This
review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained
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copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions.
Crossposted at WordPress & Blogspot by Bookstooge’s Exalted
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Title:
City of Stairs Series: The Divine Cities
#1 Author: Robert Bennett Rating: 1 of
5 Stars Genre: Fantasy Pages:
88/464 Words: 28K/148K Publish: 2014
Due
to the inclusion of certain subject matters, I am dnf’ing this book
and will not be reading any more by Bennett.
Pooja recently did an SBA and when I went looking, the last time I had done one was back in '19, so it seemed like it was time to participate again. Give me something to write about besides a book review anyway :-D Plus, sunshine, amiright?
Rules For The Sunshine Blogger Award:
Display the award’s official logo somewhere on your blog.
Thank the person who nominated you.
Provide a link to your nominator’s blog.
Answer your nominators’ questions.
Nominate up to 11 bloggers.
Ask your nominees 11 questions.
Notify your nominees by commenting on at least one of their blog posts.
Questions:
What inspired you to start blogging?
I discovered Blogspot when google bought it in 2003 or so. It allowed me to write and to stay in contact with my scattered friends and family. Over the years blogging has changed as I have changed and now I mainly blog about the books I read. Of which there are a lot.
What is your favourite movie?
Die Hard. Bruce Willis will always live in my head as John McClane.
Which season do you prefer most and why?
The Autumn. The mornings are crisp, the sun is still strong in the afternoons, harvests are happening and the Pumpkin Festival is right around the corner!
If you could be a fictional character for a day, who would you be?
Garric, the main character from David Drake's Lord of the Isles series. He is a Chosen One and I love those kind of stories.
What was your favourite game growing up?
The Farming Game. It made Monopoly look like a scrawny chicken. My friends and I would have sleepovers and we'd set things up the night before, get up at 7am and then play the entire day and if we were lucky, finish that night.
Other than blogging, what hobby or hobbies do you enjoy?
Reading. It's actually what drives my blogging :-D
What is the last TV show you watched?
The 3 Stooges on Tubi.
What is a dish or food that reminds you of your childhood?
Chicken pot pie, just like Mom used to make it!
Is cereal technically soup, why or why not?
Cereal is most definitely NOT soup. I don't know how anyone could ask that question with a straight face.
What would you do if you could live forever?
Pull of a massive heist so I could hire authors to write books for me. I'm going to need a LOT of books to last forever ;-)
Who was your first celebrity crush?
This was an easy one. Cindy Crawford doing that Pepsi commercial in '92. It burned itself into my brain and has never left.
Now comes the part where I'm supposed to nominate 11 of you and ask 11 new questions and continue things.
First, consider yourself nominated. Because if you are reading this, that means you have a pulse. That's an absolute must for bloggers! ;-)
Second, I will officially nominate 11 bloggers who "follow" me and appear to be active but don't interact with me.
Thirdly, I will actually ask 11 new questions, but they will be Bookstooge-esque questions, so you might have to think a couple of extra seconds to answer them. And thanks to Pooja for kicking things off.
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:
Casino Royale Series: James Bond #1 Author:
Ian Fleming Rating: 3 of 5 Stars Genre:
Thriller Pages: 157 Words:
51K Publish: 1953
I’ve
seen various Bond films over the years, just at random and usually
thought of them as empty action films (except for the ones where the
directors tried to make Bond a comedian) but enjoyable, like popcorn.
I’m pretty sure I read one or two of the novels in highschool too,
but I couldn’t even tell you which ones. I’ve also heard what I
consider “woke” talk about the books and I wanted to make up my
own mind and see what the books actually said, as opposed to some kid
spouting off about things he doesn’t know a thing about. This has
led me to start reading the entire collection. Or at least, starting
the journey and seeing how far I get!
This
book was not what I was expecting. At times completely banal (the
gambling scenes at the casino were mostly boring) and at others
brutal (Bond getting his balls hit/whipped/whatever), I felt some
whiplash reading this. Then you had Bond himself. He was definitely a
jerk. There’s a scene where the girl, Lynd, is introduced to Bond
and she ignores his come on. Bond thinks about how’d like to break
her because of that. It was SO wrong. He wasn’t displaying
masculinity, but selfish brutishness. There was another instance
where Fleming shows us the inside of Bond’s mind and it isn’t a
nice place, not a good place. Why Fleming chose to portray Bond this
way baffles me.
