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: Divide and Conquer Series: Groo the Wanderer #25 Author: Sergio Aragones Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars Genre: Comics Pages: 23 Words: 2K
Groo is a pretty obvious comic, so when I saw this page (page 5), I knew exactly where the comic was going to go. I didn’t know how it was going to get there, but I knew the destination:
And sure enough, that is exactly what happens.
The fun is watching Aragones lead us down the path to that destination. Just because we know the destination doesn’t mean we know the path the journey will take. Especially as Groo is involved and no journey with him is straightforward or logical at all! 😀
★★★✬☆
From Bookstooge.blog
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Groo rescues a town from bandits, only to have them be attacked by another group of bandits. He rescues the town from those bandits as well. Then the two bandit groups unite. Groo teaches the villagers how to fight and it is a three way fight. Then they realize they have destroyed the town and all three groups join up to go pillage a different village. Good job Groo!
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: Shadow of Anubis Series: The Arcane Irregulars #2 Author: Dan Willis Rating: 4 of 5 Stars Genre: Urban Fantasy Pages: 256 Words: 83K
I read the first book in this spinoff series, The Curse of the Phoenix, back in June of ‘22. It does not seem that long to me. But that’s why I keep records.
The original series, The Arcane Casebook, follows one Alex Lockerby, a magical detective who solves several mysteries each book that end up all tying together. In this Arcane Irregular series, we follow a series of people connected to Alex who solve various magical mysteries that are NOT related. That difference really threw me for a loop in the first book, as I kept waiting for Willis (the author) to tie everything into a nice neat bow. Thankfully, this time around I didn’t expect that and he didn’t disappoint. We’re both happy now.
Having a variety of mysteries to solve from a variety of viewpoints can be a hard thing to pull off. In fact, I’d usually bet against an author being able to pull such a thing off. But Willis manages it quite well. The switches between the various characters was done smoothly and I never felt a jarring change. He also introduced each change at a good point, so I wasn’t thinking “why can’t I stay reading THIS part?” My only issue is that Danny Pak feels shortchanged in this novel. I don’t feel that Willis has a good grasp of him as a person and so he’s almost a caricature or an idea of a person. The reason I mention that is because I did not feel that way about Agent Aissa. She had her own real voice and felt very distinct and separate and not just an Alex Lockerby clone with a name change (which can be the case in too many cases for indie authors). Despite what I said in Curse of the Phoenix about Willis seeming to have plateaued in skill, I have to admit I was wrong. Shadow of Anubis feels like a much better book and I hope that trend continues. And that wraps up my various thoughts on the book itself.
To end this review, I have to talk about the cover. I always have to talk about the covers that Willis uses in these Arcane series. They’re gorgeous! In this one, we see Agent Aissa on the left, Dr Bell (the real life Sherlock Holmes) in the center and the resurrected high priestess Sherry Knox on the right. I’m including a large version here just because it’s a very strong contender for Cover Love winner at the end of the month.
★★★★☆
From the Publisher
Click to Open
It’s been a year since the events of the Jade Phoenix, but its legacy is still being felt. When a magical assassin makes his presence felt in the city, Lieutenant Danny Pak has to bring in Dr. Ignatius Bell to help him track down a terrifying killer, preferably before the tabloids find out about him.
Meanwhile, FBI Agent Aissa Mendes gets her first solo case, the murder of a foreign national. At first the case seems fairly straightforward, but the deeper she digs, the more she uncovers, including a dark secret from the city’s past. Eventually, her pursuit of truth brings international scrutiny on Aissa that could end her career before it gets started.
With her boss, Alex Lockerby, mysteriously out of commission, Sherry Knox finds herself trying to keep the detective agency afloat with only Alex’s apprentice Mike Fitzgerald to help. She is keeping things together, at least until her cards show her a horrifying vision, predicting that one skeleton in her closet isn’t willing to stay buried.
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: Empire’s Birth Series: Empire Rising #9 Author: David Holmes Rating: 3 of 5 Stars Genre: SF Pages: 424 Words: 164K
I enjoyed this, but. Yes, a big fat but.
