October '25 Roundup & Ramblings

 

Raw Data:

Novels - 16 ↑

Short Stories - 0 -

Manga/Graphic Novels - 0 -

Comics - 1 -

Average Rating - 3.12 ↓

Pages - 3163 ↓

Words - 1112 ↓

The Bad:

Lavondyss - 2stars of DNF

Mists of Doom - 1.5stars of me being done with Conan pastiches

Tech-Priest - 1.5stars of advertising for Warhammer 40K models Boooooo!

The Good:

The Tombs of Atuan - 5stars of yet more fantastic writing by LeGuin

The Warrior's Apprentice - 4.5stars of what I expected from Bujold

Bloodlines - 4.5stars of Correia once again delivering the goods!

Movie:

The Fifth Element is a good scifi romp as long as you don't mind the slight hokiness. Blond Bruce Willis doesn't hurt things at all either.

Miscellaneous Posts:

• Currently Reading: Adeptus Mechanicus
• Tool of the Trade
• The [Rant] I Had To Trash
• Ironroot Treefolk - MTG 4E
• Pumpkin Festival 2025
• Iron Star - MTG 4E
• Island x3 - MTG 4E
• My Week XXX
• Barbara Cartland Buddy Read Schedule
• Island Fish Jasconius - MTG 4E

Personal:

After last month and all the car drama and getting fully back to work, I was hoping that October would settle it's little self down and let me kind of coast on through. Ha! I should have known better.

It wasn't all bad, or even mostly bad. Things like the Pumpkin Festival really made things fun. But work was a real chore. One of the field crew chief's and his wife had a baby last month. He'd taken off a month and was supposed to come back at the beginning of October. Well, his poor little son was having breathing and eating issues and they ended up down in one of the big hospitals in Boston. He had to sleep in his car every night, as they only allowed one parent each night in the Nicu (neo-natal intensive care unit). But after 2 weeks things had settled down so he was back to work. But with the changing of the seasons, people were getting sick left and right and calling out every other week it felt like. Coming in each morning, you never knew what job you were going to or who you would be with. I felt REALLY bad for our office scheduler. He was being run off of his feet trying to make things work. I sure hope he's getting paid enough.

My words are starting to dry up. My journaling is becoming a chore instead of a relief and there was one week I just skipped it entirely. Writing posts is much harder now too. Usually I'm 3-4 weeks ahead in terms of scheduling. At the time I am writing this post, I am a mere 10 days ahead. 10 DAYS. I am trying to think the last time I was only days ahead instead of weeks. It has been a long time. I've got stuffed planned, just not written. This is obviously going to affect my blogging for the next month, or even two. Thankfully, I've got a plan to deal with it, but as they say, "the best laid plans of mice and men...."

Shorter days aren't helping either. This coming weekend is also the time change. Just shoot me now please.

Cover Love:

Oh, I had several to choose from. It kind of spoiled me. But I ended up going with Lavondyss. Even though I dnf'd the book, the cover was just awesome. Look at that! More books should have fantastic covers like that.

Plans for Next Month:

Well, since I'm having issues with my words, I've decided that both Wednesdays and Saturdays will now be "free" days, ie, days I don't post. I'll still be online and bothering you, but I'll not have anything going up on those days. Unless something suddenly changes, which has happened before, sigh.

Thanksgiving, REAL Thanksgiving is coming up, so it's time to see just what I am grateful for ;-)

While not directly applicable, I will be prepping for the Barbara Cartland buddy read in December.

I am also hoping to be able to participate in SciFiMonth 2025. Last year I did an Epic Hate Read of Neuromancer. I will NOT be doing anything similar to that. That left me in a funk and life is hard enough without making myself miserable ;-) Of course, it is all going to depend on if I end up reading any SF in November. My intake of that has gone almost to nil, much like what Groo was paid in Rufferto's Reality, hahahaha. The REAL reason I want to participate is that they have some wicked cool banners and buttons that I just have to use somehow!

More info can be found at Bookforager's post, Buckle Up for SciFiMonth 2025. Check it out if you're interested.

