Family Happiness (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: Family Happiness
Series: (The Russians)
Author: Leo Tolstoy
Translator: -----
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Classic
Pages: 111
Words: 34K

Take an age-gap love story and then Russianize it.

Things were going great. The love between Masha and Sergey was working out, against all of my expectations. I was lulled into thinking that maybe, perhaps, JUST THIS ONCE, I might be reading a happy Russian novella.

Silly me!

Tolstoy guts the reader when Masha, the young woman, is seduced by Petersburg Society, which Sergey her husband had warned her about. What makes it worse, is that he sits back and passively watches it happen. His excuse, at the end, is that “some things” just have to be experience and nobody can warn you against them.

Oh, I raged at that. I almost gave this 1star just for that. It was WRONG. While a husband and wife cannot control the other, they are no longer individuals who can just sit back and let things happen to the other. They are “one” now. Tolstoy goes against that Biblical principle of marriage on every level with this novella. His attempt to patch things up with “well, our passionate love will now be sublimated into family happiness” made me growl.

And yet, and yet I still enjoyed this more than enough to give it 3.5stars. Only a Russian could take passionate eros love and completely divorce it from the kind of love experienced by a family and say that was a good thing.

Slow claps.

Bravo Tolstoy, you’re a real barstard with this one.

★★★✬☆

From Wikipedia.org

The story concerns the love and marriage of a young girl, Mashechka (17 years old), and the much older Sergey Mikhaylych (36), an old family friend. The story is narrated by Masha. After a courtship that has the trappings of a mere family friendship, Masha's love grows and expands until she can no longer contain it. She reveals it to Sergey Mikhaylych and discovers that he also is deeply in love. If he has resisted her it was because of his fear that the age difference between them would lead the very young Masha to tire of him. He likes to be still and quiet, he tells her, while she will want to explore and discover more and more about life. Ecstatically and passionately happy, the pair immediately engages to be married. Once married they move to Sergey Mikhaylych's home. They are both members of the landed Russian upper class. Masha soon feels impatient with the quiet order of life on the estate, notwithstanding the powerful understanding and love that remains between the two. To assuage her anxiety, they decide to spend a few weeks in St. Petersburg. Sergey Mikhaylych agrees to take Masha to an aristocratic ball. He hates "society" but she is enchanted with it. They go again, and then again. She becomes a regular, the darling of the countesses and princes, with her rural charm and her beauty. Sergey Mikhaylych, at first very pleased with Petersburg society's enthusiasm for his wife, frowns on her passion for "society"; however, he does not try to influence Masha. Out of respect for her, Sergey Mikhaylych will scrupulously allow his young wife to discover the truth about the emptiness and ugliness of "society" on her own. But his trust in her is damaged as he watches how dazzled she is by this world. Finally they confront each other about their differences. They argue but do not treat their conflict as something that can be resolved through negotiation. Both are shocked and mortified that their intense love has suddenly been called into question. Something has changed. Because of pride, they both refuse to talk about it. The trust and the closeness are gone. Only courteous friendship remains. Masha yearns to return to the passionate closeness they had known before Petersburg. They go back to the country. Though she gives birth to children and the couple has a good life, she despairs. They can barely be together by themselves. Finally she asks him to explain why he did not try to guide and direct her away from the balls and the parties in Petersburg. Why did they lose their intense love? Why don't they try to bring it back? His answer is not the answer she wants to hear, but it settles her down and prepares her for a long life of comfortable "Family Happiness."

• The Russians

• Leo Tolstoy

• Fyodor Dostoyevsky

• Ivan Turgenev

• Nikolai Gogol

His Face Like Mine (Non-Fiction) Unrated

 

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: His Face Like Mine
Series: -----
Author: Russell Joyce
Rating: Unrated
Genre: Non-Fiction
Pages: 217
Words: 65K
Publish: 2024

I am not rating this book because it was not written for me at all, not one tiny bit. It was written for Christians who are wondering if God does love them, or even can. This book is for people who feel that God doesn’t or can’t love them. Hurt people, broken people, who cannot see and accept the Truth. It is for the people who are so badly broken that they need to feel the Truth.

