Gridlinked (Polity: Agent Cormac #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 WordPress, Blogspot, Booklikes & Librarything by  Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission.}
Title: Gridlinked
Series: Polity: Agent Cormac #1
Author: Neal Asher
Rating: 4.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: SFF
Pages: 433
Format: Kindle Digital edition

Synopsis:

Ian Cormac has been gridlinked for 30 years where 20 years is supposed to be the maximum. Ian's effectiveness in the service of Earth's AI is what caused the continued link. Recently though, Ian has started exhibiting signs of gridlink addiction, an inability to interact with other humans and unable to think for himself.

When a planetwide accident happens on the remote world of Samarkand and an extraterrestial alien known as Dragon reappears, Earth Central sends in Agent Cormac. However, the AI always has games within games within games and having unplugged Ian, allows his enemies to know where he is going. Why solve 1 problem when you can solve 5?

My Thoughts

Another home run of a read.  Having read Asher starting in 2010, with this book and continuing on his Polity series, it was good to re-read this and see how his writing has been polished up. Make no mistake, this was rough writing; not bad, but without some of the polish you see in later books.

If I had to choose one word to describe this all, Ultra-violence would be that word. Entrails, brain matter, dismembered limbs, broken, burst, or burnt body parts, alien flesh or fluid spattered across the landscape. Guns, garrottes, bombs, knives, lasers, bare hands [or golem hands as the case may be], alien teeth, cars, spaceships, all are used as weapons. It is phracking awesome!

This is a novel, and series, about Humanity and Post Humanity. If a human can live for 200 years, upload his mind to a golem body if he so chooses all the while living in a society run by A.I.'s of godlike intelligence, what kind of society will emerge? Asher doesn't get sidetracked from his story to show us the nitty-gritty but we do get little peeks here and there. And those little glimpses are fascinating.

To the plotmobile! Space-gates connect planets. One explodes and destroys a worlds' population. Ian must investigate and figure out what is going on. At the same time, some of Ian's old enemies are tracking him down to kill him. Add in an alien and my goodness, you have so many chainsaws in the air that any guess might kill you if wrong.

The whole idea of aug's and messing around with your mind to expand it intrigues me to no end. The idea of A.I.'s ruling humanity in the background while letting humanity grow mentally is also fascinating. Of course,the whole thing is predicated on the idea that something better can come from something lesser. A machine intelligence that is greater than humanity and without humanity's flaws. Great idea, but I can't buy it for real and so it kicks me out of the story occasionally.

Overall, I loved this book, was just as intrigued this time around as I was in '10, loved the violence, love the mystery of the plot and am looking forward to the rest of the series. These rereads have been good so far and so I am waiting for the other shoe to drop. Let's see if I can put that off for a bit, shall we?

Here's some alternate covers, because some of these are just plain awesome. I'm usually not a big fan of putting pictures into reviews, but in this case, I feel some of these represent the book better than the cover here, especially the last one.

 

Empire in Black and Gold (Shadows of the Apt #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 WordPress, Blogspot, Booklikes & Librarything by  Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission.}
Title: Empire in Black and Gold
Series: Shadows of the Apt #1
Author: Adrian Tchaikovsky
Rating: 5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 628
Format: Ebook

Synopsis:

20 years ago, Stenwold Maker, along with his friends, attempt to save a city that is being invaded by the Wasp Empire. After failing, the friends go their separate ways and pursue their own agendas. Stenwold heads back to Collegium, to raise awareness of the danger of the Wasp Empire. Nobody listens and as the years pass, Stenwold becomes something of a byword and dismissed as an alarmist crackpot. But Stenwold knows that the Wasps will come and he begins training various college graduates to become his spy ring.

Now, Stenwold's niece and adopted daughter have graduated and the Wasp Empire is on the move again. His hand being forced, Stenwold sends out Che (his niece) and her friends before he can truly train them. Thrown into a situation beyond their knowledge, the group must grow or die. The whole of the Lowlands is in danger but if Collegium falls, the whole Lowlands will follow quickly. Collegium is the one City State that accepts all Kindens and is a center of Knowledge.

My Thoughts:  Spoilers?

