Mr. Knightley, whose brother is married to Emma’s elder sister, Isabella. She attempts to match her new friend, Harriet Smith, to Mr. Elton, the local vicar. Emma persuades Harriet to refuse a marriage proposal from Robert Martin, a respectable young farmer, although Harriet likes him. Mr. Elton, a social climber, mistakenly believes Emma is in love with him and proposes to her. When Emma reveals she believed him attached to Harriet, he is outraged, considering Harriet socially inferior. After Emma rejects him, Mr. Elton goes to Bath and returns with a pretentious, nouveau-riche wife, as Mr. Knightley expected he would do. Harriet is heartbroken, and Emma feels ashamed about misleading her.

Frank Churchill, Mr. Weston’s son, arrives for a two-week visit. Frank was adopted by his wealthy and domineering aunt and has had few opportunities to visit before. Mr. Knightley tells Emma that, while Frank is intelligent and engaging, he has a shallow character. Jane Fairfax also arrives to visit her aunt Miss Bates and great-aunt Mrs. Bates for a few months before starting a governess position due to financial situation. She is the same age as Emma and has received an excellent education through her father’s friend, Colonel Campbell. Emma has remained somewhat aloof from Jane because she envies her and is annoyed by everyone, including Mrs. Weston and Mr. Knightley, praising Jane. Mrs. Elton takes Jane under her wing and announces that she will find a governess post before it is wanted.

Emma decides that Jane and Mr. Dixon, Colonel Campbell’s new son-in-law, are mutually attracted, and that is the reason she arrived earlier than expected. She confides this to Frank, who met Jane and the Campbells at Weymouth the previous year; he apparently agrees with Emma. Suspicions are further fuelled when a pianoforte, sent anonymously, arrives for Jane. Emma feels herself falling in love with Frank, but it does not last. The Eltons treat Harriet poorly, culminating in Mr. Elton publicly snubbing Harriet at a ball. Mr. Knightley, who normally refrained from dancing, gallantly asks Harriet to dance. The day after the ball, Frank brings Harriet to Hartfield, as she fainted after a rough encounter with local gypsies. Emma mistakes Harriet’s gratitude to Frank as Harriet being in love with him. Meanwhile, Mrs. Weston wonders if Mr. Knightley is attracted to Jane, but Emma dismisses the idea. When Mr. Knightley says he notices a connection between Jane and Frank, Emma disagrees, as Frank appears to be courting her instead. Frank arrives late to a gathering at Donwell, while Jane departs early. The next day at Box Hill, a local scenic spot, Frank and Emma are joking when Emma thoughtlessly insults Miss Bates.

When Mr. Knightley scolds Emma for insulting Miss Bates, she is ashamed. The next day, she visits Miss Bates to atone for her bad behaviour, impressing Mr. Knightley. During the visit, Emma learns that Jane has accepted a governess position from one of Mrs. Elton’s friends. Jane becomes ill and refuses to see Emma or receive her gifts. Meanwhile, Frank has been visiting his aunt, who dies soon after his arrival. He and Jane reveal to the Westons that they have been secretly engaged since autumn, but Frank knew his aunt would disapprove of the match. Maintaining the secrecy strained the conscientious Jane and caused the couple to quarrel, with Jane ending the engagement. Frank’s easygoing uncle readily gives his blessing to the match. The engagement is made public, leaving Emma annoyed to discover that she had been so wrong.

Emma believes Frank’s engagement will devastate Harriet, but instead, Harriet says she loves Mr. Knightley, and though she knows the match is too unequal, Emma’s encouragement and Mr. Knightley’s kindness have given her hope. Emma is startled and realises that she is also in love with Mr. Knightley. Mr. Knightley returns to console Emma about Frank and Jane’s engagement, thinking her heartbroken. When she admits her foolishness, he proposes, and she accepts. Harriet accepts Robert Martin’s second proposal, and they are the first couple to marry. Jane and Emma reconcile, and Frank and Jane visit the Westons. Once the mourning period for Frank’s aunt ends, they will marry. Before the end of November, Emma and Mr. Knightley are married with the prospect of “perfect happiness.”

