The 80's Movie Book Tag

Found this on Flora’s Musing. Seemed like a good tag to do mid-summer when blockbusters used to be the dominant force in America for the plebe masses.

A Nightmare on Elm Street

A book that kept you up all night

Monster Hunter Bloodlines was, as I described in my review, balls to the walls action. That’ll keep you up reading all night!

The Princess Bride

A WONDERFULLY quotable book

For me, that would be The Lord of the Rings. I’m not a big “remember quotes” kind of guy, but “you shall not pass” has always stuck in my head.

Ferris Bueller’s Day Off

A character who loves breaking the rules

Saul from Neal Asher’s Owner trilogy. He’s not all adorable and funny like Bueller, but Saul will break the rules with the best of them, forging his own as necessary.

When Harry Met Sally

A couple that took eternity to get together

Montrose and Raina from the Count to the Eschaton Sequence by Wright. 18-19 billion years seems like eternity to me!

Back to the Future

A book involving time travel

The Aunt Paradox by Chris Dolley. Reeves and Worcester have to combat a Legion of Time Traveling Aunts to help the multiverse!

Pretty in Pink

A character with a unique style

Luffy from the One Piece manga. That kid’s got Style, what with his straw hat and all.

The Karate Kid

Favourite book involving the training/mentoring trope

Way-farer by Dennis Schmidt. Jerome and the Old Man on the Mountain are absolutely perfect examples of this.

Die Hard

A book with a trip that doesn’t go as planned

The Color of Magic. Nothing on Discworld ever goes planned! 😀

Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark

A book with the central character’s name in the title

Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians. Great stuff!

Dirty Dancing

A female character who comes out of her shell

Anne Elliot from Jane Austen’s Persuasion. Best Austen story ever.

Top Gun

A death that took you by surprise

The drug addicted woman who is rescued by the main character and ends up being killed, thus propelling the entire story of Without Remorse by Tom Clancy.

E.T. The Extra Terrestrial

An ending that left you both happy and sad

The Crippled God, the final book in the Malazan Book of the Fallen series. I was happy it was over and was sad I had been forced to read t he whole thing to get an ending.

Target Zero (Agent Zero #2) ★★★☆☆

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, & Librarything by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: Target Zero
Series: Agent Zero #2
Authors: Jack Mars
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Thriller
Pages: 285
Words: 97.5K

Synopsis:

Kent Steele, aka Reid Lawson, aka Agent Zero, is trying to piece his life back together after the events of the last book. He hasn’t made a decision about returning to the CIA or not, his relationship with his oldest daughter is getting rocky as she is smart enough to realize things don’t add up and Lawson continues to get back old memories, all of which throw doubt on everything he thought he knew about himself and his wife.

A terrorist group weaponizes a small pox strain and it’s up to Agent Zero and his team to stop it. At the same time, the assassin from the previous book escapes and goes hunting after Zero’s daughter to use as bait.

Zero stops the plague from destroying the world but the book ends on a cliffhanging concerning his daughters and the assassin. We also find out there is yet another vast and worldwide conspiracy about “something”, again and that Zero’s current love interest might be involved.

My Thoughts:

This has some really nice action scenes, but there are a couple of jarring notes that I suspect will doom this series for me.

First, stupid actions by smart people to drive the plot on. For example, the team needs one of the terrorists alive to interrogate him (enhancedly if need be) but one of the other team members shoots him dead “because he might have been a threat”. Oh my goodness. These are supposed to be highly trained professionals but they act more like characters on a tv show, sigh.

Second, the family drama. Lawson has been hiding his secret identity as Zero all these years and it’s only NOW, in the worst imaginable time, that he begins to wonder how to deal with it? And he’s stymied by his 16 year old daughter? Should have thought of the future Mr Agent Man before getting married and trying to pretend to be normal. Once again, it came across as Hollywood’esque.

Thirdly, the liberal guilt tripping and gun hate. Every time Zero can’t save everyone in a situation, he starts bad talking himself and blaming himself. Now, guilt is a natural thing but the phrases used and the word choices are straight out of Liberal Guilt Tactics 101. The person doing the killing isn’t the bad guy, YOU are the badguy because you didn’t stop them. It is the most illogical and stupid piece of rhetoric and it makes me angry, because it is deliberately dishonest. The gun thing is all about Zero having memories of his wife finding one of his hidden safe guns (he had 11 around the house) and she totally trashes the very concept of gun ownership. Couple that with his daughter’s question about her learning to shoot after the incident in the previous book and Zero’s active avoidance to teach her, well, it left a bad taste in my mouth.