(For clarity's sake, I read this back in February 2010) This was just as good as my previous read.

Tchaikovsky does a good job of introducing us to the main characters, the various nation states and the politics of what is going on. It's a tall order but unlike Erikson, Tchaikovksy doesn't just drop us in and leave us to sink or swim. Information is unfolded as we need it and I never felt like there were info dumps. However, I don't have a hate of infodumps like some, so take that as you may.

I had forgotten, or never realized, just how grim this book was. The little blurb on the cover says "The Days of Peace are Over" and my goodness, does that fit. I knew the series never lightened up but had forgotten how it started. It doesn't fall into Grimdark, but it sure isn't happy and upbeat. Magician by Raymond Feist might be the opposite of this. This is not a "plucky group of youngsters overcome the Evil Empire". It is a novel of War. A novel about how a group of friends can't stay together forever.  Pushed and pulled, each character must go their own way and develop on their own.

These are not under developed characters. Tchaikovsky really delves into motivations and what drives them. It is the type of character development that I like. The flaws of their society are evident and are as much a part of the story as anything. Nor does Tchaikovsky turn into a bloody SJW [social justice warrior] and try to make some seriously skewed political point. Thank goodness for authors who aren't flaming idiots.

To end this, this volume I read had several short stories at the end of book. Those stories are what pushed this from a 4star book to a 5star book. One in particular dealt with the magic of this world. It was a ghost story that left you wondering, was it really a ghost story or a scam? Either way, it worked really  well.

Good stuff and I'm satisfied that I bought this in paperback.

Batman: The Dark Knight Returns (The Dark Knight Saga #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 WordPress, Blogspot, Booklikes & Librarything by  Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission.}
Title: Batman: The Dark Knight Returns
Series: The Dark Knight Saga #1
Author: Frank Miller, et al
Rating: 2.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Comic
Pages: 224
Format: Paperback

Synopsis: Spoilers

Batman has retired, all of the other superheroes have been forced into retirement by Superman, who is now a secret stooge of the United States Government.
But with Gotham getting worse and worse, Batman comes back. Lots of things happen, the Russians nuke a south american ally of the United States and Superman kills Batman, who has in turn killed the Joker. Except obviously Batman doesn't die but goes on to become the worlds biggest boyscout to a bunch of misfits. Oh the irony.

My Thoughts:

If you're not a fan of Reagan, you might like this more. If you're not a fan of Superman, you might like this more.

I own this and have read it before, but never logged it or reviewed it. I remembered up through part II where Batman takes down a gang leader to stop them from taking over Gotham. Everything else I did not remember.

There is a reason I blacked it out.

Superman being a collaborator to shut down super powered heroes. I didn't buy it for a minute. Superman being stupid enough to detonate a nuclear missile in the earth's atmosphere. I didn't buy that for a minute. If this had just been about an old Batman, I would have bought that a lot more. But screw Miller. You don't mess with my Superman.

I also apparently own the sequel, The Dark Knight Strikes Again. I'm already dreading it. If it's like this one, I'll be looking into giving these away somehow.

Also, this is the first comic where it is apparent that I'm getting old. I had to take OFF my glasses several times and bring the book close to read the bloody text. There were quite a few times where the text was very squiggly, cursive'y, irregular and it made it bloody hard to read. Goodness, I'm in fine fettle with this book.

I'm being very generous with my star rating here. If I was just judging this on enjoyment alone, it would have gotten a HALF star.

Devils vs. Gods (Eyeshield 21 #20) (Manga Monday)

^{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 WordPress, Blogspot, Booklikes & Librarything by  Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission.}
Title: Devils vs. Gods
Series: Eyeshield 21 #20
Author: Riichiro Inagaki
Artist: Yusuke Murata
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre: Manga
Pages: 150
Format: Digital Scan

Synopsis:

The Devil Bats begin their impossible battle against the reigning champions, the Naga. Hiruma taunts Agon, the star player but realizes that his tricks will only go so far against the Naga's huge pool of natural talent.
Every trick, every play that the Devil Bats can come up, the Naga simply surpass them.

