Dead Six (Dead Six #1)

This review is written with a GPL 3.0 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 Bookstooge.booklikes.blogspot. wordpress.leafmarks.com & Bookstooge's Reviews on the Road Facebook Group by Bookstooge's Exalted Permission.
Title: Dead Six
Series: Dead Six
Author: Larry Correia & Mike Kupari
Rating: 4.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: SFF
Pages: 725
Format: Kindle digital edition







Synopsis:
Michael Valentine, former marine and mercenary extraordinaire, has burnt out. Trying to live a "normal life" as a security guard, Valentine is going out of his mind. One day a former team mate offers him a job of a lifetime. Making money hand over fist for the United States Government while bringing the War on Terror to the terrorists in places they thought were safe.

Lorenzo. Con man, thief and hitman. He thought his family safe. Big Eddie convinced him otherwise. Of course, Big Eddie promises they'll be safe if Lorenzo does just one, teensy weensy impossible, job.

Lorenzo and Valentine are on a collision course. Women get involved, things slightly Cthulhu'ic are involved and backstabbing and betrayals are the keywords of the day. Will Valentine and Lorenzo kill each other or save each other?

My Thoughts:
Wow! Just wow! Valentine and Lorenzo are apparently on two different paths when suddenly they're on a collision course. Then suddenly they're reluctant allies. Now that sounds like a whiplash ride, but considering this book is over 700 pages long, the process was gradual and realistic.

Having the dual viewpoints, essentially telling 2 stories, worked. Each POV was prefaced by which character it was and the location, and that was very helpful.

There was a group called Exodus that played a very brief part. They seemed to be some sort of super vigilante group that was driven by the need for Justice against those who could never be brought to Justice by ordinary means. There was another group called Majestic, which was more referred to than anything else. I am assuming they will both play bigger roles in the next book.

There is an object of power, human sacrifice and a heavy unearthly feeling in parts. That is why I gave this the paranormal  tag, even though it was pretty strictly a gun fest.
The violence level was pretty high definitely earned the ultra-violence tag. Brains, blood and body parts blown all over the place. High calibre weapons do a lot of damage and neither author shied from describing such carnage.

Correia is known for his gun porn. Apparently, Kupari was right behind him, egging him on and adding his own. Thankfully, it didn't overwhelm any part of the story and it sounded like what a soldier would think/talk in these kinds of situations. I don't enjoy gun porn for the record.

I know this doesn't really tell why I liked this so much, but I stayed up until almost 11pm two nights in a row reading this because I just couldn't put it down. I think that speaks volumes in and of itself. I am really looking forward to the sequel, Swords of Exodus.

Counterstrike (Black Fleet #3)

This review is written with a GPL 3.0 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 Bookstooge.booklikes.blogspot. wordpress.leafmarks.com & Bookstooge's Reviews on the Road Facebook Group by Bookstooge's Exalted Permission.
Title: Counterstrike
Series: Black Fleet
Author: Joshua Dalzelle
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre: SFF
Pages: 365
Format: Kindle digital edition







Synopsis:
Jackson Wolfe is about to head up the remaining fleets of Earth against the Phage, in a strike against a theoretical Phage Overmind.
All of the info about the Phage come from the new alien allies. Said allies are unwilling to dirty their hands with actual fighting but have no problems with using other races as proxies.
Wolfe must now fight a 3 front war. One against the Phage. One, very surreptitiously, against their supposed allies. Finally, one against his own commander who can't take any chances.

My Thoughts:
Best book of this trilogy. And it ends. Jackson Wolfe is alive at the end but his story is over. The story about the alien allies hasn't finished, but the Phage aspect is done.

As soon as the alien allies made it clear that they used other races to wage their wars, the origin of the Phage was pretty much a foregone conclusion. It was an interesting turn but not a shocking revelation. It definitely makes the "allies" the new "enemies" for any future books.

The tiny bit of "romance" was awkward and really didn't add anything to the story or make the characters any better. I wish that Dalzelle had left it out altogether. It would have fit just fine with Wolfe as a character.