The
twist I never saw coming. I probably should have, given how double
agents were such a big thing during the Cold War, but nope, it
completely cut me off at the knees.
This
was a very see-saw read. It’s why it is getting 3stars and not
something higher. I think I’ll have to take each book one at a time
too and not make any big decisions, yay or nay, about the series as a
whole. I guess I’m hoping Fleming’s writing evolves.
★★★☆☆
From
Wikipedia
M,
the Head of the British Secret Service, assigns James Bond,
007, to play against and bankrupt Le Chiffre, the paymaster for
a SMERSH-controlled trade union, in a high-stakes baccarat game
at the Royale-les-Eaux casino in northern France. As part
of Bond's cover as a rich Jamaican playboy, M also assigns as his
companion Vesper Lynd, personal assistant to the Head of Section
S (Soviet Union). The CIA and the French Deuxième
Bureau also send agents as observers. The game soon turns into
an intense confrontation between Le Chiffre and Bond; Le Chiffre wins
the first round, cleaning Bond out of his funds. As Bond contemplates
the prospect of reporting his failure to M, the CIA agent, Felix
Leiter, gives him an envelope of money and a note: "Marshall
Aid. Thirty-two million francs. With the compliments of the
USA." The game continues, despite the attempts of one of Le
Chiffre's minders to kill Bond. Bond eventually wins, taking from Le
Chiffre eighty million francs belonging to SMERSH.
Desperate
to recover the money, Le Chiffre kidnaps Lynd and tortures Bond,
threatening to kill them both if he does not get the money back.
During the torture, a SMERSH assassin enters and kills Le Chiffre as
punishment for losing the money. The agent does not kill Bond, saying
that he has no orders to do so, but cuts a Cyrillic 'Ш'
for шпион (shpión, Russian for spy) into Bond's hand
so that future SMERSH agents will be able to identify him as such.
Lynd
visits Bond every day as he recuperates in hospital, and he gradually
realises that he loves her; he even contemplates leaving the Secret
Service to settle down with her. When he is released from hospital
they spend time together at a quiet guest house and eventually become
lovers. One day they see a mysterious man named Gettler tracking
their movements, which greatly distresses Lynd. The following
morning, Bond finds that she has committed suicide. She leaves behind
a note explaining that she had been working as an unwilling double
agent for the Soviet Ministry of Internal Affairs. SMERSH
had kidnapped her lover, a Polish Royal Air Force pilot, who had
revealed information about her under torture; SMERSH then used that
information to blackmail her into helping them undermine
Bond's mission, including her own faked kidnapping. She had tried to
start a new life with Bond, but upon seeing Gettler—a SMERSH
agent—she realised that she would never be free of her tormentors,
and that staying with Bond would only put him in danger. Bond informs
his service of Lynd's duplicity, coldly telling his contact, "The
bitch is dead now."
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 Gathering Evil Series: Dark Conspiracy
#1 Author: Michael Stackpole Rating: 3
of 5 Stars Genre: Fantasy Pages:
276 Words: 98K Publish: 1991
This
is a trilogy by Michael Stackpole. He was a staple for me growing up.
He wrote some kickass standalone fantasy novels, he wrote a bunch in
the Star Wars Expanded Universe (back when Star Wars’ book were
still good, even when they were bad) and he wrote a couple of
original series. He also wrote in other universes, what I now call
Franchise Fiction. He wrote in the BattleTech series, and really, his
Star Wars stuff was franchise fiction too. But it was stuff I grew up
on in the 90’s and early ‘00’s and formed what I wanted and
looked for in stories. He pretty much stopped by the early ‘Teens
and as such, I haven’t seen new stuff from him in years.
