Bookstooge's Reviews On the Road

Tuesday, September 24, 2024

Monster Hunter Vendetta (MHI #2) 4.5Stars

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Title: Monster Hunter Vendetta
Series: MHI #2
Author: Larry Correia
Rating: 4.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Pages: 412
Words: 169K

I read my review from 2012 before starting to write this one. Honestly, I felt almost exactly the same as 12 years ago. Ballz to the Wallz action that never let up and shooting and blowing stuff up that just didn’t quit. It was exactly what I wanted this time around from this read. I did laugh at my old review saying how I was looking forward to the wrap up of this “trilogy”. Ahhh, to still think that authors have moral rectitude.

This had a TON of cosmic horror elements in it. I didn’t pick up on them last time because I was of the uninitiated, but now that I have taken the first steps towards becoming the Chartreuse Emperor, I understand. But unlike the Harrison Peel books, which tried to BE cosmic horror and still have a surviving hero, MHI (Monster Hunter International) simply takes the pieces that it wants and does its own Urban Fantasy thing. I think it works out great because I get a Hero and some terrible things but they are able to co-exist without me spluttering and ranting like I did with that goober Harrison Peel. For goodness, I get a story where some gun junkie accountant goes to the Other Side, along with Frankenstein (Agent Franks) and they kill an equal of Cthulhu with a magic stone. It. Was. Awesome! So while it had the elements of Cosmic Horror (Shoggoths anyone?) Correia was able to stay this side of that line quite admirably.

On the negative side, and I suspect I’ll be dealing with this in each book, and it will be why these won’t go above 4.5stars, I also saw a lot more Mormon philosophy behind the story. I didn’t know about that stuff when I originally read this book and not knowing didn’t detract from the story. But now that I do know, and since I disagree with it just like I would with a story based on Islamic or Hindu theology, I can’t unsee it, as it were. False religions aren’t something to treat lightly.

Overall, I am once again quite pleased with how this re-read went. It has all the action and guns and horrible bad guys that my little heart could ask for and that just makes me happy.

★★★★✬

From MHI.Fandom.com

Synopsis – click to open

Accountant turned professional monster hunter, Owen Zastava Pitt, managed to stop the nefarious Old One’s invasion plans last year, but as a result made an enemy out of one of the most powerful beings in the universe. Now an evil death cult known as the Church of the Temporary Mortal Condition wants to capture Owen in order to gain the favor of the great Old Ones.

The Condition is led by a fanatical necromancer known as the Shadow Man. The government wants to capture the Shadow Man and has assigned the enigmatic Agent Franks to be Owen’s full time bodyguard, which is a polite way of saying that Owen is monster bait.

With supernatural assassins targeting his family, a spy in their midst, and horrific beasties lurking around every corner, Owen and the staff of Monster Hunter International don’t need to go hunting, because this time the monsters are hunting them. Fortunately, this bait is armed and very dangerous…

Monday, September 23, 2024

Fireball - MTG 4E

Cards like this really showed the Dungeons and Dragons roots of the game of Magic. Which wasn’t cool if you’d grown up thinking D&D was the root of all evil.

Sunday, September 22, 2024

Book Recommendations III

Please read the Intro Post if you haven’t already. It explains pretty much everything (except how to use your microwave. Nobody can explain that!) Given how many responses I got from the Get-Go, my plans to collect responses over several months fell by the wayside. I’m able to start right away! That makes me pretty happy.

Recommendations & Responses

MarzAat recommended The Joy Makers by James Gunn. Just to be clear, this is NOT the same James Gunn who directed some of the MCU movies. I have not read anything by this Gunn and so it was Checkaroo on this. Have added it to my “new books” folder which eventually will make it into Calibre and be categorized within my TBR list. So I’ll get to this in the next year or two.

Firewater had several recommendations, but I’m going to choose just one for this post. He recommended Legend by David Gemmell. Lo and behold, I have already read it! Gave it 3.5stars back in ’19 too. Sadly, I was only able to stomach up to the third book in the series, where the faux-philosophy became too shallow for me to continue. I think I would have loved Gemmell a lot more if I’d read his stuff about 20+ years earlier.