Agon is a brute, a believer in Power and Ability above all else. He plays to hurt and he plays by himself. His own team is simply there so he doesn't have to do everything himself. And as much as Hiruma and the Devil Bats may hate him and his arrogance, he has the ability to back up everything he claims.

The books end at the half time mark with a score of 32-0 in the Naga's favor.

My Thoughts:

 After Superbowl 51 last night where the New England Patriots [whoooo!] came back from a huge deficit to win against the Atlanta Falcons, it was very fitting to read an Eyeshield 21 manga today. And to have the book end just like where I gave up watching the game last night, with an impossible gap, well, that is just great drama.

And just like how the Pats came back, with 17 more volumes in this series I KNOW that the Devil Bats will come back. And it will be glorious to see Agon eat the dust of defeat.

Now, for this volume. It was solid. Watching the Naga steamroll the Bats was disheartening but it also drove home the point that football is a brutal sport.

The overall dourness was lightened by little things here and there. For example, in one scene a reporter is interviewing one of the players and in the background you see two little chibi versions of some other players being chased by the team mascot, a mad dog who is carrying a knife and fork. Just silly little things like that keep the tone from getting too dark or serious.

The Sea Devil's Eye DNF@18% (Threat from the Sea #3) (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 WordPress, Blogspot, Booklikes & Librarything by  Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission.}
Title: The Sea Devil's Eye
Series: Threat from the Sea #3
Author: Mel Odom
Rating: 1 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 356
Format: Kindle Digital edition

Synopsis:

Abandoned, Did Not Finish.

My Thoughts: Maudlin Memories Abound

Part of why I abandoned this was because I had just finished Gardens of the Moon and I was still reveling in my first 5star read of 2017. ANY book was going to have a hard time following that. However, all the glaring faults of this Forgotten Realms trilogy were really brought into the light after staring into the previous book.

I was at a part where the main boy character [he's 20'ish, but 'boy' is the best description] is being talked to by the main love interest and she's pouring her heart out and simply asking him if he loves her. This boy has a very big "I'm not worthy" complex and he's an introspective melancholic. In fact, he acts EXACTLY like me when I was 18-22. So my problem isn't that he's unbelievable, it is that he's just plain selfish and WON'T look at anything other than how he wants to. My real life problem was solved when a professor at bibleschool answered one of my self-absorbed questions by laying into me and simply telling me the truth, in front of the whole class. I didn't change overnight but I did begin to think about other people. In this trilogy, the boy has his professor moments but he stays self-absorbed. Maybe later in the book that changes, but after 2+ books, I was done.

A young hero needs to mature. However, if you're only writing a trilogy, don't drag that "grow up" point to the last chapter. It's unpleasant for me as a reader because I have to put up with the character until then.

Nothing of the quality of this book was any less than the previous two. I'd simply had enough of the characters and the authors wanking around.

Gardens of the Moon (Malazan Book of the Fallen #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 WordPress, Blogspot, Booklikes & Librarything by  Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission.}
Title: Gardens of the Moon
Series: Malazan Book of the Fallen #1
Author: Steven Erikson
Rating: 5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 688
Format: Kindle Digital edition

Synopsis: Spoilers!

The Malazan Empire, now ruled by Empress Laseen, is on the path of expansion through total war. The last Free City on the continent of Genabackis, Darujhistan, is the next city in the sights of the Empire. Wracked from within by politics and threatened without by armies and mages, Darujhistan doesn't stand a chance.

Enter Rake, Lord of Moonspawn, a floating city, sorcerer supreme. Having allied with the Crimson Guard, might mercenaries and mages, Rake allies with the lords of Darujhistan to fight the Empire, but for his own reasons.

To counter this threat, Laseen has set into motion several plans, one of which is to find and unleash an ancient terror, a Jahgut Tyrant, a veritable god of power. Laseen means to pit the Tyrant against Rake and then to take down the weakened winner.

Enter the Bridgeburners. Loyal servants to the Empire and the old Emperor, who Laseen assassinated to become Empress. The Bridgeburners are meant for extinction, as Laseen can't have anyone around who isn't loyal to her. But the survivors are crafty, powerful and full of tricks of their own. They are meant to take Darujhistan and die, but they have other plans, plans of their own.

