I am a fan of The Shadow. Lashaan is a huge fan of Batman. He read this way back in '19 and it caught my eye then. It has just taken a little bit of time for me to get around to it, hahahahaa. I do like that cover and you know what? The Shadow's schnozz isn't huge, amazing!
I just wanted to showcase the cover because while I like it a lot, there is no way it'll ever make the Cover Love category.
Cheers!
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 Siege
Series: MHI #6
Author:
Larry Correia
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre:
Urban Fantasy
Pages: 348
Words:
137K
Publish: 2017
A
couple of books ago (Alpha)
we were introduced to a character named Jason Lococo. He was a big
ol’ brute who had a heart of gold and helped the boss of Monster
Hunter International stop a werewolf invasion from taking over the
United States. He got sucked into the Nightmare Dimension in Legion
and was making the main character, Own Pitt, feel really guilty. So
Owen sets off to rescue him and some other survivors. It snowballs
into a massive multi-Hunter Company taskforce and they basically
attack a Russian island with US military level power. Then Owen has
to go through the gate to the Nightmare Dimension and save everyone.
He has to fight off a High Hunt and he does so with Lococo’s help.
He rescues the other guys and Lococo disappears. Only in the end to
find out that Lococo was just a meat suit for a super demon named
Asag who wants to destroy our world and that Asag needed a meat suit
to get back to our dimension. Just like the Smoke Monster in LOST.
So this whole book was a longcon game by Asag, who was manipulating Owen the entire time. How cool is that?
All the fighting monsters was cool too. But I liked getting to the end and realizing that Owen, the Chosen One, was fooled like everyone else. I love this series but I don’t love Owen. Almost everybody else I enjoy reading about. But Owen, while I don’t hate him, I don’t actively enjoy him as a character at all. It’s too bad, since he IS the main character, hahahahaa.
Reading this MHI series months apart (as opposed to the years between initial releases) makes the overall big picture storyline much clearer. I can put pieces together now that I didn’t even realize were pieces back on my first read. I like that, a lot. It’s fun, it’s engaging and it is good writing. Also makes me realize that I could never BE a series writer. Not that I want to be an author mind you (I’d rather poke your eyes out than become an author), but knowing I don’t have that skillset is reassuring. No accidentally becoming an author for me! (crisis averted)
★★★★☆
From MHI.Fandom.com & Bookstooge
GO BIG OR GO HOME
When Monster Hunter International's top hunter, Owen Zastava Pitt, was given a tip about some hunters who had gone missing in action, he didn’t realize their rescue mission would snowball into the single biggest operation in MHI's history. Their men are being held prisoner in a horrific nightmare dimension, and the only way to reach them is through the radioactive ruins of a monster-infested war zone.
As if that wasn't bad enough, it's also the home base of the powerful creature behind the devastating attacks on the Last Dragon and Copper Lake. It turns out ancient gods of chaos really hate trespassers. But this god picked a fight with the wrong crew, and now MHI wants payback. Calling on their allies, a massive expedition is formed, and with the odds stacked against them, a legion of hunters goes to war.
It's D-Day at the City of Monsters.
Pitt rescues the survivors and even makes it back himself, against all odds. But just like in LOST, Asag needed a dead meat suit to escape the Nightmare Dimension and now he’s in our world, free to cause chaos and destruction to his heart’s content.
OR....
...........you can knock your friend down and hope the bear eats him instead! Worth a shot, right?
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 Choice of Evils
Series:
----------
Editor: Alfred Hitchcock
Rating:
4 of 5 Stars
Genre: Crime Fiction
Pages:
343
Words: 134K
Publish: 1983
In March of ‘24, I read “Portraits of Murder”, a large collection of short stories that I assumed would be my last hurrah with the Alfred Hitchcock Presents series. I tried a couple of issues of the Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, but the less said about that, the better. Portraits was the 28th volume I’d read and I had assumed I had pretty much drained the well dry. Therefore imagine my surprise when I came across a website dedicated to the “Alfred Hitchcock Presents” books that listed them all out. Turns out there were at least another 22. So let the screaming recommence!
One thing that I have come to realize about these collections vs the magazine is that I “need” a lot more stories all together than the magazines can provide. Each story is like a little cream puff of villainy and one or even four will just leave you wanting more. You need a surfeit of them, a gluttonous feast that leaves you in a food coma for the next 8-12hrs. THAT is what these collections attempt to do and definitely succeeded here.