The author is a skinny jean wearing, latte sipping, new york city pastor seeing a therapist. He was born with a rare disorder where half his face wasn’t formed and spent years with reconstructive surgery. Even now, he knows he’ll always draw stares. He was broken from the get-go and the longer he lived, the more pain he experienced. This is his story of how God overcame that lifetime’s worth of pain and made Russell feel His love.

I am not rating this book because there are people in just such a position as this author and this might very well give them exactly what they need in their Christian walk. I cried during almost every chapter while reading this. It was emotionalism ramped up.

Christianity is about the Truth. We are emotional beings and God created us that way, it’s not a bad thing. Those emotions get twisted and broken and so completely screwed up that it takes God’s intervention. But that NEVER changes the Truth. How I feel doesn’t affect the Truth of the Gospel. It might affect how I react to the Gospel, but the Center doesn’t change. What concerns me is that Russell seems to be hewing pretty close to the line of saying that your feelings dictate the reality of the Gospel. He definitely is one of those people who “has” to have an emotional experience to think he’s worshipping God. Give him a hymn and he’ll sing it and be like “That’s nice”. Then give him a contemporary worship song where he’s jumping around and dancing and he’ll be all like “Praise Jesus!” He can’t seem to worship without an emotional experience. The problem is that CCM is built around exciting the emotions and is false worship.

When you are as broken as Russell was, you need to feel the love of God. I don’t know that you could experience it any other way. But when you’re a bit more emotionally healthy, it’s time to control your emotions and not let them run riot through your life. God doesn’t want your emotions controlling your life any more than He wants food or drink or sex or money controlling your life.

I would only recommend this book to the people who are so broken that this is all they can take at the moment. For them, I suspect it will be a true balm to their souls. For anyone else, stay away from this.

Unrated

Goblin Rock Sled - MTG 4E

 

Happy Resurrection Day! 2025 Edition

 

⁵ But the angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. ⁶ He is not here, for he has risen, as he said. Come, see the place where he^[a] lay. ⁷ Then go quickly and tell his disciples that he has risen from the dead, and behold, he is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him. See, I have told you.” ⁸ So they departed quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples. ⁹ And behold, Jesus met them and said, “Greetings!” And they came up and took hold of his feet and worshiped him. ¹⁰ Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee, and there they will see me.”

Matthew 28:5-10

³ He presented himself alive to them after his suffering by many proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God.

Acts 1:3

³ For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, ⁴ that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, ⁵ and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. ⁶ Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. ⁷ Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. ⁸ Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me….

^….13 But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. ¹⁴ And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain….

^….19 If in Christ we have hope^[b] in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.

²⁰ But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep….

I Corinthians 15:3-8, 13-14, 19-20

I have Hope this morning because Jesus is God. He demonstrated that by dying and coming back to life again. Death has no power over Him and I have put my trust in Him so death has no power over me beyond what God has decreed. What is even better is that YOU can have that same Hope too, if you will turn your life over to Jesus.

[Art] The Darknesses Cry Goodbye

 

“My breaking heart and I agree, that you and I could never be, so with my best... my very best, I set you free” ― Rachel Yamagata

The pain will fade and I know that, but right now, it hurts. Just like back then. I hate having a heart. And this time, I will not keep it to myself. While I might not be telling everyone I know, in essence I am telling the world. 

The Sum of All Men (Runelords #1) 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 Sum of All Men
Series: Runelords #1
Author: David Farland
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 517
Words: 194K
Publish: 1998

Grim. That is the word to describe this book (and I suspect, the series). I suspect that is why I gave it 2stars back in ‘08 and never read any more. Now that some time has passed, I wanted to try the series again.

What I noticed this time around, specifically, was the utter lack of hope. Yes, there were embers of hope within individuals, but they were based solely upon their ability to do something about the situation. Considering who they were facing (Raj Ahten was pretty much at god level with all of his endowments), that hope was really wishful thinking and not true hope. There was no prophecy. There was no entity with greater power than anybody in the story. It was very much a “we are on our own and must make do” kind of story. If that appeals to you, then I highly recommend this book.

These books were written when the Wheel of Time had slowed to a crawl. Farland managed to write the first four books within a four year period. Then he slowed down due to life circumstances and as far as I know, the series never got past book 8 and remains unfinished, because Farland died. “He’s ded Jim”. I suspect I will be reading the first tetralogy and call it a day.