Joelendil recommended Scaramouche by Rafael Sabatini, a Scarlet Pimpernel knockoff as far as I could tell. It is going to get a “Not interested” as I’m not a big fan of reading about the French Revolution, period.

Chartreuse Flag Hall of Shame

Unfortunately, you all have let everyone down. No one was brave enough to face the shame of getting a Chartreuse Flag and everyone played it safe. In one sense that is ok but really folks, people come to see Bread and Circuses and it’s hard to do so without some outrageous suggestions by you. So I need you to step up for next time and make some suggestions that you KNOW I’m going to excoriate you for. Don’t think of yourself and your sense of shame, throw all that out the window. Think of your fellow bloggers for goodness sake!
~ wrings hands~
Won’t somebody think of the children?!?

The Most Important Part

Recommend me some more books!!!! Leave a comment with your recommendation of books you think I should respond to. I have the list of all the recommendations so far, so don’t you worry, I’ll be getting to them all eventually. And I had a lot of fun doing this 🙂

Saturday, September 21, 2024

Blue Monday Variant + Lyrics

ORIGINAL LYRICS

How does it feel to treat me like you do?
When you’ve laid your hands upon me
And told me who you are
Thought I was mistaken
I thought I heard your words
Tell me, how do I feel?
Tell me now, how do I feel?
Those who came before me
Lived through their vocations
From the past until completion
They’ll turn away no more
And still, I find it so hard
To say what I need to say
But I’m quite sure that you’ll tell me
Just how I should feel today
I see a ship in the harbor
I can and shall obey
But if it wasn’t for your misfortune
I’d be a heavenly person today
And I thought I was mistaken
And I thought I heard you speak
Tell me, how do I feel?
Tell me now, how should I feel?
Now I stand here waiting
I thought I told you to leave me
While I walk down to the beach
Tell me, how does it feel
When your heart grows cold? (Grows cold, grows cold-)

The lyrics have no concrete meaning as far as I can tell, just a collection of feelingz oriented phrases.

I like this Variant edition by Orkestra Obsolete because it’s much more mellow than the original. And it’s just weird with how they use the old timey instruments and whatnot. And those masks! I, and Zorro, approve.

Friday, September 20, 2024

The Trip or My Week X

The post begins with work and ends with work…

Technically, this post will be about last week, but since it does lapse into this current week, this is what you get! Most of my pictures from the trip were people heavy, and as the rest of my family feels the same as I do (except my Mom) about putting up pictures online, there probably won’t be very many.

On Wednesday the 11th, Mrs B and I took a leisurely flight down to the Atlanta Georgia airport. My sister and her partner picked us up and they dropped us off at my parents house where we were staying. My brother and sister-in-law were down as well and so that evening everyone went out to a nice eyetalian restaurant called Provinos. Mrs B got a sampler platter of all their fried veggies and cheeses and I went with the chicken and broccoli alfredo with fettuccini. It was gooood!

Thursday was our big “do things” day. Everybody (except my dad, and including my Mom and niece Grizzelda) piled into 2 cars and we struck out for the wilds of Tennessee. Went up to Chattanooga to an aquarium there and spent the morning going through that. It was just the right size for Grizzelda and just the right amount of people for me (ie, not a lot at all). Between me, Mr and Mrs Bombfunk, Grizzelda’s mom and my sister, we managed to keep track of Grizzelda, but it was definitely a group effort. She literally didn’t stop moving the entire time. We would get to a new room and all spread out and she’d just zoom around the room 3-4 times, taking in everything at 30second intervals.

It was in two buildings, one for fresh water exhibits and one for salt water creatures. By the time we were done the second building I was exhausted. Thankfully, Grizzelda’s mom knows the area (she’s a wedding photographer and goes all over the place) and already had a great restaurant in mind. We made a reservation and I ordered the whiskey and onion smash burger.

I know it doesn’t look big on that plate, but that’s two quarter pound patties and so many onions that I had to scrape off about half of them. It was delicious! And so filling. Afterwards, I went back to the car and took a food fueled coma nap while the others took a walk and looked at tourist’y things. Then we did the two hour drive back to Mom and Dad’s place and collapsed for the evening.