With collections like these, I never even attempt to take notes for each story. There are 34 stories here. Can you imagine the size of this review if I tried to write out notes for 34 stories? I could probably do a short story review for the entire month if I reviewed one short story a day. Maybe some month I’ll do that if I don’t feel like reading. I hear that reading slumps still exist in our world, so maybe it will hit me too. You could only be so lucky ;-)
The one story that did really stand out to me was “Knight of the Road” by Thomasina Weber. It’s about a conman who travels up and down the major highways of the East Coast of the US looking for women to bamboozle and steal their money. He gets conned himself and the story ends with him looking forward to meeting that woman again so they can team up. It just had that self-effacing, ironic biting humor that can appeal to me. It was also one of the few stories that didn’t involve murder or violence in one way or another. It was clever.
So Alfie’s back baby and he’s here to stay until you’re sick of him.
*slow clap
★★★★☆
Table of Contents:
The Battered Mailbox by Stanley Cohen
Center of Attention by Dan J. Marlowe
Lesson for a Pro by Stephen Wasylyk
Aftermath of Death by Talmage Powell — AHMM 8(7)
Enough Rope for Two by Clark Howard
A Change for the Better by Arthur Porges
A Killing in the Market by Robert Bloch
Do It Yourself by Charles Mergendahl
Lost and Found by James Michael Ullman — AHMM 18(8)
Passport in Order by Lawrence Block
Moonlight Gardener by Robert L. Fish
Courtesy Call by Sonora Morrow
Restored Evidence by Patrick O'Keeffe
The Standoff by Frank Sisk
A Fine and Private Place by Virginia Long
Dead, You Know by John Lutz — AHMM 13(1)
A Certain Power by Edward D. Hoch
Hunters by Borden Deal
The Driver by William Brittain
Class Reunion by Charles Boeckman
Mean Cop by W. Sherwood Hartman — AHMM 13(11)
Kill, If You Want Me! by Richard Deming
Welcome to My Prison by Jack Ritchie
Come into My Parlor by Gloria Amoury
Lend Me Your Ears by Edward Wellen
Killer Scent by Joe E. Hensley
Dear Corpus Delicti by William Link and Richard Levinson
Knight of the Road by Thomasina Weber — AHMM 8(9)
The Truth that Kills by Donald Olson — AHMM 17(12)
Where is Thy Sting? by John F. Suter
Anatomy of an Anatomy by Donald E. Westlake
Murder Me Twice by Lawrence Treat
Not a Laughing Matter by Evan Hunter
The Graft is Green by Harold Q. Masur
Raw Data:
Novels - 17 ↑
Short Stories - 1 ↑
Manga/Graphic Novels - 1 -
Comics - 1 -
Average Rating - 3.10 ↑
Pages - 4195 ↑
Words - 1376K ↑
The Bad:
City of Stairs - 1star dnf of the now-typical usual suspects
Blades of Damocles - 2.5stars of the Hated Astartes, aka Space Marines
The Good:
Blood Debt - 4stars of Victor the Assassin being Victor the Assassin
The Final Deduction - 4stars of Death and Taxes ;-)
Miscellaneous Posts:
Personal:
First and foremost, my "Bookstooge's Criteria" post was the top post for this month and this year. even topping the hits for my "About" page (who can resist that lovable Mr Zip after all?). It even tops all but 5 posts from 2024, and that is in this month alone. That kind of post only happens once or twice a year. But I am glad it resonated with so many of you, as that is a good feeling as a blogger. And that's enough bragging from me ;-)
Mrs B contributed a post midmonth and that always makes me happy. She read my review of Austen's "History of England" and decided to do her own farce of a farce based on the fictious land of Bookstoogia.
Work was all over the place. New Guy is now fully in the Environmental Department so I got bounced around with Tall Guy (he's over a foot taller than me), by myself or with whoever. It was a very unsettling time. I knew it was coming though, so I just rolled with the punches. I have a feeling this whole summer is going to be like this.
Mrs B and I have started attending the Seventh Day Adventist church full time this month. It's a bit of a change, but with how I was dealing with the contemporary worship music at the Sunday church (ie, I wasn't, I had to sit out in the vestibule because I couldn't stand to even listen to it any more), something needed to change. Thankfully, it's an amicable change and we still have our circle of friends from the Sunday church. They are a real blessing to us.
My reading for May was insane. 20 books/comics are the kind of numbers I would expect to pull down if I had two weeks off from work. But I was just insatiable and tore through the books like a beast. My average rating went up quite a bit too. After last month's 2.86 fiasco, getting back to 3.1 feels good, real good!
Cover Love:
This actually had THREE contenders, first time that has happened in years. There was the Warhammer 40,000 novel about the Necrons (immortal but insane ultimate killing robots), called Reign. Next was the Shadow novel, Shadowed Millions. Finally, and the winner in my books, was the fantastically despicable Mystery of Dr. Fu-Manchu. Like I wrote in the review, the Arcane Casebook vibes were superduper strong with that cover and I couldn't resist.