• Emma (2006 Review)
• All My “Jane Austen” Reviews

Get Me to the Wake On Time 3Stars

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: Get Me to the Wake On Time
Series: ———-
Editor: Alfred Hitchcock
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Crime Fiction
Pages: 175
Words: 70K

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I had another Hitchcock collection on tap before this one. It was titled “Scream Along with Me”. Unfortunately, it was a very bad scan that was nothing but images of the text instead of the text itself. That means I couldn’t change the text size or have it reflow on my kindle or change the font. That kind of thing is why I read ebooks in the first place. If I want a fixed font size, I’ll go read a paper book, thank you very much.

So with that scintillating reading fact under your belt, on to the review itself.

I enjoyed this. The end.

Seriously, that’s all you get, folks. I’m tired and the words aren’t flowing.

Well, the cover is cool. Might have to use it for my cover love at the end of the month. I’ve had several cool covers this month though, so I’m going to be in the unenviable position of having to choose one over the others. If you know anything about books, you know what special snowflakes they are and how easily their feelings get hurt. I’m not looking forward to telling the losers that they ARE losers and just aren’t good enough. Books these days, just a bunch of pansies!

★★★☆☆

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Table of Contents:

Click to Open

Introduction by ALFRED HITCHCOCK

Goodbye, Now by GIL BREWER

Woman Missing by HELEN NIELSEN

Murder Me Gently by C. B. GILFORD

Be My Valentine by HENRY SLESAR

The Marquesa by RAY RUSSELL

Highly Recommended by MICHAEL BRETT

Old Man Emmons by TALMAGE POWELL

The Drum Major by ARTHUR PORGES

Upside-Down World by JACK RITCHIE

Nice Work If You Can Get It by DONALD HONIG

Bach In A Few Minutes by FLETCHER FLORA

Polka-Dot Blonde by RICHARD HARDWICK

Experience Is Helpful by ROG PHILLIPS

Lucrezia by H. A. DEROSSO

• All of My “Alfred Hitchcock” Reviews

The Smoke Ring (The State #3) 3Stars

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 Smoke Ring
Series: The State #3
Author: Larry Niven
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 226
Words: 82K

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This was a decent SF story but not one I ever plan on reading for a third time. Twice is enough.

It’s a good sequel to the Integral Trees but leaves enough unexplored that Niven could probably have written a whole series about the Smoke Ring if he’d wanted to. He was more of a hard science fiction’er though, and you need some good, charismatic characters to keep a series going, so it’s no wonder this was the final book in The State.

Honestly, the covers were the best part of these books. At least for Integral Trees and Smoke Ring. They are why I picked them up back in highschool. Even now, I am forced to admit that the covers are what drew back to this re-read. That’s not a total slam on the books themselves, but Niven wrote for a specific type of SF reader and I’m not that kind. The covers mislead one into thinking there will be grand adventures and brightly colored heroes, etc and you just get a family adventure with lots of “how do we do X in low or zero gravity”. That’s just boring to me.

So I’m done with Niven. I won’t be exploring anything else by him. Too many other new-to-me authors to investigate.

★★★☆☆

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From Wikipedia.org

Click to Open

The Setting:

The story is set at the fictional neutron star Levoy’s Star (abbreviated “Voy”). The gas giant Goldblatt’s World (abbreviated “Gold”) orbits the star just outside its Roche limit. While Gold’s gravity is enough to keep it from being pulled apart by Voy’s tidal forces, it is insufficient to hold its atmosphere, which has been pulled loose into an independent orbit around Voy. This orbiting air forms a ring known as a gas torus. The gas torus is huge—one million kilometers thick—but most of it is too thin to be habitable. The central part of the Gas Torus, where the air is thicker, is known as the Smoke Ring. The Smoke Ring supports a wide variety of life. Robert L. Forward helped Niven calculate the parameters of the ring.

