Bookstooge's Reviews On the Road

Tuesday, October 17, 2017

The Night Parade (Forgotten Realms: The Harpers #4) ★☆☆☆ ½

^{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, Librarything & Tumblr by
Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission}
Title: The Night Parade

Series: Forgotten Realms: The Harpers #4

Author: Scott Ciencin

Rating: 1.5 of 5 Stars

Genre: Fantasy

Pages: 310

Format: Digital Edition

Synopsis:

Myrmeen, ruler of a successful city, is approached by her ex-husband. He tells her that their only child never died but that he instead sold the baby girl into slavery to pay off his debts. After lopping off her ex's head, Myrmeen calls together some of her former compatriots, who are all Harpers.

Their research leads them to the conclusion that every so many years a hideous group of supernatural beings kidnaps children for nefarious purposes and said group is known as the Night Parade. The group finds Krystin, Myrmeen's daughter but in their rush to leave the city, things happen, people die and the Night Parade is no longer content to let them be.

The Myrmeen and Co group meet up with a vigilante who has a magical item that he uses to kill the Night Parade. They all start hunting down the badguys, For The Children, and the Night Parade hits back, hard. Harpers die left and right, betrayals happen even after death and hardly anybody is who they say they are.

Krystin was a plant to lure in Myrmeen, the Night Parade are barren creatures from another realm that they can't return to and through the Power of Luv, Myrmeen and Krystin rack up a serious body count of all their friends and tear away the shadow hiding the Night Parade. The Night Parade is prevented from ever recruiting more members and Myrmeen finds out that her biological daughter is being raised in a neighboring kingdom as a Poet Princess. Myrmeen lets her go and sets off on living life with Krystin as her stand-in daughter.

My Thoughts:

Wow! And here I thought Red Magic bad. This is the kind of Forgotten Realms book that gives the series its b-class, sub-standard, fantasy is crap, kind of reputation.

I suspect that Ciencin was told to write for horny 13 year old boys, as there were lots of descriptions of generic cleavage and legs and beauty and desire and crap. Sadly, the rest of the writing I'm not sure that even a 13 year old boy would put up with. Maybe?

Myrmeen. Where do I even start? She doesn't think, she reacts at all the wrong times, she doesn't consider anyone else but herself and then the eyerolling, gag inducing saccharin sweetness of her desire to be a mom. It was done wrong and it was done lazily and it was done stupidly. It doesn't help that she seems to be attracted to every male she comes into contact with and that every single one of them dies. Seriously, she's worse than a black widow.

The only reason I'm not complaining about the other characters is because except for Krystin, they ALL die. That's just laziness to me. Don't know how to handle someone's future? Easy, kill them off. Don't know how to engage your readers on a gut level? Easy, kill off a trusted companion. Don't know how to even write effectively? Easy, kill somebody.

If you stuck a gun to my head and forced me to answer the question, which was worse, this book or Bloodwalk I would be really hard pressed to know what to say. I have had a recent string of bad books in the Forgotten Realms and I have to wonder when it is going to end. This Harpers series is on life support and it'll only take 1 more stinker to sink the ship. I just hate wasting my time on trash.

While I rated this 1/2star higher than Bloodwalk, I am giving this book the “Worst Book of the Year” tag as its Mother/Daughter thing was so badly done that I felt nauseous. Bravo! And it turns out that this is the first book to have that dubious honor. Double Bravo!!

★☆☆☆ ½

Monday, October 16, 2017

Line War (Polity: Agent Cormac #5) ★★★☆ ½

Series: Polity: Agent Cormac #5

Author: Neal Asher

Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars

Genre: SF

Pages: 580

Format: Digital Edition

Synopsis:

Erebus, the rogue AI that has been corrupted by Jain nodes, is on the path to destroying the solar system. With fake attacks and whatnot, he manages to clear the way to Earth itself. Standing in his way is the haiman who committed murder for a jain node and Ian Cormac.

Cormac has been running all over the Polity, ostensibly chasing down Erebus but in reality picking up clues that lead him to only one conclusion. ECS, the Head Honcho AI, colluded with Erebus right when Erebus first found jain nodes. Its justification was that humanity was stagnating,but with millions and possibly billions dead, Cormac puts the smack down on that particular AI and kills it. A submind takes over but with the spectre of Cormac haunting it should it ever decide to go so outside of bounds.

The Dragon Sphere takes Mika and allows her access to Jain AI, which in turn allows her to deal with the gabbleduck/Atheter AI, possibly.

