Slumber, then, wherever you may be,
I am the Lord of the Poppies, said he,
And I’ll lead you all, wherever you may be,
And I’ll lead you all in the slumber, said he.
I’d like to sleep the month away folks. Won’t you join me as the King of the Poppies casts his spell over us all?
You think I’m kidding? Your data now goes directly to AI programs that pay Automattic. WordPress admitted this on their blog (but closed the comments section).
They gilded it by saying we can opt out. I have. Here is the link you need to also opt out:
https://wordpress.com/settings/general/
Under the “Privacy Section”, you’ll need to checkmark the “Prevent Third Party Sharing”. Make you sure hit “Save Settings” AFTER you have selected to opt out.
I know you all “know” this, but it is good to be reminded that “your” data is not yours on WordPress.com or on any site run by Automattic. Pay attention and take control where and when you can or you will permanently lose it at some point.
Raw Data:
Novels – 15 ↑
Short Stories – 0 ⭤
Manga/Graphic Novels – 0 ⭤
Comics – 1 ⭤
Average Rating – 3.31 ↑
Pages – 3427 ↑
Words – 1244K ↑
The Bad:
The Expanding Universe #1 – 1star comparable to nuclear waste
The Good:
Pride and Prejudice – 5stars of goodness even with stupid questions ruining the experience
Phule’s Company – 4stars of light fun that really hit the spot
Movie:
No movie this month. After John Wick 4 last month, I needed a break.
Miscellaneous Posts:
Personal:
Man, where January sped by so fast that it was over before I blinked, February has felt like absolute frozen molasses. It went no where and it went there really slow. Every day of each week felt like it should have been Friday, not matter if it was Monday or some other day. Every single week. It was the month That. Would. Not. End.
Then part way through the month I got the worst cold that I’ve had in a long time. It started in my head and worked it’s way down to my chest. For two days at work I thought I was going to die. It was like a freight train had run me over. Took me over a week to recover from the weakness and I was coughing for the rest of the month.
On the positive side, I was able to play a good bit of Magic the Gathering on whatsapp. Had a 3player game with Dave and Mark. It took us a solid, glorious week to play. With me in the United States, Mark in the UK and Dave in the Netherlands, those time zones really kicked our butts. But we overcame and while I don’t know about the other two, I had an absolute blast. Long, slow games of Magic where you chat between turns is one of my favoritist things.
Speaking of games, I kicked my own butt into gear and sleeved up Marvel Champions. I will put up that post next week, so no need to fret, you’ll get your MC fix.
We have several new families at church, so I’ve been wearing myself out introducing myself each Sunday. I am NOT a people person and interacting with people wears me out, even good interactions. I can’t wait until they’re regulars and I can go back to ignoring them 😉
Cover Love:
Kind of the opposite of “love” because this is the cringiest cover for a book that I’ve read in a very long time. But “Making Love Last Forever“ by Gary Smalley was a great book. The cover, however, is like looking at a train wreck happening in real time in slow motion. I cannot look away no matter how much I want to. And now you get to see that image seared into your brains as well. You are welcome.
Plans for Next Month:
I’m going to watch and review a movie. I have no idea which one though. I’m contemplating digging back into my massive pile of anime discs and trying them again. There’s gotta be SOMETHING I can still enjoy 😀
My Magic card posts will get a slight aesthetic change. I’m not going to be putting up the art AND the card in the post. While I liked a change, I found it was simply too busy for my taste. So I’m going to be making the art part the featured image and just having the card itself in the post. That way I still get both parts but without having it look overwhelming.
Will have two [Art] posts again.
Will be doing another buddy-read of the Discworld series with Dave again. Going to be reading Mort, the first of the Death subseries. I remember really enjoying the Death books before, so I have high hopes I’ll enjoy it as much if not more so than last time 😀
Other than that, reviews as normal and random posts when I feel the inspiration.
