Elder Land Wurm - MTG 4E

Book Recommendations - The Intro Post

I was talking with Nic from DragonRambles.com the other month and we fell to discussing recommendations. I had asked for recs from people because of dnf’ing a series that just disappointed me. So she asked if I had a spread sheet of my data and I sent it her way. She then sent me a generous handful of recommendations and I was able to almost snap respond to all of them within 5-10minutes. She suggested that maybe I should make this a regular thing. Have people give me recommendations one month and then I make snap decisions about Yay’ing or Nay’ing them the next month while collecting more in the comments.

The only issue I have is that relies on other people. Over the years, I have found that I can only count on myself when it comes to blogging. Only I write short enough posts. Only I write just the right amount of posts each month. Only I schedule just the right amount into the future. Only I, Only I, Only I. You get the idea. I don’t blame other bloggers for not being me, but I do hold them to the edge of the sword that I hold myself to. Except when I don’t of course 😉

I’ve been thinking how I can engage you all and make you part of the process without frustrating myself or you. I like plans and the farther those plans reach, the better. So starting next month, for the Months of July, August and September, I will be doing Recommend Me Some Books/Authors posts where I simply ask for recommendations. I will save those up and once I feel I have enough to schedule them as I wish, I will begin doing some Answers to Recommendations posts. Under those I hope you will continue to recommend others.

Now, certain smartass bloggers who think they are funny will probably try to suggest such things as “Madam’s Bodice Ripping Adventures”. You may suggest that but be warned, it will get you a chartreuse flag and should you accumulate 3 chartreuse flags, I will no longer consider any of your recommendations in the future. In fact, I will take your recommendations as anti-recommendations and act accordingly.

An example of the Dreaded Chartreuse Flag

Now, if I can get enough suggestions sooner, I will begin my answering sooner. Your recommendations need not be books you have read. They can be books you are curious about and want some other sucker to try first. Maybe it’s your favorite book and you need validation by another blogger. Or maybe you just hate me and want me to suffer with your suggestion. Or you can be serious and try to tempt me with something. I will take them all. In your recommendation, please write the title, the author and if it is part of a series or standalone and why you are suggesting it. If I choose your suggestion, I will link to your blog and then answer your suggestion in a future post.

I will not actually be reading your recommendations. I will be making a gut level instinct about your suggestions and replying in an answering post. Just want to make that clear. But if a recommendation really clicks with me, I’ll be sure to add it to my TBR pile. It takes me a while to get to a book, but once it is in the tbr, I’d going to read it.

And just for the fun of it, there will be a section with a running count of those who get chartreuse flags. Your literary sins will not be hidden or forgiven. The Chartreuse Emperor is Mad after all and his wrath knows no limits of time or space.

Book of Cthulhu II (Cthulhu Anthology #18) 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, & Librarything by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: Book of Cthulhu II
Series: Cthulhu Anthology #18
Editor: Ross Lockhart
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Cosmic Horror
Pages: 515
Words: 184K

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Not nearly as many repeats as last time. Thoroughly enjoyed this. Still, considering the material, nothing pushed this into 4star territory. After realizing that Cthulhu just doesn’t have re-readability, that really limits how high the rating can actually go. So unless there is something amazing from here on out, 3.5 is pretty much as high as Cthulhu is going to go, no matter how badass he might think he is. He’s dealing with The Bookstooge now. I have my Star Rating System and even Cthulhu has to bow down to my rules.

Iä! Iä! Bookstooge fhtagn!

★★★✬☆

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Table of Contents:

• ROSS E. LOCKHART : Introduction
• NEIL GAIMAN : Shoggoth’s Old Peculiar
• CAITLÍN R. KIERNAN : Nor the Demons Down Under the Sea (1957)
• JOHN R. FULTZ : This Is How the World Ends
• PAUL TOBIN : The Drowning at Lake Henpin
• WILLIAM BROWNING SPENCER : The Ocean and All Its Devices
• LIVIA LLEWELLYN : Take Your Daughters to Work
• KIM NEWMAN : The Big Fish
• CODY GOODFELLOW : Rapture of the Deep
• A. SCOTT GLANCY : Once More from the Top
• MOLLY TANZER : The Hour of the Tortoise
• CHRISTOPHER REYNAGA : I Only Am Escaped Alone to Tell Thee
• ANN K. SCHWADER : Objects from the Gilman-Waite Collection
• GORD SELLAR : Of Melei, of Ulthar
• MARK SAMUELS : A Gentleman from Mexico
• W. H. PUGMIRE : The Hands that Reek and Smoke
• MATT WALLACE : Akropolis
• ELIZABETH BEAR AND SARAH MONETTE : Boojum
• JONATHAN WOOD : The Nyarlathotep Event
• STANLEY C. SARGENT : The Black Brat of Dunwich
• FRITZ LEIBER : The Terror from the Depths
• ORRIN GREY : Black Hill
• MICHAEL CHABON : The God of Dark Laughter
• KARL EDWARD WAGNER : Sticks
• LAIRD BARRON : Hand of Glory

• All of My “Cthulhu Anthology” Reviews

So, This Happened...