There is no “ground” in the Smoke Ring; it is a world consisting entirely of sky. Thus, most animals can fly, even the fish. Furthermore, since the Smoke Ring is in orbit, it is in free fall. There is no “up” or “down”, only “in” or “out” from Voy. Humans moving in the Smoke Ring use a poetic adage to aid their understanding of orbital mechanics – “East takes you Out, Out takes you West, West takes you In, In takes you East. Port and Starboard bring you back”

Most animals have trilateral symmetry, allowing them to see in all directions. Most plants in the Smoke Ring are quite fragile, as they don’t have to support their own weight. A notable exception to this rule are the Integral Trees. These are trees that are up to 100 kilometers long. Tidal locking causes them to be oriented radially, with one end pointing in toward Voy and one end pointing out. The ends of the tree experience a tidal force of up to 1/5 g. Each end consists of a leafy “tuft”, which is where photosynthesis occurs.

Each tuft of a tree is 50 kilometers from the tree’s center of mass. Thus, a tuft is either orbiting too slowly (the in tuft) or too quickly (the out tuft). Since the atmosphere at either end is moving at its local orbital speed, the ends of trees are subject to a constant hurricane-force wind. This wind bends the ends into the shape of an integral symbol: ∫.

The Smoke Ring was colonized 500 years prior to the beginning of the story by a crew of 20 astronauts. Their descendants have adapted to the free-fall environment by growing taller and developing prehensile toes.

According to N-Space, the wings and the method of self-propelled flying featured in the novel were suggested by Isaac Asimov.

Plot:

This book takes place about fifteen years after the end of the original story, when survivors of the Dalton-Quinn tree, a few Carther States jungle dwellers, and two London Tree Citizens have settled on a new tree. This ‘Citizen’s Tree’ has become a stable community which some believe may be too small to survive in the long run.

Kendy, the recorded personality of a citizen of “The State” who exists in the computer of the original space-ship that colonized the Smoke Ring, has become impatient. He decides to re-establish contact with Citizen’s Tree. Kendy manipulates a group into making contact with “The Admiralty”, a neighboring civilization at Gold’s L4 Lagrange Point (which they refer to as “the Clump”). The group explores this more advanced civilization with a mixture of wonder and trepidation.

Although much of the story is a sort of “travelogue” exploring the Smoke Ring and the technology used in the unique environment, The Smoke Ring does spend more time on story and character development than The Integral Trees. One of the drivers for the story follows the latest operator of “the silver suit”, the Citizen’s Tree’s working spacesuit. Few are capable of operating the suit due to its size; due to the lack of gravity, most humans in the Smoke Ring grow too tall to fit into it. The job goes to the occasionally born “dwarves” who tend to develop into humans of Earth-normal height and build. A major sub-plot develops around the latest silver suit operator’s attempts to infiltrate The Admiralty to gain information, and The Admiralty’s near obsession with capturing the Citizen’s Tree’s spacesuit.

This focuses on the story of Kendy and the original mission. The chain of events that led to the colonization of the Smoke Ring through a “mutiny” on the ship is explored. After retrieving the crew’s own records of the events, Kendy realizes that the crew had not mutinied at all, and that he had forced them off the ship, believing this to be in keeping with his orders from Earth. This was apparently blocked from his memory, and he suffers a form of breakdown when he learns (or re-learns) the truth.

• A World Out of Time (Book 1)
• The Integral Trees (Book 2)
• All of My Reviews for “Larry Niven”

Merry Christmas (2023 Edition)

The Word of Life

1 That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life— ² the life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us— ³ that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. ⁴ And we are writing these things so that our^[a] joy may be complete.
~ 1st John Chapter 1, verses 1-4

Jesus was born on Earth. He was God Incarnate. He was not a myth and the people closest to Him (His disciples and family) wrote what they knew. They gained nothing from that but the status of outcasts and eventually martyrdom. The disciple John KNEW Jesus and he is writing about Him.

Christmas exists because of Jesus the Christ being born. As the picture above say, Hope was Born. Please don’t turn away from that hope this Christmas.

Blackadder's Christmas Carol (1988 TV)

Take everything you know about A Christmas Carol and reverse it and you’ve got this wonderful parody. First and foremost, if you are not familiar with the British tv series Blackadder, this won’t be nearly as funny. Because it’s not just the fact that everything is reversed, but who everything gets reversed on. You have to know the Blackadder cast to get a full appreciation of the comedic genius.

That being said, this being British tv, they are crude, profane and borderline blasphemous.