Well, that wraps up this post. See you all Sunday :-D

Tech-Priest (Warhammer 40K: Adeptus Mechanicus) 1.5Stars / DNF@40%

 

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: Tech-Priest
Series: Warhammer 40K: Adeptus Mechanicus
Author: Rob Sanders
Rating: 1.5 of 5 Stars / DNF@40%
Genre: SF
Pages: 152 / 60
Words: 54K / 22K
Publish: 2015

I DNF’d this at 40%. I just couldn’t take any more. It was more like a novel length advertisement for various models of the Adeptus Mechanicus for the miniatures game of Warhammer 40K instead of being a real novel. Each unit type was described down to an excruciating detail, which would only interest those who are playing them.

Also, and an even bigger issue for me, was how much this played out like a gaming scenario run by two teenagers. Battles happened without any strategy or forethought or repercussions. And then the next battle would happen and nothing from the previous battle would be incorporated into it, even though it really should have. There was no indication that the Tech-Priest who was the main character of this novel had actually ever fought a real life battle before. Even though according to his history, he was a great fighter and his explorer fleet had killed lots and lots of xenos and mutants and warp creatures. Zero Indication here of any of that experience. So I just quit.

Dave had been struggling with Skitarius (the book right before this one) and Mark listened to Tech-Priest on audio and was not impressed. So I guess this buddy-read showed us that this duology was not a good one. No idea if it was the author himself or the limits placed on him, but I’ll be a lot more careful if I ever see “Rob Sanders” on another WH40K book I’m interested in. Blehhhhhhh…

I am going to include the large cover, but only because I included it for Skitarius, not because I actually care.

★✬☆☆☆

From the Publisher:

The disciples of the Machine God, the Cult Mechanicus are on the front line of the Quest for Knowledge. Tech-priests lead their forces of augmented warriors and battle-automata into battle with the Omnissiah's foes in defence of His secrets. Magos-Explorator Omnid Torquora orchestrates war against the Iron Warriors for control of a long-lost forge world. With skitarii legions and maniples of battle-servitors and robots at his command - not to mention the mighty god-machines of the Titan Legions - victory is within his grasp... until treachery threatens to end his dreams of conquest.

• Mark’s Review of Tech-Priest

Skitarius (Warhammer 40K: Adeptus Mechanicus) 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: Skitarius
Series: Warhammer 40K: Adeptus Mechanicus
Author: Rob Sanders
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 152
Words: 54K
Publish: 2015

Every time I read a set of novels about a new faction in the Warhammer 40,000 universe, it’s like learning to swim all over again. You get tossed in and are expected to sink or swim.

Once again, I was doing a buddy read with Mark and Dave. I was asking questions and Mark made the apt remark “I think you are expecting too much for this to make sense. It is WH40K after all!” Which fits with almost every experience I’ve had with these books. You just have to accept that “things are this way because we said so” and go from there.

The Adeptus Mechanicus is a group of people who colonized Mars back in the day and became expert mechanics. Eventually, they began worshiping the Ghost in the Machine, called the Omnissiah, and their theology taught that the mechanical was better than the biological. This of course led them to turn themselves into cyborgs and the more mechanized you were, the better. They eventually allied with the Empire of Man and jiggered their theology to say that the Emperor was an Aspect of the Omnissiah. So now they go around trying to discover lost knowledge, which will allow them to get closer to the Omnissiah. And obliterating any impure mechanics throughout the universe. Blood thirsty fellows, just like everybody else in the WH40K universe, sigh.

So this story is about a skitarii by the name of Stroika (kind of like a captain in the army I gather) as he is tasked with recovering the data banks from a world that was lost to Chaos and since recovered. The guy over him is totally unprepared but sends in the forces anyway and Stroika has to do the best he can, knowing he’s been shafted from the get-go. Then, in typical WH40K manner, there is a massive twist where everything turns out to be have been a trap anyway, so poor old Stroika gets extra shafted. And he doesn’t even get to die at the end. He is captured and tortured until he is chaos broken and totally insane.

AND IT GETS BETTER!

His mentor has been in nearby space with a hidden fleet, the whole time. But lets it play out because he doesn’t like Stroika’s new boss. How’s that for a kick in the ballz? Yeah, there’s a reason I’m careful about the number of WH40K books I read in a year. Of course, I’ve got the immediate sequel, Tech Priest, scheduled for review for tomorrow. Hold on to your biologicals or they might get stolen.

