Tuesday, September 03, 2024

Champagne for One (Nero Wolfe #31) 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: Champagne for One
Series: Nero Wolfe #31
Author: Rex Stout
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Mystery
Pages: 155
Words: 59K


I enjoyed reading this, but at the same time, it felt really, really, REALLY sameold/sameold.

I also had a serious problem with who was murdered and why, once it was all revealed. I could understand the Murderess and why she wanted to kill, but why did she go after her late husband’s illegitimate daughter instead of against the woman who he allegedly knocked up? It’s like blaming the cake for being burned instead of blaming the chef who forgot to set the timer.

And for the first time, Archie annoyed me. I get that he and Wolfe have a complicated relationship where they trust each other yet get on each other’s nerves, but that’s no reason for Archie to act like a total child because Wolfe won’t let him take part in another part of the case. He really gets petulant this time around. I don’t know why it bothered me so much this time around, but it did.

All the elements of a good Wolfe mystery were here and like I said at the beginning, I enjoyed this. I just didn’t enjoy it as much as I could have.

★★★✬☆


From Wikipedia

Archie Goodwin receives a phone call from an acquaintance, Austin "Dinky" Byne, asking for a favour. Byne routinely acts as a chaperone for an annual dinner hosted by his aunt, Louise Grantham Robilotti, which is given in honour of four young unwed mothers living at Grantham House, a charity supported by her late husband. Byne claims to have a cold and is unable to attend; although skeptical, Archie agrees to stand in for him, despite Mrs. Robilotti's being a former client of Nero Wolfe's who bears him a personal dislike. During the dinner, Archie learns from one of the unwed mothers that another, Faith Usher, has a bottle of cyanide in her purse; Faith has been suffering from depression, and her friend fears that she might attempt suicide. Archie promises to watch over her, but towards the end of the evening Faith collapses and dies from cyanide poisoning after drinking a glass of champagne.

Alone of the guests, Archie maintains that Faith Usher did not commit suicide, claiming that he observed her constantly throughout the evening and that she never had an opportunity to pour the cyanide from her bottle into her glass. Although the authorities and the other guests pressure Archie into changing his story, Nero Wolfe believes him and decides to settle the matter by solving the case himself. He is given further incentive to do so when Edwin Laidlaw, another of the chaperones, approaches him to hire his services; Laidlaw is the father of Faith Usher's child after a brief affair they had the previous year and, ashamed of his conduct, is desperate that his secret is not revealed.

Although Wolfe's investigation begins unpromisingly, he becomes convinced that his suspicions are correct when the police receive an anonymous tip revealing Laidlaw's secret. Although the police are skeptical due to the tip's anonymous nature, it suggests to Wolfe that someone else knows Laidlaw's secret and has become agitated by the ongoing investigation. His investigations begin to focus on both Faith Usher's estranged mother Elaine, herself an unwed mother, and Dinky Byne, whose false reasons for canceling on the party look increasingly suspect given the events. He assigns Saul Panzer and Archie to investigate the two respectively, leading to a break in the case when both Archie and Saul tail their respective targets to the same location: a nightclub where Elaine Usher and Dinky Byne are meeting with each other.

When confronted by Wolfe, both Byne and Elaine Usher attempt to lie their way out of the situation, but their stories are inconsistent. Byne admits that he knew that Laidlaw was the father of Faith Usher's child, and claims that he had them both invited to the dinner without their knowledge as a spiteful prank. During their conversation, however, Orrie Cather infiltrates Byne's apartment and discovers a letter revealing that Mrs. Robilotti's deceased first husband, Albert Grantham, was the father of Faith Usher. This, coupled with some unwittingly suggestive comments from Byne, leads Wolfe to identify the murderer.

Summoning the guests to his office, he has them reenact the circumstances under which Faith Usher received the poisoned champagne multiple times. This demonstrates that Mrs. Robilotti's son Cecil, who gave Faith the poisoned champagne, had a routine way of handing over a glass that someone who knew his habits would be able to predict. He accuses Mrs. Robilotti of poisoning Faith Usher; Byne was blackmailing her with the knowledge that her former husband was Faith's father and invited Faith to the dinner as a threat. Mrs. Robilotti murdered Faith to conceal the secret and out of resentment over her husband's affair and, learning that she was in the habit of carrying cyanide, acquired some from another source to make it look like a suicide. Archie is vindicated, and Mrs. Robilotti is taken into custody.


