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Title:
Finest Hour Series: Warhammer 40K: Astra
Militarum Author: Sam Ryan Rating: 3
of 5 Stars Genre: SF Pages:
42 Words: 13K Publish: 2025
A
lot happens in these 40 pages. It all centers around the “Colors”
of a regiment, a flag of honor. One of the Sergeants starts with it
in the beginning of the story and every time someone has it, they die
and someone else picks it up to continue the charge against the Chaos
Cultists who have infiltrated an ice world. One new conscript runs
away and leaves his comrades and leaders to die. In the end, he picks
up the Flag and takes it back to the regiment while they are
retreating. He is given a hero’s welcome and thus a coward is
turned into a hero.
I
think the flag went through about five different people? It’s even
used as a weapon to kill a Chaos cultist at one point. Then coward
boy uses it as a tourniquet on a Kreig soldier and carries him to the
retreat point and everyone thinks he did it on purpose (saving the
flag that is). The kreig soldier dies so nobody knows the boy was a
coward who let everyone around him die.
That
juxtaposition of cowardice and perceived bravery is a big part of the
Warhammer 40,000 universe. It’s not just the humans either, as
I’ve seen that literary tendency in the Tau and the Necrons. Little
doses of it are tolerable but it gets rather depressing in novels or
in a series.
★★★☆☆
From
the Internet
The
narrative follows newly conscripted Cadian infantryman Mathias Thorne
during a brutal betrayal by heretic forces. As the Astra Militarum
takes heavy casualties, a combined force of Cadian, Elysian, Krieg,
and Vostroyan troopers mount a desperate counteroffensive.
The
story focuses on a symbolic regimental banner passed from one dying
soldier to the next in the chaos of battle. When the flag lands in
Thorne's hands, he must summon the courage to carry it back to
Imperial territory
I love this card for how it looks. It captures that essence of so much power that it is literally bursting forth!
Sadly, once AGAIN (for about the 100th time) this is another card that I simply could not get to work for me, not even when I returned to Magic in 2013. I'd build a deck around it, have everything all lined up and then when I would play, my opponent would always benefit more from this card than I did and beat me to a pulp. And this time it wasn't a fun beating, but simply frustrating. I could see my path to victory, but so could my opponent and they always got there first. It didn't take very many games before I gave up the deck and using this card at all. But I do like looking at it, which is good :-)
Title - The Final Chapter Series – Resident Evil #6 Director – Paul WS Anderson Release – 2017 Rating – R Time – 1hr 47min
My Thoughts:
Man, this movie had the potential to be one of the best RE movies and a great ending to the franchise. Unfortunately, it was ruined by two things.
First, the directorial choice to use a LOT of shaky cam footage during the fight scenes and also something that I learned is called a “quick cut”. Basically, the camera switches viewpoints throughout a fight every 5-15seconds. It is meant to increase the feeling of “action” but the reality is that it totally defeats the purpose of a fight, because you as a viewer can’t actually tell what is going on in said fight. You get this “idea” that two people are beating the snot out of each other but there is no coherence or order to it at all. Combined with shaky cam footage (simulating someone holding a camera in their hand and thus “shaking”), it is almost nausea inducing. There were a couple of times I had to stop watching the movie because I was so upset that I couldn’t make sense of the fighting going on.
The second thing that ruined this for me was the cutting of certain scenes which would have made things make sense. In this movie, it is made to look like one scientist invented the T-virus to cure his daughter of progeria (the disease that ages someone at an accelerated rate), which directly contradicts what is shown in the second movie Apocalypse, where a third scientist invented the T-virus for HIS daughter. The reality is that the first scientist appropriated the T-virus from the third scientist and that irons out ALL apparent storyline contradictions. The problem is, that was never shown in this movie and you’d never know it unless you read the novelization of the movie or the Wiki page (synopsis included below). So there appears to be this HUGE plot hole, so big that even I noticed it and it ruins the flow of the movie. What makes it especially egregious is that a 30second clip of the first scientist appropriating it from the third scientist would have solved it all. 30 SECONDS!!!!!
Other than those two things, this was a great movie. The previous movie ended with everyone preparing for a fight at the White House, only it was a trap by Wesker and the Umbrella Corporation but Alice survives. She’s contacted by the Red Queen AI and told humanity is on the edge of being wiped out but that there’s an airborne cure back at the Raccoon City Hive. So Alice has to go back to where the story started and fix everything. It was great! The movie ends with Alice finding out she’s a clone but just like Pinocchio she gets memories and becomes a “real girl” and the anti-T-virus is released and the world is now on the path of being saved. And Alice is still on her mission to kill all T-virus infected monsters, wherever they may be.
