This was a good card if you had a bunch of earth bound creatures and needed a boost to get over your opponent’s chump blockers (little creatures they would sacrifice to block your big creature and thus take zero damage). Like if you had a Cosmic Horror on the field. Fly right over the opposition and smack them in the face for 7 damage. Now that’s how it was done back in the day!
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: The Old Gods Waken
Series: Silver John #1
Author: Manly Wade Wellman
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Paranormal Fantasy
Pages: 161
Words: 57K
First off, I have no idea what genre to call this. I was going to go with “Folk Fantasy” because it really felt like the hillbilly cousin of Urban Fantasy, but this stuff by Wellman hit the scene long before UF was ever a thing. I was looking through my tags and saw “Paranormal”. That definitely fits, as we’re dealing with druids, blood demons, ancient indian spirits and mountains demons of the Appalachia. I tagged on “Fantasy” just to make it official. None of this magical realism garbage that authors today use as a crutch because they can’t tell a good story.
Very, very, very low key. John, who plays a guitar with silver strings (hence the series name of Silver John), hooks up with an indian chief/shaman and they attempt to take down the bad guys who are bringing the bad juju to the region. But there’s no wild spell battles or fights, just John and the shaman pushing on through the various barriers erected by the two druid brothers. It’s almost more of a catalog of what is useful against Magic X, Y or Z. Considering there is pagan druidism, indian mysticism and straight up devil black magic, there’s a lot of choices to use and to counter. The ending is pretty anti-climactic too. John furrows the ground with an iron plow and that brings lightning because of some old curse and voila, all the bad guys get crispy fried to nothingness. It is like watching two fighters who are locked down and can only fight each other with their fingers. Every move is small but significant.
I remember seeing some of these Silver John books in our library back in the early 90’s and they were iconic enough to stick in my head ever since. Never read them, but I saw them. Pictures have power. So I’m including the full size cover here for your viewing pleasure.
★★★☆☆
From the Publisher
In the wilds of Southern Appalachia, lies Wolter Mountain—a sacred place for the Indians and for their predecessors. But the land atop the mountaintop, taken over by two Englishmen, Brummitt and Hooper Voth, is undergoing frightening changes.
Strange and evil rumblings begin to happen around the mountain—man-like creatures prowling around, mysterious voices reciting evil incantations that terrorize Luke and Creed Forshay who live at the foot of the mountain. Then a wandering minstrel, known only as John, learns that the Yoths are Old World druids who are hell-bent on reawakening the pre-Indian spirits that sleep at the summit of Wolter Mountain. Armed with his own arsenal of personal powers, John and an Indian medicine man must fight their way through the druids’ sorcerous defenses to rescue their friends from certain death at the hands of the blood sacrificing priests.
This is the next journal I have on tap. Number 24. This is a reproduction of a hand written copy of Orwell’s 1984. The most disturbing quote ever. It is a good reminder however. Every time I’ll write in this I’ll be reminded of just how dangerous blind fallen humanity is.
Man, I just LOVE looking at these journals. They are a joy to write in, but they look good too. I am realizing how important that is to me now. I couldn’t tell you WHY it is important, but I really don’t think I could go back to writing in a plain spiral bound notebook again.
Ahhh, good times. Started looking around for a non-contemporary music service as where we currently attend is getting so loud that we have had to start sitting outside until its done because its so loud. That’s just obnoxious. Besides, contemporary christian music is obnoxious. Period. We did find a church that has a “traditional” service and Mrs B really liked the hymn singing (they also just use an organ for music and ONE lead singer, that’s it) so that aspect was really good. The sermon part, well, it seemed more geared towards unbelievers or very new Christians, which considering that most people who want hymns are older Christians didn’t make a lot of sense to me. All of that is to say that our church attendance in 2025 is going to undergo yet another change, just like it did back in ’17. I hate change 🙁
I was tired and achy all week. I never had a fever, so I don’t think I had a bug, but it was persistent. That made work hard, as doing such a physical job gets very hard when you’re tired at 8am and your knees hurt. It made for the kind of week where I came home, collapsed on the couch, ate whatever was easiest for dinner and was then in bed at 8pm and asleep by 10pm. It also meant that I had to curtail any non-essential activities.