From Ebenezer Blackadder to Mrs Scratchett and her gigantic son Tiny Tom, to gin drinking, carol singing orphans to the Spirit of Christmas, to Ebenezer’s niece Frederika who steals everything she can, coupled with Baldrick stinking everything up (he’s Blackadder’s witless servant and must have been paid a LOT of money to appear in a leather breachclout on tv) and you have a recipe for hilarity. Even the opening song is a riff on the original Blackadder intro song.

The gist of the story is that Ebenezer Blackadder is the nicest man in the world. He gives everything away to everybody and they take advantage of him. The Ghost of Christmas visits him and is about ready to leave because Ebenezer is such a good fellow until he lets slip that Ebenezer’s ancestors were unscrupulous ne’er-do-wells. This gets Ebenezer curious and sees several Christmas’s past where his ancestors pull dastardly schemes quite successfully. This wets his appetite and make him wonder why he’s being so good. He forces the Ghost of Christmas to show him the future and in one, where Ebenezer turns bad, his descendants rule the galaxy. In the other future where he stays good, his servant Baldrick rules the universe and does it very badly. So Ebenezer tosses all the good out the window and becomes a true Blackadder. In the process he tosses a mysterious couple out on their ear. They turn out to be the king and queen who were going to give him a vast fortune and a title. Which is typical Blackadder. Even when he wins, he still manages to lose.

I laughed my head off. I watched this three times and it was as funny each time.

While I don’t foresee myself ever watching this again after this year, I certainly did enjoy it this time around. It’s silly beyond belief, which fit my mood just fine.

Magicians of Caprona (Chrestomanci #2) 3.5Stars

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: Magicians of Caprona
Series: Chrestomanci #2
Author: Diana Jones
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Middlegrade Fantasy
Pages: 167
Words: 63K

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I enjoyed this as much as the first book even though Chrestomanci is not a main character and barely appears at all. Jones tells an engaging story of two rival magical families whose problems are solved by the children in the family. Yet Jones in no way denigrates the adult members of the family. That is an easy “out” for an author to elevate her children characters by tearing down the adults and Jones has no place for that kind of thing in her story, for which I am very thankful.

Most of this story is told through the eyes of Tonino and Paulo, brothers. The issue for me was that Jones would switch viewpoints from paragraph to paragraph and it became very confusing for me to keep track of whose eyes I was looking out of. I felt like it could have been written for easier comprehension, especially as this is aimed at the tween and early teen crowd. Other than that, I don’t have any complaints.

Family, food, magic, love and adventure, with a wicked enchantress making life tough for everyone. What more do you really need in a story?

★★★✬☆

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From Wikipedia.org

Click to Open

Caprona is a city-state in the Italy of Chrestomanci’s world (World Twelve A), which never united as a nation-state. The houses of Casa Montana and Casa Petrocchi, both renowned for being powerful magician families, have been feuding with each other for generations. The city has begun to lose its “virtue,” and the states of Florence, Siena, and Pisa intend to take advantage of this by uniting to conquer Caprona. The only way to save the city is if the true words to the Angel of Caprona, both a hymn and a powerful spell, can be found and read aloud.

The story is told through the eyes of the young Tonino Montana and his brother Paolo. They are both members of Casa Montana, one of two spell-houses in Caprona, the other being Casa Petrocchi. The two spell-houses are deadly rivals; the two families are both convinced that the decline of Caprona is all the fault of the other spell-house, and refuse to work together under any circumstances.

Tonino is, unknown to himself or the rest of Casa Montana, a talented enchanter; however, he is unaware of his ability, and prefers to spend his time reading. Paolo is more outgoing and friendly, and does better at school. When representatives of both houses are called to the Duke of Caprona’s palace, they both go. Whilst there, they meet members of the Petrocchi family for the first time, and they also encounter the Duchess, a powerful woman who appears to be the true ruler of Caprona.

During the book, Tonino is kidnapped and finds himself held hostage with Angelica Petrocci and whilst the two houses blame each other, Tonino and Angelica have to put their differences aside to escape. Meanwhile, Paolo teams with Renata Petrocci in order to save their lost siblings.

