November '25 Roundup & Ramblings

 

Raw Data:

Novels - 9 ↓

Short Stories - 0 -

Manga/Graphic Novels - 0 -

Comics - 1 -

Average Rating - 2.85 ↓

Pages - 3385 ↑

Words - 1250K ↑

The Bad:

Resolve of Immortal Flesh - 2star dnf of plain old fashioned bad writing

Rise of the Warrior Cop - 1star dnf of a lying scumbag drug junkie

Tower Lord - 1star dnf of moral perversion

The Good:

Stone of Farewell - 5stars of Fantasy Done Right

Tower of Silence - 4stars of Fantasy (almost) Done Right

Miscellaneous Posts:

• Daylight Saving - But Who Will Save Us?
• Island Sanctuary - MTG 4E
• Currently Reading: Joshua
• By Mine Own Right Arm...
• Ivory Cup - MTG 4E
• Ivory Tower - MTG 4E
• SciFiMonth Friday Fives: Strange New Worlds
• 12 Years and Counting
• Jade Monolith - MTG 4E
• Happy Thanksgiving 2025

Personal:

Oh hurray, another guy has started at my work place. I am calling him Short Guy, because he's only 5'4", which means he's my height, which is great for working. He has previous Land Survey experience and is in his late 20's, so those are both big checks in his favor. After my last disastrous experience with the Tattle Tale Guy who told my boss everything I said to him, I am reserving judgement AND keeping my lip buttoned up a lot tighter. Short Guy doesn't seem like a whiny complainer Gen Z'er, but fool me once. I remain hopeful though. But just in case you think it is ALL peaches and roses, he talks. We had a job 75 minutes away from the office one week. He talked the entire time there AND the entire time back. Non-stop verbal diarrhea about everything. All I had to do was say the occasional "uh uh, yep, oh that's interesting" and he just kept on going. How is it physically possible to even talk that much? I am hoping that my natural close mouthedness will rub off on him, once he runs out of original things to say. My fear is that he'll turn into one of those people who tell the same stories time after time because they just have to have words coming out of their mouths. I'll know for sure by New Years either way.

The Time Change at the beginning of the month took me a week to adjust to. I kept waking up at 4am and my body wanted to fall asleep by 8pm. It was not a fun week. Thankfully, once "I" got the message, things settled right down into the new time routine.

Partway through the month I came down with the flu, possibly covid. Either way, it was fever, headache, sore throat, muscle and joint pain and enough snot to make even Slimer go "ewwwww". I was out of work for 3 days because all I could do was lie on the couch, taking pain reliever and drinking hot tea. Once the fever and aches went away, I had to deal with a lingering cough. That sucker kept waking me up during the night every 30-90minutes. It was a 2 week process from start to finish and just tore me down to the foundations.

This past Thursday was Thanksgiving, and since I also had Friday off, meant I had a four day weekend this weekend. I really needed it just to finish up my recovery from being sick.

Went out to a Mexican/American place for Date Night with Mrs B. Had a good time talking and she gave me her thoughts on my taking a break from blogging in January. That was extremely helpful to me, as it gave me a place to work from. I've been feeling burnt out on blogging and several weeks of not writing seems like what I need most. How exactly that will work out is still to be determined, but I have the "big picture" now, which is already helping me.

Bookwise, my reading slowed down a lot. It wasn't helped that I had 3(!!!!!!!) dnf's this month, which totally tanked my average rating. April was the only month this year that has a lower average book rating than this one :-( With that said, my page and word count still went up because I read some big ol' chunksters and even taking the dnf's into account, I still read a lot of pages. The stress of "reading more" was taken care of by not posting on Wednesdays. That really helped a lot and is one of the factors that made me realize I need to stop blogging for a bit. I have a feeling my reading numbers will drop in December, but I'm really ok with that at the moment.

I did manage to participate in SciFiMonth2025 this year with a non-review post. Thank goodness for the Friday Five theme posts! I really wish I could have participated more, but the reading cards said "no" and who am I to disagree? Hehehehe. At least I got to use the cool banner, which is the main reason I wanted to participate in the first place :-D

Cover Love:

The Hand of Fu-Manchu is deliciously creepy. Sadly, this was the best and largest version I could find online.

Plans for Next Month:

READ LESS SO I DON'T HAVE TO WRITE REVIEWS. I know, that seems obvious to you, right? Well, it doesn't to me because I read so much (usually) and I record everything I read. So my goal is to deliberately cut down on my reading in December. Which I'm hoping will lead to a few more creative posts. Which actually leads into my next paragraph very well.