For example, last night was Halloween and our church puts on a Harvest Party for the community. It’s part of a larger community trick or treating time for the kids. The town closes off roads to a large section of the town for about 3-4 hrs and the kids go trick or treating. Our church hands out popcorn, has games for the kids and literal buckets of candy, provides bathroom access and warm drinks and a chair for weary parents and grandparents. I helped out last year on some of the games and probably dealt with close to 200 kids just on that one game. This year, because of the really nice weather, over 800 people were expected to go through. I just couldn’t face dealing with hundreds of people, so I had to stay home. I knew if I went, I’d end collapsing either physically or emotionally, so that just wasn’t an option.
If you didn’t know, I am a words of affirmation kind of guy. When people say nice things to me, or even just send a text or email with some genuine thought (and not just a generic “hey, how’s it going”) put into it, it makes me feel really appreciated. So Wednesday after work I got the mail and there was a hand addressed letter to me and the return address was in the same town. I figured it was someone from church and was really looking forward to reading a nice “Be encouraged, been praying for you” little note, or something like that. I open it up and it’s a mass mailing letter from the Jehovah’s Witnesses. I admit, I just about cried with the disappointment.
I realize I’ve made things “sound” bad, but it really wasn’t. It was just a very tough week and one that I’ll be glad to see the back of after tomorrow.
Raw Data:
Novels – 17 ↑
Short Stories – 1 ↑
Manga/Graphic Novels – 0 –
Comics – 1 –
Average Rating – 3.29 ↓
Pages – 3846 ↑
Words – 1333 ↑
The Bad:
False Flag – 1.5stars of fake “american”, sigh
Mostly Harmless – 1star of complete and utter pointlessness
The Good:
Monster Hunter Alpha – 5stars of the ultimate Werewolf fight
My Grave Ritual – 4.5stars of Warlock Holmes
Movie:
Sakura Fight, the next several episodes in the Cardcaptor Sakura anime, went down like silk.
Miscellaneous Posts:
Personal:
What a mixed month. Good times at the Pumpkin Festival, bad times with getting needles in the eyes. And everything in between. I rode the rollercoaster of emotions for the full gamut. The month ended on a pretty down note when the volunteer situation I mentioned earlier in one of My Week posts got booted up the ladder to the paid people in charge. They officially endorsed the no youth decision. I didn’t even realize how upset it had made me until I couldn’t sleep. I was awake for close to 40hrs after that happened because I was so stressed out. Thankfully, I’ve been purposefully letting it go and praying that my attitude stays right. But boy, 40hrs without sleep took a long time to recover from. I guess I’m not 30 any more.
On the reading side, I managed to bag a total of 19. That pushes me over the 150mark for the year, which is always my unofficial goal. So now I’m coasting for the rest of the year, which is always a good feeling to have, as life seems to get especially busy from now until New Years.
Cover Love:
Lallia, the next book in the Dumarest series. Chickie-boo dies, just so you know.
Plans for Next Month:
Got a serious Hate Read going for Neuromancer. That is so I can participate in Scifi Month. Oh, the Hate will be strong in this one! I guarantee that with every iota of my being.
Blogging will probably be lighter, quite a bit lighter in fact. I just got the wind knocked out of me in October and I know that kind of thing always plays havoc with my desire and ability to churn out the posts.
ps,
I am going into work early today and looking at a 10hr+ day. So I don’t know when I’ll be able to respond to comments. Just making sure you know I’m not ignoring your comments.
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: Monster Hunter Alpha
Series: MHI #3
Author: Larry Correia
Rating: 5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Pages: 402
Words: 148K
When I originally read this back in 2012, I remember loving it. Nothing changed in the intervening 12 years 😀
This was non-stop werewolf action. The main badguy werewolf ends up with a magic doohickey that allows him to become a 20foot tall werewolf. How awesome is that? It’s pretty awesome, that’s how awesome it is. Throw in the snow shredder scene (where Earl and one of the Good Town Folk literally harvest a crop of werewolves with it) and man, this was just awesome. Are you getting the idea that maybe I really liked this book? Good. Because I did!
For those of you who might not know what a snow shredder is, I’m including a picture so you can visualize it chewing through a whole pack of evil, insane and psychopathic werewolves.