With all of that, the book was still really interesting. Like I said at first, the action is really good and that is what carried me through despite everything else I’ve mentioned. I’m going to read the next book but if any of those 3 things I mentioned above show up, I’ll be done. If I want to watch a tv show, with all the attendant weaknesses, I’ll go do that. I don’t need that in my books, thank you very much.

⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 3 out of 5.

• Agent Zero (Book 1)

The Eyes of the Shadow (The Shadow #2) ★★★☆☆

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPresss & Blogspot by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: The Eyes of the Shadow
Series: The Shadow #2
Authors: Maxwell Grant
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Crime Fiction
Pages: 171
Words: 51.5K

Synopsis:

From Thelivingshadow.fandom.com & me

MARKED TO DIE

Six prominent men were expecting a share in a glittering fortune. But, one by one, they were being brutally murdered. Until the Shadow discovered the plan—a plan so fiendish that only the twisted mind of a monster could have conceived it. The Shadow assumes the identity of Lamont Cranston to investigate the serial murders and stalwart Harry Vincent gets to play camper and act as bait. Justice is committed, Shadowstyle!

My Thoughts:

Another enjoyable entry in the Shadow series. I’ve got a bunch of omnibuses (omnibie?) of Shadow stories that come in sets of 5, so I’m guessing I’ll read a quintet each rotation and then take a couple of months off before adding another quintet back in. I can see myself easily burning out on these and I’d really rather take a few extra steps to prevent that as I am enjoying them.

These are beyond a shadow (ha, aren’t I clever?) of a doubt “pulp”. So if you know you don’t like pulp stories, then you can safely assume The Shadow isn’t going to work for you. If you know that you DO like pulp, you can’t automagically assume this will work for you, because this is as different from Conan or John Carter as you can get and yet both of those are pulp too. But chances are still better than even. If you like pulp and you like the 1920’s era and double pistols are your thing, then I’d say it’s a match made in heaven.

The Shadow has some sort of power to blend into “shadows” but it isn’t speculated upon or dwelt upon at all. Is it supernatural, is it a mutant power or is it just him being really, really, really good at hiding and disguises? Personally, my vote is that he drank a shot of bad russian vodka and it gave him superpowers. The other thing is that Lamont Cranston, a rich playboy that Bruce Wayne was modeled on, appears to be the Shadow’s alter-ego. But I’ve read enough stuff by Riders of Skaith to know that even that simple deduction isn’t so simple and weirdness is going to abound there too. Basically, I don’t try to figure anything out.

Bad guys do bad things. The Shadow investigates one way or another, his agents (his “eyes”) act on his behalf and there’s a lot of weird laughing going on in the shadows. Oh yeah, and the badguys get what’s coming to them. Or their henchmen do anyway. A really good badguy manages to get away.

I’ve been looking at various covers and man, this one rocks! I couldn’t find a really big version of it, but this was as big as I could find. Two-pistol’ing it baby!

⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 3 out of 5.

• The Living Shadow (Book 1)

Watch Duty (Bone #12) ★★★☆☆

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, & Librarything by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: Watch Duty
Series: Bone #12
Author: Jeff Smith
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Comics
Pages: 30
Words: 1K

Synopsis:

From Boneville.fandom.com

Fone Bone is reading Moby Dick for Thorn when Miz Possum comes by. She talks with them a bit, and then gives Fone Bone some roof putty for fixing the roof(which he eats), and goes to check on her children. Thorn and Fone Bone walk back to the farm in order to get home before dark. Thorn dicusses some of her dreams with Fone Bone, stating that she’s almost afraid to go to sleep at night. They see Phoney and Smiley along the way, trying to create a romantic dinner for chickens so he can get eggs to pay off his debts.