(And feel free to make all the jokes you want)
There was almost ZERO space marine action. They are mentioned, but pretty much only as elements that are getting their butts (ha, there’s that big fat but again) kicked and being destroyed. Space battles get all the attention this time around and that did not please Emperor Bookstooge. It made the book drag for me. So if your jam is big space battles, then you’ll absolutely love this. But (ha!) big space battles are NOT my jam, so I merely enjoyed this instead of absolutely loving it.
I reviewed the first book (The Void War) in February of 2023. I’ve been steadily reading this series and enjoying it. But now that the Empire has been officially formed, I think it’s time to take a break for a bit and come back in a couple of months. There are currently 18 books in the series and I’m guessing it’s going to be one of those “never ending” series. I’m ok with those, as long as I know that’s what it is. I just need to space things out appropriately.
★★★☆☆
From Bookstooge.blog
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Commodore Happypants gets crowned King of Space England. Then he marries the Empress of Space China and creates the Empire, thus becoming Space Emperor Happypants.
While this is all going on, the evil Karachnids are going around conquering more space civilizations and nuking planets like there’s no tomorrow. Earth is doing what it can do cause problems but until they get united as a species, things aren’t looking too good. It’s up to Space Emperor Happypants to get humanity all on one page, by the scruff of the neck if necessary, and drag them to victory.
Watch out Karachnids, humanity has a Space Emperor and we’re not afraid to use 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: The Weapon from Beyond Series: Starwolf #1 Author: Edmond Hamilton Rating: 3 of 5 Stars Genre: SF Pages: 158 Words: 47K
I would have enjoyed this a lot more 15-20 years ago, maybe even 30.
Hamilton either didn’t know that space is three dimensional and thus when giving out coordinates, you need an X, a Y AND a Z or he was using terms that I am quite familiar with in ways they weren’t meant to be used. You can’t navigate space using degrees and azimuths as separate things, because they ARE the same thing. What Hamilton needed was “declination”, the up/down part of describing movement within a globe. So yelling out “they are heading out at fourteen degrees and double that for the azimuth” is absolute nonsense. It is meaningless technobabble, but it’s not really technobabble, but misapplied terminology to what we already do know. This is why authors need to be careful. Because some guy is going to come along and read their book and he is going to know the meaning behind the babble and will simply shake his head in disgust and say things like “this is for kids”.
Other than that, this was a decent SF adventure story about some guy all by himself moving from one group to another. Very macho and heroic and manly. I still need to read stories with those elements, I just need them woven in a bit more subtly. Like I said, 16year old me would have glomped onto this like I did with Wayfarer back in the day.
Finally, the cover. While it’s old skool to the max (this was published in 1967), it actually has a scene from the story instead of just some random picture of a space guy. Covers should be representative of what is inside, not just a lure to get you to pick the book up (they can be both and I have zero issues with the lure line of thought, it just needs to take a subordinate position).
★★★☆☆
From Wikipedia
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Starwolf is a series of three novels by Edmond Hamilton featuring heavy-worlder Morgan Chane. Chane was the son of a human missionary family to a heavier-than-Earth-normal world (higher gravity) of Viking-like aliens. During the years of his life, his parents died and left him an orphan to be incorporated into the Starwolf society. As an adult he felt himself to be as much a Starwolf as his alien companions. After a dispute over plunder with a fellow Starwolf (leaving the other Starwolf dead), Chane flees (under threat of death) from Starwolf society. As a fugitive and hiding his ex-Starwolf status (the rest of the galaxy “declares a holiday when a Starwolf is killed”), Chane becomes part of a “Merc” human mercenary group commanded by a Merc named John Dilullo.
While in intersteallar space Morgan Chane survives a deadly chase by his ex-fellow robbers from Varnan, Starwolves, one of which he killed in a self-defence. On his escape he gets captured by an experienced starship captain, Dilullo from Earth who is leading a group of Mercs (mercenaries) with a mission to a planet called Kharal. Captain saves him, but quickly learns that he is one of Starwolves, well known robbers who raided almost entire galaxy and whom it’s usual to kill on spot. Learning about his trouble, captain Dilullo offers him to join his mission to Kharal and share reward. As usual for Mercs, the mission promised to be dangerous so in exchange for his help Captain offered to keep origin of Morgan Chane secret. After landing on Kharal they learn about details, reward, and about enemies of Kharal, the planet Vhol who they are at war with, and who are about to obtain super weapons capable to destroy entire Kharal. Mercs accept their mission and are tasked to find weapon’s whereabouts and destroy it before enemies of Kharali can use it. While on the Kharal, Morgan Chane gets jailed for trouble with natives of the planet. While in prison he gest contacted by Captain Dilullo who then tasks Morgan Chane with releaseing a Vhollian officer named Yorolin who was interrogated by Kharalli from the same prison where he was held.