At the beginning of the movie we see a battle between Alice and that flying monstrous badboy. After that, the monsters are everything we’ve seen in previous movies, just in greater numbers. There’s no Nemesis or Tyrant, or even a Super-Licker (yeah, yeah, whoever thought that name up was NOT in top form that day). I guess the point here was that humanity was its own worst enemy so most of Alice’s opponents are humans. I prefer monstrous monsters thank you very much.
I enjoyed what I could of this movie and it didn’t ruin the franchise as a whole for me. I just feel that a couple of “easy” changes would have made this movie so much better. With that in view, I tried to watch a director commentary on the movie, hoping that maybe Anderson would explain his choices. Sadly, there was only a commentary track called “Retaliation” where Jovovich and Anderson briefly talk about various scenes in the movie where Anderson had really pushed Jovovich to the edge in terms of physicality. It was supposed to allow Jovovich to “retaliate” against Anderson in a fun loving way. There were very few instances of this and ended up being more about them talking about their daughter (who played the Red Queen and young Alice in this movie) and some personal reminiscences. It was extremely disappointing especially since we’d gotten commentary tracks (even if I didn’t care for some of them) on all the previous movies, and given that RE6 made almost 350million on a 40million budget, well, it felt very cheap on their part to not make the commentary track happen.
Overall, I enjoyed the franchise as a whole as a series of action movies. There were big holes to ignore but if you could, it was fun. I was able to (mostly), hence my buying the bluray collection :-D
Considering that I’ve just reviewed six movies in six months, I think I’m going to take a break from reviewing a movie for a bit. When I feel inspired, I’ll choose something else and probably let you know in a Circum et Pervagatus post.
Synopsis from Wikipedia
Synopsis - click to open
Dr. James Marcus, the founder of the Umbrella Corporation, had a daughter, Alicia, who was dying of progeria. Desperate to save her, Marcus confiscates an untested embryonic Umbrella project—the T-virus—created by his colleague Dr. Charles Ashford and uses it on Alicia and others with the disease. After one child treated with the virus becomes a zombie, Marcus immediately orders the project terminated, all data on it destroyed, and forbids Ashford from ever pursuing it again, devastating Ashford, who needed the T-virus to save his own daughter Angela.[a] Marcus's partner, Dr. Alexander Isaacs, has Marcus murdered by Albert Wesker, adopts Alicia, and takes over the Corporation.
In the present, Alice awakens in the ruined White House, after Wesker betrayed her.[b] The Red Queen appears and tells her she has 48 hours to infiltrate the Hive, a facility beneath Raccoon City. The Umbrella Corporation has an airborne anti-virus that can kill every zombie but is waiting for the last few remaining humans to be wiped out. As her body carries the virus, Alice does not expect to live after the mission.
While traveling, Alice is captured by Isaacs, learning the "Isaacs" she previously killed was a clone.[c] She escapes his convoy and reaches Raccoon City, where she meets a group of survivors: Doc, Abigail, Christian, Cobalt, Razor, and Claire Redfield, who survived the attack on Arcadia.[d] Isaacs' convoy approaches, trailed by a horde of zombies. Alice and the group defeat them and retrieve Isaacs' few human captives, though Cobalt dies in the process. Alice and the crew enter the Hive, where Wesker is in control. He releases mutated guard dogs, killing Christian and a freed captive.
The Red Queen appears to Alice and explains that her program is in conflict, as she can never hurt an Umbrella employee but also must value human life. She plays a video of Isaacs explaining to Umbrella's executives a plan to release the T-virus, cleansing the world of humanity and leaving many of the rich and powerful—including the company executives, stored in cryogenic capsules in the Hive—to rebuild the world. The Red Queen warns Alice that someone in her group is helping Umbrella.
The group encounters traps that kill Abigail and Razor. Alice and Doc plant bombs throughout the Hive taken from the leftover equipment by the first Hive team,[e] and confront the real, tech-upgraded Isaacs. Doc turns out to be Umbrella's spy, and Claire is captured by Wesker. A cryogenic capsule releases Alicia Marcus, Umbrella's co-owner and Marcus' daughter. Isaacs and the Red Queen reveal to Alice that she is actually a clone of Alicia. Isaacs plans to eliminate the pair and assume control of Umbrella. Alicia fires Wesker, allowing the Red Queen to terminate his protection program and crush his leg with a security door. Doc tries to shoot Alice, but his gun is empty—as Alice had earlier deduced his treachery—and Claire kills him. After giving Wesker a deadman's switch to the primed bombs, Alice and Claire pursue Isaacs while Alicia uploads a copy of her childhood memories.