In preparatory celebration of Dune: Part 2 releasing in theatres this coming Friday, I thought I would do a fun little post where I blabbed. As opposed to all those other posts where I’m just a big ball of frowniness and generally stay as silent as the grave. You remember, that post where I just sat there and stared at you and totally judged you for not commenting on my post that had nothing in it? Oh, NOW you remember? Good. Don’t let it happen again, ok? Because otherwise I’ll have to unleash the beast and he’ll cram spicedrops down your throat until you are addicted as Paul was to the spice.
Because if you think about it, there’s really not that much difference between Spicedrops and the Spice.
One of them comes out of a giant worm’s butt and one of them comes out of a giant factory’s extrusion machine. It’s really the same thing, especially in principle. Secondly, both of them can kill you if you take too much of it, especially if you’re Special and are blessed/cursed with Type 1 Diabetes/AretheChosenOne (those are really the same thing too if you want to get technical). Thirdly, they are both addictive. While wars have not been fought over the Spicedrops (yet!), that is because the supply is almost unlimited. You just wait until the masses can’t buy them in the grocery stores anymore and THEN you’ll see rioting never seen except when a Star Wars movie blasphemy is released. But enough of that sad sack talk. This is supposed to be a happy post!
Now, you might be wondering how I came to this decision. Well, I’ll be honest. It was a miracle, plain and simple! I woke up one morning and before me was A Sign.
Not even Jonah himself could ignore a sign like that! Well, he could, and did, hence the whole Jonah and the whale scenario. But I’m way smarter than Jonah. No getting eaten by a whale for me, thank you very much. Or even a big sandworm. I’m also much smarter than that dummkopf Liet Kynes.
Therefore, as the Prophesied One, I declare today to be the start of Party Hardy Month! We will move to a lunar calendar, thus giving us 13 months in the year. There will be January, February, Party Hardy, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, Bookstoogetober, November and December. I’m not your run of the mill Prophesied One. When I want something, I roll up the sleeves of my Mystery Robe and get to work. I don’t expect the world to change on a dime just for me. I’ll do the changing TO it. On a quarter. Because I’m not a cheapskate.
So grab yourself a bag of The Spicedrops, watch Dune Part 2 and celebrate Party Hardy with me, Bookstooge the Prophesied One. It’ll be great! Or else….
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: Conan the Formidable
Series: Conan the Barbarian #16
Author: Steve Perry
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 171
Words: 62K
First, the cover. There is a man with four arms in this story, but he’s a scared little weakling who is being used in a freak show. He’s definitely NOT a monstrous hulk who takes on Conan. I don’t know who the woman is supposed to be, because there’s not a normal woman amongst the group. Perry’s predilection for monster women comes roaring to the forefront. There’s a cat woman, a giantess and a young teen giantess and for once, Perry doesn’t have Conan sleep with anyone. You could have bowled me over with a feather, because Perry’s a perv and it has shown through in all his previous Conan books. So the woman on the cover is, ahem, artistic license.
There is an evil sorcerer, but he’s not 500 years old and he’s pretty dumb. His biggest ambition is to run a big freak show and pimp the freaks for even more money. When your highest ambition is to get some rich nobleman to be your patron, and you have magic and freaks, well, I say you are aiming pretty low. Said magician was the villain but he wasn’t a competent one, more of just one more annoyance Conan has to deal with on his travels. The magician does kidnap both some giants and a swamp dwarf thingy, so that brings their dada’s into the action.
Those guys hate each other and even though they work together to get their kids back, they both want to kill Conan and everyone else in the freak show because they know the location of their homes. Evil incompetent magician, traitorous and backstabbing giant and dwarf and then a bunch of regular soldiers hired to guard a rich nobleman. Conan and Co have a lot of killing to do and Perry didn’t let me down. There was a lot of action and that is what I liked most about this story. It didn’t hurt that at the end the two Dada’s ended up killing each other by accident while trying to be treacherous to each other. It was the perfect ending for two such scum bags.
