Bookstooge's Reviews On the Road

Sunday, July 30, 2023

The Terminal List (Terminal List #1) 3Stars

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Title: The Terminal List
Series: Terminal List #1
Author: Jack Carr
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Action/Adventure
Pages: 406
Words: 123K

This reminded me a LOT of Dalton Fury’s Delta Team series, in that it was very military detail oriented. It was also like a huge product placement ad. Any specific gear that Reece used, we knew the exact blabbbity blab detail and the brand. He didn’t just drink from a camelback, he drank from the XJ-33R-V2 Camelback. When Reece wore sunglasses, he wore the Bookstooge 3000 Avionic sunglasses. I know it wasn’t product placement, it was a mark of authenticity from one professional to another, as Carr is a former SEAL. But it felt like product placement.

I actually started to watch the tv show first, as it was a Prime Original and so Amazon was shoving down everyone’s throat. I think I made it through 2-3 episodes before I gave up because of the grey color overlay they used. One scene was in the middle of the day in California (when it should be bright and colors popping out like anything) and I felt like I was watching something from Twilight just before it was going to rain. There was no need for that directorial choice so I quit the show. In the show you don’t know if there is a conspiracy against Reece if he’s genuinely cracked up. There is no such issue in the book. The prologue shows Reece taking out one of the guys who gave him a brain tumor, killed his team mates and had his family killed. I was glad that tension wasn’t there like it was in the tv show.

Like I said at the beginning, this reminded me of Delta Team. And that’s why this only got 3 stars. Reece’s family dies horribly and the author brings in a potential love interest plus several other hot chicks. Now while I’ve never been a SEAL, nor has Mrs B ever been mowed down in a blaze of machine gun fire, I have to admit that I don’t think I’d be thinking about hot chicks just weeks after it happened. But that’s just me. Thankfully, it’s all just potential. Because I suspect it would be handled like Dalton Fury handled romance, which is to say badly.

Overall, I enjoyed this but it was a book written by a military man who hadn’t quite mastered the literary side of things yet. A very good debut effort. Reece survives the tumor so there is another book. I’ll read it and see what I think.

★★☆☆☆

From OfficialJackCarr.com

THIS IS A STORY OF REVENGE

A Navy SEAL has nothing left to live for and everything to kill for after he discovers that the American government is behind the deaths of his team in this ripped-from-the-headlines political thriller.

On his last combat deployment, Lieutenant Commander James Reece’s entire team was killed in a catastrophic ambush that also claimed the lives of the aircrew sent in to rescue them. But when those dearest to him are murdered on the day of his homecoming, Reece discovers that this was not an act of war by a foreign enemy but a conspiracy that runs to the highest levels of government.

Now, with no family and free from the military’s command structure, Reece applies the lessons that he’s learned in over a decade of constant warfare toward avenging the deaths of his family and teammates. With breathless pacing and relentless suspense, Reece ruthlessly targets his enemies in the upper echelons of power without regard for the laws of combat or the rule of law.

Saturday, July 29, 2023

A World Out of Time (The State #1) 2.5Stars

Title: A World Out of Time
Series: The State #1
Author: Larry Niven
Rating: 2.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 170
Words: 75K

The only reason I read this was because I plan on re-reading The Smoke Ring and The Integral Trees by Niven and somewhere or other I saw they belonged to a “series” called The State and that this was the first.

For the most part, I am ok with skipping most SF from the 70’s and this really exemplifies why. It is dry and boring as watching concrete dry. The ideas might be cool but the characters are ideas on a stick and have about as much life of their own as a Muppet without a hand up its fundament. Not really an auspicious start, that’s for sure.

Thankfully, I wasn’t expecting much as I’ve been very hit or miss with Niven over the years. Even with lowered expectations, I still had hope and sadly, while they weren’t dashed to the ground like Icarus, there was zero soaring into the heavens on wings of imagination. Poooh.