So
I decided to go back and read some of his older stuff. Stuff I hadn’t
read. I wasn’t interested in his Battletech stuff, as I tried to
read a couple of books by other authors in that Franchise and didn’t
care for it at all. I’d never played the game and had no
connection, which meant I wasn’t going to try. That left me with
this trilogy, originally called The Fiddleback trilogy and some
standalones. I wanted to get a taste and a trilogy is the best way to
do so in my opinion. Longer than a standalone book but not a bloated,
unfinished monstrosity like Game of Thrones.
Only
to find that this trilogy was based on an Role Playing Game (rpg)
called Dark Conspiracy. And that this was now known as the Dark
Conspiracy trilogy. I found all of this out AFTER reading the book.
You might be wondering why I am going on and on and on about this.
That
is simple.
This
is Proto-Litrpg and next to the Romance genre, Litrpg is the lowest
rung on the ladder. I spit on Litrpg. If I was the hero, Litrpg would
be a Nazi Zombie and I would be doing the world a favor by killing
it. If Litrpg was a hero, it would be as a pathetic, spineless pos
protagonist like Shinji Akari (from the anime Neon Genesis
Evangelion) and it would be my DUTY to kill him and get a real hero
in his place. Needless to say, I don’t like Litrpg. Thus, finding
out that this trilogy is proto-litrpg was like drinking a bottle of
coke only to find out afterwards that someone had peed in it. GROSS!
And
Yet.
Stackpole
was still good enough of an author to make me enjoy the story. That’s
why it got 3stars. Now that I know he has “pee’d in the Coke
bottle” I’m not sure how I’ll feel about the next two books.
But that’s another month’s problem, right? I know, I’ll just
buy a new, sealed Coke bottle for the next book and call it good
enough ;-)
★★★☆☆
From
the Publisher & Bookstooge
Tycho
Caine is a man with a mission. He's sure of that. But, waking up in a
body bag with amnesia, he not sure of much else. Except that someone
wants him dead. An exciting adventure novel of a near-future world
where technology and occult mysticism merge. Dark forces and hidden
masters conspire to control humanity, and Tycho Caine needs to figure
out which side he's on.
An
interdimensional being wants to invade Earth and Caine was his
catspaw. But an opposing Earthly psychic has turned Caine to his side
and now it is up to Caine and small group of misfits to stop this
Entity from entering their world and devouring it.
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 History of England Series:
---------- Author: Jane Austen Rating:
2.5 of 5 Stars Genre: Juvenilia short story Pages:
28 Words: 7K
This is
just what you’d expect from a snarky teen writing about a subject
they didn’t want to be writing about. I just rolled my eyes and
plowed through.
★★✬☆☆
From
Wikipedia.org
The
work is a burlesque which pokes fun at widely used schoolroom history
books such as Oliver Goldsmith's 1771 The History of England from the
Earliest Times to the Death of George II. Austen mockingly imitates
the style of textbook histories of English monarchs, while ridiculing
historians' pretensions to objectivity. It was illustrated with
coloured portraits by Austen's elder sister Cassandra, to whom the
work is dedicated.
The
second page of the History reads:
The
History of England
from
the reign of
Henry
the 4th
to
the death of
Charles
the 1st
By
a partial, prejudiced, & ignorant Historian
To
Miss Austen, eldest daughter of the Revd
George
Austen, this work is inscribed with
all
due respect by
The
Author
N.B.
There will be very few Dates in
this
History.
Her
History cites as sources works of fiction such as the plays of
Shakespeare and Sheridan, a novel by Charlotte Turner Smith and the
opinions of Austen's family and friends. Along with accounts of
English kings and queens which contain little factual information but
a great deal of comically exaggerated opining about their characters
and behaviour, the work includes material such as charades and puns
on names.
While
the work offers her family humorous vignettes on English rulers from
Henry II to Charles I, many entries focus on royal women, such as
Anne Boleyn, Lady Jane Grey, and Mary, Queen of Scots, who are denied
entries but are significant figures in English history. Mary, Queen
of Scots, in particular plays an important role in Austen's History,
which also acts as a vindication of the executed cousin of Elizabeth
I. Elizabeth I is treated as a tyrant, rather than a good leader,
thus showing Austen's affinity for Mary and the Stuart monarchs.
