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: Operation: Entertainment District Series: Demon Slayer #9 Author: Koyoharu Gotouge Rating: 3 of 5 Stars Genre: Manga Pages: 180 Words: 8K
I am definitely starting to burn out on manga again, not sure it’s just this particular one. So I can’t blame it.
The gang are used by a Pillar to go into the “Entertainment” District (ie, the Red Light district), dressed up as girls, to rescue the Pillar’s three wives and sniff out a demon. The wives are all demon slayers of a sort as well and they’ve gone silent. So of course the Pillar is worried.
I had a hard time reading this mainly because I could only see the weaknesses in the planning. Just like in the last volume, there’s a distinct lack of smarts on the Demon Slayer’s upper echelon and that puts the lower demon slayers in jeopardy. The problem is, that is not a problem in this particular manga, but in all shonen manga in general. It is the idea that one can only grow stronger through conflict, that war fuels innovation, etc. So the story must be structured to give the main characters plenty of instances to fight, to “grow” as it were. I’m just tired of it, that’s all.
There is one panel that made me laugh out loud though. It is when we first see the three main characters dressed up like girls. I just laughed out loud and showed Mrs B. Good stuff!
I was also concerned about the visual side of things, as this was taking place in a Red Light District. But there was nothing to worry about. The manga-ka does an admirable job of showing the idea of “sexy” without it actually being sexy or lust inducing. I say “admirable” because I’m trying to be positive. Otherwise I’d have to say he’s just not good enough to draw that way and I am tired of being a negative nancy.
★★★☆☆
From Wikipedia
ToC & Synopsis – click to open
Operation: Entertainment District”
“Search for My Wives”
“The Chase”
“Daki”
“Various Feelings”
“In Various Places”
“Roar”
“Wriggly”
“Air Hole”
Tanjiro and his friends are drafted by Tengen Uzui, the Sound Hashira to help investigate the red-light district in Yoshiwara, Tokyo, where Daki, one of the Upper Ranks, has established herself while disguising herself as an oiran. Once learning Daki’s secret, they are forced to confront not one, but two enemies, as she shares her body and the position of Upper Rank Six with her brother, Gyutaro.
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: Technos Series: Dumarest #7 Author: EC Tubb Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars Genre: SF Pages: 154 Words: 47K
At least this book wasn’t named after a woman. I was getting rather tired of that. Of course, Earl Dumarest sleeps around like a flipping clock. I mean, a space prostitute is so smitten by him that she gives him a freebie, apparently all night long. Sigh.
The story is the same as all the previous ones. Earl is trying to track down more info about Earth, goes to a hellhole of a planet, finds out it was all for naught, gets one teensy tiny clue and then goes off hunting again.While fighting off Cyclan plots.
It’s always the setting and whatever adventure is written that makes these stand out. Here Earl has to hide out on a technological planet and survive a mechanical death maze. It was pretty cool.
Once again the cover is awesome. Earl is wearing his usual 70’s disco-spacesuit with the bubble helmet. It just makes me want to do the whole Dance Fever, John Travolta thing. Oh Beeeeehaaaaave!
★★★✬☆
From the Publisher
Synopsis – click to open
“A dying man’s last words brought Dumarest to Loame, ‘the garden planet’. Its name was a mockery–Loame’s gentle citizens could only watch in horror as their fields were ravaged by a mutated vine that destroyed all it touched. They were sure the acid-dripping vine was the work of their enemy world, Technos.
Technos was not a world open to outsiders–but Dumarest is not a man who takes no for an answer. As a fugitive, as a prisoner of war, as the captive bedmate of a queen, he continues his quest, seeking an answer to the question that his his life’s obsesson: ‘Have you ever heard of a planet called _Earth_?'”
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 Sign of Nine Series: Warlock Holmes #4 Author: Gabriel Denning Rating: 4.5 of 5 Stars Genre: Fantasy Parody Pages: 269 Words: 98K
This has reignited my book hunger. While Sanditon started it and Mon Dieu Cthulhu and KTF Part II put a damper on things, The Sign of Nine has made me voracious again. Every time I put this book down, all I could think about was when I would be able to pick it back up.
Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t laughing out loud or reading horrible excerpts to Mrs B like I did with the first book, but it still fed my soul and I needed that. I was also ready to be fed. If I had read this even two weeks earlier I suspect I’d have been very “meh” about it.
It was the right book at the right time, so watch out. I suspect there will be a lot more book reviews in the coming weeks, even with my Love Saves the Day updates taking up Fridays and not posting on Sabbaths.
Once again I am impressed, and quite rightly, by Denning’s sticking to the short stories of Sherlock Holmes. Every story for Warlock Holmes is based on a story by Doyle and while they veer off, madly and wildly at times, the details included always keep us grounded in a very Holmes oriented world. If you’ve never read Sherlock Holmes, or read them so long ago as to have all the details be fuzzy for you, don’t worry, you won’t miss out on a thing. But if you DO remember the stories, you’re experience will be deeper, richer and oh so much more FUN! Denning continually riffs on the originals and you’ll miss out on all that humor, which would be a crying shame.
