July '25 Roundup & Ramblings

 

Raw Data:

Novels - 14 ↑

Short Stories - 1 ↑

Manga/Graphic Novels - 1 -

Comics - 1 -

Average Rating - 3.06 ↓

Pages - 3044 ↓

Words - 1059K ↓

The Bad:

Usagi Yojimbo: Samurai - 2stars of realizing I'm done with comics and graphic novels in general

Tide of Unmaking - 1.5stars of young adultness

The Good:

Homicide Trinity - 4stars of Nero Wolf novellas

The Monster Hunter Files - 4stars of monster hunting short stories

Miscellaneous Posts:

• American Independence Day, July 4 (2025 Edition)
• Update
• Holy Armor - MTG 4E
• [Journal] Jane Austen: Persuasion
• Announcement: Barbara Cartland Buddy Read
• Holy Strength - MTG 4E
• [Guest Post] Plagiarism
• Howl from Beyond - MTG 4E
• Spaceballs 2 Trailer
• Howling Mine - MTG 4E

Personal:

Batten down the hatches, Hurricane Blabbericus has arrived!

This month was completely taken over by me having a "6th Optic Nerve Palsy" in my left eye. Basically, one of the muscles froze up (it happens to type 1 diabetics) and my left eye couldn't track with my right, which gave me double vision. Thankfully, all of the tests came back clean, so it wasn't because of a mini-stroke or anything. It just happened. But I spent a day and a half in the ER and then 2 weeks of trying to get some doctor to give me a plain diagnosis. Thankfully, the eye specialist I see did an admirable job of explaining it all to me.

I have to wear an eyepatch on my left eye, because the double vision makes me nauseous, like perpetual motion sickness. Thankfully, the eyepatch takes care of that. It does mean I can't drive, I can't use sharp instruments and I can't do anything to jar my head (like walk through the woods and fall down), so I have been out of work all month. Originally, the eye doctor said I could probably go back to work mid-August, but after a follow up visit, she said the recovery was slower than initially expected so I will now be out of work until the end of August.

I do have short term disability through work, but that has been a nightmare. First they sent me the wrong paperwork and the insurance company rejected my claim out of hand, but didn't tell me or the HR person. It wasn't until I started calling (almost 2 weeks later) that I found this out and got the correct paperwork. The problem is, there are 3 different sections, one for me, one for my employer and one for the doctor. The first two are easy to get filled out, but getting the eye doctor to refill the paperwork is going to be something else, just because of how busy and swamped they are. But I'm hoping to get that taken care of next week.

Not being able to drive and be independent is a real killer. Thankfully, because I use an ereader, my reading hasn't suffered. My blogging didn't (on my own site) because of how far ahead I schedule. I was emotionally raw all month and it didn't take much to set me off online. I tried to minimize such times though by not going online as much, which did help. But there were a few times where I just blew up in a comments section, not a time I'm proud of :-( I burned a bridge or two, and I know I'll regret in the next couple of months, but right now, I don't have the emotional skin left to think anything more than this about it.

Speaking of bloggy things Wordpress.com also switched Ad partners. That led to a lot of problems, mainly that the partner they were using used scam ads and redirects and other scum moves. Here are the various posts on the Official Wordpress.com Support Forum talking about it. The "staff" (who I am not convinced are human any more) assured everyone it was all taken care of, but it obviously wasn't. It mainly hit the free blogs and many wondered if it was a pressure tactic by Wordpress.com to get the free people to upgrade to a paid plan. Several days later the complaints stopped coming in, so I assume the issue was fixed. But it never should have happened in the first place.

On the positive side of things, we took our car to a different mechanic and he passed it for inspection without any of the issues the first mechanic said the car had. Obviously, somebody was lying. But that means the car is set for another year, so one less stresser on my shoulders at the moment.

Plans for Next Month:

Read. I expect my reviews will be either a bit harsher than normal or shorter, given how I was feeling when writing them.