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: To Become a Marked One Series:
Demon Slayer #15 Author:
Koyoharu Gotouge Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars Genre:
Manga Pages: 192 Words:
9K Publish: 2019
I did enjoy this
volume more than the previous one, but that was because the focus was
on Tanjiro and him doing all the additional training that each of the
demon slayers and Pillars had to go through. The parts where it was
group oriented or about the Society of Pillars discussing things, I
lost interest. I am not a group oriented guy and I like reading about
the Lone Hero, not the Avengers. When I was perusing Wikipedia for
the chapter titles and summary, I read through the summaries for the
rest of the volumes. I think I’m going to stop reading with this
volume. Too much group stuff going on.
If this manga had
stayed focused on Tanjiro, I suspect I would have kept on to the end.
The following page is WHY I like Tanjiro as a character so much. He’s
still smiling and being friendly, but he tells the unvarnished truth
to the Pillar. No hate, no fear, just wanting to move on with his
training so he can reach his goal.
★★★✬☆
From Wikipedia
"Dawn Approaches"
"Daybreak and First Light"
"The Rumble of Victory"
"A Request for Instruction"
"To Become a Marked One"
"A Place to Be"
"Visitor"
"Full-Strength Training"
"Welcome..."
With his new sword Tanjiro destroys
Hantengu, and after risking herself to protect the villagers, Nezuko
is bathed in sunlight, but to everybody's surprise she is not harmed
by it. Once learning of it, Muzan discovers that Nezuko attained the
power he spent his entire life looking for. Knowing that Muzan is
determined to confront them directly to capture her, the Demon
Slayers make preparations for the final battle against him.
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 Twice Dead King: Reign Series: Warhammer
40K: Necrons Author: Nate Crowley Rating:
3 of 5 Stars Genre: SF Pages:
317 Words: 113K Publish: 2022
This
wasn’t as enjoyable as the previous book, Ruin.
Most of that was due to Oltyx
and his remaining Necrons doing nothing but running for 75% of the
book. It was boring. A book about nigh-immortal killing machines
should not be boring. The thing is, Crowley (the author) did a great
job of showing how kickass the Necrons were in Ruin, so
I don’t understand why he went the boring route here. It had to
have been a deliberate choice on his part, but it made no sense to
me. Now that I’ve this Twice Dead King duology, I’m just as
likely to avoid Crowley as seek him out. That’s not good
“branding”.
The
ending was just plain weird. It wasn’t bad, but it left me going
“huh?” Basically, Necrons can go crazy and try to eat flesh and
pretend they are the biological Necrontyrs again. But it turns out
the Flayers (the name given to Necrons who go crazy and try to eat
flesh) have access to a special dimension in space and go almost
anywhere in no time. Oltyx fully embraces this by book’s end, but
it just ignores the fact that they are still crazy. They are insane.
Insane beings usually don’t think they are insane, but that doesn’t
change that they are. By the end you realize Oltyx is insane as any
Flayer and that the Ithacan Empire is really no more.
The
cover once again is pretty cool, with a gold plated Oltyx (the way
the Necrons show someone is royalty) holding some sort of glow’y
green spear/ax/staff thing. Whatever it is, it looks cool. Halberd,
that’s what its Earth equivalent would be! A space-halberd powered
by raw fusion. Yeah baby, that is just awesomesauce!
★★★☆☆
From
WH40k.lexicanum.com/
After
centuries of exile, the necron lord Oltyx has at last
been granted the thing he has always craved: the throne of
the Ithakas Dynasty. Kingship, however, is not quite what he had
hoped for – Oltyx's reign currently exists aboard the dying
battleship Akrops, as it lumbers away from the ruins of
his crownworld. Behind it is a hostile armada of unfathomable
size, launched by the barbaric alien war-cult known as the Imperium
of Man. And within the Akrops' sepulchral hold, an even greater
threat festers – the creeping horror of the flayer curse.
