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 Unconquered Series: Conan the Barbarian Author: Robert Jordan Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars Genre: Fantasy Pages: 207 Words: 72K
From Wikipedia:
An evil sorcerer Jhandar wishes to raise an army of undead slaves, and his meddling with chaos brings him into conflict with Conan, who must battle his deadly ninja henchmen who can kill with a touch, and retrieve a weapon from a dent in reality created by the sorcerer’s earlier botched experiments. A whirlwind of adventure ensures.
Conan sleeps with all the wimenz and killz all the sorcererz (but there is only one). So he can haz a cheezeburger now. I’ve gone ahead and injected it with penicillin though because you don’t sleep around that much without catching an std after all.
All silliness aside, this was a good jaunt as Conan fights another sorcerer and goes to a blasted land and fights some nefarious creature there too. Secret Kung-Fu masters are involved but Conan doesn’t care and stabs them to death. Take that Morpheus! I enjoyed this just a bit more than the two previous Conan stories by Jordan and I think that is because of the lack of women main characters in this story. In a sword and sorcery story, I want the hero, his sidekick/s, the babes and the badguy/s. And that is exactly what I got this time around.
While I don’t want a book diet exclusively composed of this pulp, having it on a regular basis means I don’t crave it. It also allows me to appreciate the finer works that I read when I do read them. Like Groo the Wanderer! Hahahahahahaha 😉
Holy smokes, my journaling has taken off like a rocketship. I took a year to fill up my 15th journal, 8-9 months to fill up the 16th and a mere 4 months (technically a week less) for the 17th. Thankfully, Mrs B saw my increased usage and took the preventative action of buying me a backup for Christmas. And I started it today.
I love my journals. Just in case you couldn’t tell 😀
And next week? I’ve got more journals. Paperblanks had a sale and I was weak. I crave your forgiveness ahead of time, gomen nasai!
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: Stories To Stay Awake By Series: ———- Editor: Alfred Hitchcock Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars Genre: Crime Fiction Pages: 198 Words: 78K
Table of Contents: Introduction by Alfred Hitchcock (ghost written)
Success of a Mission by William Arden
The Splintered Monday by Charlotte Armstrong
Death by Judicial Hanging by Francis Beeding
Floral Tribute by Robert Bloch
Red Wine by Lawrence G. Blochman
Canavan’s Back Yard by Joseph Payne Brennan
A Murderous Slice by Marguerite Dickinson
The New Deal by Charles Einstein
Boomerang by Guy Fleming
Sleep is the Enemy by Anthony Gilbert
The Second Coming by Joe Gores
From the Mouse to the Hawk by Dion Henderson
Letter to the Editor by Morris Hershman
The Spy Who Came to the Brink by Edward D. Hoch
Second Talent by James Holding
The Ohio Love Sculpture by Adobe James
Homicide House by Day Keene
Every story here revolves around somebody dying or being killed or being a killer. I found them linked thematically quite well and they didn’t seem like random stories just lumped together.
I really liked the final story, Homicide House by Day Keene. As soon as the narrator revealed that he was bricking up the body of his murdered wife, I knew exactly where the story was going to end and it was ghoulishly delightful to watch as the story went down the path I had predicted.
This book was originally released in hardback with 35 stories and then later on was released in two paperbacks with each containing half the stories. The second paperback was called More Stories To Stay Awake By but I haven’t been able to track down an ebook version, not even a pdf scan, so I will probably not be able to read the other 18 stories from the original. What a shame.
Back in November, I blogged about reading my Freshman Journal. Since that time I have made my way through my Junior Year from Bibleschool (it was a three year course so you had freshman, juniors and seniors). It was as tough as I thought it would be.
I came into contact with a couple of people that I absolutely could not stand and with it being a closed campus, there was no getting away from them. So I had to learn, quickly, how to deal with people whose very existence annoyed me. Them breathing the same air, in the same building as me, was enough to rile me up. So I learned some survival skills without even realizing it. I didn’t know I was an introvert’s introvert. I didn’t realize I needed alone time and time away from people. So I threw myself into everything I could, with all the gusto I could and ended up having some really miserable times.
I also had some fantastically wonderful times too. A local secular college would put on Selections from Handel’s “Messiah” every year and would hire 4 professionals for the solo parts and it was a joy to listen to. Nearly the first, and close to the last, time that music really moved me on a deep, visceral level. I also went hiking up a mountain one winter’s day and while looking back, that was incredibly stupid (I told no one where I was going, no cell phones, no real worst case scenario gear), it was also a time of solitude and balm for my soul that I still remember to this day.
Reading along I realized that in ’99 was when I was introduced to Land Surveying. My (future) boss came over and taught us some of the math and told us anyone who was interested could keep on going. So my friend and I worked on the math and experimented with some of the equipment. I had forgotten I had started this before graduation. And that summer I worked for him until college started back up in the fall. Good stuff!
Of course, one of the miserable things I alluded to above was that I had to deal with the reality of a broken heart and someone’s interest moving away from me. Between that and learning to exist alongside people I couldn’t stand, I did a lot of growing up in ’98 and ’99. Not by choice, but considering my personality, that was about the only way it would have happened.
