Land Tax - MTG 4E

 

Man, is that guy ugly or what!? Yeah, he's just plug ugly and no question about it. That's one strike against it and one reason why I never used it. Of course, the REAL reason I never played this back in the day was it's price, around $15. Minimum wage at the time was $4.25. I worked summers painting but had to pay for my diabetic supplies for the year, so whatever was left after saving up for that was spent on things like entertainment. Given that you needed at least 3 of these in a deck, that's almost $50 just for this card alone. I was strictly in the twobuck chuck wagon when it came to Magic cards. I played for fun and my cards were what I could afford easily. This card did not fit into that category :-D

Sun Lamp Review

 

Last winter was really bad for me in turns of experiencing SAD (seasonal affective disorder). I was even giving serious thought to moving down south to where the sunshine is. Of course, there is also heat down south and I'm not sure I could handle that, but when you're in the throes of SAD, reason doesn't play much of a part in decision making. Thankfully, talking with various people, I decided to try a sun lamp, one that mimics the wave length of sunlight.

I bought it in February of '25 and by March had noticed absolutely zero difference. I was still grumpy and depressed and just plain unhappy. But Spring had sprung and I did begin feeling better but chalked it up to the change in season. I continued to use the sun lamp as a regular floor lamp all year. By the time Winter had arrived this year, I was just used to the sun lamp being my regular light source and didn't give it much thought. Winter brought more snow and clouds than usual and by the end of January I suddenly realized that I wasn't feeling like killing other people or desiring to stay in bed and ignore life. That was a remarkable change from last year.

My lamp has several settings of brightness and I keep it at its brightest all the time. There is also a setting to go from white to yellow light and I always keep it at the yellowest setting. While it might just be in my head, it feels more like sunlight that way. So I've been using this for a solid year now and there is a noticeable difference. If you suffer from SAD, even if just a mild case, I'd highly recommend getting a floor sun lamp like this. My recommendation would be to get one in the spring or summer and begin using it then. It probably won't help a lot if you buy it in December ;-)

I like feeling normal during the winter again. While the model I bought on Amazon last year is no longer being sold, the closest similar one is here:
Amazon Floor Sun Lamp

That at least gives you an idea of what it looks like. Assembly was very easy, getting the settings to brightest/yellowest was also easy and once set, things just stayed the same and I only had to deal with turning it on and off.

Once again, if you suffer from SAD, I highly recommend a floor model sun lamp. I can't guarantee that you'll experience the same results as me, but if it helps you even a little bit, that will be good.

February '26 Roundup & Ramblings

 

Raw Data:

Novels/Novellas - 9 ↑

Short Stories - 1 ↑

Manga/Graphic Novels - 0 -

Comics - 1 ↑

Average Rating - 3.00 ↓

Pages - 1603 ↓

Words - 622K ↓

The Bad:

Small Gods - 2stars of bad and lazy theology

The Good:

The Black Company - 4stars of solid re-read

Miscellaneous Posts:

• Killer Bees - MTG 4E
• My Week XXXI with Pictures
• Kismet - MTG 4E
• Resident Evil (2002 Movie)
• PSA: Novels vs Novellas vs Short Stories
• Kormus Bell - MTG 4E
• Big Bookstooge's Used Soul Emporium
• Land Leeches - MTG 4E

Personal:

Compared to last month, I read about half in terms of pages and words. In book numbers, I read "more", but since I had 3 novellas and 1 short story, well, the other numbers don't lie. I was ok with that though. Easing back into reviewing was good for me. I don't expect this situation to repeat itself very often though.

Real Picture, taken Saturday February 21st

February was its usual brutal self here in New England. We got dumped on by snowstorm after snowstorm, which meant working regularly in snow almost up to my knees. It was also very cold until the middle of the month, so conditions were just about as bad as it could get. All "that snow" also meant all "that shoveling" at work. I was taking extra strength tylenol (acetaminophen) to deal with that. My right forearm felt like someone had sandbagged it every day.

I also was diagnosed with Adhesive Capsulitis, or frozen shoulder. I had it 10-15 years ago, so I was aware of the symptoms and got to the doctor to get it taken care of. I'm taking aleve (yet another pain reliever, inflammation reducer) and doing home physical therapy exercises. If it isn't better in a couple of weeks I'll probably have to get a cortisone shot in the shoulder (I had that last time) and then PT by a licensed physical therapist. That's expensive, so I'm hoping aleve and home PT are enough. Plus, the needle they use to inject the cortisone is about as long as a football field. It's scary as all get out and I don't want that if I can help it. I get enough needles in my body already, thank you very much.