Faced with such overwhelming odds, Oltyx leads a desperate voyage
into a darkness so profound that salvation and doom look much the
same. If he and his dynasty are to make it through that long night,
Oltyx will have to become a very different sort of king
Yes, yes, I know, I know. You are probably asking yourself CRITERIA for WHAT?!? See, that's a tricky blogger thing where I hook you with a vague title to stir your interest, then you take the bait and before you know it, you've read the whole post and are just one more minion of mine, mwhahahaaha! The only trickier thing I could have done is start a land war in Asia! So choose your goblet, have a sip and see if you're a trickier blogger than Bookstooge while you peruse the rest of this fine post.
Guaranteed iocaine free
I am going to assume anyone reading this already knows what "criteria" means. I won't insult your intelligence nor think you are a stupid dumb dumb head. But just in case, I have consulted the Sacred Oracle and this is what they have replied:
This post is about My Criteria for who I choose to follow. I don't know how much thought you have ever given to that, but to be honest, as a blogger, it plays a huge part of our blogging experience. Bloggers are not islands unto themselves but a chain of connected and interconnected archipelagoes. The list below is what I consult when I consider whether to follow a new-to-me blogger or not. I also use it as a lodestone to measure the bloggers I am already following.
That is my list. That is a picture and I know that for people on phones, pictures don't always show up the best, therefore I will be typing these out and blabbing about them.
Posts At Least Once Every 30 Days
This is an absolutely non-negotiable item for me. I used to say "posts once a month" until someone posted on the 1st of one month and then again on the 30th of the second month. Technically, they were posting once a month. That's garbage and we all know it. Now, if a blogger needs to take a break, and writes a post informing their readers that they will be gone for several months, and they give an end date (even if "end of summer/spring/blah"), I am more than willing to forego this. I take my blogging seriously (even though I know it is a hobby) and I want to follow people who are committed as well.
Responds To Comments In A Timely Manner
I realize that not every blogger checks in every day, or even every week. But if a blogger doesn't respond to comments from 3 posts ago, then I am forced to conclude that commenting is extremely low on the priority list. Because it is so high on mine, I will avoid the aggravation and just not follow that person. Not everyone feels like I do about comments, but the people I follow need to.
Writes Posts That Allow For Interaction With Readers
If your blog is your doctoral thesis on the Koolaide Man and his impact on the culture of the world and you are writing for your professors and not the Everyman that most bloggers are, that really limits how others can interact with you. I don't just want to read posts by random strangers, I want to get to know them, through interacting in the comments section.
Majority Of Posts Are Of Interest To Me
Nobody writes interesting things ALL the time. Sometimes a blogger writes something that is of interest only to them. I get that, I respect that, I do that myself. But if the majority of your posts are on the rectal and anal functions of wart hogs and their kin, I'm not following you. I don't care about that subject and in fact, actively avoid trying to read stuff about it.
Shows At Least One Spark Of Individuality
I feel like I covered this with my latest PSA post, Blogging and Personality. But in short, I need the people I follow to be themselves and to show a willingness to be independent in what they read and how they review. I refuse to follow people who read nothing but the latest arc offerings from netgalley and who write nothing but the same regurgitated pap that every other empty headed fluff brain is writing.
Doesn't Read Modern Romance Or Smut
This is also a non-negotiable item for me. Smut is an immediate unfollow. Modern romance can't be more than 1 or 2 a year. If I see romance books on a monthly or weekly basis in a bloggers posts, I will not follow them.
Writes A Variety of Post Types
This one is a bit more nuanced and I feel like it's not as big an issue. Some people can write only book reviews, but what they include in the reviews keeps things fresh. But if someone only posts those damnable Wordpress Prompt posts, then you've shown your lack of individuality, thus violating the above item on Individuality. Now, if someone includes the WP Prompts, I have no problem with that. Basically, I need to follow bloggers who are putting some thought and effort into their blog and aren't half-assing it and mailing in a lazy excuse for a post every time.
I hope this has helped you understand my criteria for who I follow and who I don't. I think I will be updating my About page with that checklist. That might help people who follow me understand why I don't automatically follow them in return, or ever.
ps,
please comment away. Agree, disagree, vehemently hate on the list, love it to death? Let me know.