My Thoughts:

Nothing from my original review from 2010 has changed. This was a particularly wordy story and there were a lot of details that just didn't need to be there. It really bogged the story down. Instead of an adrenaline filled gorefest of robots and monsters I got an indepth tour of things I didn't care one whit about. That's why I knocked half a star off this time.

There is still a lot of action but sometimes it felt like it was really hidden away. Also, Cormac played a MUCH smaller part. The biggest thing he did was at the end when he killed ECS. I guess this just didn't stand up to a re-read as well as some of the previous books. The ideas were really cool the first time around and covered up all the weak points. This time around, I was seeing the weakpoints.

I had forgotten that the Atheter memcrystal came into play so early in the Polity books. I just read a big part of it's conclusion in the Polity: Transformation trilogy last year. That is one nice thing about re-reads, seeing various threads that you'd forgotten about being more deeply woven into the story.

I do wonder if we'll ever see Agent Cormac again. He hasn't shown up, that I'm aware of, in later Polity books. But if we don't, I'm completely satisfied with how this 5 books sub-series ended.

★★★☆ ½

Friday, October 13, 2017

Bane of Malekith (Warhammer: Tyrion & Teclis #3) ★☆☆☆ ½ DNF@27%

Series: Warhammer: Tyrion & Teclis #3

Author: William King

Rating: 1.5 of 5 Stars

Genre: Fantasy

Pages: 416

Format: Digital Edition

Synopsis:

DNF @ 27%

My Thoughts:

Nothing was happening. I was not in the mood for some b-quality fantasy book to give me a modicum of entertainment. This was no worse than the previous 2 books but that is damning praise. It was like eating spaghetti but without any sauce or meatballs or spices.

I am really not having good luck with the Warhammer universe. Savageddt has suggested I try some Gotrek and Felix. My only reservation is that those books appear to also be written by William King and I'd really like to try someone else. Guess I'll be spending some time this weekend checking some other Warhammer series out.

★☆☆☆ ½

Sword of Caledor (Book 2)
Blood of Aenarion (Book 1)

Thursday, October 12, 2017

Redemption (Omega Force #7) ★★★☆☆

Series: Omega Force #7

Author: Joshua Dalzelle

Rating: 3 of 5 Stars

Genre: SF

Pages: 304

Format: Digital Edition

Synopsis:

Taking place 3 years after the previous book, Omega Force has fallen apart due to Cristoff abandoning one of the Omega Force members when they can't fulfill one of his missions. Jason tries to keep the team together but when he can't, he gives up, moves to a beach front world, becomes a delivery boy with Lucky the robot and pretty much lets himself go. He also completely burns his bridges with Kallea when rescuing Crusher.

When the princess for another galaxy spanning Empire, rivaling that of the ConFed, is kidnapped, it appears that war is going to happen and billions could die. The princess's handmaid escapes, on Jason's old delivery ship, he's involved whether he wants to be or not. The only way to rescue the princess and prevent interstellar war is to get the gang back together. But when one Super Power wants you dead and a clique within the other is plotting to take over, things might be harder than expected.

But Omega Force always gets the job done. And with this job, they have the thanks of the King of an Empire, with “mysterious” problems along its other borders. And a princess that has the hots for Cap'n Jason. * wolf whistle *

Almost like Dalzelle is setting up future story installments.

My Thoughts:

This starts off with a barely functioning Jason, drunk as a skunk getting helped along by Lucky. It was rather disconcerting, as we don't get WHY Omega Force fell apart until some time later.

In many ways, this felt like Dalzelle ran out of ideas for within the ConFed and so kind of rebooted the whole Omega Force thingamajig. I didn't feel that it was handled real well, especially with how things with Kallea went down. Relationships, even fake ones in books, shouldn't get treated like a drama prop.

Other than that, this was exactly the same in tone as all the previous Omega Force books. If I was in a cranky mood like I was when I read Dark Matter I'd probably rip into this more. But I don't expect much from these, so I don't have to give much in a review. These are like Forgotten Realms for Science Fiction.

★★★☆☆

Wednesday, October 11, 2017

How to Survive and Thrive! In Church ★★★★☆

Series: ------

Author: Doug Batchelor & Karen Lifshay

Rating: 4 of 5 Stars

Genre: Non-fiction

Pages: 128

Format: Paperback

Synopsis:

Batchelor, a 7^th Day Adventist pastor and author, writes this little book on how to survive various types of churches but also how to contribute and make your church a better place.