My writing also took off during this time period. Besides my regular journal, I began keeping a notebook with meeting and sermon notes (long since lost) and I started a Happy Book where I noted 5 things every day that made me happy. That didn’t last too long, hahahaha. It soon turned into a heart broken sob journal where I could pretty much record how much I hurt every single day. Sigh, to be that young again. I also wrote a lot of emails and referenced them in my journal too, not realizing that I was entering a phase where I treated emails like disposable napkins. I think in this year of school I went through 3 or 4 with various companies? I even wrote down a couple of passwords. I tried to see if they were still active, but either I had changed the password at some later date or I had deleted the address altogether. It was a fun time though because I was exploring all that life had to offer me at the time.
Wow, this has gone on longer than I thought. I would sum up that year as one of forced growth that was ultimately the best thing for me. My character, not exactly jello even at this point, was further cemented into the mold that shapes me even today.
I chose not to include a particular quote like I did last year because either the day was utterly banal or so intensely personal. I had no middle ground at that time and it has taken me these 3 months to read through it. This is why I journaled though, I didn’t want to forget the times that formed me into the man I am today. I hope to talk more about that idea next Saturday when I do another post about why I still paper journal.
ps, Apparently I have not created a “journal” tag yet. I have corrected that with this post and now I have to go through my previous entries and add it to the correct ones. Man, being a blogger is tough and definitely not for the faint hearted.
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
Lord Emsworth, his brother Galahad and butler Beach, hearing that devious neighbour Sir Gregory Parsloe-Parsloe has done the unthinkable and brought in a new and enormous pig from Kent, are in turmoil. Galahad and Beach are desperate to secure their savings, confidently invested in a wager on the mighty Empress, while Emsworth is as ever suspicious of his gloating neighbour.
Parsloe, meanwhile, is regretting becoming engaged to Gloria Salt, who has put him on a diet. His suspicions of Galahad lead him to put his pig man, George Cyril Wellbeloved, on a drink-ban too, a move of which Wellbeloved wholeheartedly disapproves; he also, on Connie’s advice, orders a large quantity of “Slimmo”, a slimming product, to aid his diet. Hearing about this suspicious purchase, a worried Galahad calls in Beach’s niece Maudie, an old acquaintance and now proprietor of a Detective Agency, to keep an eye on things.
Penelope Donaldson heads up to London for the day, planning to meet up with her man, under cover of a dinner with an old friend of her father’s. Jerry Vail, however, is forced to entertain his old flame Gloria Salt and cancels the date. Salt tells him Emsworth needs a secretary, and suggests talking pig to the Earl will get him the cash he needs to buy into a health farm and make his fortune.
Vail heads to Blandings, but Connie is suspicious, having heard his name when he called to cancel his date with Penny. Penny is furious, having been taken to Mario’s by Orlo Vosper and seen Jerry with the attractive Gloria. When Jerry explains, she is suitably chastised, especially as, thinking her man had betrayed her, she had accepted Vosper’s proposal of marriage.
When Wellbeloved visits Blandings to ask Gally to provide him with a drink (all the pubs in Market Blandings having been forbidden to serve him), Gally takes the opportunity to snatch Parsloe’s pig, stashing it in the hut in the West Wood. Wellbeloved, finding the pig gone, nabs the Empress and puts her in the pen at Parsloe’s place to cover up.
Vosper and Gloria Salt, their old love revived, run off together to be married, after Gally helps Vosper get out of being engaged to Penny, and Gloria writes to Parsloe ending their engagement. Wellbeloved spots Beach furtively heading for the shed, but his call to tell Parsloe of his discovery is intercepted by Gally, who has Beach move the pig to a nearby house, recently vacated by Gally’s old friend “Fruity” Biffen.
Meanwhile, Emsworth, stricken with a cold, has been smitten by Maudie (posing as Mr Donaldson’s old friend Mrs Bunbury), and writes a letter to her declaring his love, which he has Vail place in her room. She, meanwhile, pays a visit to Parsloe, with whom she once had an understanding, planning to give him a piece of her mind, but all is soon cleared up and the two become engaged. Emsworth, on hearing this, sends Vail to retrieve his letter, but has misdirected him into Connie’s room; on finding Vail hiding in her closet, she promptly fires him.
Finding the Emsworth Arms uncomfortable, Vail lets the cottage with the pig in it. Fearing he will give the game away, Gally dashes round, but Vail has already been visited by a policeman and Wellbeloved. Gally removes the pig by car, but soon returns, having found the Empress in the Queen’s sty. They head back to Blandings to tell Emsworth, leaving Beach, exhausted from cycling over, sleeping in the cottage. On their return, Parsloe is there, having been told by Wellbeloved that the Queen was in the kitchen and had Beach arrested for stealing his pig.
Gally explains to Parsloe that the Empress is in the kitchen, and the Queen in her sty, scuppering Parsloe. He then persuades Emsworth to invest in Vail’s health farm, in gratitude for having found the pig, and Connie gives him another £500 for Beach, to prevent him suing Parsloe for wrongful arrest. Meanwhile, Parsloe’s butler Binstead, having been refused a refund on the Slimmo no longer needed by his master, feeds it to the pig in the sty, thinking she is still the Empress…
This was just the right book at the right time for me. I’m pretty sure this was not any funnier than the previous Blandings Castle stories, but I really needed something light, fluffy and downright stupid and that pretty much sums up Blandings Castle in a nutshell.
I mean, two rich guys biggest worry is whose pig is the fattest. How can you not laugh at that? 😀