Oh yes, on the way to the aquarium, we stopped at a gas station that Grizzelda’s mom described as the Walmart of Gas Stations. It is called Buc’ees and boy howdy, was her description spot on. We saw signs for the place 75miles away for goodness sake.

Buc’ee the Beaver. In bronze. I got a picture of him with me and Grizzelda for posterity’s sake. She’s going to just love that in about 13 years when I send her a big glossy 8×11 as a birthday present 😀

Friday we all gathered over at my sister’s place and just hung out and played games. It was lowkey and I loved every single second of having zero responsibilities. We all scattered around 2pm and went back to our separate places. My Mom, Mr and Mrs Bombfunk and Grizzelda’s mom all went to a Brave’s baseball game that evening while everyone else went to bed and slept the sleep of the exhausted.

Saturday we once again gathered at my sister’s and had homemade brunch. They have chickens and so we had scrambled eggs, bacon and pancakes. Then we played games again and chilled until it was time for the Bombunks to leave for the airport so they could go back to the adult world. Once we were back at Mom and Dad’s, we packed up and headed off to bed.

Friday started off at 330am, when we had to wake up. Dad drove us to the Atlanta airport and we had a very uneventful flight home. We were back at our condo by 1pm. Spent the afternoon unpacking, doing laundry and getting used to being home again. That’s a good feeling!

Monday we had taken off just in case there were flight delays or cancellations. Since there weren’t, we had a free day. Mrs B went to visit some historical house with a friend and I sat home and pretended I was a log. Hahahaha!

And then it was back to work for the rest of this week. Sigh….

Thursday, September 19, 2024

A Palm for Mrs Pollifax (Mrs Pollifax #4) 3.5Stars

Title: A Palm for Mrs Pollifax
Series: Mrs Pollifax #4
Author: Dorothy Gilman
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Thriller
Pages: 170
Words: 58K

Absolutely delightful, again. I know I say this each book, but Gilman has given us a character and a story where the balance between taut thriller and cozy comfort walk hand in hand with neither overstepping their bounds. How she does this is a mystery to me but I am loving it.

This time around we’re talking plutonium, bombs, kidnappings and coups. And a completely useless Interpol. Which doesn’t surprise me at all.

This time around Mrs P knows she is getting into some really tricky business because it is plutonium, and enough of the stuff to make a suitcase bomb, and an agent has already been murdered. But like a true patriot, and a true adrenaline junkie, she doesn’t let any of that deter her but plows ahead and damn the torpedoes!

I found Gilman’s portrayal of the young boy and his grandmother to be very effective. He didn’t come across as a child genius, but a boy terrified of having his grandmother killed but who is brave enough to TRY something, anything, to get another adult involved. At the same time he wasn’t written as some cutesy little brat either, for which I was extremely thankful. Much like the story and Mrs P herself, Gilman does a masterful job of balancing everything and making him seem real, believable but not making the situation so grim.

I do feel that things are starting to escalate in terms of plot, and with 10 more books to go, I do wonder what Mrs P will encounter next? If she takes on Godzilla or King Kong though, I’ll be done 😉

★★★✬☆

From Wikipedia.org

Synopsis – click to open

Mrs. Pollifax is dispatched to Switzerland to find some missing plutonium: Mr. Carstairs of the CIA suspects the contraband has been hidden in an upscale clinic in Switzerland. Mrs. Pollifax begins a careful investigation of the guests at the clinic and rapidly befriends a young British man, a Belgian woman, and a young boy and his grandmother from an Arab nation. She soon discovers that very few of the clinic patients are who they claim to be, and she becomes involved in intrigue with men who plan to overthrow the government of a small country. She, of course, displays the courage and ingenuity which Mr. Carstairs has learned to depend on, and she leads her outnumbered friends into the adventure of their lives.

All of my “Mrs Pollifax” Reviews

Wednesday, September 18, 2024

Dead Men Live (The Shadow #18) 3.5Stars

Title: Dead Men Live
Series: The Shadow #18
Authors: Maxwell Grant
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Crime Fiction
Pages: 150
Words: 45K

We get to play in a full sized castle, In America!