★★✬☆☆

From Wikipedia.org

Jerome Branch Corbell has incurable cancer and is cryogenically frozen in the year 1970 in the faint hope of a future cure. His body is revived in 2190 by an oppressive, totalitarian global government called “The State”. His personality and memories are extracted (destroying his body in the process) and transferred into the body of a mindwiped criminal. After awakening, he is continually evaluated by Peerssa, a “checker”, who has to decide whether he is worth keeping. With the threat of his own mindwiping looming, Corbell works hard to pass the various tests.

Peerssa decides that Corbell is a loner and born tourist, making him an ideal candidate to pilot a one-man Bussard ramjet, finding and seeding suitable planets as the first step to terraforming them. Discovering it is a one-way trip and disgusted with the State’s treatment of him as an expendable commodity, Corbell hijacks the ship and takes it to the center of the galaxy. (It was at this point that the original short story ended.)

Peerssa fails to talk him out of it. Peerssa and The State resort to subterfuge; an artificial intelligence program based on Peerssa’s personality is secretly transferred into the ship’s computer using the link with Earth. Though the Peerssa AI opposes the detour, it cannot disobey Corbell’s direct orders.

After a lengthy journey (including a close approach to the super-massive black hole at the galactic axis), possible only due to the suspended animation devices on board, Corbell returns to the solar system. Although only about 150 years have passed on the ship, three million years have elapsed on Earth, due to relativistic time dilation. At first, he is confused and initially believes they might have come to the wrong system because it has changed considerably; the Sun has apparently evolved into a red giant and what might be Earth is in orbit around a super-hot Jupiter. Having followed a message clearly from humans (warning not to visit other human-occupied star systems), and being too old to survive going anywhere else, Corbell puts the ship into orbit around what is surely the Earth.

The Earth’s climate has changed, especially its surface temperature; the poles are now temperate, while the former temperate zones reach temperatures of over 50 degrees Celsius (120+ degrees Fahrenheit). The Earth’s axial tilt is still 23.5 degrees so the poles experience 6 years of night and 6 years of day. Almost all remaining life on Earth has adapted to live in Antarctica. Elsewhere life is extinct except for some evidence of biological activity in the Himalayan mountains.

When Corbell lands (in a modified biological probe), he is captured by Mirelly-Lyra, who is also a returned star ship pilot and refugee from the past—though from Corbell’s (and Peerssa’s) future. She explains that the human species has fragmented; it is dominated by a race of immortal, permanently pre-adolescent males (the Boys), who are created by advanced medical techniques. Some time in the past, they had defeated the equally immortal (though now extinct) Girls, in the ultimate war of the sexes. The Boys have enslaved the dikta, who are unmodified humans (though they have evolved somewhat), from whom they take boys to replenish their ranks.

Mirelly-Lyra had initially been a captive toy of the Girls. After their downfall, she obsessively searched in vain for the lost adult-immortality treatment, extending her life as much as possible using her own drugs and a form of zero-time stasis while waiting for another returning star ship and potential help. Because she could not stop the aging process entirely, she is an old crone by the time she finds Corbell. He manages to escape from her, only to be caught by the Boys, who take him to a dikta settlement. Corbell finds out that the solar system was engineered into its new configuration by the Girls in order to move the Earth to a habitable distance from the enlarged Sun (caused by war with colonies), and that an orbital error caused Jupiter to overheat and triggered the war that killed the Girls. With Gording, the dikta leader, Corbell escapes once more.

Eventually, Corbell discovers the adult-immortality treatment, albeit by accident and only realizing it after he himself has been exposed to it. He uses it to enlist Mirelly-Lyra’s help, which in turn finally gives him full control of his ship’s technology (the hostile Peerssa has decided that the woman is the last survivor of the State and will only obey her). The planet Uranus has been discovered to have been maneuvered to pass by the Earth and adjust its orbit by Peerssa the AI. Corbell arranges for the Earth’s distance from the super-heated Jupiter to be adjusted by Peersa to lower the Earth’s temperature without destroying the plants and animals that have adapted to the extreme conditions.

As the novel closes, he is plotting to liberate the dikta and enable them to regain control of their own destiny.