In the author's note at the end, he makes it clear that this IS a trilogy. I like that he had the balls to end this and not try to endlessly milk it.  While I am hoping to read more in this universe, I am ok with being done with Jackson Wolfe.

It Shouldn't Happen to a Vet (All Creatures Great and Small #2)

This review is written with a GPL 3.0 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 Bookstooge.booklikes.blogspot. wordpress.leafmarks.com & Bookstooge's Reviews on the Road Facebook Group by Bookstooge's Exalted Permission.
Title: It Shouldn't Happen to a Vet
Series: All Creatures Great and Small
Author: James Herriot
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre: Autobiography
Pages: 290
Format: Scan







Synopsis:
Year 2 of Jim's Adventuring in Vet'ing.

My Thoughts:
I didn't enjoy this one quite as much as the previous book. I think that is mostly because the novelty had worn itself out in book one.

Other than that, this was just as solid. Good character sketches, interesting descriptions of happy and sad times. This time around we also get some of the social interactions that Jim has; even if only to get completely plastered, fall down a hill with a drunk woman and then meet the girl he wants to impress.

I am glad I am reading these.

The Dracula Caper (Time Wars #8) DNF@38%

This review is written with a GPL 3.0 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 Bookstooge.booklikes.blogspot. wordpress.leafmarks.com & Bookstooge's Reviews on the Road Facebook Group by Bookstooge's Exalted Permission.
Title: The Dracula Caper
Series: Time Wars
Author: Simon Hawke
Rating: 1/2 of 5 Stars
Genre: SFF
Pages: DNF
Format: Kindle digital editions







Synopsis:
The Multiverse continues the war. Now Drakov, the crazy russian, has introduced genetic creatures, namely were-wolves and vampires, into "our" timeline in London in an effort to destabilize our timeline and destroy us.


My Thoughts:
This book is where I stop reading this series. It wasn't that the plot was any cheesier than previous books. It wasn't that the characters were suddenly stiffer than cardboard, because they've always been standup cutouts.

Nope, I quit because this was more than half exposition about Time War physics and other such immaterial crap. This was the 8th book in the series. I don't need the whole primer for the Time Wars, an exposition about why things are so bad and history of each character and why they are the way they are.

It frustrated me so much that I just quit, the book and the series.

Good riddance!

Dreams of Steel (The Chronicles of the Black Company #6)

This review is written with a GPL 3.0 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 Bookstooge.booklikes.blogspot. wordpress.leafmarks.com & Bookstooge's Reviews on the Road Facebook Group by Bookstooge's Exalted Permission.
Title: Dreams of Steel
Series: The Chronicles of the Black Company
Author: Glen Cook
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre: SFF
Pages: 383
Format: Kindle digital edition






Synopsis:
The Lady must pull together a whole new Black Company, as most of the group gathered in the last book were beaten. With Croaker out of the picture, she must fulfill the obligation to the Taglians and take down the Shadowmasters, her former apprentices known as the Taken.
Problem is, the Taglian leaders don't want her, or the Black Company, around any longer; and a Death Cult gets involved and tries to make the Lady the death goddess's avatar; and the Shadowmasters play their games against the Lady and each other.

"It's complicated" only scratches the surface!

My Thoughts: Spoilers Ahead Matey's!
Thankfully, we learn relatively early on that Croaker's not dead, but being held captive by the Lady's sister, a Taken and now a Shadowmaster named, Catcher? I can't keep track of which Taken is which much less when they start with the whole new identity thing and switch it all up.
Needless to say, I'm glad he's alive even if he played a very small part in this book.

I really wish I had read these back in the day when I was part of the SFBC. These books make Steven Erikson's whole Malazan Book of the Fallen series look like the bloated up pompous bag of wind that they turned into in the last 3 books. The Black Company books are superior in almost every way and as a bonus, I get answers.  Well, I guess late to the Black Company party is better than never.