Let the Barbara Cartland Buddy Read begin! The schedule for A Rainbow to Heaven is as follows:

• 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

Which means you have this week to read the first 3 chapters and write a post about it. I think this is what is going to monopolize most of my time in December. Given how November went for reading, having some light romance to browse through each week is something I am looking forward to. Unencumbered, uncomplicated and a happy ending. Please be sure to add the tag "Barbara Cartland Buddy Read" to any posts to make it easier for anyone else to find your posts on the WP Reader. 

First Love (The Russians) 2.5Stars

 

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: First Love
Series: (The Russians)
Author: Ivan Turgenev
Translator: Constance Garnett
Rating: 2.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Classic
Pages: 110
Words: 30K
Publish: 1860

Wow, just wow. This was as horribly Russian as you can get! I was equally horrified AND mesmerized as I read this. Turgenev makes sure that the readers understand what is going on while the main character, a 16 year old boy, is obviously oblivious. It is almost funny, right up until the part when you realize the young woman he is in love with is having an affair with his own father. And by the books end, almost everybody but the young man (no longer a young man, but a middle aged man retelling this story) is dead.

All I could think of while reading this was “How can a people who think like this survive?” I’m giving Turgenev one more chance at bat and if that story is just as depressing and wretched as this, I’ll be giving up on him too.

★★✬☆☆

From Bookstooge

A 16 year old boy falls in love with a neighbor girl, who is a 21 year old impoverished princess. She has a flock of suitors that she uses mercilessly for her own pleasure, including the protagonist. It is obvious to the reader that she views the protagonist more as a younger brother than as a real suitor, but he is too young to realize it.

Then it comes to light that she has been carrying on an affair with the protagonist’s father. One of her other suitors sends an “anonymous” letter to the man’s wife and this causes a family rupture that is only kept from exploding by the whole family moving back to Moscow. Our protagonist loses all contact with the princess. She keeps up a secret correspondence with the father until the wife finds out and the father dies of apoplexy. The princess eventually marries someone else and dies giving birth to her child, which then also dies.

The novella ends with the protagonist pondering the inscrutable ways of love.

• The Russians

• Leo Tolstoy

• Fyodor Dostoyevsky

• Ivan Turgenev

• Nikolai Gogol

Happy Thanksgiving 2025

 

Another Thanksgiving rolls around and I have a LOT to be thankful. Just let me say, make a conscious decision each week to be thankful, it will help your mental health and allow you to endure. It will also reshape your perspective in a more positive way. So be thankful, OR ELSE! ;-)

This year, I am most thankful that I can see with both eyes right now. Earlier in July, when I had a nerve palsy in my left eye and was seeing double for two months and was out of work and couldn't drive or barely even take walks by myself, I was scared. What if it didn't get better? What if I was starting the rapid decline of the Type One Diabetic? But Jehovah in His mercy allowed my eye to heal and I am back to being right as rain. I bless Jesus for that.

I am thankful that I am back to reading my Bible on a regular basis. Without a steady infusion of the Word of God, it is all too easy to drift away from the standard God has set for our lives.

How would I survive without Mrs B? I just don't know. I mean, I would have to do my own grocery shopping again! I HATE grocery shopping. She also gives me some seriously good outside perspective when I get all wrapped up in myself and am having a pity party for po' po' ol' me, boohoo. She's never slapped me, but I've definitely deserved it at points, acting like a selfish teen when I'm closer to 50 than 40 now. I'm just glad she puts up with adult me AND childish me. Neither of those are the easiest to deal with.

I am thankful for the almost unlimited number of books I have access to that I can read. They are not all good books (as evidenced by the multiple dnf's these past several weeks) but they exist and I have the chance to read them. That is a huge blessing.

Finally, I am thankful for all the bloggers who I interact with. Your words mean a lot to me and while the whole "Comments are worth more than gold" might seem a bit much to you, to me, that is completely accurate. Keep up the good work!

The Hand of Fu-Manchu (Dr Fu-Manchu #3) 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 Hand of Fu-Manchu
Series: Dr Fu-Manchu #3
Author: Sax Rohmer
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Pulp Mystery
Pages: 192
Words: 59K
Publish: 1917

This BARELY squeaked over the 3star line, by a mere whisker in fact. Dr Fu-Manchu survives getting shot in the head from the previous book and kidnaps Petrie and some other famous doctor. He forces them to operate on him and remove the bullet. Outside of that, Dr Fu-Manchu barely features. This was originally titled “The Si-Fan Mysteries” and was about the group that Fu-Manchu was part of, the Si-fan. A group of Asians bent on world domination. * insert eye roll

Anyway, Nayland Smith and Petrie face off against various members of the group and survive even while acting like complete idiots most of the time. I have to say, if Rohmer had some sort of “white savior” complex, he couldn’t have done a worse job if he had tried. Buffoons and clowns are how I think of Smith and Petrie now. Rohmer forces them into idiocy to propel the plot and it just gets down right ugly sometimes.