Sunday, September 01, 2024

Cthulhu Resurgent (Cthulhu: Harrison Peel #2) 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, & Librarything by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: Cthulhu Resurgent
Series: Cthulhu: Harrison Peel #2
Editor: David Conyers
Rating: 2.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Short Story Collection
Pages: 262
Words: 108K


This is where I get off the Harrison Peel train. Once again, he goes through some mind breaking experiences (his fiance is killed in front of his eyes by a shoggoth masquerading as a human) and while not shrugging it off, pretty much does shrug it off. He should have been left a mindless, gibbering wreck. Instead, he just soldiers on. Usually, that’s what I want. But as I discussed in the review for the first book (Cthulhu Reloaded), that is NOT what I want, or any true fan wants, when it comes to Cosmic Horror. Conyers continues to snub his nose at convention, so I say “phooiey” to him!

Not a very good start to my reading month, now is it?

★★☆☆


Table of Contents & From the Publisher:

  • "The Spiraling Worm" (2007) (by David Conyers and John Sunseri)

  • "The Road to Afghanistan" (2013)

  • "The Eye of Infinity" (2014)

  • "The Temporal Deception" (2015) (by David Conyers and C. J. Henderson)

  • "The Gravity Museum" (2021)

Humans are a mistake. The laws of physics prove it.

Army intelligence officer Major Harrison Peel has spent a lifetime fighting eldritch horrors, constantly clawing through the veil of reality ready to annihilate our world. But how do you win the war when these alien gods — and not terrestrial life — are the true nature of reality? In Antarctica, a new threat emerges. Shape-shifting aliens called Shoggoths that can mimic people and integrate into human society, who are manipulating us from within. Then Peel discovers their true intensions… If Peel can’t defeat these Shoggoths abominations, they won’t just destroy us, but enslave humanity into a billion years of servitude…


Thursday, August 29, 2024

Yakov Pasinkov (The Russians) 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: Yakov Pasinkov
Series: (The Russians)
Author: Ivan Turgenev
Translator: Garnett
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Classic
Pages: 64
Words: 17K

There was a quote that sums up Russian Literature exquisitely:

I felt very miserable, wretched and miserable beyond description. In twenty-four hours two such cruel blows! I had learned that Sophia loved another man, and I had for ever forfeited her respect. I felt myself so utterly annihilated and disgraced that I could not even feel indignant with myself. Lying on the sofa with my face turned to the wall, I was revelling in the first rush of despairing misery
~bolding is mine

Reveling (I believe the double “L” in the quote is the old timey way of spelling it) in despairing misery. Do you understand that? If you don’t, or can’t, then Russian works are probably not for you. However, I CAN UNDERSTAND IT PERFECTLY! Which is why I enjoy Russian novels and novella’s so much. Even ones that have no real plot and are just ramblings about various character studies.

I was pretty pissed off that I couldn’t find a bleeping summary of this novella online. Not even that ***** liberal activist hotbed of partisanship and censorship, Wikipedia, had a separate article on this. It was just lumped in under “Works of Turgenev”. Now how lazy is that? Aren’t there any REAL Turgenev fans out there? Don’t they CARE that this novella doesn’t have its own article, that it doesn’t have an indepth summary or a bunch of blather by some idiot cramming in “meaning” from his mouth and *ss? I felt truly ashamed for anybody who claimed to be a Fan of Turgenev because they were THAT lazy. Shame on all five of them! If I ever come across them, I shall not even look at them or meet their eye.

Thankfully, I’m not a totally lazy git. Just a mostly lazy git. So I wrote a flaming synopsis, all on my own. Like a GOOD reviewer would do. In fact, I will lay claim to being one of the world’s best book reviewers, EVER, because of this masterful accomplishment. And it’s all thanks to my love of reveling in despair and misery. So there.

The End.

