Bookstooge's Reviews On the Road

Sunday, July 02, 2023

Conan the Destroyer (Conan the Barbarian) 3Stars

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Title: Conan the Destroyer
Series: Conan the Barbarian
Author: Robert Jordan
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 170
Words: 57K

This was the novelization of the 1984 movie Conan the Destroyer. I had no idea until I went to google the synopsis. It also went a long way towards explaining why this felt like a second part of a story. Conan is constantly thinking about some woman he made a promise too and blah blah blah history history history. It made me wonder if Jordan had written another Conan book that I wasn’t aware of and needed to get to. But this revelation about the movie suddenly makes it all make sense.

But if I had never googled, I could never have told you this was a novelization. It read exactly like a pulp and all the previous Conan books by Jordan. To be honest, that’s a big positive in my books. Most novelizations are dry and lacking in artistic literary flair. Not this one.

My only quibble is the artifact this time, the Heart of Ahriman. I swear that has been used in another Conan novel. And ha, it has been, twice. First time I read about the heart of Ahriman was in Hour of the Dragon, an original Conan novel by Howard himself. The second time was in Conan and the Manhunters by John Maddox Roberts. What a wealth of useless knowledge I am! So yeah, it’s a MacGuffin and it didn’t work so hot for me.

Other than that, this was a typical Sword and Sorcery Conan adventure. You know what you’re getting and if you don’t like it, it’s your fault for reading this genre and character in the first place.

★★★☆☆

From Wikipedia.org

Queen Taramis of Shadizar promises to bring Conan’s lost love Valeria back to life if the Cimmerian will procure two magical items that she hopes will gain her ultimate power, a wizard’s gem and a horn that can awaken the dreaming god Dagoth. He undertakes the quest together with his thief partner Malak and Taramis’ niece Jehnna and henchman Bombaata. On their journey they are joined by two additional allies whom Conan saves from dire fates; the magician Akiro and the female warrior Zula. At their goal, the castle of the wizard Amon-Rama, Jehnna is kidnapped. Thanks to Akiro’s magic she is located in Amon-Rama’s lair and a way in is discovered. Inside, Conan is separated from the others and forced to battle a Man-Ape in a hall of mirrors, which he is only able to defeat by destroying the mirrors. He also mortally wounds the wizard, who is hiding behind one of them. Jehnna, who is the only person who can safely handle the wizard’s gem, retrieves the first magical item.

Afterward, the group beats off an attack by Corinthian soldiers and continues on to the fortress that holds the horn. It is retrieved at the cost of a battle with its Dagoth-worshipping keepers, whose leader Akiro defeats in a sorcerous duel. Bombaata and Jehnna escape through a tunnel, which the former closes to the others by starting a landslide. Back at Taramis’ palace, the queen conducts a ritual to awaken Dagoth that entails the placing of the horn on the forehead of the sleeping deity, and ultimately the sacrifice of Jehnna. Conan, Akiro, and Zula, having survived the landslide, interrupt the proceedings.

Conan fights and defeats Bombaata while Zula rescues Jehnna. In the absence of the sacrifice, Dagoth is an uncontrollable monster on his revival, eating Taramis and threatening the destruction of everything else. On the advice of Akiro, Conan rips the horn from Dagoth’s forehead, and the creature finally falls. In the aftermath, Jehnna succeeds to the throne of Shadazar and takes Zula, Akiro, and Malak as advisors. She offers Conan her hand and a place at her side as king, but the Cimmerian prefers to win his own kingdom.

Saturday, July 01, 2023

Having a Dickens of a Time!

I am currently working on my Author Index. It is going extremely well. I started at Z and am currently working my way through the D’s. Specifically, I am dealing with Charles Dickens right now. I have 56 reviews for that man. And I have to go through and find each post and see if it has the Dickens tag and if not, add it.

I was wondering, why do I do this to myself? And I realized that if I wasn’t doing this, I’d be doing something similar and complaining about that too 😀 I am just an organizational freak and I need to accept that fact. Whatever my current hobby is, I’m organizing it. When I was playing Magic the Gathering, I had all sorts of ways to organize those cards. I eventually gave up because 15,000 cards were simply too much for me. At least all my reviews are now electronic so I can deal with them a bit easier.