– All of My “Diana Jones” Reviews

Foundation and Empire (Foundation #2) 5Stars

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: Foundation and Empire
Series: Foundation #2
Authors: Isaac Asimov
Rating: 5 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 218
Words: 77K

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When I read this for the first recorded time in 2008, I only gave it 3stars.

Foundation and Empire

I don’t know if that was because I was comparing it to my emotional attachments reading this as a teenager back in the 90’s or what, but it didn’t impress me that much. This time around, I am fully impressed.

Part of that I know is because of my continuing one man war against the Sandersonization of books. Some books should be long, but not EVERY book needs to be long. Foundation and Empire consists of 2 novellas that together make up a very short book. I LIKE that. Spare me the details and give me the broad strokes so I can fill in the details for myself in my imagination. GIVE ME THE FREEDOM TO USE MY IMAGINATION IN READING!!!!!!!! Nor does every book need to be a pared down tale like this. But the pendulum is swinging away from this side and so I rail and declaim and shake my fist. And accomplish nothing but disturbing the air around me.

However, another part is because this is just a fething good story. Another Seldon crisis happens and the Foundation is protected by the social forces that nobody is aware of. And that gives them all a Happy Feeling as they think they are now invincible. Only to have the Mule come along and literally kick the Foundation to the ground and take over. But it introduces us to the idea of the Second Foundation, which has been mentioned before but never given any page time. Now, the groundwork has been laid for it to come to the forefront.

I am glad I am re-reading this trilogy and having such a smashing time of it. I just love, love, love when I re-read a book/series and it gets better!

★★★★★

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From Wikipedia.org

Click to Open

The General

General Bel Riose of the Galactic Empire governs the planet Siwenna. He comes across myths regarding the Foundation and attempts to confirm them by coercing the aid of Ducem Barr, a Siwennian whose father Onum met the Foundation trader Hober Mallow decades ago. After further research through visiting Foundation territory, Riose determines that they are a threat to the Empire and declares war upon them, both to fulfill his duty to the Empire and satisfy his personal pursuit of glory. Barr is familiar with Hari Seldon’s psychohistory and through it is confident of the Foundation’s inevitable victory, an assertion Riose repeatedly disputes.

Riose captures and interrogates Lathan Devers, a Foundation trader who reveals in private to Barr that he allowed himself to be taken in order to disrupt Riose’s operation from the inside. Devers is met by Ammel Brodrig, Emperor Cleon II’s Privy Secretary who was sent to Riose in order to keep an eye on the general. Devers tries to implicate Riose in an attempt to overthrow Cleon. However, Brodrig betrays Devers to Riose. Barr knocks out Riose before he can subject Devers to more effective interrogation and Devers and Barr escape in the latter’s ship. Barr only cooperated with Riose to prevent the discovery of a planned Siwennian uprising in the event of the Foundation’s triumph over Riose.

Devers and Barr head to Trantor in an attempt at turning Cleon II against Riose by implicating the latter in a conspiracy to overthrow the former with the help of Brodrig. However, in their attempt to bribe their way up the chain of bureaucracy, they are caught in the act by a member of the Secret Police, but manage to flee the planet before they are arrested. During their escape, they intercept news of Bel Riose and Brodrig’s recall and subsequent arrest for treason (both are later said to have been executed), which leads to Siwenna’s rebellion and the end of the threat to the Foundation.

During the festivities celebrating Siwenna joining the Foundation, Barr explains to Devers and the Foundation’s top merchant prince Sennet Forell that the social background of the Empire made the Foundation’s victory inevitable regardless of what actions they and Bel Riose took, as only a strong Emperor and a strong general could have threatened the Foundation, but an Emperor is only strong by not allowing strong subjects to thrive, and Bel Riose’s success made him into a threat that Cleon II needed to eliminate. With the Empire nearing its end and the Second Foundation not expected to be met until centuries later, the Foundation anticipates no further opposition. However, an internal conflict between the Foundation’s merchant princes and the traders is foreshadowed.

The Mule

Approximately one hundred years later, The Empire, after its final phase of decline and civil war, has ceased to exist, Trantor has suffered “The Great Sack” by a “barbarian fleet,” and only a small rump state of 20 agricultural planets remain. Most of galactic civilization has disintegrated into barbaric kingdoms.