I’ve got one final Conan book by Perry to read. I wasn’t going to after the last book (Conan the Defiant) but this one gave me the strength for that final lap. Much like that scene in the movie “Chariots of Fire” where the main character gets knocked down and then gets back up and wins the race, I too shall recover and take this reading race by the throat and make Perry wish he’d never written a Conan story. Oh wait, no. What I MEANT to say was that I’m going to push through all the pain and suffering Perry has put me through with these mediocre Conan fanfics and teach him that not even he can stop me from reading Conan stories. Hmmm, that doesn’t quite right either. Well, whatever. I’m going to read the final Conan book by Perry and that’s inspiring and you should be hearing that music from Chariots of Fire while reading this. Plus, you should be inspired to be more like me so you can crowdfund a biopic movie about my life and how great I am. Now THAT’S inspiring!
★★★✬☆
From Wikipedia
The novel opens with Conan walking into Shadizar through the Karpash Mountains. He is ambushed by some bandits in the mountains and rescued by a giantess named Teyle. She leads Conan back to her village in the swamp they inhabit at the foot of a mountain. The swamp is also inhabited by Vargs, who are described as “Green dwarves” and act more like goblins or orcs. Upon arriving, he is knocked out by Teyle to be experimented upon by the request of Raseri, the village chieftain and Teyle’s father.
Conan awakens inside a cage made from the bones of giants and finds he’s being experimented upon by Raseri. Raseri is performing research on the physical endurance of damage in humans. Meanwhile, Dake the freakmaster is on his way to the giant’s village with his entourage of Penz the wolfman, Tro the catwoman, Sab the four-armed man, and Kreg his assistant. Dake’s mission is to capture a giant and a “green dwarf” for his freak show.
On the way, Dake’s freak show is attacked by Vargs, but the creatures are scared off by a massive red demon which Dake summons (which is an illusion). Penz captures one of the Vargs at the behest of Dake. Dake promptly hypnotizes his Varg into servitude. The Varg that is captured turns out to be Vilken, the son of Fosull, a Varg chieftain.
Conan eventually escapes the cage in which he is being held and sets fire to Raseri’s hut, sending all of his research on humans into flames. Conan escapes into the swamp, running across some Vargs and killing several of them. Meanwhile, Dake arrives at night in the hopes of capturing a giant for his freak show with the help of Tro the catwoman’s night vision. The flaming hut distracts many of the giants and Dake is able to capture Teyle, as well as Morja and Oren, who are also Raseri’s children.
As Conan escapes, the giants release their “Hellhounds”, a massive beast with the appearance of a cross between a bear and a wolf. The hellhounds, Vargs, and giants are tracking Conan in that order of following. Soon, Conan slays all the hellhounds. When the Vargs and giants find these corpses, they are amazed. Conan finally escapes the swamp only to be magically captured by Dake.
Figuring that more of his own kind will attract too much attention, Raseri decides to leave the swamp to look for his children by asking the local humans if they have seen a man resembling Conan. Fosull decides on a similar plan, but coats himself in mud (so as not to display his green skin) and follows the cart’s tracks, knowing what they look like. Fosull manages to get a ride with a drunken wine seller in his cart. Dake forces Conan to display his strength so that it may be measured. Dake learns that Conan is stronger than all the rest of his freak show combined and sets Conan to use as his strongman for the traveling circus.
Raseri eventually finds Fosull’s wagon and learns that the cart in front of him contains a Varg who is tracking their children. Fosull learns that he is being tracked by a giant, but knows not who. Dake exhibits his circus to a village. Eventually, Conan discovers that rage helps in weakening Dake’s spell. Soon, Penz reveals he knows a few of Dake’s spells.
Fosull and Raseri form a temporary alliance to rescue their children. Dake meets up with a caravan of other merchants. They stop for the night and Dake sends Morja to the leader of the caravan as a gift. Raseri and Fosull have managed to sneak up secretly. This enrages Dake’s slaves and they manage to break the spell of entrapment set upon them. The former-slaves, Raseri, and Fosull manage to rescue Morja before she arrives at the merchant’s wagon.
The group kills the merchant and several guards in the ensuing battle. Oren throws a rock at Dake as he’s reciting his enslavement spell. The spell gets 2/3 done and binds the ex-slaves, Raseri, and Fousull (except for Conan) before the thrown rock smashes Dake’s teeth preventing the final articulation of the spell. Conan promptly slays Dake in the process.