★★★✬☆


From Bookstooge.blog

An unnamed narrator relates his various interactions with the titular Yakov Pasinkov and various figures related to the narrator and to Pasinkov. Our narrator met Pasinkov at school, and become his mentee. They separated after school, met again years later in St Petersburg where Pasinkov smoothed over an issue for our Narrator with a young woman who the narrator was in love, as was Pasinkov. Then they separate for years again and our Narrator meets Pasinkov on his death bed, where he learns of Pasinkov’s love of the aforementioned young woman, who has since married and had a daughter. Our Narrator meets her, relates Pasinkov’s death and the woman reveals how her sister had been in love with Pasinkov. And some letters of Pasinkov reveal how he was loved by yet another peasant woman. So everybody loved somebody who didn’t love them and everybody was miserable or died, or both. The End.



Wednesday, August 28, 2024

The Jester at Scar (Dumarest #5) 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: The Jester at Scar
Series: Dumarest #5
Author: EC Tubb
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 176
Words: 54K


This felt extremely short, even though it was longer than the previous book, Kalin. Earl has his little adventure on Scar, the mold harvesting planet (yeah, it’s just disgusting) and then has the chance to go be a rich son of a gun on some no-name world and flips a coin. The coin goes against that choice, and the book ends. BAM. I was totally expecting him to go to the other world and have continuing adventures there in this book.

On the plus side, no naked ladies on the book cover. Or in the book either. The lady portrayed is the wife of the said Jester and she’s a snotty nosed blueblood who begins to learn that taking care of your people is what is important, not just ruling over them. That theme was done a bit heavy handed, but I had a bottle of bbq sauce on hand, so I swallowed the morality lesson without too much problem.

By this point, if I was Earl Dumarest, I’d give up on finding Earth and I’d go to war against the Cyclans. Every book they have either tried to kill him, have him killed or spiked his plans for finding Earth in one way or another. I’d try to find their secret homeworld and nuke their sicko little world of brain boxes into nothing. Given his success rate of staying alive on planets that just want to kill you, I think his chances would be pretty good. John Wick In Space!

Going to end with some more cover love. This series has some great art and I am just loving it. While I know they won’t last for the whole series, I am trying to enjoy each one as it comes along. Live in the moment as it were.



★★★✬☆


From Wikipedia.org
Dumarest finds himself on a planet with an economy based on transient labor harvesting spores of fungi valuable for different properties, which grow abundantly on a planet with rapid seasons. He must survive the natural hazards of the monsoon season, and prepare for the hazards of the harvest as many of the fungi are dangerous to lethal. Ultimately he is given a task, by the "Jester", that wins him freedom but costs him the fruits of his labor. He also confronts a Cyclan because they have become nemeses by this point in the saga. Dumarest's red ring is mentioned repeatedly in this novel.


Tuesday, August 27, 2024

The Hell-Hound of the Baskervilles (Warlock Holmes #2) 4.5Stars

 

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: The Hell-Hound of the Baskervilles
Series: Warlock Holmes #2
Author: Gabriel Denning
Rating: 4.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fantasy Parody
Pages: 251
Words: 91K



In the previous book, A Study in Brimstone, the book ends with Moriarty having possessed Holmes’ body and about to send a fireball at Watson to kill him. This book starts after that point.

Watson knew something was off with Holmes, so he poisoned his tea, shot him in the chest 4 or 6 times and then kicked the fireball back into his face, thus effectively killing Holmes’ body and hopefully displacing Moriarty. Now Watson, not sure that Holmes is actually dead, has to keep the corpse a secret while filling the place with fresh flowers every day to hide the smell of rotting corpse.

Thankfully, a case comes along that Watson can solve on his own AND has the side effect of bringing Holmes fully back to life, just not of restoring his body though. So for the whole book Holmes is in a state of corpsicle’ness that is very slowly healing. Great stuff!

Once again, familiarity with the Sherlock Holmes canon of stories will make for a fuller, richer and more enjoyable read, mainly because you’ll get just how the author is japing at the originals. Making fun of something is much more satisfying if you know WHAT is being made fun of after all.

The humor is once again right up my alley. In the second story, “Silver Blaze: Murder Horse”, Holmes is trying to get addicted to gambling so he’ll have another connection to the common man. Of course, the horse he bets on goes missing and he has to solve the case or else he can’t get addicted to gambling. In the process, he magically teraports in several dead horse corpses to the flat. I was laughing my head off and my stomach hurt. It was fantastic!