There are 16 chapters, each focusing either on a particular type of church [dead, big, little, divided, etc] or on a particular problem in church [scandal, gossip, doctrinal doubts, etc] and the final chapter entitled “Not Just Surviving – Succeeding!”

My Thoughts:

This is not a comprehensive help book. I read this in one sitting, one evening. It is a lightly humorous book meant to highlight some of the common problems in any and all churches and what you, as an individual, can do.

Basically, Batchelor boils it down to “don't give up”. Like I said, I read this in one sitting and it was like a nice bottle of gatorade on a hot day while working hard. It's not a meal but it refreshes you and allows you to keep going until it IS meal time. Batchelor also stresses personal responsibility in your spiritual life. You have to read your Bible and pray if you want to stay connected to God. Going to church once a week to get “fed” isn't going to cut it.

Batchelor is unabashedly 7^th Day Adventist and while this could be used for almost any denomination, it is aimed at SDA'ers. Many of his quotes are from the writings of Ellen White. If that would be a problem for you, then I would not recommend this book.

Anyone who goes to church could benefit from reading this book. Treat it like the word of encouragement it is and not as a theological treatise and you will be well served.

I do wish that there had been an “Interested In More...” epilogue. Could have pointed to some specific, deeper, more relevant books on particular topics. That would have been a nice springboard.

★★★★☆

Dark Matter ★★★☆☆

Series: ------

Author: Blake Crouch

Rating: 3 of 5 Stars

Genre: SF

Pages: 354

Format: Digital Edition

Synopsis:

Jason Desson, a once up and coming scientist [which type, I forget. It doesn't matter to me or any normal person who reads this book. It would be like describing which handgun some hero used. It only matters to a very small segment] chose his family life with his wife and son-to-be over his career and now teaches at a local college.

He is kidnapped one night and wakes up in another world. He figures out he's in a parallel universe and with the help of one the scientists from Jason2's world, attempts to get back to “his” world. And 'his' Daniella.
After much experimenting and whining and other bs, he makes it home. Only to find that what makes the whole paralell universe thing viable is that there are over 70 other Jason who all made it back too. Our Jason thinks of a clever plan, rescues his wife and son, outsmarts all the other Jasons and uses his son to find a new world to start a new life on.

My Thoughts:

I wanted to enjoy this more than I did. Part of it is that everything is predicated on an athiestic outlook, ie, there is no Supreme Being, no Supreme Observer. Schrodinger's Cat razzle dazzle means diddly squat if there is one all knowing, all seeing, all powerful God. Dark Matter, too. The second issue is where is all this energy coming from to create all these branched universes? Parallel worlds being created with every choice we make sounds great and if you're 25 is a great idea to bat around, but when you look at it through the lens of universal constants, it is as pie in the sky as the moon being made of green cheese. The third ramification is that of the soul. That is theology and once again, it is completely bypassed and ignored. For me, that as actually more important and the lack of thought about it pushed me out of the story.

Ok, with all of those out of the way....

Ha, who I am kidding.

I enjoyed this. BUT...

Sliders. Stargate SG1. Other tv shows I can't even remember off the top of my head. I kept getting flashes of those while reading this. I felt like I was re-treading an old trail.

It was fun. It was interesting. It wasn't original though and I have to admit, from all the rah, rah, rah I'd heard about Crouch, I was expecting something original. Crap, maybe I'm getting old. I can handle unoriginal ideas. I thrive on the Hero's Journey, Coming of Age stories, the Underdog Winning against Impossible Odds, the Evil McEvilson getting his Just Rewards [of death!]. But this was like those conversations I had with my friend Isaac when we were in highschool, bibleschool and shortly after. As soon as the guy in the mask showed up, I knew every major plot point that was going to happen and that disappointed me.

This was not a bad book by any means. I would recommend it to “New to SF” readers, it'll blow their minds. But my mind's already been blown by this idea, 15-20+ years ago. Timothy Zahn explored this in his short stories. Go read his short collection Cascade Point and Other Stories.

I just wanted to like this more and I couldn't.