– All of My Reviews for “Larry Niven”

Friday, July 28, 2023

A Gathering of Widowmakers (Widowmaker #4) 4Stars

Title: A Gathering of Widowmakers
Series: Widowmaker #4
Author: Mike Resnick
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 198
Words: 68K

Written seven years after the supposed end to the Widowmaker trilogy, Resnick handles it much better than he did with the sequel to Santiago.

It felt very 2 story line’ish. One was about the original Widowmaker teaching the newest Widowmaker a much needed lesson and the second was of all 3 Widowmakers fighting an outlaw who could multiply himself. They were semi-tied together but it came across more as 2 serialized stories being put together. The whole Widowmaker series IS pretty much a serial, so it wasn’t a big stretch but I just noticed it more this time around.

This pretty much completes my re-read of Resnick’s stuff that I enjoyed in the past, so what comes next will be all new to me. He’s got a 50% success rate, so I’m not expecting a lot. Just hoping I don’t get bored.

★★★★☆

From the Publisher

When every version of the most lethal bounty hunter in the universe comes out to play, you get three times the action from the Hugo and Nebula Award–winning author.

He may be retired from the bounty hunting game, but Jefferson Nighthawk is still one of the three most dangerous men alive. The other two? His clones.

Trained by Nighthawk himself, Jeff can take down men no one else can. His one flaw is his mind. Jeff can only see in black and white, which leads to him killing an innocent man—and shooting another version of himself.

That would be Jason Newman, the second clone, the one who gave Nighthawk the peaceful future he’s now enjoying. He may have a new face and a new name, but he’s Nighthawk through and through, with the brains and humanity to match. Which is how he winds up on the wrong end of Jeff’s burner. Now, Jason’s in the hospital waiting for his organs to regenerate.

To teach the impulsive Jeff a lesson, Nighthawk lures him to a lawless planet where the galaxy’s most wanted are there for the taking. And where Jeff will learn how to match wits with both of the killers who came before him . . .

Thursday, July 27, 2023

Asterix and the Great Crossing (Asterix #22) 4Stars

Title: Asterix and the Great Crossing
Series: Asterix #22
Authors: Goscinny & Uderzo
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre: Comics
Pages: 53
Words: 3K

Asterix and Obelix end up in America, where Obelix almost gets hitched to a fat indian girl. Then they escape by getting kidnapped by Vikings. Then they rescue a fellow Gaul and make it home. All for fresh fish.

This was just light and breezy and it fit my need exactly. I needed the silliness, the lightness to help me out of a bad mood. This was not particularly better than any previous book, nor was it as mediocre as some of them had been, but it hit me just right at just the right time and that is why I’m giving it 4 stars.

★★★★☆

From Wikipedia.org

Unhygienix has run out of fresh fish. Since his stock has to be transported from Lutetia (modern-day Paris), it will be some time before the next delivery of fish. However Getafix says he can’t wait since he needs some for his potion. Asterix and Obelix volunteer to resolve the issue by going fishing, to which end they borrow a boat from Geriatrix. After a storm, they get lost, but despite Obelix’s concerns, they do not reach the edge of the world; instead, following a brief encounter with the pirates, they arrive on an island (which the reader surmises is Manhattan Island) with delicious birds that the Gauls call “gobblers” (turkeys), bears and “Romans” with strange facial paintings (Native Americans).

Soon they earn the “Romans”‘ affection, but they decide to leave after the “centurion” chooses Obelix as his rather rubenesque daughter’s fiancé. They go to a small island (which the reader surmises is Liberty Island). Seeing a boat coming, Asterix climbs a cairn of rocks holding a torch and a book like the Statue of Liberty to attract it. The crew are anachronistic Norsemen (with names like Herendethelessen, Steptøånssen, Nøgøødreåssen, Håråldwilssen, Irmgard, Firegård, and their Great Dane, Huntingseåssen) – who managed a Pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact and take the Gauls, who they thought to be the local natives, to their homeland as proof that there are continents beyond Europe.

The Gauls wanting to return home, and the Vikings’ eagerness to prove their story of a new world, results in a trip back to Europe to the Vikings’ homeland. The Vikings’ chief, Ødiuscomparissen, greets them and is skeptical of their stories, until he sees the Gauls. They plan a celebration, then attempt to sacrifice the “natives”, much to the chagrin of the other Vikings (“Why? They haven’t done anything!”).