The first four stories were short stories and just like the real canon, The Hell-Hound of the Baskervilles is a novella, so it takes up the majority of the book. We find out a lot about Warlock Holmes’ origins and I must admit, the humor just wasn’t there. It was a very grim story and while Denning did try to lighten things up (Foofy the Hell-hound anyone?), there just wasn’t that bust a gut laughing experience I was hoping for. And the ending is yet another “Oh no, what have I done?” kind of thing as Watson realizes that maybe Moriarty isn’t actually gone.

I really enjoyed this and tore through it in two evenings. If rotting corpses and horse corpsicles don’t make you laugh though, you might want to avoid this series.

★★★★✬


From the Publisher & Table of Contents


  • The adventure of the blackened beryls

  • Silver Blaze: murder horse

  • The reigateway to another world

  • The adventure of the solitary tricyclist

  • The hell-hound of the Baskervilles


The game’s afoot once more as Holmes and Watson face off against Moriarty’s gang, the Pinkertons, flesh-eating horses, a parliament of imps, boredom, Surrey, a disappointing butler demon, a succubus, a wicked lord, an overly-Canadian lord, a tricycle-fight to the death and the dreaded Pumpcrow. Oh, and a hell hound, one assumes.



Thursday, August 22, 2024

The Arms Deal (Groo the Wanderer #31) 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: The Arms Deal
Series: Groo the Wanderer #31
Author: Sergio Aragones
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Comics
Pages: 23
Words: 2K


Ahhh, Groo. Sometimes when he tries to do the right thing he completely ruins everything, for everybody. Then you have comics like this where he pretty much lets well enough alone and Fate takes a hand and dishes out punishment to those who deserve it, through Groo :-)

Groo’s lack of math skills are really shown here, whether’s counting thousands of kopins or fighting people, once he has to count above one, he’s lost. It still all works out for the best in the end though :-D



★★★✬☆


From Bookstooge.blog

Groo has plenty of money from the previous comic. Pal and Drumm cheat him out of it with bad weapons. Only for Groo to be so dumb as to make his money back but also to get another whole load of weapons. And he sells them all, makes tons of money AND gets to fight both armies at the end.


Wednesday, August 21, 2024

The Infinite and the Divine (Warhammer 40K: Necrons) 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: The Infinite and the Divine
Series: Warhammer 40K: Necrons
Author: Robert Rath
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 339
Words: 112K



This book came across my radar back in January, when Mark Reviewed It. It deals with two Necrons, Trazyn the Infinite and Orikan the Divine, hence the title of the book.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/scl/fi/wcwkzjndtncnxhrbu0e5b/trazyntheinfinite.jpg?rlkey=xwf27zcg2ak5wmxa3apfv1899&

Oh yes, I plan to interject various Magic the Gathering cards from the Warhammer Commander set from 2022. Prepare yourselves accordingly!

They have always been enemies, even when they were still flesh and the Bio-Transference Ceremony that turned the entire Necrontyr race into Immortal Metal Necrons hasn’t stopped that rivalry.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/scl/fi/7ko2ld8z3k35n7gng84oh/biotransference.jpg?rlkey=5ky07eaytgkmu8fl757f7qti9&

They have found a Magical Boojum that one wants to hoard and the other wants to investigate. So for the next 10,000 years they fight and backstab and occasionally work together to figure out just what this Magical Boojum is. Well, bad news guys. It was a trap all along! The Necrons were tricked by a race called the C’Tan, godlike beings, who ate their souls when they turned the Necrontyr into the Necrons. Pretty sneaky. Well, the Necrons weren’t too happy about that and did their best to wipe out the C’Tan. They did a pretty good job, except they didn’t quite destroy them all. Those they couldn’t destroy they put into Shards, basically permanent prison. One Shard didn’t take this sitting down and decided to do something and eventually break free. Which is what this Magical Boojum does. The C’Tan breaks free, Orikan and Trazyn are forced to work together to destroy it and the book ends with both Necrons having a piece of a sub-shard which they are convinced they can handle, secretly and on their own. Sigh.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/scl/fi/6x96w2xgv2omi9f707shb/shardofthevoidragon.jpg?rlkey=54gpxat0ullvv7ii34k0bhxit&