Plans for Next Month:
Because I read so fething much this month, I am going to ease WAY back on that. Which in turn means less posts, so I'm going to go back to taking Saturday's off again. I was ok with posting this month, but it was ALL because of how much I read and I don't foresee that happening again.
Going to watch and review the final story arc for the Yu Yu Hakusho anime. Since I stopped reading the Demon Slayer manga, I hope to sneak in a graphic novel in it's place. Not sure which one though. Probably either the Shadow/Batman: Murder Geniuses recommended by Lashaan or the next Usagi Yojimbo, which is the samura rabbit that I started last year :-)
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 Blades of Damocles
Series: Warhammer 40K:
Tau
Author: Phil Kelly
Rating: 2.5 of
5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 292
Words:
104K
Publish: 2016
When
I read Farsight:
Crisis of Faith back in August of last year, I noted how some
big events had happened between Farsight
and Farsight: Crisis of Faith. It bewildered me and I
was convinced that Black Library (the company, I think, that produces
the Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 books) were a bunch of jackasses
who deliberately messed with their readers. Well, this novel is the
missing link! It explains everything hinted at in Crisis and
explains all the background.
But it is listed as an Astartes novels (the Astartes are the Space Marines, the boys in blue, the gigantic freaks who rule earth as absolute tyrants and are as evil as Chaos itself in my opinion. I HATE the Astartes, hatehatehatehatehate them!) and hence I never would have read this book, not touched it with a 10foot pole, not even glanced at it, if it weren’t for Dave suggesting it as a buddy read, since he knew both Mark and I were interested in Tau stories. I am extremely thankful for that suggestion.
I still hate Black Library though. They are as disorganized as you can possible get. I shouldn’t have to rely on another fan’s information to be able to find out what books are related. That is just fething wrong. So that was my mind set when I started this. Happy that I was finding out what I had missed (in Calibre I am calling this WH40K: Tau 1.5) but pretty angry at Black Library.
Then I find out WHY it was listed as an Astartes novel, because over half the story revolves those fething tyrants. Not just generic ultimate fighters on super steroids, but Named Characters. Who banter and quip while still being ultimate dumb meatheads. I hated them with a passion and I raised a victory cry every time one of the boyz in bloo died. Sadly, the named characters didn’t die, but I can’t have everything. On the Tau side, it was almost as much politics as it was action. Commander Farsight didn’t have nearly enough page time and when he does appear, like I said, politics. It really got under my skin.
The thing that saved this book from being a total loss was the incredible action. When things get going, they REALLY get going. I enjoyed that aspect a lot and if this book had just been about that, probably would have gotten close to 4stars. But, Astartes. That just sank this ship before it even took off.
This was a buddy-read with Dave and Mark, and you can find their reviews here:
Dave’s Review
Mark’s Review
★★✬☆☆
From WH40K.Lexicanum.com
The Imperium of Man takes its bloody revenge upon the expansionist Tau in a war of dizzying spectacle. Chainsword and jump pack is pitted against cutting edge battlesuit technology, whilst the Codex Astartes is matched against the tau Code of Fire. For the first time, the daredevil warriors of the Ultramarines Assault Company go to war en masse, fighting in the skies, in the streets, and even in the prototype testing facilities of the Earth caste. Sergeants Sicarius and Numitor must overcome their hunger for glory as the brightest stars of the Tau Empire, Commanders Farsight and Shadowsun, hunt them to the brink of disaster. As a white-knuckle ride of conflict sees the Space Marines fight through one lethal ambush after another, they must deal with conflicts from within the ranks as well as from without. Tempers run short as battle-brothers fall, ammunition runs out and the course of the war takes ever-darker twists and turns. With two warrior cultures struggling for a vital edge and the body count spiralling towards a terrible conclusion, can notions of honour and duty survive at all?
Only with the advent of a tyranid swarm fleet approaching the Blue Bro’s sector planet do the Astartes retreat.
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 Glass Carafe
Series:
Groo the Wanderer #40
Author:
Sergio Aragones
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre:
Comics
Pages: 26
Words:
2K
Publish: 1988
Groo is trying to get a job but there is a very long line. Rufferto decides to “help” and it actually works! What do you say when a dog is smarter than his owner? Groo!
★★★✬☆
From Bookstooge
Groo is hungry and wants a job to earn some kopins to buy a meal. So he goes to a glassblower factory (without realizing what it is) and accidentally breaks a glass carafe. The owner tells him he will give him a job if Groo can replace the glass carafe.
So instead of making a new carafe in the factory, Groo goes on a quest that takes him months, to find a carafe. Every time he does though, it breaks through circumstances, and hence the quest goes on. Finally, Groo gets a carafe back to the owner, who immediately throws him out the front door. Ha!
This week once again starts with events from last week. Our kia had been making some noises when you turned the wheel so we took it into th...