I've also had to admit to myself that the stats at Wordpress.com are now useless, completely and utterly useless. I was getting scraped in January and I had hoped that would do it, but nope, it has continued through February. Not the 10's of thousands of views that some have reported, but one day I did get 1100 views. The rest of the month varied from 100-700 views a day. I can't even blame it on the ChiComs, as the majority came from the US. While I don't care (that much) about stats, what it means is that the whole section of my annual review at the end of the year is rendered useless. Any stat that I relied on "views" to populate that section are now so untrustworthy that they can't be used. That makes me sad. 

Cover Love:

Frederic & Elfrida by Jane Austen. Cover Love indeed...

Plans for Next Month:

Book etc reviews, Magic cards and the next Resident Evil movie. And dealing with the time change :-(

Blood Sands (Warhammer 40K: Astra Militarum) 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: Blood Sands
Series: Warhammer 40K: Astra Militarum
Author: Victoria Hayward
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 28
Words: 8K
Publish: 2023

Some Imperial mech drivers are supposed to be fighting a Chaos Gene Cult (chaos infects the humans and turns them into mutants) and putting an electronic marker on some supply dump so the rest of the Imperials can blow it to kingdom come. Only they are ambushed at every turn and it becomes obvious their top secret mission has been leaked to the mutants. Only two people could have done that, the Commander of the base or the Commissar. The final two mech drivers survive and blow the dump and return to confront the traitor. Turns out it was the Commander and that a bunch of other Imperials might be infected too. The story ends with the two survivors joining the Commissar on a hunt to cleanse the compound.

Like I noted in Less than Human, these stories are simply meant to keep my toes in the WH40K universe. This story, while short, did that admirably. You had violence and mayhem, you had the threat of gene cultists and then you had the ever present fear of Chaos infecting the Imperials. Just little bits of seasoning to give my literary taste buds something to remember everything. Obviously with so little page time characterization is almost nil, but in all fairness, even most WH40K novels have almost no characterization either, so it wasn’t exactly a great loss.

★★★☆☆

From the Publisher:

An Astra Militarum Short Story

The Astra Militarum stands as a redoubtable bulwark in the face of endless attacks on the Imperium from xenos empires and warp-born horrors alike. From Cadia to Catachan, Krieg, Mordian, and Armageddon, the Emperor's will wields the Imperial Guard in the defence of Humanity.

READ IT BECAUSE
The Astra Militarum has been infiltrated by an insidious foe – but how far has the corruption spread?

THE STORY
A squad of Sentinels crosses a desert on a covert mission against the Genestealer Cults. But is there a traitor in their midst?

• All of My Warhammer 40K Reviews

Less Than Human (Warhammer 40K: Astra Militarum) 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: Less Than Human

Series: Warhammer 40K: Astra Militarum

Author: Steve Lyons

Rating: 3 of 5 Stars

Genre: SF

Pages: 34

Words: 8K

Publish: 2023

Black Library (the company that publishes the Warhammer 40K stuff) calls this a short story and I can understand. However, since this is MY blog and I determine the fate of every word, and I have written a post recently on this very subject (PSA: Novel vs Novella vs Short Story), this gets the Novella tag because it is over 25 pages long.

The reason I read this short story is that last year I burned out on WH40K stuff. It is the original Grimdark and that kind of thing gets to me after a time of exposure. Couple that with it being winter and my tendency towards SAD (seasonal affective disorder), I thought it would be a wise decision on my part to not subject myself to 100’s of pages of hopelessness, despair and overweening arrogance. At the same time, I didn’t want to completely get out of the WH40K pool altogether for fear that I might never get back in. When I am feeling good, I can handle anything Black Library throws at me and I can even enjoy it. So how to stay in the pool without drowning? That was the question I was asking myself. Graeme, of Lord Samper’s Library, had recently reviewed an anthology of short stories about the Astra Militarum, which in regular speak means the regular army guys who aren’t super powered gene supermen. There were 12 short stories in it and that is when the idea struck me like a genius bolt from the skies. Read one short story a month for 2026 to keep my interest awake but without overwhelming me. It also gives me time to recover and dive back into full novels in 2027. That is how this little project came about. I suspect that after this post, where I over-explain everything, that these will be mini-posts running around 200 words where I basically say if I liked the story or not :-D

This story is about the Death Korps of Krieg and the Mordians (some troops from the planet Mordia I guess?) fighting against the Tau. The Mordian commander wants to get the war over with very quickly and figures a frontal assault will do the job. She also thinks that the Death Korps should bear the brunt of the assault so that she can save her troops for other battles. The commander of the Death Korps doesn’t agree but since he is outranked, has to go along, for a bit. He pulls some shenanigans that forces the Mordians to come to the fore and the Tau get the crap beaten out of them, with “acceptable” losses split amongst the Death Korps and the Mordian. Everybody goes home unhappy. Which is what the WH40K universe is all about, hahahahaha.