The reveal at the end, about the Lady's child, was almost so not there that I had to read the couple of paragraphs a couple of times to make sense of it. Little things like that are why I prefer an omniscient narrator style instead of the unreliable. But it fits with the whole tone of the series and Cook writes it so it isn't clunky, choppy or distracting.

Finally, I enjoy Cook's writing. I don't skim. Anything. It is interesting and he does a great job of hiding little nuggets of info among otherwise random things. It is kind of fun actually. All the battles, fighting and magic make it ok too *wink*

Unclean (The Haunted Lands #1) (Forgotten Realms)

This review is written with a GPL 3.0 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 Bookstooge.booklikes.blogspot. wordpress.leafmarks.com & Bookstooge's Reviews on the Road Facebook Group by Bookstooge's Exalted Permission.
Title: Unclean
Series: The Haunted Lands
Author: Richard Lee Byers
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: SFF
Pages: 352
Format: Kindle digital edition







Synopsis:
Following a griffin rider/mage, a mercenary and the machinations of several Red Wizards of Thay, including Szass Tam.
Some power is raising hordes of undead, some not seen for centuries and invading the Kingdom of Thay. The griffin rider is the survivor of 2 attacks and becomes a de facto general in the new army raised to fight the hordes. The mercenary is trailing a band of rogue Red wizards who have taken his betrothed, along with hundreds of others, for experimentation. And the Wizards council is playing games as Szass Tam, the lich wizard, attempts the long game of taking over Thay.

My Thoughts:
This was pretty standard fare. There seemed to be a couple more POV's than I was used to in a Forgotten Realms book but since they all advanced the story, it made for the scope of the story to be told in a wider sense. It worked even while annoying me for not staying strictly with 2-3 characters like I am used to in a FR book.

My issue [and I always seem to have at least one with any of these churned out stories] was the plot line dealing with the mercenary and his kidnapped love interest, who ends up being turned into a super vampire. His pov and adventures added nearly 1/4 of what we see and while it was necessary, the whole "love interest" part just didn't ring true. It would have worked better if the love interest was a family member instead of a love interest.

And at the 90% mark, I realized I had already read the end of the story arc in the book The Crimson Gold, a stand alone book in the Rogue series. Which was kind of a downer, as the suspense is gone, but at the same time was neat as I now had a destination already in mind and I just needed to see how the author would get to there.

The River of Shadows (The Chathrand Voyage #3)

This review is written with a GPL 3.0 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 Bookstooge.booklikes.blogspot. wordpress.leafmarks.com & Bookstooge's Reviews on the Road Facebook Group by Bookstooge's Exalted Permission.
Title: The River of Shadows
Series: The Chathrand Voyage
Author: Robert Redick
Rating: 2 of 5 Stars
Genre: SFF
Pages: 593
Format: Kindle







Synopsis:
The crew of the Chathrand are pretty much captured, lots of things happen, Arunis pretty much wins even while being killed.

My Thoughts:
You know what? I like the overall story. But I can't stand the palpable despair and hopelessness that permeates every action, every thought of every character.
It seems like they are racing ahead of a tsunami, once step ahead of being completely swept away.

I am not a fan of hopelessness.

Batman versus Predator (Batman versus Predator #1)

This review is written with a GPL 3.0 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 Bookstooge.booklikes.blogspot. wordpress.leafmarks.com & Bookstooge's Reviews on the Road Facebook Group by Bookstooge's Exalted Permission.
Title: Batman versus Predator
Series: Batman versus Predator
Author/Artist: Dave Gibbons, Andy & Adam Kubert
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre: Graphic Novel/Comic
Pages: 128
Format: Digital scan







Synopsis:
A Predator comes to Gotham and starts hunting the top dogs. Batman gets involved and it comes down to a brutal finish between a wounded Batman and a wounded Predator.

My Thoughts:
I own this in paper. I bought the collected edition when it came out in the 90's and my teen self was amazed at how amazing amazingly amazing this was. What could be more amazing than Batman, in amazing bat armor,  fighting an amazing predator?

Yeah, that is a lot of amazeballz there.