The situation is one anyone familiar with Atlas Shrugged will recognize. Only instead of all the egghead geniuses being whisked away voluntarily, they are kidnapped and doppleganger corpses left in their place. They are then kept prisoner in the aforementioned castle and made to work on whatever it was that brought them to the attention of the bad guys.

The Shadow has one of his men infiltrate them, infiltrates the gang himself and then causes untold havoc. Guns blazing, fists flying, bodies lying dead all over the place. Just what the Dr ordered in fact.

One interesting thing about reading older books (this was published in the 1930’s, so almost 100 years ago) is you get to see “new” ideas and how they have no idea of the limitations yet. Much like fiction writers of today with their “dna’s” and “black holes” and “quarks” and other scyenze schizzle that they don’t actually understand beyond the most basic level (and that’s partly not their fault, because NOBODY understands the limits of those just yet). In this novel, it is plastic surgery. The bad guys kidnap hobos, etc, who bear a similarity to the people they want to kidnap, the doctor does his presto-chango magic plastic surgery on them and two days later they look just like the guy who is about to be kidnapped. Most of said hobos were then killed in some sort of fiery explosion to deal with fingerprints etc. And nobody is the wiser. I’m not knocking it, it’s just fun to see how those kind of things have change with the reality of the situation. Which is why I’m always skeptical of “scyence” people extrapolating something from a starting point that they barely understand themselves, much less non-specialists.

Another good thing about this story was that it was Harry Vincent’less. I do not like Harry. He’s the male version of Nell Fenwick, who only exists to get tied to train tracks and be rescued by Dudley Do-Right. Or in these books, The Shadow. So a story without Harry getting shot, bopped on the head, kidnapped or almost killed and then miraculously rescued by The Shadow is a good story in my opinion.

★★★✬☆

From Bookstooge.blog

Synopsis – click to open

A trio of criminal masterminds kidnap geniuses from various fields for their own personal gain. The Shadow gets wind of the plot and sends in his man Marston to stop it. He also personally gets involved. It ends with the 3 criminals dead, the geniuses rescued, 2 stepbrothers reconciled and The Shadow triumphant.

All of My “The Shadow” Reviews

Tuesday, September 17, 2024

Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine (May 2012) 3Stars

Title: Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine
Series: May 2012
Editor: Linda Landrigan
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Crime Fiction
Pages: 115
Words: 41K

Having finished up the collections of old Hitchcock anthologies that I had on hand, I found a couple of the “new” Mystery Magazines and decided to try them out. This was touted (on the cover) as the “humor issue” and I’m afraid the writers took that to mean “light and whimsical” instead of as funny.

The stories themselves barely passed muster and if I’d had to read a whole book, instead of a magazine, of them, I think I can safely say this would have gotten 2.5stars. These were the kind of stories that get salted between good stories in the old collections; that way you didn’t notice their mediocrity as much. You just forgot about them. But here, all you had was mediocre and so while I have already forgotten them, I can’t collectively forget them.

I have several issues of this magazine to try out. What does give me hope is that you can still get subscriptions (paper or digital) to AHMM, so they must have done something correct to keep on going this long. I just hope I find out what, because this issue was not very good.

What I am afraid of is that people are so undiscriminating in their reading tastes that anything with Hitchcock’s name will draw them in and they will accept any old sock as a “good story” when it really isn’t.

I’m just being really negative right now though. So here’s to a brighter future in later issues!

★★★☆☆

Table of Contents – click to open

Department: EDITOR’S NOTE: UNEXPECTED by Linda Landrigan

Department: THE LINEUP

Fiction: SHANKS COMMENCES by Robert Lopresti

Fiction: LEWIS AND CLARK by John M. Floyd

Fiction: SPRING BREAK by R.T. Lawton

Department: MYSTERIOUS PHOTOGRAPH: DOGWATCH

Fiction: WIND POWER by Eve Fisher

Department: BOOKED & PRINTED by Robert C. Hahn

Fiction: FUN FOR THE WHOLE FAMILY by Ron Goulart

Fiction: FASHIONED FOR MURDER by Shauna Washington

Fiction: MR. CROCKETT AND THE BEAR by Evan Lewis

Fiction: CARRY-ON by Wayne J. Gardiner

Department: THE STORY THAT WON

Department: COMING IN JUNE 2012

All of My “Alfred Hitchcock” Reviews

Wednesday, September 11, 2024

9/11 - Remembering the Heroes

My memories of 9/11 are specifically tied to the Twin Towers, as I saw them fall on tv. But that was not all that happened that day and I think it is time for me to start remembering that.

