Daniel Gelon, the artist, certainly "gets" the fantasy library vibe. This is exactly how I imagine a mystical library looking. And the old galoot looks like the kind of guy who I imagine inhabits such a library :-)
And AI generated art could learn a lot just by looking at the guy's hand. It has 5, count'em, 5 fingers! It's really not that hard AI, you stupid dunce.
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
WordPresss & Blogspot by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission
Title: Murder Trail
Series:
The Shadow #26
Authors: Maxwell Grant
Rating:
3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Crime Fiction
Pages:
159
Words: 49K
Publish: 1933
I liked the parts where The Shadow shoots it out with mobsters and is investigating Crix (any name with an “X” in it is automatically cooler than a name without), but the premise for the story rubbed me the wrong way.
You have a French guy who is going to collect 20million buckaroos from Americans, and is going to use that money for World Business Blah Blah Blah. In Europe. Blast it, we were subsidizing losers a hundred years ago. Boo to that. So that bit bugged me, but not enough to stir the rating needle down even half a star. It did make me wonder, did the author actually think this kind of philanthropy was viable? Especially in Europe, with Hitler on the rise? Some part of American society certainly thought so, or it wouldn’t have been in a pulp novel like this.
Reading The Shadow stories can be really odd. They are simple pulp stories that I enjoy, but later, when I go to write a review, all sorts of things pop into my head that I wasn’t thinking of when I read the story. It’s like my brain is a crock pot and The Shadow is a big batch of chili, just cooking away in the background.
Harry Vincent, The Shadow’s top agent, was in this story and amazingly, he didn’t get bopped on the head even once, or kidnapped or put in mortal peril. He was actually competent. It was how he should be :-D
★★★✬☆
From the Publisher and Bookstooge
A European philantropist was sending a secret emissary to America to collect money for the good of mankind. But where money was involved, no secret could be kept from the overlord of crime! The emissary himself was the first to die. Then followed cold-blooded murder after cold-blooded murder -- and with every innocent soul who died, more millions of dollars heaped up in the dark coffers of the underworld. The police were baffled -- for this was the work of an archvillian who called himself only "Crix," a criminal genius so adept at covering his tracks that no man alive could discern them. But The Shadow can, and does. Discovering that one of the so-called philanthropists is Crix, The Shadow and his agents confront Crix and kill him. The stolen money is recovered and naive, optimistic philanthropy can go on!
While the trees aren't leafed out like in the drawing, the sun is stronger, the grass is growing and the temperatures are warm enough that I don't need multiple layers. Spring is a magical word here in New England. It means you survived Winter and now can be warm again. I really like this picture because it shows a mature Spring at the height of it's power, just before Summer moves in.
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:
Heart of the Mountain
Series: Saga of the
Forgotten Warrior #6
Author: Larry Correia
Rating:
4 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fantasy
Pages:
319
Words: 111K
Publish: 2025
A
good ending to the series. I was satisfied with how things turned out
and wasn’t disappointed in anything.
That being said, this Forgotten Warrior series just didn’t click with me overall. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed it but the desire to ever re-read it is at zero. It didn’t grab me and “make” me want to read the next book. I’m going to re-read Correia’s Grimnoir trilogy next and I’m hoping it stands up to a re-read and doesn’t slide into the territory currently occupied by this series, ie, good but not memorable.
Good but not memorable really sums things up for me for the whole series. Take from it what you will.
★★★★☆
From the Publisher
What happens after the War of the Gods?
The answer lies in the Heart of the Mountain…
Ashok Vadal was chosen by a powerful weapon to be its bearer. As a Protector, an elite roving law-enforcer, his path to leader of the Sons of the Black Sword has been anything but straight.
Thera Vane, a child of privilege, has become the reluctant prophet of an illegal and forgotten god—whose prophecies are proving all too correct, if frustratingly unclear about the war between demon and man.
Ashok’s erstwhile sword brother, Lord Protector Devedas, was meant to be a puppet king, but he and his wife, a court scholar, have other plans. And possibly even access to the lore that will let them triumph.
Grand Inquisitor Omand Vokkan is a man of ambition. He’s set in motion all that was necessary to destroy the current order and install Lord Protector Devedas as a tyrant. But Vokkan has a vision beyond control of the continent. He would challenge even the gods. . . .
It seems the time of prophecy and the Age of Law is over: it is time the prophecies will be fulfilled.
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 Daughter of Fu-Manchu
Series: Dr
Fu-Manchu #4
Author: Sax Rohmer
Rating:
3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Pulp Mystery
Pages:
190
Words: 61K
Publish: 1931
Some
times I read a series and it stays at 3stars and I end up getting
dissatisfied and wish it would get better. I usually stop those
series even though they have been getting 3stars consistently.
However, there are other times where 3stars is just right and
continues to be just right as the series progresses along and I enjoy
the 3star’ness of said series.