Watson is a complete wreck in this book. He is recovering from being poisoned by Irene Adler, he’s obsessed with her (any man who has been in love with a woman who he knows he simply cannot have will know that obsession), he’s obsessed with Moriarty, he’s taking a magical drug solution made out of his own blood and shredded Mummy and he’s got Holmes trying to “help” him. Mainly by getting him hitched to a woman so he’ll move out and stay out of Holmes’ sphere of influence, thus saving Watson’s life. That is the reason why this didn’t get the coveted 5Star Award from me.
In the originals, Watson marries one of the clients and has a happy, contented life with a wonderful woman who supports him. Here, Mary is a tyrant, who he hates on sight and she despises him just as much. Warlock intertwines their “fate” lines so they fall in love, but they still hate each other. I get why that is funny, but it didn’t work for me. Killing puppies is funny (like in the first book), but having people get married who literally want to kill the other isn’t. This is why humor is such a subjective thing. But that was my only issue and was relegated to the last chapter in the book.
Now we come to the future.
There is only one more book left in the series. Unfortunately, I have heard it ends on a cliffhanger as big as the one where Doyle killed off Holmes, but more cliffhanger’y. I’m going to read the final book, but I’m already wondering if that’ll be a mistake. While this book isn’t exactly a “great” ending, it does end on a pretty settled note. See, people who think reading has no drama are idiots. THIS is high drama.
Warlock Holmes may have demons in his head, but now Dr. John Watson has a mummy in his bloodstream. Specifically that of the sorcerer Xantharaxes, who when shredded and dissolved in a 7% solution, results in some extremely odd but useful prophetic dreams. There’s also the small matter of Watson falling for yet another damsel-du-jour, and Warlock deciding that his companion needs some domestic bliss…
Nowadays each set comes with 4 variations on the lands that produce mana, but back in 4th Edition (and earlier), there were only 3 variations. Here is the first “Forest” that you could choose to use. Some people didn’t care and would just grab however many forests they needed for their decks without looking at the art. Others would choose just ONE artwork version and make all 22-24 lands the exact same. Other people would choose 8 of each land exactly and others would do some mix. It always depended on the person making the deck.
I always found it interesting how the various mana cards managed to convey the “sense” of the land they were representing. A Forest is much more than just a bunch of trees all in the same place. As a land surveyor, I know this all too well. Small bushes and rocks and trees all make up what you stumble across when you’re running for your life from a bear, especially if they happen to be angry mutant magic bears! 😉
While Santa might drop off the presents for the kiddies, he’s outsourced that whole “coal” thing. So now the Christmas Witch exists and if you’ve been a bad boy or girl, she’ll be dropping coal into your stocking. Or onto your head if you’ve been really bad!
The date given right in the first chapter is 1903. And Dame Cartland wastes no time in inundating us with the most purple’ish of prose. The saving grace is that each purple description is so short.
We find out that Tiana’s parents (Tiana is the main character, who is 19) died together from a fever they contracted while nursing amongst the local villages. And her father wrote her a letter saying not to worry, because they were so happy together and were happy they both were dying so they could be in heaven together. Oh, and they talk about restoring the dump of a castle they had inherited and been pouring their money into. I mean, your wife has just died, you are about to die and you’re sending your only child of 19 a letter and you talk about the bloody castle restoration?
It was all just a syrupy potion to mask the reality of the sadness of their death. Can’t have sadness in a romance after all. Not even “I” would want that. So I have to give Dame Cartland her due, she writes the situation well.
The scene then immediately changes over to the other main character, Richard, Earl of Austindale. Who has just found out that the will from his grandfather has made matrimony a part of inheriting the estates. If he’s not married by 30, he loses it all. What kind of nonsense is this?!? Not that it exists, because that kind of stipulation seems rather wise to me. If you have to think about somebody else besides yourself in regards to your fortune, you are going to be LOT more careful. No, what I refer to is that Richard is just finding this out 3 months or so before his 30th birthday when this will take effect. WUT?!?! That’s the kind of information his dad should have talked about with him along with the birds and the bees talk at 12. If I were him, I’d immediately fire the lawyer handling this for dereliction of duty. Like a real man, Richard immediately thinks of a solution and realizes it isn’t viable (some chickie boo who he likes and apparently likes him, but prefers gallivanting across the continent to country life). At least Richard is smart enough to realize trying to marry Chickie Boo would be a huge mistake. Good on him for that! And it gets even more drama’y when he finds out that his younger cousin will inherit everything, and said cousin is a confirmed gambler and will spend the accumulation of wealth of three lifetimes in a matter of months, thus destroying the family name, honor and material wealth. Now there’s a conundrum for you.