This particular book was in an omnibus called “Adeptus Mechanicus” and that is the cover I’m using in the featured image. However, each book in that omnibus was also released singly and I would like to showcase that cover, much like I did in my currently reading post at the beginning of the month. Can’t have too many cool looking covers after all!

That pistol looking thing the guy on the cover is holding? That is basically an amped up taser. Sigh. Come on guys, use bullets, or at least some sort of gauss technology that destroys matter on contact.

★★★☆☆

From wh40k.lexicanum.com & Bookstooge

The skitarii are the soldiers of the Machine God, the tireless legions of the Adeptus Mechanicus. Holy warriors, they carry the word of the Omnissiah across the galaxy, destroying the impure machines of aliens and renegades and spearheading the Quest for Knowledge. A discovery of ancient technology sends a skitarii legion, commanded by Alpha Primus Haldron-44 Stroika, into battle on a forge world overrun by Chaos. When a cataclysm cuts him off from his tech-priest overseers, Stroika must rally his forces and battle corrupt machines and Chaos Space Marines if he is to achieve victory.

Discovery of the wreck of an ancient colony ship, the Stella-Xenithica, by Magos Explorator Omnid Torquora, thrusts Stroika and his skitarii into a pitch battle with feral Orks who have settled within the remains. Finally victorious, an STC of an ancient technology, termed the Geller Device, is found and returned to the forge world Satzica Secundus. In a live test of the prototype, the lost forge world Velchanos Magna is uncovered. In their haste to recover the forge world and defeat the Dark Mechanicum, Stroika and his forces are overextended, but, despite the odds, they are on the cusp of victory when an Iron Warriors battle group under the command of Idriss Krendl and his Obliteratii arrive. The Iron Warriors flagship, Forgebreaker, destroys the Ark Mechanicus Opus Machina, isolating Stroika and the expeditionary force, forcing him to execute a daring plan.

The plan fails, only Stroika survives, but he is kept alive to be tortured and corrupted by the Iron Warriors, Chaos Space Marines. All this happens and is witnessed by Omnid Torquora, who has been hiding in the planets shadow the entire time with his own battle group.

• Mark’s Review of Skitarius

• Dave’s Review of Skitarius

Bloodlines (MHI #9) 4.5Stars

 

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: Bloodlines
Series: MHI #9
Author: Larry Correia
Rating: 4.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Pages: 307
Words: 118K
Publish: 2021

Owen Pitt has made it back from the Nightmare Dimension, Julie Pitt has rescued their son and now life goes on. Only they both know Asag the god of chaos is still out there, just waiting to destroy them in some way. Because they aren’t damned woke pansies, they decide to get proactive. They know that a wardstone, a creation of Isaac Newton, will destroy such a being and they set out to find one. They do, only to find out that a LOT of other people are also interested in it, and not just other monster hunters either. The stone is stolen and Stricken gets involved. He makes a deal with the MCB and Agent Franks, only to shaft EVERYONE. So the MCB and MHI team up to, only for Stricken to still trick them all, again. That man is pure evil. The book ends with Pitt, Chad Gardener’s daughter and Agent Franks working with Stricken in a Court of the Fay to prevent two other cosmic entities from swallowing up Earth.

Oh my goodness.

Stricken is pure evil. Even with him knowing what he knows, somebody should have just put a bullet through his head. You do not work with evil, you destroy it.

The thing I enjoyed most about this story was the supernatural bounty hunter (the Drekavac) hired to retrieve the wardstone when it was stolen. He was a Puritan judge who sold his soul to the devil to do evil, for immortality. He rides a demon horse motorcycle and uses a plasma blunderbuss. How cool is that. He has 13 lives and each time he gets stronger. On his 12^th incarnation he was 30feet tall and shrugging off missiles. The battle between him and MHI and Agent Franks was fantastic. It epitomized why I enjoy the battles in MHI so much. What I enjoyed EVEN MORE was right at the end. Stricken thinks he has blackmailed the Drekavac into doing his will only for it to say it would rather suffer the worst fires of hell than submit to such a person as Stricken. It turns its back on Stricken and walks away. Not “quite” as good as a bullet to the head, but the next best thing :-D

