Cthulhu Reloaded (Cthulhu: Harrison Peel #1) 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, & Librarything by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: Cthulhu Reloaded
Series: Cthulhu: Harrison Peel #1
Editor: David Conyers
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Short Story Collection
Pages: 240
Words: 94K

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I enjoyed this collection of Cthulhu oriented stories, but with some big ol’ caveats. And they are big enough that I seriously considered dinging this down to 3stars instead of the 3.5 I ended up giving it.

First off, this is a collection of short stories all centered about the adventures of one Australian, Harrison Peel. He’s special forces and gets inducted into a secret agency that fights intrusions of the cosmic horror into our reality. And that is where my first caveat comes in. They are great horror stories. Wonderful in fact. But Peel sails through them all with nary a mind break in sight. What he sees affects him, but not any more than how veteran cops are affected after a life time of seeing the worst of humanity. And that is why I didn’t give this the “Cosmic Horror” tag. Peel should have been broken like an egg dropped from a sky scraper and he was barely scratched, not even cracked and totally not broken. In both the Introduction by Peter Clines and the Forward by the author, they mention how they don’t understand why people want to read stories about the main characters failing or breaking and thus Conyers created Harrison Peel as a character to combat that idea. Which just goes to show that Conyers doesn’t understand Cosmic Horror at it’s fundamental, foundational level. THE WHOLE POINT IS THAT CTHULHU AND HIS ILK ARE INIMICAL TO HUMANITY WITHOUT EVEN TRYING TO BE, THEY SIMPLY ARE. When you depart from that premise, you can have some great horrific stories but they aren’t cosmic horror. So that is my first and biggest caveat.

My second caveat is almost a sub-caveat to the first one. A lot of side characters DO go mad or get destroyed or totally lose it in one way or another. But not Peel. He keeps surviving through each and every short story. That is inimical (love that word!) to Cosmic Horror. It makes the stories simply adventure stories and if you’re looking for that, you’ll get your fill of some really good ones here. I was pretty impressed overall with the quality, but the author does admit that he went back and reworked many of these stories to fit together better and to polish them up. I had no problem with that and considering this collection came together, I’m happy he did that.

My final caveat is that there is a King in Yellow story and man, was I disappointed. It all springs from the idea that Peel doesn’t crack, so of course I was disappointed. The Yellow King never attempts to destroy someone until they have been sufficiently worked on so that they will destroy themselves. The King in Yellow would not offer me a harem, because he would know I was committed to Mrs B. But what he would do is to work against that love and loyalty that I have for Mrs B for my entire life until I WAS ready to accept a harem. And he would work it so that I would give myself heart and soul to him for just that chance. But once again, not Peel. He gives Peel the option to have something he truly wants, but it is offered without the ground work being laid so of course Peel walks away from it and the King in Yellow just lets him go. Bologna! That is NOT how the King in Yellow stories work. If he knows you are insusceptible, he won’t tempt you. Now, the story itself, dealing with the side characters, was a great KiY story and I enjoyed that part of it, a lot. But the inclusion of Peel and his “shrug it all off” attitude destroyed my enjoyment.

I really debated about including this as part of my Cthulhu Anthology “series” and wondered if it would be better served as it’s own little thing, but in the end I did include it because I feel that anything Cthulhu related should stay together to make it easier for others to find out about it. There are two more Harrison Peel collections and I plan on reading them both, but I will approach them quite differently than I did this time and hopefully that will help mitigate some of the dislike I felt for this author and his deliberate misinterpretation of the “Cosmic Horror” genre.

★★★✬☆

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Table of Contents:

• Introduction -Peter Clines
• Forward – David Conyers
• Made of Meat
• Driven Underground
• Impossible Object
• False Containment
• Tears in Yellow
• The Weaponized Puzzle
• Weapon Grade
• The Elder Codex

• All of My “Cthulhu Anthology” Reviews

Triumphant (Genesis Fleet #3)(Lost Fleet) 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: Triumphant
Series: Genesis Fleet #3 (Lost Fleet)
Author: Jack Campbell
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Mil-SF
Pages: 266
Words: 103K

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Much better than the previous two books. Lots less detailed politic’ing and lots more fighting. Don’t read that wrong, there is some politics going on, but it is almost skated over, as if Campbell realized that the readers of his books aren’t necessarily armchair socio-political theoreticians. Give the people what they want Mac, which is ships blowing each other up and space marines fighting tooth and nail to the bitter end.