Morgan Chane gets the job done and the team leaves for the Vhol unnoticed with prisoners on board. There, with great effort and trouble they learn about whereabouts of superweapons and set out toward nebulae. Vhol-lans send a cruiser after them. On their way they face Starwolves once again, but luckily appeared Vhol-lans cruiser gets involved and gives a chance for Mercs to escape the battle. By tracing cruiser’s path, they reach nebulae’s planet where super weapons were expected to be found, but find only enormous intergalactic spaceship wreckage. Mercs captured vhol-lans scientists present at the ship who explained that there was no super weapons and this ship belonged to an ancient powerful alien race called Krii, who accidentally landed on the planet, but survived in stasis for many years and were awaiting their rescuing fellows Krii-s who were expected to appear soon.
Mercs learn that Vhol-lans had one of their cruisers survived the battle with Starwolves and both landed on the planet. They prepared to storm Mercs positions, but soon the fight was interrupted by Krii-s second super-ship appearance. By using some unknown technology Krii-s made all weapons, power plants, and engines on the planet “frozen” and useless. Krii came to save their fellows and what was on the wrecked ship. Once they finished their job, the wreackage gets destroyed by Krii, leaving only trail in the sands and second ship disappears.
Mercs quckly depart for Kharal to get reward and set their way towards Earth.
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: Stalking the Dragon Series: John Justin Mallory #3 Author: Mike Resnick Rating: 2 of 5 Stars Genre: Fantasy Pages: 237 Words: 76K
THIS was the first book I read in ‘24 and my goodness, was it boring. I don’t mean there were sections that were boring, but the whole book was boring. It was like Resnick set out to tell an exciting story but right before he started he tripped over his portable Boring Machine and dosed himself with a 100% lethal dose of boring rays.
Who cares that you have to make five left turns to get to the corner of Boring Street and Boringer street in Magical New York? Carruthers, JJ’s partner who was a former hunter and could have added some extra ultra awesome gun action (she carries something like a .75calibre magnum handgun!) is sent off on meaningless tasks and she doesn’t do anything. JJ doesn’t do anything but trudge around, and he trudges around as boringly as Resnick (the author) can make him.
Being a shorter book, by the time I came out of my stupefaction and realized that I should have dnf’d this, I was already done. Resnick is really hit and miss for me, but man, this was “tie me down and make me watch Pollyanna 1000 times in a row” kind of boringness. I don’t know how he survived writing stories like this. Thankfully, this series is over. Bleh.
I have one more I’m going to try by Resnick, a Weird West series of 4 books. But now that the fog has lifted from my brain, if I’m bored, or even Not Super Entertained by the next series, I’ll be done. I do NOT want to repeat this complete waste of my time.
Much like Marley, I come to you warning you not to waste your time on this boring story. Heed my warning……. (insert ghost noises)
★★☆☆☆
From Bookstooge.blog
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A miniature show dragon is stolen and JJ is hired to find it. Even the Grundy, the main suspect, wants him to find it. Turns out the owner stole it himself so he could place some bets and win big under aliases. JJ finds the dragon and enters it into the contest and wins and everybody isn’t 100% miserable. The End.
Recognize that monstrosity? You should. WordPress introduced it a couple of months ago and when they did, they made no provision to turn it off. I know, because I asked. The useless “engineers” assured me that when the option came to be able to turn it off, I’d be notified. What a bunch of liars.
Because I was poking around the guts of all my settings and came across a new option. One that turns that big monstrosity off. Here: https://wordpress.com/settings/newsletter
Click off the two options: “Enable popup subscriber” & “Display subscription suggestion after comment”. Then people who comment on your blog won’t be annoyed by that big fat monstrosity.
I hope this post has been informative and helpful.