The whole “Yellow Threat” tones down even more and we’re not slapped in the face with it every chapter like in the previous two books. That was welcome, as it was becoming rather stale since there was no evidence of it actually coming to pass or happening at all. Kind of like the boy who cried wolf, except this would be the author who cried yellow threat. Ha! But like I said, it was really toned down.

Karamenah, Petrie’s exotic love interest, has run her course and Rohmer can’t figure out how to use her any more, so she makes a few desultory showings here and is pretty much a non-entity. Petrie needs to marry her and then build a castle around her so Dr Fu-Manchu can’t keep kidnapping her like he’s been doing. I swear, she’s been kidnapped, brainwashed, etc like six times now. Get that woman a gun! Preferably a repeater so she can shoot Fu-Manchu multiple times in the head next time he tries to kidnap her. Nobody survives a double tap to the forehead!

Finally, I’d like to talk about the cover. For each of these books I am trying to find the cover that I like the best. Not necessarily the same publisher or artist, but something that stands out to me. This time around, we get this truly creepy spiderlike rendition of Dr Fu-Manchu. He’s not brilliant looking like in the first cover. He’s not residing over the scene like in the second cover. This time, he’s just plain horrifying. And that makes him a great villain in my books :-D

★★★☆☆

From the Publisher

Sir Gregory Hale returns to London from Mongolia with a mysterious Tulun-Nur chest that holds the ‘key to India’, a vital secret of the Fu Manchu’s notorious Si-Fan organization. Unfortunately Hale is murdered before he is able to disclose the secret to Nayland Smith. The Burmese police commissioner and Dr. Petrie launch a mission to affront the brilliant but deadly master criminal before he succeeds in his malignant and fantastic plot to take over the world.

• The Mystery of Dr Fu-Manchu

• The Return of Dr Fu-Manchu

Jade Monolith - MTG 4E

 

I never used this card nor do I remember ever actually seeing it used.

What this brings to my mind now are scenes from the epic fantasy series, Malazan Book of the Fallen by Steven Erikson. In that massive series, jade statues play a significant role. In The Bonehunters (book 6), the world is bombarded with massive jade statues, which are an invasion force from another reality (I think). I wonder if there is a universal jade statue myth I'm not aware of that both the artist for this card and Erikson drew from? Otherwise, I'm going to say Erikson was totally influenced by this card. 

12 Years and Counting

 

Ahhh, see that last part of that sentence, the part where it says "...the good blogging"? Yeah, I remember when Wordpress was about the bloggers. Pepperidge Farms remembers too!

Please excuse me as I stomp off and sulk in the corner...

SciFiMonth Friday Fives: Strange New Worlds

 

Today I participate for the first time in #Scifimonth2025. Each Friday they have a theme based around the number 5. Today's theme is Strange New Worlds: Places We'd Love to Visit. So while I hate traveling in real life, I am more than happy to travel in the books I read. So without further ado, here are five SF worlds I'd love to visit.

Prism. An intriguing world that I have visited five times since 2000. Sentenced to Prism is a wonderful standalone book by Alan Dean Foster that explores a world made of crystal instead of flesh and blood. The cover drew me in as a teenager in the 90's and now I find it to be like mashed potatoes, warm and comforting.

Otherland. Technically, this is/was a prototype virtual reality, but it is its own place. The Otherland Tetralogy by Tad Williams is some of my favorite SF to date. Considering my last re-read of it was back in 2011, it is about time to add it to the TBR pile again :-D

Spatterjay. A world infested by a virus that turns you into an immortal, nigh indestructible being. The downside is that you constantly want to eat everything, even other people and you can possibly (usually, sigh) go stark raving mad and have to be put down. But I've always wondered, could I handle the Spatterjay virus? Neal Asher shows us varying cases of failures and successes in his Spatterjay Trilogy.

The City World of Coruscant, the capital of the Star Wars galaxy. Michael Stackpole and Aaron Allston did a wonderful job of bringing Coruscant to life in their X-Wing books. Given my penchant for "paving the planet", I'd fit right in on Coruscant, a knock-off copy of Trantor. But most of Star Wars is a knock-off, if you know what you're looking for. And that's no knock on Star Wars ;-)

Dune, Arrakis, Rakis. The world of the giant sandworms, of the Spice, of Fremen, of continent sized dust storms. Frank Herbert created a modern classic with Dune, and while I am not sure I'd actually like to visit such a place, the very challenge of survival draws me in.