Despite my complaining, I am enjoying myself immensely. Which is why I am complaining. I just can’t enjoy something fully unless I’m miserable about it. Yeah, I rolled my eyes at myself too, but hey, that’s just how I’m wired so I’m learning to roll with it. So join me in celebrating by being miserable with me, hahahahaha! Dickens for the win!

Friday, June 30, 2023

June '23 Roundup & Ramblings

Raw Data:

Novels – 15 ↓

Short Stories – 0 ↓

Manga/Graphic Novels – 3 ↓

Comics – 3 ↓

Average Rating – 3.29 ↓

Pages = 4337 ↓

Words – 1256K ↓

The Bad:

No Game for Knights – 1star dnf for the usual reasons, sigh

One Piece #41 – 1.5stars of annoying me with flashbacks and not moving the story forward

The Good:

Forge of the High Mage – 4stars of continuing Malaz coolness

The Castle of Llyr– 5stars of Prydain staying at top form

Movie:

Shrek 4 was a silly, but still enjoyable for me, end to the franchise. We can only hope it stays the final movie.

Miscellaneous Posts:

Personal:

I’ll start with the easy stuff.

We got an intern for the summer. Which means a new meat bag to grind up. It was my privilege to do the grinding this time and that meant I was back to working 45+hrs a week instead of 40. Which is wonderful for the paycheck.

We really needed it. We had to buy a new mattress because our previous one was from ’06. Mattresses cost a lot more than they used to, that is a stone cold fact! Plus, the first mattress we bought ended up giving both of us back pain and bad dreams (it was simply too firm), so we’re in the process of exchanging it for another that is a good bit softer.

We also found out that we need to replace a couple of windows in our condo because of frame rot, so that is going to be a bundle too. So everything I’m earning by getting overtime is already being spent before I’ve earned it. I just hope our cars don’t break down.

So because of my extra working time, my reading time dropped. It is probably going to stay that way through August. That lack of reading time is really going to take care of my problem about posting so much. So no need for an extra blog or to come up with some other convoluted solution. As one wise commenter said (even though I think they were being snarky) “Post less”. Sometimes the simplest solutions are the best.

Now for the not so easy (for me) stuff.

My eye. It continued to be effected for most of the month. On the 21st the Doctor decided that it WAS getting better and thus surgery (slicing and dicing kind of eye surgery) wasn’t necessary and that the regular treatments of laser cauterizations and chemical injections were still the order of the day. You have no idea the weight that was taken off of my shoulders with that decision.

There were 1 or 2 blogging things that revolved around people that got me down too. Any other month I probably would have just shrugged it off, but with the potential bills piling up, my eye still not working correctly and being tired from crew chief’ing at work, I just didn’t have the buffer to deal with things. It hit me a lot harder emotionally than normal. While reading is my main personal hobby, blogging is my main social outlet and I rely on it a lot more than I care to admit sometimes. My need for people isn’t great, but it is intense. I am much more akin to the SS Minnow than I am to the USS Destroyer and so even little waves can swamp me.

Cover Love:

Strange Company takes the award for Cover Love easily. While I didn’t like the book (2stars and I felt like I was being generous), that cover is just awesome.

Plans for Next Month:

Well, July is going to be a very different month in terms of blogging. I didn’t post quite so much in June as I did in May. That trajectory is going to be continuing, but more deliberately. I have one more One Piece review for July and then I’m taking a break from manga. I really need it. Not just different manga, but a cessation from it. I’ll still be reading my comics though. So starting the second week in July Tuesdays are going to be left open. Not for “extra” posts but just as a blank space so I don’t feel pressured.

I am leaving Saturday and Sunday’s open for misc posts and if one of those days come up and I haven’t written anything, that’ll be another blank day. I just don’t expect to be around the blogosphere quite as much in July. Not on my blog anyway. I’m still going to haunt yours and threaten you all with a strontium bat studded with depleted uranium nails.