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: The Crime Cult Series: The Shadow #12 Authors: Maxwell Grant Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars Genre: Crime Fiction Pages: 156 Words: 50K
The Shadow goes up against a devotee of the Thuggee sect, which is devoted to the death goddess Kali. If you’ve ever seen Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, you’ll get a decent picture of the Thuggee cult. But they’re are also practitioners of the art of death by strangulation. So every victim in this story was strangled to death.
I’ve read another short story about Thuggees, either in an Alfred Hitchcock Collection or one of the Roald Dahl adult books, but I can’t be bothered to track down one specific short story. Anyway, that story also dealt with the strangulation side of the Cult, so that wasn’t a revelation here.
The more I read of these Shadow stories, the more I can why everyone says Batman was born of the Shadow. This time I noticed just how afraid the thugs, criminals and gangsters are of the Shadow and how he not only uses that fear, but encourages it. They SHOULD fear him. It reminds me of how Batman started. He wanted something to scare the badguys, to put the fear of God into their hearts and he would out-think them but also out-fight them. The Shadow had his time, and I enjoy reading these novels, but I don’t see him ever making a comeback. I mean, Batman is on the skids after all these years due to really bad story telling and the authors and artists relying on the fans buying crap just because of nostalgia and past associations. The era of Batman is coming to a close too I think.
When I wrote about Foundation and Empire last month, I mentioned how the length of it worked for me. These Shadow novels are built along the same lines and I just love it. It’s enough to entertain me without bogging me down. There are times when I’m reading a book and if I realize it’s over 300 pages I kind of groan to myself because I know the author is going to fill in all the background when I just wanted a two paragraph description of the whole world. Even better, one paragraph would suit me just fine! But instead of whining about that, I realize I have that need for brevity and these Shadow books are filling that need perfectly.
While this is the first book I am reviewing in 2024, it was not the first I read. I read a very mediocre book and just couldn’t face up to writing a review for a completely boring and mediocre book as my first review of the year. So I decided to read a good book and review it first. That’s the beauty of scheduling posts a week or so ahead of schedule, I can do things like that. I am glad to be reviewing a Shadow book first thing. It’s brief, exciting and filled with bad, gun toting thugs, decent upstanding men in the Shadow’s employ and a main character who totes two automatic pistols and isn’t afraid to use them.
★★★✬☆
From the Publisher
Click to Open
The marks of death were upon them. A mysterious round burn no bigger than a dime scarred each forehead; upon each throat was a thin, almost invisible white line. The police were baffled, but each of the victims knew that his time was up and his page in the book of death had come due. It was obviously a case for The Shadow but the most famous crimefighter of all was missing!
Pages read – 49,779 (↓3K) Words read – 15564K (↓900K) Average Rating – 3.29 (↑ 0.06)
GENERAL THOUGHTS:
General Life Thoughts
What a year this has been. We started 2023 with Mrs B being incapacitated pretty much until late March and a little in April. That led to her moving to a new doctor and whole new medical system, which has worked out well. Then our fight with the insurance company for her medication continued at year’s end (they hid some of her options from her and we thought we were going to have to shell out over $1500 in one go) and she broke her wrist. Her courage is ok thankfully. Mine, well, that’s iffy.
My biggest physical thing was dealing with my eyes and my diabetes. My left eye continues to be the problem child and I have a bad feeling things are going to be bumpy in 2024.
Emotionally, I was all over the place. I rode the crests of the waves in the good times and man, did I crash and burn in the troughs too. I was discussing “time” with someone and realizing how much quicker things are moving for me now. October of ’22 I took off from reviewing and yet I can remember it like it was THIS October. Then I have those moments where I can’t even remember what I had for breakfast and it’s only 2hours later. Someone needs to write a book on getting older so I can read it and get prepared for what’s coming! There was a lot of other stuff too, but as it is ongoing, I’m still riding the wave of it and don’t know if it’ll end up being a crest or a trough, or even both.
While I don’t have to deal with the turmoil of hormones, my emotions are as volatile as ever they were in my 20’s and I’m coming to realize that’s just how I am, they aren’t going to suddenly change and I just have to accept that. I’m going to continue to say stupid things to people, fly off the handle at the drop of a hat, get my feelings hurt and butt heads with most everyone I meet. I just need to work on mitigating all of those things. Easy peasy, right? 😀
General Bookish Thoughts
Overall, I was happy with my reading this year. My total number only dipped 4, and that was with taking days off from blogging throughout the year. I deliberately tried to read less near the end of the year and it appears to have worked.