Normally, I get between 40-60 visitors a day and between 50-100 views. That is quite a variance I know, but that’s how the blogging game goes. However, in the last week or so, the numbers have been really weird. I get these spikes in numbers of views. You can see the first one, on May 27th. That was just over 200 views. Then on the 30th I got another spike up to 300. Things seemed to settle down and then BAAAAAAM, on the 5th I got 650 views, the largest amount I’ve ever gotten in my entire blogging time here at wordpress. I figured that was that but then the 6th happened and as you can see, by 4pm I was up to over 300 again.

My first thought was “bots”, but while I complain, quite legitimately, about some of the shenanigans WP.com pulls, they have been really good about not recording bot visits and cleaning up spam comments. I also noticed that a lot of the views were from my Bookstooge in 100 Books page. Then yesterday a lot of of the views were posts with books that I had DNF’d.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m really happy to get these huge boosts, but I just wish I understood them. Have any of you had any weird spikes in your stats over the last 2 weeks?

Currently Reading & Quote: Mary Poppins Comes Back

“When I was a little boy,” said Mr. Banks, “I loved going for walks. I used to walk with my Governess down to the second lamp-post and back every day. And I never grumbled.”

Michael stood still on his stair and looked doubtfully at Mr. Banks.

“Were you ever a little boy?” he said, very surprised.

Mr. Banks seemed quite hurt.

“Of course I was. A sweet little boy with long yellow curls, velvet breeches and button-up boots.”

“I can hardly believe it,” said Michael, hurrying down the stairs of his own accord and staring up at Mr. Banks.

He simply could not imagine his Father as a little boy. It seemed to him impossible that Mr. Banks had ever been anything but six feet high, middle-aged and rather bald.

“What was the name of your Governess?” asked Jane, running downstairs after Michael. “And was she nice?”

“She was called Miss Andrew and she was a Holy Terror!”

“Hush!” said Mrs. Banks, reproachfully.

“I mean—” Mr. Banks corrected himself, “she was—er—very strict. And always right. And she loved putting everybody else in the wrong and making them feel like a worm. That’s what Miss Andrew was like!”

~Chapter 2

Ha! I can remember as a young boy realizing one day that my Dad’s name wasn’t “Dad”. He had his own name, just like I had mine. It shocked me to be honest, and the world got a whole lot bigger in just those few seconds. Did you ever have some experience like that as a kid, when you just suddenly weren’t a child anymore in some minor regard and how big it was to you? Tell me about it if it did.

I included the rest of the scene because every description that Mr Banks applies to his old governess, Miss Andrews, pretty much applies to Mary Poppins as well. I’m just waiting for them to meet and for the sparks to fly!

Ascendant (Genesis Fleet #2) (Lost Fleet) 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: Ascendant
Series: Genesis Fleet #2 (Lost Fleet)
Author: Jack Campbell
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Mil-SF
Pages: 280
Words: 109K

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This started really politically heavy, to the point where I considered dnf’ing this. But after a couple of chapters he went back to the tried and true “underdog takes on impossible odds against very unsavory people and wins” way of writing.

One thing that stood out to me this time was just how squeamish Campbell makes his good guys. They kill the bad guys but moan and piss before hand, during it and after. You’d think they were offing their own dear sainted grandmother instead of brutal thugs intent on killing them and everyone they love and know. There is a point where good guys need to keep from becoming brutal thugs themselves, but making them emotional weaklings isn’t the way to do that.

I’ll be reading final book in this trilogy but I must say, it’s the weakest story that Campbell has written so far. I don’t recommend this trilogy to anyone but hardcore Lost Fleet fans.