Raseri is convinced that the group should not be able to leave knowing how to get to his village of giants. Raseri tells the group that he has a potion which will help them forget how to get to his village. However, his potion is actually a poison. Penz sprinkles a powder (stolen from Dake) that turns all liquid to water into the cups of the slaves while Raseri is not watching. Eveyone drinks the potion and Raseri reveals they are about to die. Fosull, whose drink was not sprinkled with the magical powder, kills Raseri with his poisoned spear and dies shortly afterwards. Raseri’s death also prevents the poison from taking effect. Soon, Teyle decides to let the group leave and the book is concluded.
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: Phule’s Company
Series: Phule’s Company #1
Author: Robert Asprin
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 182
Words: 77K
My main knowledge about Asprin’s writing is through his “Myth Adventures” series and his “Thieves World” anthologies. The Myth books were boooooring with a few exceptions and the Thieves World books tended to be vulgar and of dnf moral quality. So you can imagine just how dubious I was at giving him yet another chance.
But something about the idea of a misfit millionaire in the military turning other misfits into a semi-reasonable outfit just appealed to me. I like a good underdog story and while Phule isn’t the underdog, everybody else in the story sure is. But even Phule knows that money can only go so far and in some cases can hurt more than help. I found Asprin’s philosophy surprisingly thought out even while disagreeing with Phule’s underlying thought that people are basically good.
This was fun, pure and simple. I had a blast reading this and found this to be the most enjoyable Asprin I’ve read to date (even better than Myth Inc in Action, the best Myth book in my opinion). However, given my past experience with Asprin I’m holding this series very lightly and am putting no expectations on the next book. But for the moment, this is a great book and I recommend it, even if I can’t comment on the series as a whole (yet).
★★★★☆
From Wikipedia.org
The book begins as Willard Phule, a multimillionaire, is court-martialed by the Space Legion for ordering the strafing of a treaty signing ceremony. For his punishment, he is given command of an Omega Company full of misfits on Haskin’s Planet, a mining settlement on the edge of settled space. He quickly goes to his duty station and leverages his personal money and a knack for managing people to get the company to come together as a unit. His antics attract the attention of the local and interplanetary press, but create a very cohesive unit of the Legionnaires.
When a contract for an honorary duty is awarded to the Regular Army on Haskin’s Planet, Phule convinces the governor to leave the contract up for competition between the Space Legionnaires and the Regular Army. The Army sends some of their most elite troops to take part in the competition, and through an impressive show of cooperation and teamwork, Phule’s company ties the regular troops. In the final episode of the book, Phule’s company encounters lizard-like alien explorers from the Zenobian Empire. Quickly reverting to his business instincts, Phule negotiates a business deal to sell swampland to the creatures in exchange for new technologies. This again enrages some of his superiors, but because of a show of support from the Legionnaires for their commander and a complete conviction of his own innocence, Phule evades court-martial again.
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 Closed Worlds
Series: Starwolf #2
Author: Edmond Hamilton
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 151
Words: 46K
This was MUCH better than the previous story. This had all the adventure and daring-do that I was expecting from a golden age SF writer. Chane the Starwolf plays a part but not the central part. He is now definitely part of the Mercenary group and not some Lone Wolf (ha!) all by himself.
Most of the action took place on the planet as the Mercs, led by one of the woman of the Opposition, tried to find out a rich archeologist. They ran into some decidely deadly created life forms several times and I thought Hamilton did a great job of showing how deadly the creatures were, either singly or in a massive pack. Of course, they weren’t enough to stop Chane the Starwolf, but come on, he wouldn’t be much of a hero if they had.
Another aspect that I liked was that when Chane was caught in the Astral Projection Machine, trying to rescue the woman, he fought tooth and nail to get back to where his body was. He wasn’t just tough in body, but in mind and spirit. During his time he visited the Starwolves’ home planet, which set things up nicely for the final book in this trilogy.