I had forgotten this is where we are introduced to the werewolf who is supposedly now the love of Earl’s life. I can’t remember if she makes any more appearances after she’s whisked away by Special Task Force Unicorn at the end of this book. Another reason to do re-reads.
Anyway, I had a lot of fun reading this and it was even better than my previous read and everything here only firmed up my resolve to keep up this re-read. The series is fun monster killing and I thoroughly enjoy it from beginning to end.
★★★★★
From MHI.Fandom.com
Earl Harbinger may be the leader of Monster Hunter International, but he’s also got a secret. Nearly a century ago, Earl was cursed to be a werewolf. When Earl receives word that one of his oldest foes, a legendarily vicious werewolf that worked for the KGB, has mysteriously appeared in the remote woods of Michigan, he decides to take care of some unfinished business. But another force is working to bring about the creation of a whole new species of werewolf. When darkness falls, the final hunt begins, and the only thing standing in their way is a handful of locals, a lot of firepower, and Earl Harbinger’s stubborn refusal to roll over and play dead.
Earl Harbinger lost some of his memories during his encounter with the demon he nicknamed “Rocky” at the end of Monster Hunter Vendetta so he started writing them down in the form of journals in order to learn the extent of his loss. This book contains the third of the journals which focuses on his experiences as a werewolf. We also learn more about how the Alpha is designated and what it means to be the Alpha werewolf. Monster Hunter Alpha opens with Earl going off on his own to take care of personal business with Earl’s backstory interspersed.
Earl meets with an old handler from his time in Vietnam and learns of the presence of an old enemy, Nikolai Petrov, in Northern Michigan. It turns out that Nikolai is not the only issue in Copper Lake, MI however. There is another person who is angling to be the Alpha and he has some extra help in the form of a magic amulet and then some.
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: Mrs Pollifax on Safari
Series: Mrs Pollifax #5
Author: Dorothy Gilman
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre: Thriller
Pages: 161
Words: 57K
Much like the Nero Wolfe books, I have come to realize, albeit much sooner than with Wolfe, than I am thoroughly enjoying these books enough to bump them up to a standard 4star level. They meet all of my criteria for 4stars and I realized I needed to stop being so stingy with my ratings. I’m not going to go broke if I rate a series higher for goodness sake. While I am not going to go all Fraggle and read these back to back to back, I can totally see myself re-reading these in several years. And that “re-readability” is usually the tipping point from 3.5 to 4 stars. Not always, but usually
Mrs Pollifax is roped into another assignment for the CIA and once again is promised it will be a cakewalk. All she has to do is go on a Safari in Africa and while taking pictures on the safari, take pictures of everyone on the safari. Because one of them is a ruthless, unstoppable assassin. So of course everything goes straight to pot and derails like a freight train plunging off a cliff and Mrs Pollifax does a LOT more than just taking pictures.
I know I say this for every book, but Gilman is an absolute master at upping the ante very organically for Mrs Pollifax. Nothing that happens is so outlandish that it makes me suspend my belief in the story or feel like it is Authorial Fiat/Machina Ex Deus. It takes a really good author to write that way and to go from Point A to Point Z, hitting the rest of the alphabet on the journey without making one feel like a lamb being led to the slaughter.
Thoroughly enjoyed this book and I continue to thoroughly enjoy the series. I don’t know how much more of a recommendation I could give. Thankfully, I’m not trying to sell this to you. I’m simply chronicling my enjoyment. If you don’t read this series, that’s fine. It’s your loss alone 🙂
★★★★☆
From Wikipedia.org
Mrs. Pollifax is called upon by the CIA to undertake another mission, this time to photograph members of a safari in Zambia, one of whom is an international assassin nicknamed Aristotle. She innocently posts an ad in the local newspaper trying to contact her old friend Farrell from the first book. This leads to major complications, as Farrell is involved with the freedom fighters across the border and has made some enemies. Another entertaining outing and with a bit of romance as a fellow traveler takes a fancy to Mrs. Pollifax.
Ahhh, the good old days when Enemy and Ally colors actually mattered. Red and White were enemies on the color pie, and Wizards of the Coast made cards specifically for and against other colors.
Of course, this was probably inspired by a wildfire in California or something.
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...