Atomic Conquerors 3Stars

 

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: Atomic Conquerors
Series: -----
Author: Edmond Hamilton
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 38
Words: 12K
Publish: 1927

You know, it is really nice to just dive into a little novella. Hamilton gives us the very spare basics and then it’s over. I’m good with that. Lean, sparse, just the way I like it. I don’t want everything I read to be like that, but I would appreciate if more authors would get off of themselves and start cutting their bloated corpse of a book down to size to just tell the story.

Of course, I don’t think stories like this would fly any more. These were written for magazines and people just aren’t reading magazines any more. So I will gladly read these, enjoy them but I won’t be wishing to go back in time or that all authors would be like this nowadays.
★★★☆☆

From Bookstooge

A mad scientist discovers a sub-atomic civilization, unleashes it upon the world, whereupon said invaders invade Super-Space and they get their butts kicked and flee back to sub-atomic world. Super-Space aliens then seal them away and humanity goes on its way, barely knowing what it avoided.

• All of My “Edmund Hamilton” Reviews

Into the Breach (Empire Rising #15) 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: Into the Breach
Series: Empire Rising #15
Author: David Holmes
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 396
Words: 151K
Publish: 2022

The adventures continue. I am at book 15 in the series and the characterization remains exactly the same as the first book. But unlike that Helldiver’s “Lost Years”, it doesn’t bother me. I don’t know why and I’m not going to dig too deep lest I disturb something that is better left buried, like the Balrog in the Mines of Moria.

Humanity has its back to the wall, again (for about the 6^th or 7^th time) and yet no one is giving up or despairing. They are determined to fight to the bitter end and no one is off in the corner whining or feeling angsty about it. They don’t have time. I LIKE that kind of attitude in the characters I am reading about.

I think that might be the secret ingredient. Hope. Not necessarily grit and determination on its own, but the Hope that drives it. I’m a sucker for Hope, even in stories about humans fight giant alien wolf spiders ;-)

★★★✬☆

From the Publisher
Once again, the Flex-aor have rained down nuclear holocaust on Humanity. Led by their escaped High Queen Ala’ron, their fleet poses a deadly threat to every Human colony. Lacking the ships to defend all their borders, the Imperial Fleet has no choice but to hunt down Ala’ron as quickly as possible. Tasked with this mission, Emilie and Georgia will find Ala’ron to be far more cunning than they realise.

Yet the High Queen is but the beginning of the problems coming Humanity’s way. Sent on what is supposed to be a safe exploration mission, Jonathan and Achilles will soon discover there are greater forces than even the Flex-aor arrayed against Humanity. Mysterious new adversaries with a wealth of intelligence on the Imperial Navy threaten the Empire right at the moment the Karacknid Civil War appears to be coming to an end.

Surrounded by enemies on three fronts, the Imperial Fleet and its commanders will be stretched to their breaking point and beyond. Only by charging into the breach and facing their enemy’s most powerful forces can there be any hope of winning out. Yet attempting such a decisive move will incur a cost in ships and blood the Empire cannot afford.

• All of My “Empire Rising” Reviews

Howling Mine - MTG 4E

 

In Magic, drawing extra cards is one of the top things you want to do. Card Draw is King, you might say. So a card like this is fantastic.

EXCEPT

It also gives your opponent card draw. Which is bad, very bad. As I found out every time I tried to play this card. I always got the short end of the Card Draw stick when I played this, so I ended up giving up on it. Even when I coupled it with Black Vise and jammed in 4 Howling Mines and 4 Black Vises, I lost every time. Looking back, I think it was because I wasn't a very good player ;-)

Spaceballs 2 Trailer

 

I have never done a trailer post for a movie before. I think they are a waste of time, are about a subject (movies) that deserve zero attention and are for people who aren't disciplined enough to read a book, ie, the troglodytes amongst us.

But when a GREAT movie gets a sequel after 40 years, I think that is cause to do a post about. So without further ado, here is the trailer for Spaceballs 2, the greatest sequel nobody wanted!

ps,

I found this because Mrs B and I were wondering if Mel Brooks was even still alive and I went and googled it. And lo and behold, this was the top hit. 