I am going to be starting some of the X-Men movies as my next movie review series. I’ll do the original trilogy and probably the Wolverine trilogy. Remind me of when Superhero movies were still fun :-/

I have started the process to get my site indexed fully by Google. It is going to be a massive undertaking and is going to be one of those misc projects I have going on in the background for the next couple of years. None of you should notice anything though. Except my ego getting even bigger as I finally get the google recognition I know I deserve 😉

Thursday, June 29, 2023

Fullmetal Alchemist #10 4Stars

Title: Fullmetal Alchemist #10
Series: Fullmetal Alchemist
Author: Hiromu Arakawa
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre: Manga
Pages: 188
Words: 9K

Oh yeah!!!! THIS is how the series should have been going all along. Non-stop action with talk’y bits to explain stuff, but it is all on topic! Every single thing advanced the story line and I wasn’t having my chained yanked with stupid kids running around an abandoned city playing pranks or other such crap. Lust appears to be killed. For real. Now, whether she stays dead or whatever I have no idea, but Roy Mustang destroyed the philosophers stone that was her heart, so I hope she’s dead for good.

We found out for sure that the creator of the homunculi is Big Daddy Elric. He unplugs himself from a massive machine and goes to his house where Edward meets him at the end of the volume. More mentions are made of the “human sacrifice” needed and Edward comes across a country that was destroyed in one day. He finds a wall carving that looks very similar to alchemical circles but slightly different. My guess is that the leaders of the country opened the Big Scary Door and it destroyed their country. We’ll see.

Now, the humor wasn’t lacking in this issue. It was just saved for the “extras” at the end, where it belongs! I laughed my head off.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/0mqfgtr8ksn08kd/fma10-1.jpg

★★★★☆

From FMA.fandom.com

Chapter 38: Signal to Strike

Chapter 39: Complications at Central

Chapter 40: Philosopher from the West

Chapter 41: On the Palm of an Arrogant Human Being

“Barry the Chopper, the psychopathic killer whose soul is encased in a suit of armor, has been captured by Colonel Mustang’s troops. Fearing he will reveal the Philosopher’s Stone conspiracy, Gluttony and Lust decide to kill him, using Barry’s own original soulless body to track him down! Though Colonel Mustang has anticipated their moves and set up an ambush, Gluttony and Lust prove too powerful and easily fight their way through to Barry, who is being protected by Al and Lieutenant Hawkeye. In a terrible battle, a badly injured Colonel Mustang sacrifices all in a last-ditch attempt to stop Lust!”

All My “Fullmetal Alchemist” Reviews

Wednesday, June 28, 2023

Strange Company (Strange Company #1) 2Stars

Title: Strange Company
Series: Strange Company #1
Author: Nick Cole
Rating: 2 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 419
Words: 150K

~huff~ Well then. When I was reading the Forgotten Ruin series, I wondered which author to blame for the style it was written in, Jason Anspach or Nick Cole. This book answered that in spades. It fell squarely on Nick Cole’s shoulders. It was all his fault and this book was completely his fault, as he was sole author here.

Let me be clear. This was not badly written. It was not poorly executed. But it was written in a style that I detest and in a manner that I’ll only read over my own dead body from here on out. Much like Solzhenitsyn’s Experiment, this was my own Literary Experiment in Masochism. It was a complete success. Or failure, if you’re a normal person.

And that cover? I love that cover. A lot! If the book had been even 1/10th as awesome, well, it would have been awesome. Pooh.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/08u0vof3dao6yts/strangecompany.jpg

This was some SF space version of Forgotten Ruin. We have our narrator who tells us everything except that cool action’y stuff we want to read about. Do you want to know the big secret lie that the nigh immortal rulers of the galaxy have been hiding and is about to be divulged to Strange Company? Too bad. You get the story of why a kid joined Strange Company. Who promptly dies on the next page. Now is that awesome or what? And can I get a “please repeat that gung-ho military as many times as possible please” while I’m at it? I can? Fantastic. Nothing is more awesome than a catch phrase used ad nauseum.