Isaacs, Alice, and Claire fight. Isaacs overpowers them at first, but Alice manages to activate a grenade in his pocket and kill him. She escapes to the surface with the anti-virus, but Isaacs reboots and catches her before she can release it. Before he can kill her, the Isaacs clone from the convoy arrives and kills him, believing himself to be the original Isaacs, before being devoured by the undead. Alice releases the anti-virus, killing all of the zombies around her before she passes out. Wesker simultaneously drops the deadman's switch, destroying himself, Alicia, the Hive, and the hibernating elite.
Claire wakes Alice, who survived because the anti-virus killed the T-virus within her body, not the healthy cells. The Red Queen uploads Alicia's childhood memories into Alice, granting her a childhood. With the anti-virus being carried by the winds, it will take years to reach all corners of the globe, and until it does, Alice vows to continue her mission.
Most of this week has been taken up with preparing for Mrs B's trip to visit her family. She does so much around our place that when we started planning out the week for when she would be gone, I suddenly realized how much I was going to have to take on. So of course I "encouraged" her to do as much as she could ahead of time so I wouldn't have to, hahahahaa. Being Mr B to her Mrs B is fantastic.
The other thing I concentrated on was sleeving up the latest iteration of Magic the Gathering. This set was all about Marvel Superheroes and Villains.
Each deck consists of 100 cards, so that's a total of 400 cards. That's a lot of work. I've done this before with other sets (Warhammer 40K, Lord of the Rings, etc) and always had someone else to help me. I did one deck each evening and let me tell you, sitting in a hard backed chair putting little pieces of cardboard into little pieces of plastic was boring. Satisfying but boring. It was like doing laundry. It needs to be done and I do it every Sunday, but I do NOT look forward to it :-D
Now, I do get to put those little pieces of pretty cardboard into little pretty pieces of plastic. I could just use just black sleeves, but half the fun is getting a sleeve color to match the deck. I've got Green for the Dr Doom, Blue for Fantastic Four, Black for Wakanda Forever and Silver for the Avengers. The little touches, while not necessary, really move this from a chore to a FUN chore, hehehehe.
The second part of deck'ing is the case you put them in. I usually use clear cases so I can see the Commander, ie, the face card of the deck. However, for these specialty releases, I like to play the decks only against each other. I only play the Warhammer 40K decks against each other, the Lord of the Rings against each other and now, just the Marvel Heroes decks against each other. My problem is that I have a cupboard of over 50 commander decks. Pawing through 50 decks isn't fun and really ruins the pre-game vibe. So these nice green deck cases are easy to see and pick out for when I want a little Magic Marvel action.
On Wednesday, as chronicled by AAA (that stands for Awesome As Alex), Canada set itself on fire and then invaded the United States. The sky was filled with smoke. The picture above is one my coworker took at 10am on the jobsite we were working at. We worked for an hour or so, then went inside one of the buildings that had AC and just breathed clean air for a bit. We could taste it and feel it coating our throats. It was extremely unpleasant. Thankfully it cleared up by Thursday and it was blue skies then.
And now it is Friday evening and Mrs B has arrived safely at her destination. I had the day off since I had to take her to the airport early and I picked up some Mr Mac's Cheeseburger Deluxe . It might be summer, but when I go batch'ing it, Mr Macs is essential to my single's lifestyle. The other essential part of my single's lifestyle will be to live the next week exactly the same as I always do. Just by myself.
I have a feeling I will be talking to myself, out loud, a lot over the coming week. The tv will also be on most evenings to give me the sense that I'm not by myself, even though I know I will be.
Lest you think I will be a sniveling wretch, let me assure you that I won't be. I will enjoy this truly alone time, because I know it isn't permanent. It has a specific end date and so I will be soaking in the solitude like Superman soaking in the rays of the sun :-D
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 Mask of Fu-Manchu Series: Dr Fu-Manchu
#5 Author: Sax Rohmer Rating: 1.5 of 5
Stars Genre: Pulp Mystery Pages:
192 Words: 70K Publish: 1932
This
is a direct sequel to The Daughter of Fu-Manchu (link
below my avatar) and thus some doofus named Greville is the narrator
instead of Dr Petrie. I’ve complained about Petrie being stupid in
the past, but my goodness, Greville is just one huge ball of stupid
from top to toe, front to back, beginning to end. I had to stop
reading several times because he was being such an idiot and I
couldn’t stand reading such stupidity. Then throw in his boss, the
archeologist Lionel Barton who trades fake goods to Dr Fu-Manchu for
the life of his own niece and that pretty much sums up Barton. He
was a scumbag and I hated him.