Unfortunately for everyone, there is a veritable cornucopia of gods, ancient powers and beings so old and so powerful that they might as well be gods. When humans can become gods, gods can become extinct and power is all, nobody can predict what will result.

My Thoughts:  Spoilers!

(For clarity's sake, I read this in June 2008 and again in December 2009. That link contains both my reviews in one review as Goodreads didn't have a re-read option and when importing to Booklikes I didn't feel like going through my 2000+ reviews and fixing "little" things like that.)

That synopsis barely scratches the surface of this book. In the forward Erikson tells us straight out that he will not be spoon feeding his readers anything and that he purposefully wrote things so as to make the readers work for connections. There are no obvious connections or explanations, there is Unexplained History of both nations and individuals and you are forced to hold on for your life or be thrown off the ride.

And what a ride this is! With this 3rd read I feel like I've finally got a little bit of a handle on this world. Since I have read the whole series, now I can begin to cobble it together. It helped that this time around I wasn't expecting all the threads started here to ever be finished or to connect. I have also finally accepted that this is The Book of the Fallen, which means that this is about people dying, not people winning or overcoming insurmountable odds. And even if they do win and overcome those odds, odds are they are still going to die.

At just under 700 pages, I believe this is the shortest of this decalogy. In one way it is the hardest of the books, as you have to sink or swim in terms of the world. Everything is new and unfamiliar and you simply don't know what is going on. In another way I found it the easiest of the books, as the action is relatively straight forward, the plot only slightly convoluted and the scope is kept pretty focused. When reading this for the first time you simply don't know how big the world is that Erikson has created nor do you know that the various narrators are only telling you what "they" know. Semi-unreliable not because they're trying to lie to you but because they have a very limited knowledge. Everything you learn in Gardens of the Moon is not necessarily true.

I added the "favorite" tag because this is the 3rd time I've read this and I still enjoyed the heck out of it while reading. It was a joy to read Erikson's prose, because while he is not sparse in his writings, nor is he turgid and bloviated. He walked that razor thin line of not writing to much or to little.

One thing to note. The kindle edition that I read had several noticeable OCR errors. There was a character named Coll, whose name came out as Coil more than a handful of times. Same for a guy named Toc the Younger. He became Toe the Younger half the time. I checked my hardcover and those errors were not there. I also don't know if those errors exist in the current kindle edition. I bought these when they first came out and promptly de-drm'd them and stuck them in calibre, so any updates would not have touched them. A potential issue if you're buying digital copies.

The Successor (Eyeshield 21 #19) (Manga Monday)

^{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 WordPress, Blogspot, Booklikes & Librarything by  Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission.}
Title: The Successor
Series: Eyeshield 21 #19
Author: Riichiro Inagaki
Artist: Yusuke Murata
Rating: 4.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Manga
Pages: 200
Format: Digital Scan

Synopsis:

The second half of the game between the Spiders and the Devil Bats concludes. Hiruma continues to play his games within games and Sena continues his growth as a player.

Then comes an interlude in the form of one page vignettes.

The book ends with the choosing of the teams to compete in the Christmas Bowl. The Devil Bats are facing the Naga, the team that has won the Championship for the last 9 years. This is the same team whose Captain is a football genius without trying and who enjoys hurting people and using his skill to get away with hoodlum acts.

My Thoughts:

 My enjoyment shot up again. The game was really good even while ending extremely quickly. Hiruma had a plan right from the get go and it didn't come to fruition until the last 5minutes of the game. That is some serious long term planning.

I continue to be impressed with how Hiruma keeps his crazy, gun shooting ways in the forefront even while scouting and planning ahead. He's as smart as the other guys who scream "genius" but he keeps it hidden.

What I enjoyed the most about this volume was the little vignettes. They ranged from deeply pathos to highly humorous. I was man-tear'ing up and laughing out loud within minutes, and no, it wasn't me being manic.