The chapter ends with the two main characters meeting each other.
Incredible! While the prose is some of the most purple I have ever read, and so generic and vague that it feels like a formula (Duke “insert name” with “insert pants type” walked over to Heroine “insert name” and said “insert romantic platitude”), the intent and the information are gotten across quick as a whip. The setup is completely done in ONE chapter. Man, I wish more authors out there would do things like that.
On to chapter two.
In which we find out that Tiana’s parents were typical pie in the sky dreamers and wasted everything on restoring the castle, to the point where they left no money whatsoever to their daughter. And the castle wasn’t really restored. Oh, that pissed me off. The parents put their dream ahead of their child. If they weren’t already dead, I’d be tempted to toss them off the battlements of Castle Rose. I would say they were typical English idiots without a passing grasp of reality, the kind who squander the little they do have and bring their children to rack and ruin. Shame on them. They aren’t going to heaven now, that’s for sure!
Tiana meets an old Grand Uncle who drops by for just enough time to give her a family heirloom, which she can sell to live on. Of course we know she’ll use the funds for the castle. She approaches Richard and they are both surprised when they discover who the other really is. They met in chapter one and Richard thought Tiana was a visiting townie and Tiana thought Richard was a farmer. Richard is not at all impressed with the Grand Uncle placing the burden of selling the jewelry on Tiana, and I must admit, I am in full agreement with him on that.
The chapter ends with Richard proposing to Tiana, since he needs a wife and she needs the funds for Castle Rose. It comes out of no where, but it fits with the hasty speed of this story. It wasn’t jarring, it simply needed to happen, so Dame Cartland made it happen.
Chapter three sees Tiana being highly insulted at the Earl’s proposal and storming out of the room, just like a teenager, without thinking through the consequences of her actions, ie, Castle Rose aint going nowhere except to the seller’s block without outside money. She accidentally meets the wastrel cousin and is instantly attracted to his youth, blond locks and deep blue eyes. Aye carumba.
I’ve noticed that teenagers tend to group adults into two groups. I vaguely recollect doing this myself too back in the day. There are the adults in their 20’s who are adults but you still feel comfortable with. Then there are the adults over 30 and they are just plain old. They are all the same and a homogenous group and it’s easier to ignore them and go about your own business of living your life. Dame Cartland obviously remembers this too and uses it, albeit as lightly as any other trope to amp up the drama.
Then the drama amps up again and I must say, I actually loved it! A developer, an EEEEEEEVIL developer shows up and he owns all the bills that Tiana’s parents never paid. Apparently, they were even worse than I initially thought. They not only spent all their money on the ruin of the castle, leaving their daughter destitute, but they also spent well beyond their means and left debts amounting to “a lot” (money from that time period means absolutely nothing to me, so whenever an amount is named and the form of currency, I just translate it as “a lot” or “a little” in my head). Said developer is described just how you’d expect an “evil greedy” developer to be described and he’s a complete ass. The chapter ends with the Earl threatening to toss him out when he refuses to leave at Tiana’s request. That’s how a man should act. Good for the Earl!
And thus ends this particular update for the first three chapters of Love Saves the Day by Dame Barbara Cartland. I have to admit, I enjoyed this way more than I thought I would (ie, not at all). Cartland’s writing, while formulaic and generic, gets the point across very well. There is no mistaking who is who, who is good, who is bad, who is supposed to end up with who. It is a comfort read I would say. I’m no longer dreading the rest of these updates 😀
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: KTF Part II Series: Galaxy’s Edge #17 Author: Jason Anspach & Nick Cole Rating: 2.5 of 5 Stars Genre: Military SF Pages: 285 Words: 117K
This series is done. I’m glad. It had sunk to disappointing levels. Even here, Anspach and Cole (the authors) do their best to get rid of every “force” user and divorce this series from its space opera roots. Not particularly happy with them as authors right now.
I do have a couple of standalone Tyrus Rex novels still to read by them. I still haven’t decided if I’ll actually read them or not. I don’t have anything else to say that won’t sent me descending into a rant and I just don’t have the energy for that right now.
★★✬☆☆
From the Publisher
IT ALL ENDS HERE.
Every decision, battle, triumph, and heartache has led the galaxy to this moment.
The Republic is spun wildly into sudden war as Gomarii slavers, in overwhelming numbers, strike on behalf of their Savage allies. The battle is fiercest on a newly rediscovered world: Earth.
But galactic war is only the symptom of an older, deeper, and far more dangerous conflict. Now Keel and Ravi must work frantically to assemble the warriors needed to withstand an ancient threat, and Prisma must wrestle to control her own inner darkness. While on the front lines, Death’s grim specter comes for Chhun and Victory Company.
For once again, a Legion stands steadfast before the void.
