A Subtle Agency (The Metaframe War #1) 3Stars

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: A Subtle Agency
Series: The Metaframe War #1
Author: Graeme Rodaughan
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Pages: 212
Words: 84K

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When I featured this series in a Shelf Control post, I was under the impression that the final book was coming out this year. I later found out it had been released at the end of ‘23. That decided me right away and I added the series to my kindle to read. Waiting seven years for the series to be written was long enough in my opinion.

Unfortunately, for me, it didn’t start out so well. I featured a quote in a Currently Reading post and it was pretty much the epitome of an indie urban fantasy and it encapsulated every single reason why I tend to avoid UF as a genre. Thankfully, for the book and author, things did improve after that disastrous start, but it never truly recovered in my mind.

The writing was decent, nothing bad stood out, no egregious grammatical errors or butchering of the English language. At the same time, it wasn’t very good writing either. It didn’t flow. It was choppy. There were quite a few instances of “He said, she said, he did, she did” kind of writing. Rodaughan came across as an author who was working hard to do the right thing, but was someone who didn’t have an instinctual grasp of the art of writing. “General Chloe Armitage” made a lot of appearances, with that title attached every time.

The ideas presented were what saved this book. Things start off in Ancient Egypt, with two brothers. The wife of one of them has just died and he is using the power of the Metaframe Engine to bring her back to life. His brother is trying to stop him. She is revived, as a vampire and thus the race of vampires is born and the hidden course of history is set. The surviving brother starts a hidden group bent on fighting the vampires to keep humanity free. That group, over the years, has schismed into two groups, one that wants to fight the vampires and protect humanity and the other, which just wants to fight the vampires. Oh, the vampires secretly rule the world too. We get to follow a possible “Chosen One” on his “Coming of Age Journey”. All tropes that I really enjoy.

I definitely plan on continuing the series and hope that as the years passed for the author, that his skill increased. I guess I’ll be finding out in the coming months 😀

★★★☆☆

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From the Publisher

Synopsis – Click to Open

ACTION STATIONS! A Thrilling Suspense-Filled Fantasy Action Adventure in a complete series of seven books.

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.

“Imagine if you could change the rules of the game, what rules would you choose?”

Witness to a brutal murder, eighteen year old Anton Slayne is inducted by the mysterious Mr Wu into the secret society of vampire hunters, the Order of Thoth. He soon discovers that vicious local gangsters, determined Boston Police Detectives, and relentless Shadowstone operatives pale into insignificance as he is drawn into the machinations of the enigmatic vampire general, Chloe Armitage.

Heir to a legacy of extraordinary powers, Anton joins a team of hunters, but that is no guarantee of survival against the most powerful vampires in the world, especially when they’re equipped with the latest available technology and super weapons.

Earthquake - MTG 4E

Dune: Part 2 (2023 Movie)

When I watched Dune Part I, I knew the director Villeneuve was taking liberties with the story but didn’t mind that much. So going into Part II, I knew he would continue to make changes and I mentally and emotionally prepared myself. And it was good that I did, because there were some significant changes from the book.

• Paul and Chani never had their first son, so he was never killed by Rabban.
• Alia, Paul’s preborn sister, was not born in this movie. She was totally in-vitro the entire time. So she never killed the Baron. That fell to Paul.
• Chani was a fremen warrior and nothing else. She was not the protege of Lady Jessica, a Wise Woman in training.
• Paul’s transformation into Muad’dib was very understated. His visions were ones of billions starving, instead of a monstrous galaxy wide jihad where billions were killed. His prescient sight was almost non-existent.

I could live with those changes. I didn’t care for them and I thought the director was wrong, but I was ok. I was fine with this movie and those changes.

Until the last five minutes of the movie. Then I exploded at the last scene. I was angrier than I have ever been about changes from a book to a movie. I was angrier than when Lucas changed the dvd release of Return of the Jedi and cgi’d in Christian Hayden at the ghost scene with Yoda, Obi-Wan and Anakin Skywalker. I was ready to take a dull spoon to Lucas then.

And that was nothing to how I felt at the ending of this movie. I had gotten this bluray for my b-day and after that ending, I will be throwing it into the garbage along with Part I. I am so done with Villeneuve that I will never watch another movie by this expletive expletive expletive guy if I can help it. If there is a Dune Part III (which it really seems necessary as this doesn’t complete the book’s story at all), I will ignore it harder than I did Star Wars episodes 7, 8 and 9. Villeneuve is not only dead to me, he is the devil incarnate and the source of all evil in the world.