Reading this now, it is a solid, if a bit short, story.  There is actually very little of Batman fighting the Predator, more like skirmishes while the Predator kills off various Gotham elites. Thankfully, right at the end, there is a scene where Batman takes a baseball bat to the Predator. I think that scene alone would make this book worthwhile.

I am not sure I'll ever be reading this again though. It had sat on my bookshelves, lo these long years, and I hadn't even thought of it until I read that silly book, Archie versus the Predator. That was just so much fun that I had to dig these out [there are 3 graphic novels in this series, even though each is a standalone story if I remember correctly] and see how they've fared over time.

I was planning on reading all 3 in a row and then review them right after the other but after this one I think I'll let it rest for a week or so before trying the second.

He Fell in Love with His Wife (Classic)

This review is written with a GPL 3.0 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 Bookstooge.booklikes.blogspot. wordpress.leafmarks.com & Bookstooge's Reviews on the Road Facebook Group by Bookstooge's Exalted Permission.
Title: He Fell in Love with His Wife
Series: -----
Author: Edward Roe
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre: Romance
Pages: 308
Format: Kindle digital edition







Synopsis:
A farmer's wife dies and leaves him on his own. After several disastrous attempts at hiring women to take care of his domestic needs, he enters into a business marriage with a woman who has been used, lied to and cast aside.
What neither of them expects is to fall in love with the other. However, when the cad who ruined the woman returns, all comes into the open and love and justice prevail.

My Thoughts:
After the Best Book of 2015 came from Roe (His Sombre Rivals) I deliberately lowered my expectations for this book.

In some ways that was a good thing. This was a rather dry romance. It was a romance that I could believe in. Nothing like those pornographic books today that are called romance but are not much more than passion and sex. It also wasn't the Jane Austen variety of romance [of which I am a big fan] with its funny, quirky, irascible, heroic and villainous characters who were in very circumscribed circumstances. However, what this was a romance that dealt with some deep issues and had some weight behind it.

A couple of things that I really did like:


1) One night a group of young men come to the cottage and perform some backwoods thingy, where they scream and insult the wife and husband. Well, the farmer knows that what they are saying is false but the wife doesn't and she is so afraid that she faints. The farmer then gets a hickory stick and beats the boys black and blue. But all the while he knows the boys aren't trying to harm his wife and he doesn't hold a grudge. He is punishing them for frightening her and to teach them to think before they act.

2) Near the end of the book the farmer confronts the man who ruined Mrs Farmer's reputation [by marrying her and hiding the fact that he was already married] and whips the man until he leaves.

Men are creatures of violent natures, even those most inclined to peace and tranquility. Most of the time we see that violent nature at its worst; in murder, in abuse, in rape. But when properly channeled and in a right cause, a violent man is a thing of wonder to behold.

So overall this book was a success for me. I have several more of Roe's book in my Calibre library and I am glad that I'll be reading more of him.

Something Under The Bed Is Drooling (Calvin and Hobbes #2)

This review is written with a GPL 3.0 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 Bookstooge.booklikes.blogspot. wordpress.leafmarks.com & Bookstooge's Reviews on the Road Facebook Group by Bookstooge's Exalted Permission.







Title: Something Under The Bed Is Drooling
Series: Calvin and Hobbes
Author/Artist: Bill Watterson
Rating: 5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Comics
Pages: 128
Format: Digital scan



Synopsis:
The further adventures of Calvin and his best friend Hobbes. We are introduced to Rosalyn the infamous babysitter. Susy the girl next door becomes more entrenched as the love/hate interest. And life as a kid is shown in all its glory and all its horror.

My Thoughts:
What a wonderful book. This was as good as the first. Since this is a series of daily strips, there is not an overall plot. You might get several comics in a row dealing with the same story arc, but that is it.

The art is simple and yet Watterson is able to portray so many intricate feelings and situations. It seems simple but if I were to try to portray these comics with words, I am not sure I could do it. Watterson does it with almost stick characters. I used the word "genius" in my review of the first book I believe and I can only say the same again.