I did start subdividing that general number up into the various categories I assign a book, so gives a better view of what I read than just ONE BIG NUMBER. My manga and comic reading steadily dropped at about the midyear mark and I suspect they won’t be picking up any time soon. That comes and goes like a sine wave function and right now I’m in the trough.
My rating was up a tiny bit, which is good because I’m trying to get better at not picking up books that I’ll rate low. Of course, what usually happens is moral content and bam, auto 1star, which just kills my rating. Oh well, I keep on plugging along.
General Blogging Thoughts
What do I say about WordPress without going into a blue streak? Well, I have no plans on leaving in 2024. I’ve put too much work here to start all over somewhere else. So set your minds at ease on that point. At the same time, I am the unhappiest I have ever been with this company since I started really blogging here at the end of ’16. Things being broken on a weekly or monthly basis, constantly fighting to figure what they just did, and why, and most importantly for me, the absolute onslaught of their *&^%$#@! code monkeys against the comment sections. What they have works and it works perfectly. So of course they have to mess with it. And break it and absolutely destroy its basic functionality for the normal user. While they walked back that particular decision, given their history, it just means they will have a go at it again later in ’24 and in smaller increments. I guess I would say I have nothing good to say about WP at the moment. I am angry and upset and it feels like my only option is to go start elsewhere (too much work) or just leave (which isn’t a real choice as I need to interact verbally online with people).
My followers went up but that is because I’m not clearing away spam, business and dead wood accounts any more. It’s too much work and it depresses me. Turn over continues and people come but mainly people seem to go. I have to admit, it is a continual thorn in my side, but that is one of the down sides of blogging (it’s not all fame and fortune after all, no matter what some people may think).
All my other blogging metrics were also up except for number of posts written. Of course, when you’re talking 377 posts a year, 3 less posts isn’t even a 1% drop, so it’s negligible. I did write more in the posts themselves, as they were generally longer by about 100 words. I also got a lot more random views from search engines. That I put down to starting the process of getting my site completely indexed with google. That’s going to take a long time however and with so many of my early “reviews” just being the info block about the book, I doubt those will get indexed at all. As of this post, I have 4895 posts on this blog. So you could read one post a day and you would have enough reading material for the next 13.5 years. Which will give me time to churn out another couple of thousand posts. Get cracking! Those old posts aren’t going to read themselves after all.
Commenting went up too. By a thousand. That’s three extra comments a day! Of course, it’s really only up by 500, because half of that 1000 is me replying, but 1.6 new comments a day for me to reply to is bliss to my soul. Keep it up folks, you’re doing great! 😉
The Author Index is almost finished and that is a bright spot for blogging. I’ve been dragging my feet though, as I don’t want it to really be finished, because then I have to find another blog project and I’m afraid I’ll open a can of worms with some project that will be 100X bigger than anticipated. I like small blog projects, not ginormous blog projects.
The Art for my blog has also been a bright spot. Whether it is seeing the Magic cards that I played with as a teenager or putting up drawings from Miss Ross, I have enjoyed being able to do something different. I know other bloggers do that kind of stuff routinely (hence the creation of sites like Instagram, etc) but with being a book reviewer and mainly dealing with words, the weekly and monthly foray into “picture” refreshes me. Plus, it gives you something different to see than just a small wall of text.
Blogging stayed pretty much the same this year as it did last. That’s why I like doing the stats, because my feelings can skew the reality. The reality is that I wrote just as much as in ’23 as I did in ’22. I can tell how my blogging is going by how much I write. So the numbers staying the same means stability and that’s a good thing. While I’m riding the emotional waves, it’s good to know that I’m still plugging away at my posts.
I guess my blogging experience depends on the mood I’m in. So bear with me as I ride up to those heights and then crash down to those lows.
My blogger account continues to be my backup, that “just in case” place. Bookstooge.blogspot.com exists right now only for my book reviews. I don’t crosspost my non-book stuff, not even my monthly roundups. I check the comments once a week or so for spam and random people just leaving a driveby comment. It’s like that ramshackle shed in the backyard where I store all my crap and always tell myself that “one day I’ll clean that place up”. Hahahaha.