Jubal Sackett (Sacketts #4)

^{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 WordPress, Blogspot, Booklikes & Librarything by  Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission.}
Title: Jubal Sackett
Series: Sacketts #4
Author: Louis L'amour
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Western
Pages: 368
Format: Kindle Digital edition

Synopsis:

Jubal Sackett, youngest son of Barnabas Sackett, is a loner and a wanderer. Tasked by his father to find land further west for his brothers, Jubal gladly obeys. Along the way he is somehow swept into finding an indian princess, starting a small community and saving said settlement from rogue indians AND spanish slavers.


Ends with him and the indian princess finding the perfect valley and settling down for the long haul.

My Thoughts:

This felt like a very long book and after comparing it to previous Sackett novels, it is. Almost 30% longer in fact.  Most of that 30% could have been cut if Jubal's introspective monologues had been cut to the first chapter or 2 instead of being repeated every third chapter. Seriously, how many times do I need to read about him wondering why he wants to wander, how his brothers are doing and how his mother and sister are doing in England?

Other than that, this was a great "Man Against Nature" and "Man Against Man" story. Fighting a wilderness that wants to kill him, fighting indians, fighting spanish, there was a lot of action here.  This was the type of story that I think of when I think Sacketts.

The decision to limit these to one every 2 months was a good one. Any more and I'd be clawing these up. I'm actually wondering if there is a way that I could push it to one book every 3 months, but every scheme I've come up with is just too complicated. Right now I regulate it by having X number of series/books on my kindle and just reading through them by series. To push it out to 3 months I'd have to add a bunch more series and that would push all the other books out to 3 months and I don't want to do that. Keeping track manually isn't going to happen as I'll forget.
 

Review of Book 1
Review of Book 2
Review of Book 3

Star Nomad (Fallen Empire #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 WordPress, Blogspot, Booklikes & Librarything by  Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission.}
Title: Star Nomad
Series: Fallen Empire #1
Author: Lindsay Buroker
Rating: 2.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: SFF
Pages: 253
Format: Kindle Digital edition

Synopsis:

Captain Alisa Marchenko has been left behind on a pohdunk world, recovering from her injuries. Inexplicably, there are NO armed force bases on the world or anyone she can turn to to return home. So she is forced to link up with some strange mechanic lady, find an old abandoned spacefreighter, take on passengers AND figure out how to work with an Imperial cyborg who is camping out in her chosen spaceship.

All Alisa wants is to get to her home planet and see her daughter again. But she can't do that while she has beefcake all over the place and pecs galore to ogle. Poor Alisa. She is so insecure and unable to take care of herself.

My Thoughts:

I went into this thinking it was going to be a cool SF adventure. It was billed as "for fans of Star Wars or Firefly". That should have been more than enough warning.

What I got was a story about a woman who is insecure, incapable of taking care of herself and obsessed with her imaginary relationship with a former enemy soldier. And I mean, totally imaginary. Oh, and don't forget his pecs.

If you like a romance book, without sex, and wrapped in a Science Fiction wrapper, this is the series for you. Considering there are at least 8 books, I guess "somebody" is buying these. Maybe people who like pecs.

Sena Kobayakawa (Eyeshield 21 #18) (Manga Monday Part II)

^{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 WordPress, Blogspot, Booklikes & Librarything by  Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission.}
Title: Sena Kobayakawa
Series: Eyeshield 21 #18
Author: Riichiro Inagaki
Artist: Yusuke Murata
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Manga
Pages: 200
Format: Digital Scan

Synopsis:

The game between the White Knights and the Spiders happens and the White Knights crush the Spiders.

Which leads into the wildcard game between the Devil Bats and the Spiders. The Spiders are a kick team and with their own Eyeshield 21, they dominate the first half of the game. Sena puts off his eyeshield and plays as himself for the first time. If he wants to put that eyeshield back on, he'll have to overcome the Other Eyeshield 21.

My Thoughts:

 This was still a good volume, but it lacked some of the humor and some of the passion of the previous books, which is why I knocked it half a star.

This was a very different kind of game from what we've seen so far. It made for a good break and introduced some new skills and parts of the game. The Spiders are dominating so far and there doesn't seem much that the Devil Bats can do. Obviously the Devil Bats will have to change their strategy and each team member will have to improve.