While I’m only giving this 3stars, it did exactly what I was hoping it would. It kept me entertained, kept me in the WH40K universe and most importantly, didn’t depress me as I wasn’t exposed long enough to the universe to be affected. I really can’t ask for more than that given what I was hoping for.

Each novella/short story has its own individual cover, which I am including in the post itself; but for the featured image, I am using the Death and Duty cover that is used on the anthology. That has some character, some oomph, some guns&goryglory going on that the individual covers totally lack.

★★★☆☆

From the Black Library:

An Astra Militarum Short Story

The Astra Militarum stands as a redoubtable bulwark in the face of endless attacks on the Imperium from xenos empires and warp-born horrors alike. From Cadia to Catachan, Krieg, Mordian, and Armageddon, the Emperor's will wields the Imperial Guard in the defense of Humanity.

READ IT BECAUSE

Disrespect the warriors of Krieg at your peril…

THE STORY

A Mordian colonel pulls rank over a regiment of Death Korps of Krieg in an attempt to quickly end a war against the T'au Empire.

• All of My Warhammer 40K Reviews

Land Leeches - MTG 4E

 

This card is just gross. A leech that big just makes me wriggle in disgust :-( I know I owned a copy or two back in the day, but I don't know that I ever used it because for 3 mana there were so many other cards I'd rather include. And since I never made a theme deck based around the First Strike Mechanic, this card never made it off the ground. But that art, how disgusting. Fantastic, right? :-D

Big Bookstooge's Used Soul Emporium

 

Howdy Folks! Honest Bookstooge here. We here at Big Bookstooge's Used Soul Emporium only sell the finest in used souls. If you are looking for a new-to-you soul, well, you've come to the right place. We have a Patented 101 Checklist that our soul technicians rigorously put our used souls through before we even think of offering them for sale to the public. That means every soul you buy from us, you KNOW it is good to go the moment you step off of our lot. I also personally inspect each soul after the Patented 101 Checklist, because Honest Bookstooge stands behind every used soul he sells, yessiree! So come on down for our once a year sales extravaganza and get a free used book with every soul bought.

*This message brought to you by Thesoulless Corporation

(This picture was done as a Christmas present for me from Mrs B. The words after it are all my own and in no way reflect opinions or ideas held by Mrs B)

16 Skeletons from My Closet 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 by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: 16 Skeletons from My Closet
Series: ----------
Editor: Alfred Hitchcock
Rating: 2.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Crime Fiction
Pages: 165
Words: 66K
Publish: 1963

These stories did not work well for me at all. In fact, I got the distinct impression that I was reading the Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine leftovers or rejects. I wasn’t, as these had all been published in the AHMM, but this was on par with my read of more recent editions of AHMM than my previous reads of these Alfred Hitchcock Presents anthologies. Most of the time I can pick at least 3-4 stories that leave me with a frisson of enjoyment, no matter how twisted, but this time, every single story just fell flat for me or was completely stale.

Not a particularly enjoyable time was spent on reading this :-(

★★✬☆☆

Blurb & Table of Contents:

ALFIE'S GUARANTEE

If you don't shudder with every twist and sudden thrust of these 16 terror tales...

if you are able to turn off your bedside lamp after closing this volume and drift off to a deep, dreamless sleep...

if you can drink your morning coffee without thinking there just might be a peculiarly bitter taste to it, or turn your back on your spouse or best friend without feeling a funny itching between your shoulder blades...

then that lovable old master of menace, Alfred Hitchcock, apologizes and personally guarantees you your full payment in horror. All you have to do is meet him in the cemetery under the next murderer's moon.…

INTRODUCTION by Alfred Hitchcock

GHOST STORY by Henry Kane

WHERE IS THY STING? by James Holding

THE BUTLER WHO DIDN'T DO IT by Craig Rice

CHRISTMAS GIFT by Robert Turner

THE MAN AT THE TABLE by C. B. Gilford

DEATH OF ANOTHER SALESMAN by Donald Honig

MAN WITH A HOBBY by Robert Bloch

...SAID JACK THE RIPPER by Robert Arthur

A GUN WITH A HEART by William Logan

ASSASSINATION by Dion Henderson 

A LITTLE SORORICIDE by Richard Deming

THE MAN WHO GOT AWAY WITH IT by Lawrence Treat

SECRET RECIPE by Charles Mergendahl

DADDY-O by David Alexander

THE CRIME MACHINE by Jack Ritchie

HOMICIDE AND GENTLEMEN by Fletcher Flora

• All of My “Alfred Hitchcock” Reviews

The Wanderer (Groo the Wanderer #48) 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 Wanderer
Series: Groo the Wanderer #48
Author: Sergio Aragones
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Comics
Pages: 24
Words: 2K
Publish: 1989