In Part I, Villeneuve kept the relationship between Paul and Chani kind of at odds, which made sense. But in the second part of the book, Chani and Paul were not just lovers, but soul mates. They had a child together. Chani knew that she had to share Paul as Duke Paul Atreides, Muad’dib the Fremen Leader and The Kwisatz Haderach, the genetic superman that was the next step in humanity’s path. She knew all this, even knew what the cost was, and she not only accepted it, she gave her heart and soul to support Paul. She was the bedrock upon which Paul rested. He knew his time was limited with her and he knew that any outcome that would prevent her death would make the Jihad unimaginably worse, trillions dead instead of billions. They were the two sides of one coin. In the book, Paul had to marry the daughter of the Emperor, Princess Irulan. But it was a marriage of politics and Chani was always his love and the mother of his children. Irulan was simply a figure head. Lady Jessica had to go through the same thing with her Duke Leto, being his concubine and mother of his heir, but leaving marriage open to other Great Houses. Jessica counseled Chani on the reality of the situation and Paul reassured Chani of his love and devotion. Chani knew what she had to sacrifice and chose to still love Paul.

In the movie, Chani storms out of the Imperial Hall and calls a worm to go off by herself into the desert. She abandons Paul. She abandons Duke Paul Atreides. She abandons Muad’dib. She abandons the Kwisatz Haderach. She abandons who she was in the book.

If Villeneuve will make such a fundamental change to a character, he has completely lost my trust.

From a purely technical side of things, I didn’t like this movie either. First, the bass track also contained the audio track, so if I wanted to hear what anyone was saying, I had to put up with floor rumbling noise that I could literally feel from 20feet away, while sitting on my couch. There is no need for crap like that. The other thing that annoyed me greatly was how dark many of the scenes were. There were times I turned my tv on and off to make sure it wasn’t misbehaving. There is no need to make a movie so dark that the audience HAS to sit in complete darkness to make out the details.

So between the technical annoyances and then the utter betrayal of the relationship between Paul and Chani. I ended up hating this movie. I don’t know what the normal person who has never read the book will think of this. They might be just fine. But I AM NOT JUST A NORMAL PERSON WHO HAS NEVER READ THE BOOK. Dune is as close to a sacred text as I’ll ever have in the fiction department.

Betrayal (Jet #2) 2Stars

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: Betrayal
Series: Jet #2
Author: Russell Blake
Rating: 2 of 5 Stars
Genre: Action/Adventure
Pages: 238
Words: 75K

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I am a fan of the Bourne movies, not the books. The books are slow and while not technically boring, are not action/thriller books. They are 1980/90’s spy books. I bring this up because in the synopsis it claims that fans of the Bourne trilogy will be delighted by this book. They lied. I was NOT delighted. I wasn’t enthralled. I was not even amused slightly.

Pretty much everything I wrote in my review for Jet (book 1) applies to this one as well.

Jet is not professional. In fact, I might be a better assassin than she is. She’s just lucky. All the time, every time. Even when she’s not, she’s still lucky because she lives and doesn’t die.

Jet is stupid. Plain and simple. This book starts with her heading to the US to kidnap her daughter from the family she was hidden with to protect her from any enemies that Jet has. Does she give ANY thought to the family she is taking her daughter from? Exactly zero fucks were given by Jet about them. As far as I could tell, she didn’t even research who they were, beyond where they lived. Are they good people, are they bad people, are they stable people? None of those questions are asked by Jet because all she wants is her daughter and she doesn’t take even one second to think if she SHOULD take her daughter or what is best for her daughter. It is all about Jet and nobody else.

Jet is too emotional. In fact, Jet reminded me of Agent Zero, in every worst possible way. She regularly jeopardizes whatever current mission she is on because she reacts to circumstances she encounters. She also regularly has emotional outbursts that translate into violence to those around her, with no regard for what those outbursts will lead too. Which in most cases would her being killed, if it weren’t for the author making her so lucky and staying alive (see the first point above).

The action was still awesome. In some ways, it was even better than the first book. But that is not enough.

I will be abandoning this series and I’m going to be avoiding this writer. Someone who writes such stupid people and saves them from their decisions by authorial fiat is not a writer who I want anything to do with. That is bad writing folks, just plain bad writing. There is no need for it and I won’t contribute to its perpetuation any more.

So adios Blake. You’re a wanker, a bad writer and you are making the world a worse place with your subpar crap.

★★☆☆☆

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From the Publisher
Twenty-eight year old Jet, the former Mossad operative from the eponymous novel JET, must battle insurmountable odds to protect those she loves in a deadly race that stretches from the heartland of Nebraska to the corridors of power in Washington, D.C., from the lurid streets of Bangkok to the deadly jungles of Laos and Myanmar. Fans of Kill Bill, The Bourne Trilogy, and 24 will be delighted by this roller-coaster of action, intrigue and suspense.

Ronin (Usagi Yojimbo #1) 3Stars

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: Ronin
Series: Usagi Yojimbo #1
Author: Stan Sakai
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Graphic Novel
Pages: 140
Words: 14K

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I felt like something different today and so I delved back into my collection of comics. Don’t expect this to be a monthly thing though, this is pure mood.

I quite enjoyed this. Each chapter was a self contained story where we learned a little about Usagi (the Yojimbo is a title meaning bodyguard) and how he became a Ronin and how he got the title Yojimbo. This is a linear story with some flashbacks. I liked the straightforwardness of it.