Calibre continues to be the resource I use the most whenever I have questions about the books I’ve read in the past. While I always link to a wordpress review, my initial query is always in calibre. Nothing has changed from last year and I’m just glad it is continually being updated.
THE BOOKS:
Best Book of the Year
Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen. I had an unprecedented EIGHTEEN 5star books this year, so it was really hard to narrow it down to just this one. But S&S hit me right in the Feelz, really hard, and when a book can accomplish that, it deserves to be recognized.
Worst Book of the Year
Lapvona by Ottessa Moshfegh. While I had SEVEN 1star books this year, I only had one 1/2star book and Lapvona was it. Made me sick to my stomach.
PLANS FOR 2024:
Personal
Survive. Seriously. A lot of stuff has been swirling around in my head in ’23 and in ’24 I need to deal with it all. Either catch that ball and run with it for a championship touchdown or drop it like a hot potato and just cancel the game. Or figure out a way to secretly kill the ref and then call the game in my own favor.
Expand my hobby list. I’ve been reading a book called “Making Love Last Forever” by Gary Smalley about strengthening relationships and one of the points he makes is that a stable relationship has multiple hobbies to fall back on when things get rough in one area. It seemed odd to me at first to think that having multiple hobbies could help a relationship, but after an incident earlier this year when something happened that was real life book related and I just went off the deep end about it, I realize that if I had had other hobbies, the book thing wouldn’t have meant as much to me and thus I wouldn’t have reacted the way I did. Thankfully, this is an easy one, as Mark has been singing the praises of the card game Marvel Champions for the last 18+ months. In fact, you can expect a post this month on it. I know you’re already anticipating it!
In relation to that, I am hoping to do some multi-player magic over whatsapp with Dave and Mark. I’ve really not pushed for it because I’m afraid of being “That pushy guy” but the reality is that I want to play some commander, so I suspect I will have to be a bit pushy. Going to have to find the right balance. All three of us also have the Marvel Champion game so maybe we’ll explore that too. Who knows, I can dream though, right?
Get my butt in gear about being serious for dealing with the Certified Survey Technician program. I am not a self-starter but nobody else is going to make this happen except me, so I have to start. I’ll start at the bottom and work my way up the ladder. It will be good for my resume, good for my work wellbeing and make me more marketable should I need to make any moves for family reasons. But I said pretty much the same exact thing in last years annual review, so I’m remaining skeptical of myself.
Cut down on caffeine. Sorry rockstar, you’re just not My Hero any more.
Blog
For the time being, I’m going to block out Wednesday’s and Friday’s as “free days”. Wednesday will probably get filled anyway, but this way I won’t feel like I have to. Friday’s are going to be the day I really try to leave open. I need a day I can either ignore or just vent in Maximum Drivel Drive.
I’ll go back to reviewing one movie or series a month. After November and December and trying to review some sort of movie every Sunday, I realized I just can’t do that. I am not a movie person and it doesn’t work for me at all. Writing movie posts makes me feel like Sisyphus. A gimpy Sisyphus at that.
Going to be sticking to mainly novels this year. Groo is the only comic I plan on reading in ’24. No manga, no other comics, no graphic novels. If something catches my eye I’ll read it, but I’m not going to search anything out. I read two non-fiction books in ’23, thus I’ll need to scare one up for ’24 as well. I’m pretty laid back about that though. Me and non-fiction have a gentleman’s agreement; I leave it alone and it leaves me alone and we’re both happier for it.
I have a couple of buddy reads scheduled already. Dave and I will be reading and reviewing Equal Rites at the end of this month. Lashaan and I will be reading Pride & Prejudice in February, as Lashaan hasn’t broken his teeth on Austen yet. If you would like to do a buddy read later in the year, let me know in the comments and we can discuss what book and timing potentials.
Magic cards once a week will continue. So will once a month art posts. I don’t have any new ideas for either (beyond what I proposed in the Experiment Post in December) and thus I will continue doing the same thing.
Nonsense posts as the mood strikes. Which is the usual, so no change there either, hahahahaa.