While not as bad as Farsight, this book still does rely on the reader having some knowledge of the Warhammer 40K universe. Too much in my opinion. You have to know that the space elves destroyed their society by creating one of the Chaos Gods. You have to know that the C’Tan forced the Necrontyr into becoming the Necrons. You have to have heard of the Horus Heresy and understand that it was a civil war in the human empire. There is an instance of the Empire of Mankind performing an Exterminatus on the planet that the Magical Boojum is hidden on, but the author does a pretty good job of explaining that so you aren’t left flailing, trying to figure out what it is.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/scl/fi/9u8mhyr7yc860vqwbatli/exterminatus.jpg?rlkey=a2ewtps0uva1a8dzkkwrhsipr&

Rath also does an excellent job of showing how time is so different for a race that is functionally immortal. The middle section of the book encompasses just over 8,000 years and Rath has both characters look up and realize 2,000 years have passed while they’ve been doing whatever. The “time” aspect was handled very well.

The end of the book is one massive battle that starts as a betrayal between Orikan and Trazyn and then spirals out of control as they realize that a C’Tan has tricked them both. They throw everything they have against him and barely make it out. Rath throws in tons of Necron military types to the mix and eventually my eyes just glazed over and I read it all as “then another Necron did something something something”.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/scl/fi/xp3xg077p6rw5604mxqg5/lychguard.jpg?rlkey=479zg51psyt08bz1g9m5aej5l&

Overall, I enjoyed this and found out a lot about the Necrons, but that wouldn’t have happened without input from Mark. I was doing a buddy-read with Dave and he had just as many questions as I did. The blind leading the blind as it were.

One the plus side, I got to showcase a bunch of Magic Cards, so that’s a big plus, hahahahaa.

★★★✬☆


From TVTropes.com

the novel follows two Necron lords, Trazyn the Infinite, a collector of ancient artifacts, and Orikan the Diviner, a powerful chronomancer. Trazyn and Orikan have been enemies for millennia, but when Orikan steals the Astrarium Mysterios from Trazyn's collection, believing it to be the key to unlocking an ancient power, the two are dragged into direct conflict. Over the course of ten thousand years, they go from competing over ownership of the Mysterios, to working together to unlock its secrets, to stabbing each other in the back over it. Their feud reshapes timelines, dooms planets, and threatens to either destroy or restore the entire Necron race.


Tuesday, August 20, 2024

Lady Susan 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: Lady Susan
Series: ----------
Author: Jane Austen
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre: Classic novella
Pages: 85
Words: 23K


When I originally read this back in ‘13, it was as part of Austen’s collected “Minor Works”. As such, in my mind it was incomplete, because I was mixing it up with Sanditon. I assumed it was unfinished because it was so short. The reality though, is that it is a novella and reading it on its own this time, I realized it has a beginning, a middle and an end. It is also in the epistolary style (the story is told through letters written to and from various characters) and I have a weakness for that particular literary device. It just works for me, so I had a great time this time around.

Lady Susan, the titular character, is, to put it bluntly, a home wrecker. She’s recently widowed and on the prowl for her next meal ticket. She gets involved with a married man, because “he’s interesting” and then when that causes a scandal, removes to the countryside to live with her brother-in-law and his wife. The wife’s brother comes to visit and Lady Susan decides to play with him. While keeping the married man on the leash AND keeping an eye on yet a third rich young man, who she thinks should marry her 16 year old daughter. Lots of drama ensues between family as the story progresses and we get to see the true Lady Susan through her letters to a friend in London. In the end, the daughter of Lady Susan is set to marry the good rich young man and Lady Susan ends up with the third young man, who is rich as Croesus, but extremely stupid. No come uppances are anywhere to be seen.

I was amazed at just how brazen Lady Susan was in her letters to her friend in London. She tells her real thoughts on everyone around her, outlines in detail her schemes for herself and her daughter and generally shows just how terrible a person she is. I would have been ashamed to even write in my own private journal some of the things she casually and glibly writes about. To be frankly so self-centered and selfish with no concerns for anyone besides herself, well, I’d be embarrassed to admit even to myself that I was that kind of person.