That is what I want out of a Jack Campbell/Lost Fleet book. Space action, whether ship to ship or groundpounders beating the stuffing out of each other. Give me that and nine times out of ten I’ll be satisfied.

I do feel that the trilogy got off to a shaky start with the first book but it has ended strong here. Not a place I’d recommend for Lost Fleet newbs though. There are too many references to family names that are recognizable to veteran readers of the Lost Fleet that will simply have zero meaning for anyone who hasn’t read the series up to this point.

★★★✬☆

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From Jack-Campbell.com & Bookstooge.blog

Synopsis – Click to Open

The recently colonized world of Glenlyon has learned that they’re stronger when they stand with other star systems than they are on their own. But after helping their neighbor Kosatka against an invasion, Glenlyon has become a target. The aggressive star systems plan to neutralize Glenlyon before striking again.

An attack is launched against Glenlyon’s orbital facility with forces too powerful for fleet officer Rob Geary to counter using their sole remaining destroyer, Saber. Mele Darcy’s Marines must repel repeated assaults while their hacker tries to get into the enemy systems to give Saber a fighting chance.

To survive, Glenlyon needs more firepower, and the only source for that is their neighbor Kosatka or other star systems that have so far remained neutral. But Kosatka is still battling the remnants of the invasion forces on its own world, and if it sends its only remaining warship to help will be left undefended against another invasion. While Carmen Ochoa fights for the freedom of Kosatka, Lochan Nakamura must survive assassins as he tries to convince other worlds to join a seemingly hopeless struggle.

As star systems founded by people seeking freedom and autonomy, will Kosatka, Glenlyon and others be able to overcome deep suspicions of surrendering any authority to others? Will the free star systems stand together in a new Alliance, or fall alone?

Of course, they stand together, defeat the bad guys and form the beginning of the entity known as The Alliance.

Energy Tap - MTG 4E

If you can cheat in a big creature, you suddenly have access to a massive amount of mana and can pull some serious shenanigans with this card. IF being the operative word. Blue was always tricky but fragile.

Book Recommendations I

Please read the Intro Post if you haven’t already. It explains pretty much everything (except how to use your microwave. Nobody can explain that!) Given how many responses I got from the Get-Go, my plans to collect responses over several months fell by the wayside. I’m able to start right away! That makes me pretty happy.

Recommendations & Responses

Alex Good recommended the 23 Volume Encyclopedia Britannica. I had read a 1988 version of either Colliers or the Americana version between 1988-1997. Yes, I was one of those kids 🙂

Fraggle recommended the Jason Trapp series by Jack Slater. That’s a big fat Checkaroo and it’s already on my kindle!

Will suggested A Green and Ancient Light by Fred Durbin. I gave it some serious thought, but after reading the reviews, all of which contained key words that I dread hearing about a book, I decided to say “That’s a negatory, Ghost Rider!”.

Chartreuse Flag Hall of Shame

Eddie, otherwise known as the Film-Authority to his enemies, immediately suggested I read all 700+ romance novels by Barbara Cartland. He knew exactly what he was doing, so he immediately got One Chartreuse Flag.

Dawie mock suggested A Haunted Vagina. We’d joked about it on on Whatsapp, but even still, it gets him One Chartreuse Flag! Even Netnanny doesn’t approve…

Maddalena suggested I try the My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic series. Didn’t even have to think about that to assign her One Chartreuse Flag

The Most Important Part

Recommend me some more books!!!! Leave a comment with your recommendation of books you think I should respond to. I have the list of all the recommendations so far, so don’t you worry, I’ll be getting to them all eventually. And I had a lot of fun doing this 🙂

Book Reviews ≠ Book Reports

I’ve been mulling over book reviews and what they are good for over the past several years. I’ve written several drafts and most of them descended into rage fueled rants that I was simply not comfortable with. So it’s just been an idea floating around inside my head.

Until today.

For me, a book review is simply a blog post with my thoughts (random, scattered, tangential OR completely ordered) on the book as I read it, as I thought about it beforehand and afterwards. As you get to know me and see how I rate and write about various books, you begin to learn the ins and outs of what I’m looking for or not in a book. My book reviews are tiny little snapshots of me as a whole person, glimpses into my soul as it were. I’ve always known this and operated this way, but hadn’t mentally codified it.