Petrie
shows up to do “doctor’y” things and then jets off when not
needed by the author. Fu-Manchu’s main English adversary, Sir
Dennis Nayland Smith, sometimes referred to as Sir Dennis and at
other times as Nayland Smith, does his typical bungling job of
opposing Fu-Manchu. Greville’s lover and Barton’s niece is there
to provide a frisson of danger and to be kidnapped and that’s about
it.
Finally,
the biggest thing that got my goat, was that Fu-Manchu acts like an
English Blue-Blood and keeps his “sacred and honorable word” even
though it means not killing Nayland Smith, Petrie and Barton, the man
who cheated him. It was pure national projection on the part of
Rohmer (the author) and it stank like three day old fish. There are
times I wish people like Rohmer had been in Mao’s re-education
camps. I realize that is impossible, given when this was written and
when Mao’s reign of terror occurred, but still, I like to
fantasize.
I
still enjoyed the overall story of the rise of a heretic sect of
Islam but it wasn’t much of a Dr Fu-Manchu story, hence the
extremely low rating. I just hope that wretched Greville isn’t the
narrator for the next story.
★✬☆☆☆
From
the Publisher
After
discovering the tomb of El Mokanna - the Veiled Prophet - and
retrieving the precious relics buried there, the eminent
archaeologist Sir Lionel Barton blows up the tomb. The heretic sect
faithful to Mokanna interpret the fireball as their prophet's second
coming, and a violent uprising begins.
Meanwhile,
the insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu senses an opportunity to use the powerful
relics for his own evil ends. The action stretches from Persia to
Cairo, then back to London, including an extraordinary confrontation
inside of the Great Pyramid. Along the way his opponents face Ogboni
killers, mind-control drugs, dervishes, and a "ghost mosque."
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:
Mrs Pollifax and the Lion Killer Series: Mrs
Pollifax #12 Author: Dorothy Gilman Rating:
3 of 5 Stars Genre: Thriller Pages:
155 Words: 52K Publish: 1996
A
direct sequel to Mrs
Pollifax Pursued and I must say, this didn’t come out so
great in comparison. There is no CIA connection, no Carstairs or any
other operatives, just Mrs Pollifax in a fake African country that is
being riven by rumors and with everybody acting like a three year
old.
I
think this was the first Mrs Pollifax book that I finished with a
sigh of relief that it was over. Part of it was that Mrs P was very
passive in the first part of the book and that doesn’t suit her at
all. Yes, she’s tired and she’s dealing with that girl Kadi, but
she just lets everything happen to her. It didn’t feel like Mrs P
until she took matters into her own hands, but even then, it was just
a little bit. This was more of a mystery with its passiveness than an
active thriller like I’ve come to expect from the author.
Also,
that title. It refers to a man who dresses up as a lion and kills
people. So if any of you are bleeding hearts, don’t worry, no lions
are killed. Because there are NO lions in the fake country of
Ubangiba. I guess that was part of the irritation. Gilman has had no
problem talking about other real countries and their pro’s and
con’s, all over the world, but suddenly we go to Africa and its
different for them?
Despite
my complaining, this was still a decent read, just not a great read
and I must admit, after the last book I had high expectations.
★★★☆☆
From
the Publisher
In
response to a desperate SOS, Kadi Hopkirk flies to the African
country of Ubangiba, where her childhood friend, Sammat, is soon to
be crowned king. Mrs. Pollifax, reluctant to allow the girl to
venture alone into what she fears may be grave danger, crashes the
party. On arrival, Kadi and Mrs. P. soon discover that Sammat has
dangerous enemies. Rumors are springing up that he is a sorcerer who
is responsible for a rash of shocking murders in which the victims
appear to have been clawed to death by a lion. These crimes are
especially terrifying because there are no lions in Ubangiba. So Mrs.
Pollifax wades into the fray, hunting for the source of the bloody
terrorism that threatens Sammat and Ubangida – – not to mention
Kadi and Mrs. Pollifax…..
The only reason you would play this card is if you truly like Chance in your Magic the Gathering games and were willing to lose. I don't like Chance in my MTG games and I don't like losing. So I'll give you one guess how many times I put this card in a deck.
The picture definitely looks like a Clash between Blue and Red. It doesn't have anything to do with how the card actually works, but it sure does fit the title really well.