The Foundation has become the dominant power in the galaxy, controlling its territory through its trading network. The outline of the Seldon Plan has become widely known, and Foundationists and many others believe that as it has accurately predicted previous events, the Foundation’s formation of a Second Empire is inevitable. The leadership of the Foundation has become dictatorial and complacent, and many outer planets belonging to the Traders plan to revolt.

An external threat arises in the form of a mysterious man known only as the Mule. He is a mutant and can sense and manipulate the emotions of others, usually creating fear and/or total devotion within his victims. With this ability, he takes over the independent systems bordering the Foundation, and has them wage a war against it. In face of this new threat, the provincial Traders join with the central Foundation leaders against the Mule, believing him to be the new Seldon crisis.

As the Mule advances, the Foundation’s leaders assume that Seldon predicted this attack, and that the scheduled hologram crisis message appearance of Seldon will again tell them how to win. To their surprise, they learn that Seldon predicted a civil war with the Traders, not the rise of the Mule. The tape stops when Terminus loses all power in a Mule attack, and the Foundation falls.

Foundation citizens Toran and Bayta Darell, along with the psychologist Ebling Mis and “Magnifico Giganticus,” a clown fleeing the Mule’s service, travel to different worlds of the Foundation, and to the Great Library of Trantor. The Darells and Mis seek to contact the Second Foundation, which they believe can defeat the Mule. They also suspect the Mule wishes to know where the Second Foundation is as well, so that he can use the First Foundation’s technology to destroy it.

At the Great Library, Ebling Mis works until his health fatally deteriorates. As Mis lies dying, he tells Toran, Bayta, and Magnifico that he knows where the Second Foundation is. Before he can reveal its location, however, Bayta kills him. Bayta had realized, shortly before, that Magnifico was actually the Mule, who had used his powers in every planet they had previously visited. In the same way, he had forced Mis to continue working and find what the Mule was looking for. Bayta had killed Mis to prevent him from revealing the Second Foundation’s whereabouts to the Mule.

The Darells are left on Trantor. The Mule leaves to reign over the Foundation and the rest of his new empire. The existence of the Second Foundation, as an organization centered on the science of psychology and mentalics, in contrast to the Foundation’s focus on physical sciences, is now known to the Darells and the Mule. Now that the Mule has conquered the Foundation, he is the most powerful force in the galaxy, and the Second Foundation is the only threat to his eventual reign over the entire galaxy. The Mule promises that he will find the Second Foundation, while Bayta asserts that it has already prepared for him and thus that he will not have enough time before the Second Foundation reacts.

• All of My Asimov Reviews

Before Midnight (Nero Wolfe #25) 4Stars

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: Before Midnight
Series: Nero Wolfe #25
Author: Rex Stout
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre: Mystery
Pages: 164
Words: 60K

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After the previous book, The Black Mountain, this was just like sliding back into a comfortable pair of slippers. All the roughness was gone, things fit just the way they were supposed, I knew what to expect walking up a set of stairs, contract killing was off the table, I knew what these slippers could and could not do. That is a good feeling and it’s even better when it applies to a book series.

Wolfe is hired to find a missing wallet which may contain the answers to a very lucrative poetry contest. The only snag is that the guy who owns the wallet has been murdered. Wolfe doesn’t care, as he hasn’t been hired to deal with that aspect of things. Of course the clients don’t think that, nor do the police, so you get a lot of drama going on just on that bit of misunderstanding. The clients (3 members of an advertising firm and the owner of the company paying out the prize money) are mostly despicable lowlifes who are impatient and think they have “rights”. Wolfe disabuses them of THAT idea early on. I wish we had more Wolfe’s in the world to disabuse the Social Justice Warriors of all the “rights” they make up ad hoc, usually ones that only apply to them too. Well, Wolfe is a fictional character so that particular dream of mine is just that, a dream. Since I am a diabetic, I can’t gain 120+ pounds and BE Nero Wolfe to save us all from idiots and stupidos. More’s the pity 🙁

Archie plays his vital role of being the go-between for the reader and Wolfe. While he’s not integral to solving the mystery (Wolfe pretty much keeps him in the dark the whole time and this riles Archie up pretty good), he’s the oil that keeps us reading without friction, without getting annoyed at Wolfe. For Archie gets annoyed at Wolfe and allows us the reader to sublimate our own feelings through his, without making us throw the book against the wall because of how Wolfe acts.