Dr Fu-Manchu has fallen into the latter category, thankfully.
Dennis Nayland Smith, the foil to Fu-Manchu, and in this novel, Fu-Manchu’s daughter Fah Lo Suee, continues to be a bumbling idiot. I can’t wrap my head around the fact that England produced Sherlock Holmes as a character and yet also produced Smith. It is just pure happenstance and luck that allows Smith to counter Fu-Manchu at critical points, and in this story, it is Fu-Manchu working with Smith in a very limited fashion against Fah Lo. None of the British characters represent very well and come off as bumbling idiots time and again. It allows the story to proceed and makes the danger that much greater, but come on Rohmer, if you have to dumb down your protagonists to make your antagonists seem more deadly, you’re doing it wrong.
The Yellow Threat is only referenced once here. That was nice not having that continually shoved down my throat. The focus was also more on the Russian and Asian part of the world, as Fah Lo had a russian mother and thus wanted to start her own empire by taking over Russia, etc.
The mystery is why this gets 3stars AND why I plan on continuing to read the series, right? Well, it is just pure fun. It is that simple. If it ever stops being fun, then all the issues I have will doom this series to the infernal pit of forgotten history, but until then, I’m enjoying the ride.
★★★☆☆
From the Publisher
Here is another astonishing adventure of Sir Denis Nayland Smith of Scotland Yard--in which he matches wits with the she-devil daughter of his old antagonist, the infamous Dr. Fu Manchu. Now the signal has gone out from the Tomb of the Black Ape, and chiefs of the murderous cults of the East will meet at a hidden oasis to carry out the evil scheme of Fah Lo Suee. And Smith will discover an incredible ally--Fu Manchu himself.
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:
Running Scared
Series: Non-Fiction
Author:
Edward Welch
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre:
Christian Counseling
Pages: 240
Words:
84K
Publish: 2007
This
was the book that I should have read before diving into the little
book “When I
am Afraid”. Most of the
same things apply to this book that applied to WIAA. Specifically,
this was written TO anxious people, not being written ABOUT anxiety.
More importantly, it is explicitly Christian in it’s world view,
it’s solutions and its discussions. If you are not a Christian, but
suffer from anxiety, I don’t see this helping you one bit.
And that actually plays into some of the points that Welch makes. One is that most anxiety is not some medical disorder that drugs can “cure”. He states that unless there has been injury that can be scanned, analyzed, etc, the issue of anxiety is purely a spiritual matter. He doesn’t say anxiety doesn’t exist or that the sufferers of it are making things up, but he states that while they can kick the can down the road with feel good, positive thoughts, or even taking medication, the best they can hope for is to contain the anxiety. That’s not what he’s going for when talking to Christians and I’m glad of that. Welch himself suffers from diagnosed anxiety and that made a lot of what he states much more believable to me, as a non-anxious layman.
Because this was not about Anxiety (and one of the traps Welch mentions is that anxious people think ‘information’ will help their anxiety), it wasn’t as helpful to me as I was hoping. But I pretty much knew that from reading WIAA the other week. Knowing that, I decided to see how it could help me, as a Christian. We all suffer anxiety of some sort and at differing levels during our lives, so why not get some help before I need it, right?
The biggest thing I took away from this book is that God gives us the grace we need, WHEN we need it. Welch is constantly referring back to the Israelites in the wilderness when they wandered for 40 years between leaving Egypt in the Exodus to when they entered the Promised Land, Canaan. The main thing he bangs on is the manna that God provided, each day. They couldn’t gather it and save it (God told them not to and some of them tried anyway. It went moldy and wormy overnight) but had to trust that God would provide more manna tomorrow. His point is that we worry about tomorrow when our needs are being taken care of today and that we need to trust that God will take care of us tomorrow too. He spends a whole chapter on differentiating what we think our needs are versus what God says our needs are. That is a good thing to remember.
His advice to most anxious Christians comes down to reading your Bible daily, praying daily and truly learning to seek and trust God. He goes into more detail that I’m sure would help anxious people, but that is the big picture take away. I’m glad I read this, but I’m not sure I’d read anything else by Welch unless it was an issue that I was directly dealing with. But if I was, I’d unhesitatingly read one of his other books.
★★★✬☆
This card worked very well in conjunction with utility lands (a land that had an extra ability that you had to tap to use) because it allowed you to use that utility twice. Sadly, there were no utility lands in 4th Edition and it required having cards from other sets to make full use of. Since I talked about my budgetary constrains with Land Tax, I don't think I need to rehash that all over again. But the artwork really conveys a druid so at one with the land and nature that he can affect it. I like this. Except the fingernails. Dude should chew them off if nothing else!
Pooja, over at Life's Fine Whine, recently did an Art Therapy post. One of the pictures was this picture of seasonal trees. I...