The Lost Years (Hell Divers #1.5) 3Stars

 

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 Lost Years
Series: Hell Divers #1.5
Author: Nicholas Smith
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 79
Words: 25K
Publish: 2024

Hell Divers was written in 2016 and then Smith wrote a bunch more novels in the series. Then apparently in 2024 he wrote a novella chronicling what happened to X after the events from the first book and before the second one. I did not pay attention until AFTER the fact and so have read this out of publication order. I am a big fan of publication order, because it means you are reading the series as the author “intended” it to be.

This felt exactly the same as Hell Divers in terms of Smith’s writing ability. Even though 8 years had passed in the real world and Smith had written many more books, I never would have known by the writing that this wasn’t written two days after the first book. Smith can’t write characterization to save his life. X is the same hunk of plastic that he was in the first book. Now, sometimes that doesn’t matter and to some people, it doesn’t matter at all. I have found, and am finding, that it “can” matter to me. Most of the time I don’t care for a plastic piece being ham handedly moved from Point A to Point Q. In this series, I am finding that it does matter to me. I don’t like X, at all. I don’t care if he saves a puppy at the end, he’s still just a piece of plastic, nothing more and that bothers me.

Now, I like all the action and that is what is keeping this from getting 2.5stars, but I must say, I’m going to need Smith to up his writing game in Book 2 to continue the series.

The problem is, since Book 2 was written before this novella, and I noticed zero improvement, I have a VERY bad feeling the next Hell Diver book will be my last. I’m withholding judgement just to be on the safe side. Writers have surprised me in the past, so it could happen again.

*fingers crossed

★★★☆☆

From the Publisher

 he was Commander Xavier “X” Rodriguez—with ninety-six dives under his belt, the most experienced Hell Diver on the airship known as the Hive. Time after time, he dived through the electrical storms, returning with parts to keep his home in the sky. Then, on a jump into Hades, the most hostile environment in North America, he sacrificed everything for mission and team. They returned to the airship with the fuel cells needed to keep the Hive running, but X was left behind.

This is the story of how he becomes the last man on Earth. His will drives him to keep fighting, to survive the monsters and the radiation in the wastes, to find a way back home. But as the days pass, he feels the things that make him human slipping away. He has become a waif, a phantom, with little to live for. Then he stumbles upon something that makes him feel again.

This is the chronicle of those lost years, told for the first time ever.

The Wedding of Groo (Groo the Wanderer #42) 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: The Wedding of Groo
Series: Groo the Wanderer #42
Author: Sergio Aragones
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Comics
Pages: 24
Words: 2K
Publish: 1988

Hahahahahaahahaa, another fine kettle of fish Stanley! (that’s a Laurel and Hardy reference there by the way).

Granny Groo is at her worst, scheming away and just like in the previous issue, seems to succeed at the beginning. Of course, as was shown in that issue, Groo always messes up her scams in the end. And he does so spectacularly here :-D It all centers around marriage scams and man, when Aragones wants to draw an ugly woman, he can draw an UGLY woman. I was shuddering.

I included this picture because of the last panel. I know I always go on about how skilled Aragones is with his drawings, but man, LOOK at the last panel. With only two speech bubbles and his art, he totally conveys how much Groo and Brunda do NOT want to be there. Look at the rug, look at their posture, their faces. It ALL says “no, we don’t want to do this”. And that is one of the reasons I keep on reading Groo. Aragones is a skilled tradesman in the comic craft and it shows. Plus, his style of humor just clicks with me :-)

★★★✬☆

From Bookstooge

Granny Groo and the Gypsies use Groo to run more scams. First they have him “marry” an ugly woman with a large dowery using one of the gypsies as a priest, thus invalidating the wedding legally. They then use that dowery to buy themselves enough props to look like royalty and Groo is turned into the Prince of Chichester. Granny then schemes to have Groo marry a princess, thus setting the Gypsies up for life. Of course, Groo ruins everything at the end and is chased off scene by the Princess, her father the King AND Granny Groo.

• All of My “Groo the Wanderer” Reviews