Series and authors like Farland and Jordan and Martin should be a serious warning to readers, especially those who think their favorite author is going to live forever (coughSandersoncough. Have you seen that guy? He’s almost 50 and is going to have a heart attack by then if he doesn’t lose a lot of weight. He’ll kill himself and then where will all the fans of his Stormlight Archives be? Up a creek without a paddle, that’s where). This is the reason I am such a fan of trilogies. Tell your story and then be done. The Runelords was originally going to be a trilogy before it bloated up to an 8book unfinished monstrosity.

Now, that there is a mighty lot o’ complaining, yessiree. I do acknowledge that. It mightn’t even make you question why I gave this 3stars and why I would continue with the series. It is because it is an intriguing story. Farland has actually thought out the logical consequences to his magic system, and while it is extremely depressing, it makes total sense. I am looking forward to someone in the story working out yet more shenanigans.

The covers are all by Darryl Sweet, the same guy who did the covers for the Saga of Recluce and the Wheel of Time. Don’t be put off by them, this story is very different from those. Sweet had one mode of drawing and that was it.

★★★☆☆

From Wikipedia

In the universe of The Runelords, there exists a unique magical system which relies on the existence of distinct bodily attributes, such as brawn, grace, and wit. These attributes can be transferred from one individual (or animal) to another in a process known as "giving an endowment". Lords who have taken many endowments become extremely powerful, almost superhuman, and are known as Runelords.

Seeking the hand of the Princess Iome Sylvarresta, Prince Gaborn Val Orden is sidetracked when the Wolf Lord Raj Ahten invades the Kingdom of Heredon, seeking to rule all of Rofehavan.

• The Sum of All Men (2008 Review)

The Mu of Muichiro (Demon Slayer #14) 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 Mu of Muichiro
Series: Demon Slayer #14
Author: Koyoharu Gotouge
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Manga
Pages: 191
Words: 9K
Publish: 2019

While this was better than the previous volume, this series is fast losing its appeal to me. I’ll read the next volume next month and if my enjoyment level doesn’t go up, I’ll probably abandon the series.

★★★☆☆

From Wikipedia

"Awful Villain"

"Swordsmith"

"The Mu of Muichiro"

"Coming Back"

"Trading Insults"

"Abnormal Situation"

"A Passing Moment of Excitement"

"Mitsuri Kanroji's Life Passes Before Her Eyes"

"Get It Together, Moron!"

After coming to terms with his own past, Muichirō defeats Gyokko, while Tanjiro and the others struggle against Hantengu. While the battle rages on, Haganezuka races to reforge Tanjiro's new sword and deliver it to him.

C is for Corpse (Kinsey Millhone #3) 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: C is for Corpse
Series: Kinsey Millhone #3
Author: Sue Grafton
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Mystery
Pages: 223
Words: 77K
Publish: 1986

Overall, I enjoyed this a good bit more than the previous two books. Kinsey didn’t do so many stupid things. It also helped that she kept her panties on instead of jumping into bed with a murderer or nutcase or thief or spy.

But.

Once again, the author’s bias against guns shows itself and this is used to create a life and death situation for Kinsey (again!!!) that she barely escapes. I was so pissed off. If Kinsey had brought her pistol with her, she wouldn’t have had to run away from the psycho killer with a syringe of something nasty. The pistol wasn’t even mentioned this time. It’s a non-starter. Guns exist for just such a situation like this. I just shook my head and rolled my eyes.

Other than that, I definitely had a better time. A good murder mystery coupled with some of the worst of humanity. But it wasn’t presented as good or right. Gives me hope for the future of this series.

Of course, I’m alternating this series with the Mrs Pollifax series on my Era. So I won’t be back to put up with Kinsey Millhone for at least three months or more. I’m ok with that. She goes a long way, sigh...

★★★☆☆

From Wikipedia

The novel begins with Kinsey at the gym, rehabilitating herself from injuries sustained at the end of B is for Burglar. While there, she meets Bobby Callahan, a twenty-three-year-old who was nearly killed when his car went off the road nine months ago. Bobby is convinced that the car crash, which killed his friend Rick, was an attempt on his life. He suspects that he may still be in danger, so he hires Kinsey to investigate. Having lost some of his memories and cognitive faculties as a result of the crash, he can only vaguely articulate why he thinks someone wants to kill him, referring to some information in a red address book that he can no longer locate.