A very successful return to form for Wolfe and Archie, and it’s a full novel so we run the gamut instead of getting three little stories. I’m pleased with this.

★★★★☆

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From Wikipedia:

Click to Open

Nero Wolfe is approached by corporate attorney Rudolf Hansen and his clients Oliver Buff, Vernon Assa and Patrick O’Garro, the chief executives of Manhattan advertising agency Lippert Buff Assa (LBA). The group want Wolfe to save them from embarrassment and ruin following the murder of Louis Dahlmann, an up-and-coming advertising executive with the firm. Dahlmann’s wallet was also stolen, and inside were the final answers for a series of cryptic poetic riddles run as part of a promotional competition for Pour Amour, a brand of perfume designed by one of LBA’s clients. The first prize of the competition is $500,000, and in a meeting with the final five contestants the night before his death Dahlmann had revealed that he kept the answers in his wallet, both of which lead the police to suspect one of the contestants. The executives, however, do not want Wolfe to investigate the murder but to find out who stole the wallet before the contest deadline—midnight of the nineteenth of April, exactly one week later—in order to ensure the integrity of proceedings and restore their reputation. Despite tension between the advertising agency and Talbott Heery, owner of the company that produces Pour Amour, Wolfe agrees to their terms.

Wolfe dispatches Archie Goodwin to secure a copy of the final riddles and their answers for Wolfe’s reference, and proceeds to interview each of the contestants: Gertrude Frazee, the leader of an anti-cosmetics women’s group who has been using her members to find the answers for the riddles to try and embarrass the cosmetics industry; Carol Wheelock, a housewife who wants the prize money to secure a better life for her family; Harold Rollins, a condescending academic who entered the competition as part of an intellectual exercise; Susan Tescher, a magazine editor who wants to do a profile on Wolfe himself; and Philip Younger, a retiree seeking to recover a fortune he lost during the Great Depression. Although skeptical that Wolfe is only investigating the theft and not the murder, Inspector Cramer shares what the police have learned about the case so far. Other than the financial motive, none of the contestants appears to have had any serious reason or opportunity to either murder Dahlmann or steal the answers, and much to Archie’s concern Wolfe’s investigation appears to lose energy and focus.

As the deadline nears, the LBA executives begin to panic and lash out, resulting in a contradictory sequence where Wolfe is fired and then rehired within a span of minutes. When all seems lost, however, an anonymous source sends copies of the answers to each of the contestants, thus voiding the contest and saving LBA. Although Archie, the LBA executives and the police suspect Wolfe of doing so, he insists that he was not responsible, and begins to suspect one of the advertising executives of at least stealing the wallet, if not murdering Dahlmann. After the letters are sent, Vernon Assa approaches Wolfe and attempts to unilaterally dismiss him from the case, but Wolfe refuses. His suspicions aroused, Wolfe summons the major players to his office and claims he will reveal the identity of the thief, and in doing so provide the police with vital information to help them identify the murderer. Before he can do so, however, Vernon Assa is poisoned with cyanide surreptitiously slipped into his drink and dies on the floor of Wolfe’s office. Dahlmann’s wallet is found in his pocket, suggesting that he was the thief and murderer.

Infuriated at the murder of someone who was enjoying his hospitality and skeptical of Assa’s guilt, Wolfe determines to identify the true culprit. He, along with Archie and Saul Panzer, travels to the offices of LBA and inspects a display of products from their clients, discovering a bottle of cyanide that he suspects was used to murder Assa; this confirms in Wolfe’s mind the guilt of one of the executives. Confronting Buff, O’Garro and Hansen, Wolfe lays out the facts of the case and accuses Buff of murdering both Dahlmann and Assa. Buff is the only man who had clear means and opportunity, and Wolfe speculates that he was driven to murder Dahlmann out of jealousy and fear over Dahlmann’s skills eclipsing and threatening his position. Assa discovered the wallet that Buff stole from Dahlmann to cover his tracks, and Buff murdered him to silence him. When Buff tries to throw suspicion on O’Garro, O’Garro reveals that Wolfe is correct. Buff is convicted of murder, but the remaining LBA executives challenge Wolfe’s fee, arguing that as the thief and murderer Buff presumably exposed himself when he sent out the letters containing the final answers. In response, Wolfe reveals in confidence that he will be adding onto his bill the price of a used typewriter that has been disposed of in the East River, implying that he was in fact responsible for sending out the letters and saving them from humiliation after all.