I did have a little trouble keeping track who was who. With several people referring to each other by their titles and last names instead of their family relation or full name, I had to concentrate on who Mrs Vincent Godfrey the 4th was, or how they were related to Miss Emma Murray. Thankfully, I WAS able to keep everyone straight, even if they did just refer to each other as Mrs Godfrey or Miss Murray. Naming conventions and their usage is another one of those little time capsules that I so enjoy about reading older books, even if it does take work on my part.

Reading this by itself emphasized the ending and I was glad to see this as a complete story instead of the “fragment” I thought it was in my head.

★★★★☆


From Wikipedia.org

Lady Susan Vernon, a beautiful and charming recent widow, visits her brother-in-law and his wife, Charles and Catherine Vernon, with little advance notice at Churchill, their country residence. Catherine is far from pleased, as Lady Susan had tried to prevent her marriage to Charles and her unwanted guest has been described to her as "the most accomplished coquette in England". Among Lady Susan's conquests is the married Mr. Manwaring.

Catherine's brother Reginald arrives a week later, and despite Catherine's strong warnings about Lady Susan's character, soon falls under her spell. Lady Susan toys with the younger man's affections for her own amusement and later because she perceives it makes her sister-in-law uneasy. Her confidante, Mrs. Johnson, to whom she writes frequently, recommends she marry the very eligible Reginald, but Lady Susan considers him to be greatly inferior to Manwaring.

Frederica, Lady Susan's 16-year-old daughter, tries to run away from school when she learns of her mother's plan to marry her off to a wealthy but insipid young man she loathes. She also becomes a guest at Churchill. Catherine comes to like her—her character is totally unlike her mother's—and as time goes by, detects Frederica's growing attachment to the oblivious Reginald.

Later, Sir James Martin, Frederica's unwanted suitor, shows up uninvited, much to her distress and her mother's vexation. When Frederica begs Reginald for support out of desperation (having been forbidden by Lady Susan to turn to Charles and Catherine), she causes a temporary breach between Reginald and Lady Susan, but the latter soon repairs the rupture.

Lady Susan decides to return to London and marry her daughter off to Sir James. Reginald follows, still bewitched by her charms and intent on marrying her, but he encounters Mrs. Manwaring at the home of Mr. Johnson and finally learns Lady Susan's true character. Lady Susan ends up marrying Sir James herself, and allows Frederica to reside with Charles and Catherine at Churchill, where Reginald De Courcy "could be talked, flattered, and finessed into an affection for her."



Thursday, August 15, 2024

Counterstrike (Empire Rising #11) 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: Counterstrike
Series: Empire Rising #11
Author: David Holmes
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 458
Words: 180K


This is where Humanity tries to turn things around and go on the offensive against the Karacknids (giant xenophobic space spiders). So far, Humanity has been playing nothing but defense but here, Emperor Somerville and other top notch Space Commadores take various fast attack groups behind the front lines and attack the support structure enabling the Karacknid War Machine. It works well, very well. The only problem is, unknown to Humanity, the Karacknids are moving in a massive space fleet from another front and they plan to use all 10,000 ships to absolutely crush Humanity and the Alliance.

This was another chunkster of a book. Every time I pick up one of these Empire Rising novels, it always surprises me just how long they are. But then I start reading and I’m never bored, never.

It was quite the interesting dichotomy as a reader, knowing from the get-go that the Karacknids had a massive fleet on the way, while we are reading about the successes of Humanity in the war on their infrastructure. It was hard to be excited for the victories because we knew the giant hammer was looming, just out of sight.

The book ends with humanity once again on the back foot and all is in doubt. Now, we know that isn’t the truth because every chapter starts with a saying from the book Empire Rising, written in the year 3000, which chronicles the history of the rise of the Human Empire. So I know that Humanity is going to win, eventually, against the Karacknids. I think it is a testimony to Holmes’ skill as an author that I can still feel trepidation about the outcome even while knowing the eventual longterm outcome.