Kinsey takes the case despite little information, having taken a liking to Bobby. She meets his rich but dysfunctional family: Glen, his mother is an heiress who is married to her third husband, Derek Wenner, whose daughter Kitty is a 17-year-old drug user and is seriously ill with anorexia. Glen has spared no expense in seeking treatment and counseling for Bobby. He is depressed further due to Rick's death, his own injuries, and the loss of his prospects at medical school. A few days later, Bobby dies in another car crash, which is attributed to a seizure while driving. Kinsey thinks this is the delayed result of the first crash and thus a successful murder. Kinsey investigates several people: Kitty stands to inherit 2 million dollars from Bobby's will; Derek insured Bobby's life for a large sum without Glen's knowledge; and Rick's parents blame Bobby for their son's death.

However, Kinsey looks elsewhere for the solution: a friend of Bobby's gives her Bobby's address book, which shows Bobby was searching for someone called Blackman. Bobby's former girlfriend thought Bobby ended their relationship because he was having an affair with someone else, and she thinks Bobby was helping a woman who was being blackmailed. Kinsey eventually finds out that the woman with whom Bobby was involved was his mother's friend, Nola Fraker. She confesses to having accidentally shot her husband, a well-known architect named Dwight Costigan, during a supposed struggle with an intruder at their home years prior. She has a blackmailer, who is in possession of the gun with Nola's fingerprints on it.

Trying to investigate further, Kinsey realizes that 'Blackman' is code for an unidentified corpse in the morgue. She finds the gun concealed in the corpse. However, while she is at the hospital, she finds the recently murdered body of the morgue assistant and realizes the killer is at the hospital. It is Nola's current husband, Dr. Fraker, a pathologist from the hospital, who is also the blackmailer. Bobby found out what Fraker was up to; but Fraker rigged the first car accident before he could do anything about it, leading Bobby to eventually put Kinsey on the trail. Soon after, Fraker cut Bobby's brake lines, leading to his fatal crash, and falsified the autopsy results to point to a seizure. Fraker traps Kinsey and gives her a disabling injection, but she manages to cosh him and escapes to a phone to call the police. In the epilogue, she describes finally discharging the debt she feels she owes to Bobby and concludes with a wish that he is at peace.

In a side plot, Kinsey's landlord and friend Henry begins a personal and business relationship with Lila Sams, newly arrived in Santa Teresa. Kinsey, rubbed the wrong way by Lila, discovers her to be a fraudster with multiple identities and turns her over to the police just as Lila is preparing to decamp with Henry's money.

Goblin King - MTG 4E

 

He's no David Bowie, that's for sure!

The Infinity Gate (Pandominion #1) 1Star

 

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 Infinity Gate
Series: Pandominion #1
Author: Mike Carey
Rating: 1 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 523
Words: 163K
Publish: 2023

I was intrigued by the writing and the storytelling. I stayed up late one night, when I couldn’t really afford it.

Technically, this is a duology. The reality is that it was one long book that he just randomly cut in two and called it a duology. This just ended, abruptly. No resolution, no closure, nothing. I was so pissed off that I was on the edge of just abandoning the next book and sending Carey to hell. Yes, you heard that right. I have that power. I have chosen to be merciful and let him live though.

I will also be reading the next book, hopefully enjoy it, mark it 1star and also label Carey as an author to avoid. Authors who don’t know how to actually write individual books within a series, even a duology, are trash in my eyes.

★☆☆☆☆

From the Publisher

Infinity is only the beginning.
The Pandominion: a political and trading alliance of a million worlds - except that they're really just the one world, Earth, in many different realities. And when an AI threat arises that could destroy everything the Pandominion has built, they'll eradicate it by whatever means necessary, no matter the cost to human life.
Scientist Hadiz Tambuwal is looking for a solution to her own Earth's environmental collapse when she stumbles across the secret of inter-dimensional travel. It could save everyone on her dying planet, but now she's walked into the middle of a war on a scale she never dreamed of.
And she needs to choose a side before it kills her.