Meanwhile, the Two Rat Creatures have been in hiding for four days, and the quiche loving one is getting twitchy. Soon after, the two are discovered by Kingdok. However, due to Kingdok’s dislike of the villagers, Gran’ma Ben, and (ESPECIALLY) the cow races, he lets them live and rewards them with preskinned rabbits, and they faint in relief (or shock). Thorn falls asleep during night duty. She dreams that she is in Deren Gard as a little girl. She goes outside into a garden with a flute, and The Hooded One appears. Suddenly turning into a grown, queenlike woman, Thorn looks around for The Hooded One, and sees him in the forest. When The Hooded One takes off the hood, it shows a face belonging to Fone Bone, and tells Thorn to come to him. Right before they make contact, Thorn wakes up. A confused Thorn watches as Fone Bone dreams violently.

My Thoughts:

While not every issue has been filled with deep meaning and complex content, this was really the first issue where it “felt” like a filler issue. There was a couple of pages dealing with the two rat creatures who were hiding from King Dok (the rat creature king) and it was as much a puff piece as anything.

I was amused by Phoney’s newest scheme. Just goes to show how out of his depth he is. Giving 2 chickens a romantic dinner so one will lay more eggs. Only Phoney Bone would think of something so stupid 😀

⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 3 out of 5.

• All My “Bone” Reviews

The Beguiling (WH40K: Ciaphas Cain #1.7) ★★★☆☆

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 Beguiling
Series: WH40K: Ciaphas Cain #1.7
Authors: Sandy Mitchell
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF Short Story
Pages: 21
Words: 6K

Synopsis:

From The Black Library & Me

On Slawkenberg, Ciaphas Cain is a long way from the front lines and that’s precisely what he wanted. However, Chaos is present on Slawkenberg and Cain finds himself back in the firefight against his better judgement. And ends up almost being seduced by a vampire/agent of a chaos god.

My Thoughts:

Despite only giving these short stories 3stars (yeah, like 3stars is somehow bad, sigh. See, that’s how the culture creeps in and twists and warps your own value system, no matter how much you may rage and fight against it), I am thoroughly enjoying them. Most of them are collected in one single volume called Hero of the Imperium or something, but without another ground pounder Warhammer 40K series lined up after this, I have to admit that I am trying to stretch out my time with Cain.

And while I’m being brutally honest (because aren’t book reviews supposed to be full of pathos, drama and personal connections to make you think that I care about you? I obviously don’t, but I can play that game, watch me. Look me in the eye and tell me I don’t care about you. * ba-dump * That was your heart skipping a beat as we made eye contact and had “a moment”. Forget the Geico Lizard, I can do “fake connections” better than anyone), dang it, that fake connection totally made me forget what I was going to write. Wow, I am even better than I thought! Oh, oh, I remember! Ha, steeltrap McBookstooge they called me in ye olde countrye. I am totally making up the series numbers for the short stories. I have ZERO idea where any of them actually fit in with regards to the full novels, but in 10 years, I’m not going to care and in 1 day you’re probably not going to care either. So I’m not sweating it. If you’re sweating it, get a better antiperspirant. Mitchum, I’ve heard of that, so use it.

It was really weird to see vampires in a Warhammer 40K story. I’m so used to just tech and the chaos gods that all the other manifestations of them always take me by surprise. It is interesting how urban fantasy or straight up fantasy (orks anyone?) are woven into a far future story and presented as non-mystical.

With this short story I realized that I have read some of Mitchell’s Warhammer novels a couple of years ago (The Blood on the Reik trilogy) and sort of enjoyed them. So after I’m done Cain I might have to see what else Mitchell has written in the WH:40K universe as chances are decent that I’ll enjoy them.

If anyone reading this has read a bunch of Warhammer 40K and has some recommendations that are similar to either Gaunt’s Ghosts or Ciaphas Cain, please, let me know.

⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 3 out of 5.

• For The Emperor (Book 1)
• Fight or Flight (0.5 Short Story)
• Caves of Ice (Book 2)
• Sector Thirteen (0.6 Short Story)
• Echoes of the Tomb (1.5 Short Story)

Binstagramm - An International Craze

Apparently, Binstagramming is the next big social media craze. Thankfully, amongst the WP4, we have our own Binstagramm expert, one Alex Gooderer. With one post Alex set the internet ablaze. Before I knew it, people were Binstagramming left and right. Posts, comments, it was everywhere! The pressure was intense and before I knew it, I too was caught up in this craze that was sweeping the world.

So without further ado, here is my amateurish attempt at Binstagramming. Technically, it’s a Dumpstergramm, but in the spirit of brotherhood and inclusiveness, I’m calling it close enough.

Animate Wall - MTG 4th Edition