The author/artist, Stan Sakai, also does a good job right from the get go. His drawings at the beginning of the book look just the same as those at the end, which considering these were released individually over time, means he was already skilled when he started. Unlike, say, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, where the art looked like it was done with a number 2 pencil on a napkin, this was well done from top to bottom. I enjoy looking at something that is well executed from the start. The lines are clean and I can actually see what is going on, even in the action sequences.

Because this takes place in the 1600’s in Japan, when the Shogunate was just coming into being, it felt very similar to the manga Rurouni Kenshin, which takes place in the 1800’s at the ending of the Shogunate. No magic or super powered villains though, just plain skilled warriors and a rough and tumble lifestyle. I thought the mix of anthropomorphic animals and humans together wasn’t going to work, but I have to say, it really did. Sakai didn’t try to give each animal set of people some “animal” trait and thus they were able to simply be another set of people. It definitely makes for a more fun reading time.

I had a good time reading this but feel no need to pick up the next volume. Which means when the mood strikes, I’ll probably enjoy the next volume quite a bit too.

Oh, oh, oh, I ALMOST FORGOT THE MOST IMPORTANT BIT!!!!!!!!!!! (that’s what happens when I start blabbing, the important bits go right out the window)

Groo the Wanderer is referenced AND he makes an appearance. Now that is totally awesome awesomesauce.

★★★☆☆

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Table of Contents

“The Goblin of Adachigahara”

“Lone Rabbit and Child

“The Confession”

“Bounty Hunter”

“Horse Thief”

“Village of Fear”

“A Quiet Meal

“Blind Swords-Pig

“Homecoming

“Bounty Hunter II”

Rufferto (Groo the Wanderer #29) 3.5Stars

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: Rufferto
Series: Groo the Wanderer #29
Author: Sergio Aragones
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Comics
Pages: 23
Words: 2K

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Hahahahaa, another great entry. I just love these comics. This starts out exactly how I would react to Groo being on a demolition crew. I just laughed my head off.

One interesting thing I found in this comic was that the lettering for the comic is done by a guy named Stan Sakai. I know that name. You’ll know that name too. If you read tomorrow’s post 😉

★★★✬☆

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From Bookstooge.blog

Groo destroys a building, sets a royal dog free and then when the dog follows him, tries to eat it. It remains loyal to Groo and when Groo falls into some quicksand, the dog gets some villagers to rescue Groo. They recognize Groo and begin shoving him even quicker into the quicksand. Royal Soldiers track them all down and take the dog back. A random villager accidentally saves Groo. Groo sees a reward poster for the dog, attacks the royal palace and takes the dog for the reward, not realizing who the true owners are.

• All of My “Groo the Wanderer” Reviews

Marvel Champions: The Explainening I

The Eternal Lowlander, Bookstooge MacLeod, realized that most of the “sheep” of his flock were dumb as stumps and wouldn’t understand a word he uttered. Which could be a problem as he had vast swathes of wisdom to impart. Thus the Lowlander, in his pursuit of the Championing, decided that some “splainin to do” was necessary. You all might not be named Lucy, but take these drops of wisdoms and cherish them.

Today, we shall be going over the Player Play Area, it’s various parts, phases and phrases used and some general “This is what it all means” kind o’splainin. That way, when I talk about things in future posts, there is at least a 10% chance you’ll know what I’m saying 😉

The most important part of the PPA (player play area) is your Hero and their Alter-ego. Both of these are on one card and you can flip between them once per turn. The next most important part of the ppa is the deck. From it you draw your hand, draw cards in general and use in a variety of ways.

The game is played in a series of Rounds, which consists of a Hero Phase and a Villain Phase. Today’s post will just be about the Hero Phase. During the Hero Phase, you can perform the following

• Change Form – flip your hero to alter-ego, or your alter-ego to hero. You can only do this once per round.
• Play an “Ally”, “Upgrade” or “Support” card. You can do this as many times as you have resources in your hand to pay for them.
• Use your alter-ego’s Recovery Ability, or your hero’s Attack or Thwart ability. You must exhaust your hero/alterego to do this (turn it sidewise. it can no longer “do stuff” until it becomes un-exhausted)
• Use an “Ally” to attack the Villain or thwart their Scheme. The same “exhaust” action occurs for allies as for your hero.
• Trigger an “Action” ability on a card in the ppa.

Once you have finished all of these steps, you declare you are done and complete the following steps

• Discard any number of cards in your hand (or discard down to your hand size if you drew a bunch of cards during the turn)
• Draw up to your hand size (as stated on the bottom left of the Hero/Alter-ego card)
• Un-exhaust all your cards

It is now the villain’s turn and we’ll be going over that next week, in this same format. I realize this is pretty much just an explanation of some of the rules, but the terms used are ones I’ll be using whenever I do more Playening posts. Hopefully it will enhance your understanding of the posts, if not your enjoyment. If it doesn’t, don’t worry. I’ll just send War Machine after you to put you out of your misery.

There Can Be…..
…..Only None!