I originally read this in 2022 and at the time thought MHI was just going to keep on going. Since then Larry Correia has announced there will be 2 or 3 more books in the main MHI series and then the story surrounding Owen Zastava Pitt will be over. That means the main MHI story franchise will be done with. I’m ok with that. I’d much rather Correia end things on a high note than keep on going until it becomes total garbage. I’m sure there will be more standalone MHI books or trilogies, co-authored. That should keep me in the good stuff for years to come :-D

★★★★✬

From the Publisher

In a business like monster hunting, it's all about setting priorities.

The chaos god Asag has been quiet since the destruction of the City of Monsters, but Monster Hunter International knows that he is still out there somewhere—plotting, waiting for his chance to unravel reality.

When Owen and the MHI team discover that one of Isaac Newton's Ward Stones is being auctioned off by Reptoids who live deep beneath Atlanta, they decide to steal the magical superweapon and use it to destroy Asag once and for all. But before the stone can be handed off, it is stolen by a mysterious thief with ties to MHI and the Vatican's Secret Guard.

It's a race against time, the Secret Guard, a spectral bounty hunter, and a whole bunch of monsters to acquire the Ward Stone and use it against Asag. For as dangerous as the chaos god is, there is something much older—and infinitely more evil—awakening deep in the jungles of South America.

• Monster Hunter Bloodlines (2022 Review)

• All of My “MHI” Reviews

Island Fish Jasconius - MTG 4E

 

The only reason to play such a card, even back in the day, was if you were playing a monoblue deck and needed a big finisher near the end of the game to do a lot of damage to your opponent (remember, you and your opponent each have 20 life at the beginning of the game). Blue was simply not meant to have big creatures, so the creators of the game felt that if you wanted a big creature in blue, there were going to be serious drawbacks.

With that being said....

If you had 5 or 6 people over for a Saturday and you all wanted to play a massive game of Magic, and you had to create a bunch of decks quick, you just used whatever you had on hand. That was the fun of kitchen table magic, playing subpar decks and seeing what happened :-D

Barbara Cartland Buddy Read Schedule

 

Ok Folks, it is that time of the year again. That time of the year when Bookstooge, and anyone brave enough to join him, reads a Barbara Cartland romance. Cartland was known as the Queen of Romance during her life time, so we as readers know we're getting quality, classic, romantical stuff here! Just what the doctor ordered.

Last year I had some unique artwork for the chapter posts. Sadly, that is not the case this year so if anyone is interested in creating some, I'd be happy to look it over and if it works for me, give you full credit for the art work. Sadly, your only reward will be that warm feeling knowing you contributed to this beloved and cherished tradition here at Bookstooge's Reviews on the Road ;-)

This year we will be reading "A Rainbow to Heaven" originally published in 1934. The following is the schedule:

• Chapters 1-3 discussion post on Friday, December 5th
• Chapters 4-6 discussion post on Friday, December 12th
• Chapters 7-9 discussion post on Friday, December 19th
• Chapters 10-12 discussion post on Friday, December 26th
• Book Review post on Friday, January 2nd 2026

While you don't have to use that exact schedule, it will help if you at least keep to the week in question for each set of chapters. Also, please use the tag "Barbara Cartland Buddy Read" on each post (including the review) to make it easier for anyone to find your posts on the WP Reader. If you would like, I can include a link to your post each week. Just let me know what it is and I'll edit my chapter discussion post to link to yours. If you have any questions or concerns, let me know in the comments and I'll do my best to answer them.

This gives you a month to prepare. If you are like me, that is barely enough time ;-) But it should be enough. You can also schedule your posts ahead of time if that makes life easier for you. Finally, if you are having a hard time finding the book, email me and I'll see what I can do.

Peace out, Wuv Warriors!

My Week XXX: Running Silent

 

I plan on going silent until Sunday. I started the process Wednesday evening and have been going deeper and quieter as time has gone on. I'm still reading your posts and liking them, and liking any comments you leave as an acknowledgement of them, but right now, words are not my friend.

See you Sunday sometime.