Groo is sick of everyone knowing who he is and calling him names or making fun of him. Thus begins his journey as a Wanderer to find a land where nobody knows who he is. After many unsuccessful attempts, one town claims not to know who Groo is. They are lying of course, but they hope to make Groo go away before he causes a disaster. In their attempts to ignore Groo, they annoy him and thus Groo ends up destroying the town anyway. But a smart merchant has been paying attention to the fact that Groo is in town. He has a boat full of stuff for the King. He sells the stuff to the local merchants and uses all of the money to buy insurance on his ship. He then invites Groo onto the ship and sets sail for the Kingdom where he is supposed to take the stuff. Because he knows Groo will sink the ship and he will get rich off of the multiple insurance policies. So of course the ship doesn’t sink and the King’s Guards arrest the merchant for thievery and Groo wanders off the ship, wondering if he can find any town where nobody knows him.

I read through this in just 15 minutes. But you know what? They were a really fun 15 minutes. Groo is fun and funny and I always enjoy my read of this comic. I can’t ask for much more and so I don’t. I look forward to reading Groo, I look forward to having a good time and I’m not disappointed. That is one of the reasons I only read one Groo comic a month. I want to keep it good and I’m concerned that more than one a month would spoil it for me.

I love this page. First you have the bird and the guy in the crow’s nest banging heads. Then you have everyone, including the SHARKS!!!!, saying how it is inevitable that the ship will sink since Groo is on it. Finally, you have the peoples’ faces as the realization sinks in that Groo HAS ruined them, by NOT sinking their ship. I’d wondered in previous comics if someone could utilize Groo’s propensity for mayhem and destruction. Well, someone tried in this comic and they failed miserably, hahahahaha!

★★★✬☆

• All of My “Groo the Wanderer” Reviews

Shadow Strike (Empire Rising #16) 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: Shadow Strike
Series: Empire Rising #16
Author: David Holmes
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 450
Words: 177K
Publish: 2023

The last time I read an Empire Rising novel was back in July 2025 (Into the Breach). I enjoyed it but knew I needed a break. So I gave myself 6 months and here we are. I admit I went into this with some trepidation. The series is now complete with the release of Book 22 in the middle of 2025 and I have to decide if I’m going to stick things out to the end or not.

On the positive side:
I enjoy these stories and consistently give them 3 or 3.5 stars.

There is plenty of little and big space battles.

Alien cultures out the wazoo!

There is always another threat on the horizon so the universe is never in danger of getting stale.

On the negative side:

Characterization is pretty basic. We have moved on to the children of the guy who started the series and they are exactly like him in tone and manner.

Space battles, nothing but space battles! Earlier books used to have some good ground pounder action but that has almost ceased to exist.

The time commitment. Each book is 300 to 500’ish pages long. After this book, I’ve still got 5 more to go.

So I enjoyed this book BUT the whole time I was reading this I was wondering about all of those positives and negatives and if I wanted to finish things up. By the end of the book I decided that I will finish this series. I don’t know if I’ll read all 5 or space things out however. I also began to wonder if the author uses AI to help him churn these out. The first book, The Void War, was published in 2016 and the twenty-second book was published in 2025. You’re talking 2 books a year for 10 years. It is possible but I find it highly unlikely. I will probably speculate more, with numbers(!!!), in future reviews.

★★★☆☆

From the Publisher
Six months ago the Eaglaton Protectorate launched an unprovoked attack against Humanity and her allies. Only a daring strike led by Georgia Somerville managed to reopen the Gift wormhole and allow Imperial reinforcements into the conflict zone. Now, Admiral Becket has the full might of the Imperial Navy flowing to her banner. Yet time is of the essence, for there are signs the Karacknid Civil War is coming to an end and Humanity’s old enemy may soon seek its revenge.

Becket, aided by Jonathan and Georgia Somerville, must strike hard and fast against the Protectorate. For if they cannot end the unwanted war quickly, it may drain the Empire and her allies of all the strength they have spent two decades building.

However, lurking in the shadows, another foe watches, determined to do whatever it takes to see the two enemies fight it out to the death.

One way or another, something must break, for if the war cannot be ended quickly, Humanity will find it impossible to defend itself on three fronts.

• All of My “Empire Rising” Reviews