Before this can be carried out, a Gaulish prisoner called Catastrofix, who can understand both Gallic and Norse, stirs up Ødiuscomparissen’s suspicion that Herendethelessen is a liar, causing a fight between the Norsemen with the assumption that Herendethelessen has simply gone to Gaul rather than to a new world. Meanwhile, the Gauls escape. This escape is conducive to their original purpose, since Catastrofix is a fisherman and hence able to procure some fish for the magic potion. Unhygenix, however, prefers the scent of his own stock; a preference that explains why his product is such a delicate topic.

All of My “Asterix” Reviews

Wednesday, July 26, 2023

Alive and Screaming 3Stars

Title: Alive and Screaming
Series: ———-
Editor: Alfred Hitchcock
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Crime Fiction
Pages: 163
Words: 61K

There are times when I read this Hitchcock collections that I get really jazzed up. Other times, I simply sit back and enjoy the ride. My experience with this book was of the latter.

I enjoyed this while reading it but honestly, not a single story stood out. Even now, 2 weeks after I’ve read it, I couldn’t tell you from memory any of the storylines. It wasn’t that they were bad, they just “were”.

It’s like drinking a caramel latte. In and of themselves, they are just good. But sometimes you get that little “extra” something that makes it better and you remember those and wish that you could get that particular barista to make your caramel latte’s forever. But that doesn’t happen and you still enjoy the latte the next day. But after years of drinking them, it all kind of blends together in your mind. Except the bad ones or the REALLY good ones. That doesn’t mean you are dissatisfied with your daily latte though.

I guess my point is that this book was a caramel latte and Hitchcock would have been even fatter if he’d had caramel latte’s to drink back when he was alive. So here’s to looking at you kid.
~sips~

★★★✬☆

Table of Contents:

The Hand from the Past—CHRISTOPHER ANVIL

The Confident Killer—TALMAGE POWELL

The Blue Man—WENZELL BROWN

The Murderess—MAX VAN DER VEER

Light o’ Love—FLETCHER FLORA

Positive Print—RICHARD DEMING

A Weighty Promotion—BRUCE HUNSBERGER

Death, the Black-eyed Denominator—ED LACY

Beware the Righteous Man—DICK ELLIS

A Message from Marsha—JAMES HOLDING

Seven Million Suspects—FRANKLIN M. DAVIS, JR.

Heaven is a Frame of Mind—RICHARD HARDWICK

The Eye of the Pigeon—EDWARD D. HOCH

The Tuesday Club—C. B. GILFORD

All of My “Alfred Hitchcock” Reviews

Monday, July 24, 2023

Clockwork Beast - MTG 4th Edition

Sunday, July 23, 2023

Sunset at Blandings (Blandings Castle #12) 3Stars

Title: Sunset at Blandings
Series: Blandings Castle #12
Authors: PG Wodehouse
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Humor
Pages: 189
Words: 54K

This was the final Blandings Castle novel. Unfortunately, and I didn’t know this going in, it is an unfinished novel because Wodehouse died in the middle of writing it. He was in his 90’s and had failing health. So that’s no surprise really.

So the story just abruptly ends. Some toff decides that he’s going to write all about Wodehouse and talk about the notes he left behind and his style and pretty much shove his nose as far up Wodehouse’s corpse as he can. That’s the rest of the book. Probably would be a treasure trove if you’re the kind of person who likes knowing all about authors and stuff. I quit after about 5 pages of the nonsense.

Technically then, this would have been a dnf, but since I didn’t dnf the story part or anything by Wodehouse, I feel justified in not putting this on the dnf list. Especially since there was no indication on the cover that this wasn’t a complete novel. I upheld my end of the bargain and Mr Doofus Toffer didn’t keep his. Not really the way I was hoping to end my time of reading Wodehouse.

★★★☆☆

From Wikipedia:

The story is another tale set at Blandings Castle, filled as ever with romance and imposters. Galahad Threepwood uses his charm and wit to ensure his brother Clarence continues to lead a quiet and peaceful life.