Now that the Chartreuse Emperor rules his world, albeit a blasted and wasted world, it is time to turn our eyes elsewhere…
A happy scene, one of frolicking dragons in a lovely blue sky. We see before us the King of the Dragons, a lordly yet kindly being, taking care of his subjects like they were his own children.
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 Bankers of Avara
Series: Groo the Wanderer #32
Author: Sergio Aragones
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Comics
Pages: 24
Words: 2K
I read this. I enjoyed this. The end.
★★★✬☆
From Bookstooge.blog
Now that Groo has a fortune from his previous misadventures, everybody is his friend. Thinking he is getting lots of jobs to earn money, Groo accidentally sets in motion a chain of events wherein he has become the prime lender in the town of Avara. At the same time, the robbers who tried to cheat him before are tracking him down to steal back the money. And Groo gives his money to a bunch of monks for safekeeping, who use it to gild their little temple. Everything goes wrong at the end and nobody is happy.
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 Kestrel
Series: Westmark #2
Author: Lloyd Alexander
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: MG Fantasy
Pages: 145
Words: 64K
While I vaguely remembered reading Westmark back in the 90’s, after reading this, I am pretty sure I never read this back then. I suspect I would have disliked this very much back then. Now, I can see it for the coming of age, things aren’t that simple, kind of story and I was impressed. Alexander deals with some heavy topics of civil authority, politics and the reality of international intrigue.
Theo, from the previous book, is the aforementioned Kestrel. He starts out as the naive young man who thinks everyone is basically good and descends into the blood thirsty revolutionary the Kestrel and ends up back as Theo, the Prince Consort, a much wiser, sadder and deeper man. As an adult, it hurt to watch Theo get the brutal education he did, but sadly, that’s what most of the world gets when they grow up. It made me realize just how blessed I am, with the upbringing I’ve had.
There is no magic here, no fantasy beyond taking place in another world. I suspect this would work better for a kid who is interested in history but maybe doesn’t know it yet? The style is the same as the Chronicles of Prydain but without having any fantastic elements makes it feel so different. It is a really weird feeling. I can see why this hasn’t been as popular over the years as the Prydain Chronicles.
I don’t ever see myself reading this again. Or recommending it either.
★★★☆☆
From Wikipedia
Theo is traveling through Westmark, learning about the country of which he will soon be Prince Consort. He is not surprised to find great poverty: Mickle – now known as Princess Augusta – could have told him that from her years on the street. His friend Florian could have told him about the aristocracy’s graft and corruption. But neither could have foreseen a loaded pistol in the practiced hand of the assassin Skeit. The echoes of that shot ring from the muskets and cannons of a Westmark suddenly at war – a war that turns simple, honest men into cold-blooded killers, Mickle into a military commander, and Theo himself into a stranger.
As set up in Westmark, Theo and Mickle are in love. A corrupt general is in a cabal with a rival country, and plans to surrender after a token resistance, allowing a country with a more aristocratic government to replace the more populist Mickle who is seen as too close to revolutionaries like Florian. However, although the general surrenders, his soldiers refuse to, and the nominal resistance becomes a full-blown war as the people fight to determine their own destiny.
Similar to how the aristocratic powers of the time invaded France to restore the aristocracy, here a foreign country is meddling in the internal affairs of Westmark. And just as France repelled the great powers with an army led by the people and of the people, the Westmark forces run by Florian, and his lieutenants, Theo — now the eponymous Kestrel — and Justin, fight to preserve the country. But becoming a general, a tradesman in blood and death, costs the artistic and conscientious Theo a great deal. He has to cut off pieces of himself in the service of a more pressing need.
Meanwhile, Mickle must run her government in exile. Musket and his master, Count Las Bombas, are dragged in to serve as her advisors. She says she wants his advice, as he used to serve with the Salamanca lancers, one of his blustery claims from Westmark. The character Las Bombas is, like the bard Fflewddur Fflam in The Chronicles of Prydain, bombastic, yet of a true heart, and a solid friend.
There are sub-plots involving some gamine children, and difficulties in the cabal involving Cabbarus, the villain of the first book. In the end, good triumphs not by force, but by compromise. Constantine, the young king, was set up to be killed by his guardian, but ends up being captured. He and Mickle come to terms, and they draw up a peace treaty to benefit both countries. Mickle sets up a representative government to reign along with her, but that forces her and Theo to postpone their wedding.
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: 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
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…
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.
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 🙂
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.
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….
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: 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
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.
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: 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
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.