This was just the right length, with just the right amount of spaceships, just the right amount of jungle and freakish creatures and just the right amount of hand to hand fighting. Had a very good time while reading this and am now looking forward to more of Hamilton’s works.
★★★✬☆
From Wikipedia & Bookstooge.blog
While on Earth, Morgan Chane, captain Dilullo, Bollard, and others once again team up to get a new mission. This time they are hired by a wealthy earth businessman and trader James Ashton for $500k to find his brother, Randall Ashton, who disappeared in the Closed Worlds. The latter are notable for being so dangerous and so mysterious that even starwolves don’t dare to step their foot on – they have laws that bar them from landing on Arkuu, the planet of the Closed World, where natives don’t wellcome anyone. The mercs accept the deadly offer and leave for the Closed Worlds.
The Mercs find evidence of Randall and his crew. With the help of a woman of the Closed Worlds who is in opposition to the policy, set out to find the lost expedition. They are pursued by government forces. The Mercs find Randall, who has re-discovered what the Closed Worlds were trying to hide, an astral projection machine for the mind that allowed the user to wander the universe as long as the body was taken care of. It was destructively addictive and was the reason the Closed Worlds shut themselves off from Galactic Civilization. The Mercs rescue Randall against his will and the woman figures out a way to make use of the machine that won’t be destructive.
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: Arba and Dakarba
Series: Groo the Wanderer #26
Author: Sergio Aragones
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Comics
Pages: 23
Words: 2K
Hahahahaahaha, this was another laugh out loud comic. Man, if Groo can DO something and yet still not do it, he will find a way. I am in awe at how Aragones even comes up with these ideas. What kind of mind is so fiendishly twisted that something this funny, this amusing and this twisted is even thought of? It’s just brilliant!
It is one thing to be funny, it’s not too hard to make Groo a complete idiot. But at the same time Aragones has made him this completely unstoppable force of nature who simply cannot do things as people want him to. Sure, he can stop an army. By burning down a forest and destroying all the villages in it. Whatever he is tasked with, Groo will do. But he will do it badly and in such a way that comes back to bite the person who made the initial request. Without fail!
The page I’m including is the last one. Groo has done his job but done it so wrongly that EVERYONE wants to kill him. Classic!
★★★✬☆
From Bookstooge.blog
Groo is hired by two witches to recover an amulet from some tiny people. The witches make Groo small and he attempts to steal the amulet. He fails but is told if he steals ANOTHER amulet from a wizard that the little people will let him have the first amulet. Both amulets end up being a part of an Artifact of Power. Groo steals the wizard’s amulet but in the process of giving it to the tiny people ends up stealing the first amulet, thus owning both. He throws away the wizard’s amulet, since “he” doesn’t need it any more and gives the original amulet to the two witches. Who turn out to be working for the wizard. The comic ends with the two witches, the wizard and the entire tribe of tiny people waiting in ambush to kill Groo for destroying all their plans.
Shelf Control is a weekly “feature” hosted now by Mallika from Literary Potpourri. The gist seems to be to pick a book or series on your TBR shelf and write about it as a way to get you to either read it or toss it in the eternal battle of trying to trim our TBR’s.
After my last foray (Warlock Holmes) I realized that the next longest waiting series on my TBR was the Metaframe War by Graeme Rodaughan. Don’t ask me how to pronounce that last name because I have no idea. I just know it’s not Cracker, hehehehe.
Here is the blurb from the first book, A Subtle Agency:
Hunters and vampires are fighting a secret war for control of the fabric of reality. Whoever acquires mastery of the reality shifting powers of the Metaframe will become the new gods of the universe.
I have no idea why I put this series on my tbr list. I’m pretty sure I put it on in ’17 and I think the final book is supposed to come out this year (book 7). Once it comes out I will add it to my reading rotation and dive in. I am really hoping that the author does something interesting with vampires and doesn’t turn this into a goopy pnr hellhole.
(setting the bar pretty low in my opinion!)
Thankfully, I know I WILL be reading this. It is now just a matter of when 🙂