• All My “Nero Wolfe” Reviews

Virgin Soil (The Russians) 5Stars

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: Virgin Soil
Series: (The Russians)
Author: Ivan Turgenev
Translator: RS Townsend
Rating: 5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Classic
Pages: 305
Words: 94K

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We follow a group of young people, but mainly one named Nezhdanov, who are trying to change the face of Russia by stirring up peasants and getting them to revolt. I believe this was the precursor to Lenin’s 1917 successful Revolution. Either way, this story is about the failure of it all, mainly because the agitators are young idiots with more ideals than common sense in their heads. Apparently none of them had read history or knew what Revolutions do to most countries. They thought there would be a titanic bloodbath and then everyone would immediately settle down to love and brotherly unity. What a bunch of dumfkophs! And to top it off, the group that Nezhdanov is involved in does start a revolt, but the peasants themselves turn against the agitators and so it’s a complete failure. Nezhdanov then goes and kills himself.

Nezhdanov was the quintessential picture of a sentimental, idealistic young man with the spine of a jellyfish. He doesn’t marry the girl he loves, he doesn’t commit to the cause wholeheartedly, he doesn’t do anything (even writing his own poetry) wholeheartedly. He waffles and whines and feels bad for himself and questions why life is so unfair, blah, blah, blah. In fact, he sounds an awful lot like a lot of young people I hear today. And that scares the tar out of me. Because someone like Lenin was born to that generation, so what’s this new generation going to give birth to?

With all of this doom and gloom, you might wonder why I’m still giving this 5stars.

That is simple. This captured the spirit of the Russians people at that time, like a photo engraved into titanium. While I thought Nezhdanov was a spineless, cowardly, stupid, sentimental idiot, I saw some of the same characteristics that I had in my early 20’s. Now, my idealism wasn’t channeled into advocating violent revolution, but I was just as idealistic as he was. I just wasn’t a stupid jellyfish (at least, so I hope). The story showed the thinking that was going on between the peasants, the Revolutionaries and the Aristocracy. You couldn’t have asked for a better representation, warts and all. While I didn’t sympathize at all, or even intellectually agree in any way, with the Revolutionaries, seeing how they affected those around them was quite eye opening. Upon reflection, I am afraid the US is following a similar path to the one shown here. Social Justice Warriors are the new Nihilists of our day age. They want what they want and they want it NOW and if you die in the process, well, it was for the Cause, Comrade!

This was Turgenev’s last novel and I shall be diving into his novella’s upon my next foray. I hope they are as good as this.

★★★★★

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From Wikipedia.org & Bookstooge.blog

Click to Open

The novel centres on a depiction of some of the young people in late nineteenth century Russia who decided to reject the standard cultural mores of their time, join the Populist movement, and ‘go amongst the people’, living the lives of simple workers and peasants rather than lives of affectation and luxury. The novel has a number of central characters around whom the action revolves. It explores, for instance, the life of Alexey Dmitrievich Nezhdanov, the illegitimate son of an aristocrat, who seeks to radicalise the peasantry and involve them in political action. He is given a job as tutor to Kolya, the nine-year-old son of Sipyagin, a local politician, and goes to live on his country estate. Whilst working there he becomes attracted to Marianna, the niece of the family.

Another central character is Vasily Solomin, who manages a local factory and is also a Populist, though one with less optimism about the potential of the movement to effect fundamental socio-economic change.

The novel ends with several of the characters trying to create a peasant uprising and it’s failure. One of them is sent off to Siberia, another kills himself and another marries a girl and works hard.

• The Russians
• Leo Tolstoy
• Fyodor Dostoyevsky
• Ivan Turgenev
• Nikolai Gogol

Dark Ritual - MTG 4E