I can’t remember if I’ve stated it before or not, but Holmes has passed from the realm of mere writer/scribbler into the realm of Author in my opinion. He writes real, different, compelling characters (everyone is not the same character with just a different name), with exciting scenarios that do not feel repetitive. My only niggles are that he really needs to tighten up his prose (450+ pages is long, period) and he needs to make his characters actually grow. While distinct in voice, they remain the same. James is pretty much the same now as he was in the first book, The Void War. Like I said, minor quibbles.

Otherwise, I remain quite happy to keep reading this series a couple of books at a time. Holmes has been writing this series since 2015 and book 19 just came out this past March. I’m ok with that given the quality shown here.

★★★✬☆


From the Publisher
The Karacknid invasion of Human space has been temporarily thwarted. A window of opportunity has opened up. Through it Emperor Somerville hopes to strike deep into Karacknid territory to buy Earth and the Varanni Alliance the breathing space they need to replace their losses. On the other side of the Karacknid Empire, Rear Admiral Becket and the Conclave species are planning a pre-emptive strike of their own. With relatively undefended borders, Becket has seen an opportunity to hit the Karacknids where they least expect it.
Yet the Karacknid’s power is far from diminished. After the series of defeats the Karacknids have suffered, their Imperator has now focused his full attention on destroying Humanity and the Varanni Alliance. Nothing short of the total conquest of Humanity’s colonies has been ordered. The full might of the Karacknid Navy has been tasked to bring it about. For James, Christine, Lightfoot, Becket and all the others, their own lives and the future of the Empire is at stake.



Wednesday, August 14, 2024

Farsight: Crisis of Faith (Warhammer 40K: Tau) 3Stars

 

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Title: Farsight: Crisis of Faith
Series: Warhammer 40K: Tau
Author: Phil Kelly
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 281
Words: 93K



Well, this wasn’t QUITE as bewildering as Farsight was. This was almost a direct sequel to that novella, so I was building on that foundation. I say a direct sequel, but some big events and some matter of time has passed since then. At the end of Farsight the main character, Commander Farsight, has figured out how to beat the orks and is on the brink of taking back the planet Arkunasha, when he is commanded by the Celestials, the highest level of Tau politics, to abandon the planet. Then the Empire of Man attacks the Tau home system and Farsight is tasked with defending his race. Another battle of greater import draws off the Empire and for morales’ sake the Celestials claim it as a great Tau Victory. Everyone involved knows the reality however.

So that is the background of this novel, which is woven into the ongoing story, bits of puzzle pieces that we the reader are expected to pick out and figure out on our own. I’m not a fan of that style of writing any more. The Wheel of Time series and the Malazan Book of the Fallen series both cured me of that.

The current story is about the Tau sending a fleet to reclaim the worlds that the Empire of Man recovered in that unwritten battle. Only politics are involved and lots of highly placed Warrior Caste characters are either sidelined or sent into impossible situations to probably fail and cast doubt on them. The Celestials definitely are NOT good guys.

We also have the Tau really facing the Chaos Gods for the first time. One of them is actually possessed by a daemon and works at undermining the entire fleet. Since the Tau have almost zero psychic ability, they are pretty blind to that aspect of the Universe they inhabit, even after having it rubbed into their little xeno faces when the Psykers from the Empire of Man really let loose.

Overall, I understood more of what was going on but I can’t say I actually enjoyed this any more than its predecessor. The Tau politics are just as dirty as anything seen in the Empire of Man and I do not enjoy that in my fiction. Even in a grimdark universe I need some good guys, not some backboneless wimp.

Not for the Uninitiated or those beginning their exploration of the Warhammer 40K universe.

★★★☆☆


From the Publisher

The tau are a mysterious alien race, diametrically opposed to the Imperium of Man in every possible way — in their mastery of technology, methods of warfare and social structure. Yet in galactic terms they are a young race, and naive when it comes to the manipulations of Chaos. When promising young Commander Farsight is promoted to lead a crusade across the Damocles Gulf to reclaim the tau's lost colonies from mankind, the mood is one of optimism. With their mighty fleet, and superior weapons and machines, how can their endeavour possibly fail? However, despite a parade of early successes, Commander Farsight soon faces enemies he wasn't anticipating, and finds not only his courage but also his soul tested to the very limit.