★★★☆☆

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From the Publishers

In the three years since former fleet officer Rob Geary and former Marine Mele Darcy led improvised forces to repel attacks on the newly settled world of Glenlyon, tensions have only gotten worse.
When one of Glenlyon’s warships is blown apart trying to break the blockade that has isolated the world from the rest of human-colonized space, only the destroyer Saber remains to defend it from another attack. Geary’s decision to take Saber to the nearby star Kosatka to safeguard a diplomatic mission is a risky interpretation of his orders, to say the least.
Kosatka has been fighting a growing threat from so-called rebels–who are actually soldiers from aggressive colonies. When a “peacekeeping force” carrying thousands of enemy soldiers arrives in Kosatka’s star system, the people of that world, including Lochan Nakamura and former “Red” Carmen Ochoa, face an apparently hopeless battle to retain their freedom.
It’s said that the best defense is a good offense. But even if a bold and risky move succeeds, Geary and Darcy may not survive it…

• All of My “Jack Campbell” Reviews

Jenny Trapdoor (Polity #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: Jenny Trapdoor
Series: Polity #25
Author: Neal Asher
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 122
Words: 54K

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The paper version of this book is about 170pages. My ebook version calculates at about 125pages. So why it is emblazoned as a “novella” is beyond me. That’s one of my pet peeves and will stay so until publishers stop Sandersonizing everything and calling everything below 850pages a “novella”. I blame a LOT of other authors as well, but they just aren’t as well known. So Sandersonization it is.

I enjoyed this much more than the previous Polity book, War Bodies. This is fully standalone and I don’t think you need ANY familiarity with Asher’s previous Polity stories to understand what’s going on. Having that knowledge will make this better, but it won’t detract if you don’t.

Penny Royal, the Black AI, turns a dead starship captain into a giant spider drone and drops her off onto a Prador controlled world (Prador are giant, xenophobic space crabs that want to kill us, period) so she can fulfill her wish of getting revenge against the Prador for killing her, her ship and everyone aboard it. Of course, everything with Penny Royal is a multi-edged knife that is sure to cut your groin open while you just look at said knife. So we get the lead up and then Jenny’s time as a Prador killing machine and then once Penny Royal “goes good” (as much as any AI can anyway, which is all chronicled in the Polity: Transformation trilogy) her own reclamation.

This wasn’t anything groundbreaking from Asher, but at this point, I don’t really want that. I want what has worked in the past and I get a ton of it here. Prador dying in horrific detail, psychological horror as Jenny merges with a trapdoor spider that’s been implanted in her head. Yeah, all that good gross Neal Asher stuff we’ve come to expect and love.

I will take a shorter story like this any time if it means he keeps pumping them out.

★★★★☆

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From the Publisher

During the prador-human war the Dark Intelligence, the AI Penny Royal, fractured and went rogue. The manipulations of this insane and incredibly dangerous intelligence were grotesque. It granted wishes that were deals with the devil, and transformed its victims into chimeras of the technological and the organic. Hunted throughout the war and beyond, it finally found redemption and apotheosis, as it moved itself beyond time.
Though Jenny is terrified of the trapdoor spider that has taken up residence in her ship, the arrival of the war in her home system soon dismisses it from her mind. But the spider returns in a way she could never have conceived. . .

• All of My “Polity” Reviews
• All of My “Neal Asher” Reviews

Ebony Horse - MTG 4E

The Way of Spider (Spider #2) 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 Way of Spider
Series: Spider #2
Author: William Gear
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 395
Words: 151K

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The Warriors of Spider ally with the Directorate to invade a rebelling planet. They murder and rape their way across it and subdue it. The mastermind of the rebellion flees with technological secrets at his finger tips.

Yeah, I read this. Wasn’t overly impressed. The Romanans are unbridled rapists and murderers and that doesn’t go down well with me at all. While their brutal savagery is what wins the war, they are not good guys by any stretch of the imagination. Not how I wanted to start this month’s reading.

And I am not looking forward to the final book at all now 🙁

Plus, this cover is a horrible resolution. It’s this bad even on the author’s website. Not cool.

★★★☆☆

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From the Publisher

Rebellion on Sirius threatened to become the spark that would set the galaxy ablaze, bringing on the destruction of the Directorate-run empire—a tyranny powered by an elite corps of human, computer-linked brains. The Directorate’s only hope of overthrowing the Sirian rebels rested with three of its once-mighty but now battle-damaged Patrol ships, three backup warships, and a rate of primitive, long planet-bound warriors—the Romanans.

For the Directorate had spent many centuries breeding initiative and the capability for violent action out of the human race. And only on the lost colony of World did true warriors of spider still exist. But would the Romanans willingly join the cause of the star men who had once attempted to destroy their world? And even if they did, could warriors so newly exposed to the weapons of deadly technology defeat a world and a leader ready to utilize legendary tools of destruction more lethal than any humankind had ever known?

[Art] Solar Guardians: Earth