Three planes were hijacked that day. In one of them, the brave men and women who were the passengers fought back against the hijackers, causing the plane to crash into the ground, causing no additional harm, unlike what happened to the Twin Towers. They sacrificed themselves so that no others would come to harm. That is the true definition of a Hero. Heroes don’t always get happy endings in real life. Those men and women all died, just like the people in the other two planes. Don’t get me wrong, I am not denigrating the passengers in the other planes. While I would like to think I would have stood up and fought back, I know myself well enough that I am sure I would have frozen up. And things happened FAST.

Today I choose to remember the brave men and women who sacrificed themselves so that no one else had to die. I Will Never Forget!

Tuesday, September 10, 2024

Doctor Syn on the High Seas (Doctor Syn #2) 3Stars

Title: Doctor Syn on the High Seas
Series: Doctor Syn #2
Author: Arthur Russell Thorndike
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Historical Fiction
Pages: 182
Words: 66K

In the first book, which was the last book chronologically and sees Doctor Syn killed (oh, wait, did I just spoil that for you? Oh boo hoo, I am sooooooo sorry. Get over it, pansy), I wondered how someone who was a man of the cloth could preach what he did and still do the things that Doctor Syn did. Well, from this book it is obvious that his theology never went more than skin deep, if even that. To be blunt, Syn was a hypocrite was the start.

He is not a hero or an anti-hero, Syn is a straight up villain. He pillages, plunders and kills with nary a thought or regret and is the very definition of an Evil Pirate Captain. His revenge is the consuming fire in his life, over ruling every other thought and feeling in his head.

From a purely storywise angle, this was good stuff. Syn is talented, skilled, well off and implacable. Nothing stops him and his adventures here are many. When the local lord kidnapped Imogene and her mother near the beginning, I almost put the book down because Thorndike really had me wondering just how far he was going to go with the situation. Thankfully, while the end goal was stated, it never got there.

I’m really up in the air about continuing this series. It is grand adventure, but Syn is a scoundrel and hypocrite and I find that abominable. I will read the next book and if I still feel this way, I’ll be stopping. There is no need to read about or promote scoundrels and villains.

★★★☆☆

From Bookstooge.blog

Synopsis – click to open

Doctor Syn (a Doctor of Theology), a young man at seminary college, meets and falls in love with a beautiful spanish girl. He and his close friend save her and her mother from falling into the financial clutches of a local lord with the worst of reputations. Imogene in turn falls in love with Dr Syn. Stymied, the local lord decides to get his revenge by kidnapping Imogene and her mother and forcing Imogene to marry him. They are rescued by Dr Syn and friend and the local lord is killed, to nobody’s regret, not even his nephew, who now inherits and was a one time suitor to Imogene.

Dr Syn and Imogene marry and move to Romney Marsh. But it is too gloomy for Imogene and she goes back to one of the big towns to “help her mother”. She meets her former suitor and they seduce each other and run away to Spain together. Dr Syn gives up the cloth and vows revenge. He begins to chase them down.

He is then captured by pirates but because of his brains and skill at sword play, kills the pirate captain and takes over the crew. He loots the sea to fuel his fortune to hunt down Imogene and the Seducer. He blows up the pirate ship he is on, killing all the pirates and takes the treasure for himself. He continues his chase but each time, never quite catches them. He goes pirating again and repeats the same formula as before.

Eventually, Imogene and the Seducer drop out of sight and Dr Syn makes his way back to Romney Marsh to settle down to what unsettled peace he can have. The book ends with the ship he is on crashing on the shores of Romney Marsh and Dr Syn swimming for shore.