A book report on the other hand, is a medium by which you the reader hope to convince someone else, probably a tyrannical evil stepmother, that you have read the book and comprehended the basic plot and perhaps some of the deeper meanings if the author was the kind of jerkwad who thought their words were akin to gold.

I can understand why book reports exist. Kids need to be forced to do certain things and reading books is one of those things. They might not comprehend everything in the book, but their minds are like rubber, it must be stretched. If you just give it stuff that doesn’t challenge it, it will never grow.

But once you start reading for pleasure, all that changes. Once you start reviewing, the reasons that drive you onward, while not infinite, are so much greater that trying to nail it down to even a handful is a fool’s errand. Why I review and more importantly, HOW I review are going to vastly different from you.

That is why I had to leave the site Goodreads (which I now refer to as Devilreads). They enforced a certain way of writing a review that was more akin to a book report than an actual book review. When everyone says the same thing about a book, with just tiny, minor variations, it makes for a very bland experience. The whole point of having a place with thousands of different people is to get thousands of different views and thoughts and ideas.

That is why I have always used my blog as my main book review outlet. Here I can say what I want, how I want and any old thing that enters my head is perfectly acceptable in my review. If I’m reviewing “How to BBQ a Raccoon” and I end up spending the whole post talking about a camping trip the book made me think of, that’s my choice. Now, if you don’t like that, the wonderful thing about blogging is that you can stop following me at any point.

Give me the freedom to speak my mind as I wish.

My Week IV

The other week I, along with various other people on wordpress.com, experienced a very strange issue wherein you couldn’t type the letter “i” on wordpress.com sites. It lasted between 24-48hrs and then inexplicably cleared up. I wrote about it HERE.

I had contacted “support” and this week got back the following response:

Hi there!

WordPress.com is a web application and does not have control over how individual letters or characters behave on your keyboard or browser. The problem you’re experiencing with the letter “I” seems to be an issue outside of WordPress.com’s functionality.

Here are a few troubleshooting steps you can try:

1.  Clear Browser Cache and Cookies: Sometimes, cached data can cause unexpected behavior. Clear your browser’s cache and cookies and see if the issue persists.
2.  Try a Different Browser: Check if the problem occurs on a different web browser. This can help determine if it’s a browser-specific issue.
3.  Disable Browser Extensions: Certain browser extensions can interfere with web applications. Disable any extensions one by one to see if any of them are causing the problem.
4.  Update Your Browser: Ensure that your browser is up to date. Sometimes, outdated versions can cause issues with web applications.
5.  Check Keyboard Settings: Make sure your keyboard settings are correct and there are no issues with the physical keyboard itself.

This problem ONLY happened on wordpress.com managed sites and no where else. But that is what WP Support does these days. First it denies, then it blames, then it ignores. And if you keep on persisting, you get banned, first from the forums and then I suspect you get your site taken down for alleged TOS violations.

Wednesday I woke up at 3am with some pressure on my lower left abdomen. Got through work and then went to Urgent Care at 4pm. The dr there poked me, told me I needed a CT scan and sent me off to the ER. I got there at 5pm. I didn’t get out until 2am. It was a horrible experience of waiting and doing nothing. I got the CT scan, had blood work done and was told there it was just a general inflammation and to eat the BRAT diet and take acetaminophen (tylenol) until it went away. And if it didn’t go away, to contact my primary care doctor and get an appointment with a GI specialist. When you’ve been waiting for 8hrs, being told there is nothing they will do feels pretty crushing. Got home and slept until past noon. So now I’m on the BRAT diet through the weekend in an attempt to help my guts get uninflamed. The BRAT stands for Bananas, Rice, Applesauce and Toast(dry).

That’s all on top of the busy’ness of the end of last week and the beginning of this. Sometimes I feel like I’m losing control of events in my personal life and letting it get too busy. Most of that feeling is because I’m still tired from my ER time. Give me a week or two or normalcy and I’ll be feeling just fine.

Currently Reading & Quote: Monster Hunter International

On one otherwise normal Tuesday evening I had the chance to live the American dream. I was able to throw my incompetent jackass of a boss from a fourteenth-story window.
~ Opening Sentence, Chapter One

Now, how can you not love a book that starts that way? I couldn’t resist it when I read it 12 years ago and I couldn’t resist this time either 😀 I just hope the rest of the book is as good.