This has confirmed to me that Jason Anspach is the storyteller behind the Galaxy’s Edge duo and that Nick Cole is whatever he is. It also has shown me that if I start a new series by them and I don’t like the first book, that series will never change and I will never end up liking it. That’s not a bad thing to learn.

There is a second book, but I would rather cut my own throat with a rusty spoon, scoop out my esophagus with said spoon and then eat it than read that second book. Nick Cole gets no more chances from me.

★★☆☆☆

From the Publisher

Stack bodies, get paid, get to the ship.

“If you can survive Reaper Platoon in the Strange, then Ghost or Dog Platoons will get you for their own. Best to steer clear of the freaks in Voodoo, kid.”

Surrounded and outgunned, a group of private military contractors known as “Strange Company” find themselves on a remote planet at the edge of known space, and on the losing end of a bad contract. Orbital D-beam strikes, dropships bristling with auto-guns, missiles, and troops – even Monarch space marines in state-of-the-art advanced battle rattle – will try to prevent the company from reaching the exfil LZ and getting off-world.

For Strange, that means it’s time to hang tough and get it on with as much hyper-kinetic violence as they can muster to get clear of the whole mess. And what the Strange can’t get done by violent assault and crazy firefights, they’ll get done by the freaks of Voodoo Platoon – operators who have been changed by the Dark Labs into powerful and unnervingly unnatural asymmetrical weapons.

This is the Strange Company. Because in the Strange, it’s always really Strange. Join them – and get ready for full auto combat at the furthest limits of human exploration

All of My “Nick Cole” Reviews

Tuesday, June 27, 2023

The Greater Good (WH40K: Ciaphas Cain #9) 3.5Stars

Title: The Greater Good
Series: WH40K: Ciaphas Cain #9
Authors: Sandy Mitchell
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 307
Words: 102K

First off, that supposed synopsis from the Lexicanum is just the cover blurb and it is pathetic. I have no idea why some Cain fan hasn’t written an indepth synopsis seven pages long. I mean, this book came out in 2013, that’s been a whole decade for some basement dweller to get bored enough to do that. Come on guys, you’re letting me down here!

While the alien Tau are touted (their whole culture relies on the principle of The Greater Good), they don’t actually have much to do with the novel itself. One of them goes along with Cain as a political liason when Humanity fights a boatload of Tyranids, but that’s it. I was hoping for a whole novel of Cain and some guard units fighting them.

Instead, we get some ultra-stupid Cogboys (the Adeptus Mechanicus) and Ultra-Marines who think they can experiment on the tyranids in safety. Of course, whenever someone makes a dumb decision about the gene-stealing tyranids, that is a big fat sign that someone has been infected by them. And surprise, surprise (no it actually isn’t!), the head cog-girl was infected from some other time. So the planet is not only being invaded by tyranids from space, but it is also being potentially over-run by others already on the planet. What a mess. Cain is able to get everyone to work together and kill so many tyranids that I lost count and hurray and frabjous joy, The Imperium of Man pulls a win out of its collective backside.

This was fun to read. There is no shortage of action, tons of bolter blasting by the ultra-marines, tons of Cain cutting up tyranids with his chainsword and plenty of his aid Jurgen stinking up every room he goes into. In short, this was a perfect Ciaphas Cain novel. Since the last CC book, I have managed to track down the last CC novel so I’ll be reading that next. Then I have a book of short stories about various Tau characters and then I’ll take a break from Warhammer 40,000 until next year.

For various reasons, I have decided to put the ‘synopsis’ part down below. This will be my new SOP for reviews from here on out. End Report
~ Commissar Bookstooge

★★★✬☆

From Wh40k.lexicanum.com

When the world of Quadravidia comes under attack by the insidious tau, only one man can defeat the aliens and save the planet in the Emperor’s name: the legendary Hero of the Imperium, Commissar Ciaphas Cain. When the aliens call for a ceasefire, Cain expects the worst, and his fears are answered in the form of the dread menace of the tyranids. As a hive fleet approaches Quadravidia, Cain must try to forge an alliance between the Imperium and the tau – but can he truly trust the inscrutable xenos?

All My “Ciaphas Cain” Reviews