★★★☆☆

Tuesday, October 10, 2017

The Confession of Brother Haluin (Brother Cadfael #15) ★★☆☆ ½

Series: Brother Cadfael #15

Author: Ellis Peters

Rating: 2.5 of 5 Stars

Genre: Mystery

Pages: 208

Format: Digital Edition

Synopsis:

Brother Haluin almost dies and confesses to the head Priest and Cadfael. He had an encounter of the flesh with a young woman, who he got with child 18 years ago. Haluin gave the mother herbs from Cadfael's herbariam to end the pregnancy but the mother told Haluin that it ended up killing the mother along with the child. And that was when Haluin entered the abbey, in despair.
He ends up surviving his ordeal, he gives himself the penance of walking to the dead woman's tomb and keeping vigil for a night. Haluin's feet being crippled due to the ordeal, Cadfael is tasked with helping him keep his vow.
In a string of coincidences that can only happen in a murder mystery, we find out that Haluin was lied to by the mother and that the young woman was married off and the child raised as that other man's. Said young woman is now a nun as old as Haluin. Their daughter has love issues all of her own which are neatly resolved when it is revealed that she is NOT the blood daughter of the Old Duke. An old lady servant is killed by the nun's mother to keep everything secret. Because the old mother did all of this because she wanted the young man back in the day and he wouldn't commit adultery with her, as she was married. So she starts this whole chain of events.
Everyone except the old mother ends up being reasonably satisfied with how things turn out and Brother Haluin and Cadfael return to their abbey.

My Thoughts:

This was a typical Brother Cadfael mystery. He's just an observer like he has been in the last several and has very little to do with the actual story. So that's where I'd normally give this a 3star rating. But this time around a lot of the story is driven by ideas of absolution and atoning for you own sins, ie, working to get your sins forgiven. Haluin makes it a point that if he can't fulfill his vow, he won't be forgiven. And it is stated outright that he doesn't feel like he'll be forgiven if he doesn't DO some sort of very hard penance.

Normally the catholic practices and theology are kept in the background of these books. This time around though, they played a much bigger part and cut right across everything the Bible actually says about forgiveness of sins. When I hear about earning forgiveness for your sins, well, that just sets my staunch Protestant soul ablaze. I won't go into the details, as this is not a theology post. But it really took this book down a peg for me. I've actually been surprised this hasn't happened before.

I've got 5 or 6 more Brother Cadfael books to go and I'm really hoping I can stick it out to the end. But to be honest, these are getting boring; that's almost as bad as un-Biblical theology in my mind!

★★☆☆ ½

Sunday, October 08, 2017

The Fire in His Hands (The Dread Empire: A Fortress in Shadow #1) ★★★☆ ½

Series: The Dread Empire: A Fortress in Shadow #1

Author: Glen Cook

Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars

Genre: Fantasy

Pages: 212

Format: Digital Edition

Synopsis:

Micah * insert really long family moniker that nobody cares about * is visited by an “Angel” riding a winged horse carrying a cornucopiea. Micah changes his name to El Murid and begins proselytizing all the tribes that have fallen away from the True Faith. This of course sets him on a collision course with the powers that be. He marries a girl and her brother becomes his general. The powers that be don't take him seriously and so things progress to the point where the whole area is torn apart.

The powers that be end up hiring mercenaries. In one of those mercenary troops is a guy named Braki Ragnarson. We met him in the previous trilogy. We find out how he left his land and joined the mercenaries.

More fighting, El Murid appears to have won the day and Haroun, a younger son, inherits the Crown and begins a guerilla warfare to take back the kindgom.

My Thoughts:

El Murid and Haroun were both mentioned in the previous trilogy but weren't a big part. So I wasn't sure how to place them at first. But with the introduction of Ragnarson, it all clicked. This A Fortress in Shadow sub-series is a prequel to A Cruel Wind trilogy. What confused me right off was that there didn't appear to be anything to do with the Dread Empire. I am wondering if perhaps the Dread Empire is the empire that fell hundreds of years ago and not the Eastern Empire we are introduced to in A Cruel Wind. But that contradicts everything I know from those books. Whatever.

I knew things were going to be bad once that blasted Star Rider gave Micah a mission. That guy is bad news and I hate him even more now. What an illegitimate offspring of a donkey's backside!

The overall story took years and we'd skip years or months inbetween paragraphs. It wasn't always clear that time had elapsed or it felt very rough. I just held on for the ride. This was as much political machinations and maneuvering between factions as it was about actual battles.

The story ends with Haroun taking up the Invisible Crown and becoming the King without a Kingdom that we know. We actually are introduced to his son in the A Cruel Wind series so we already know that Haroun has a lifetime of fighting ahead of him with no success. Not sure how the next book, or two, will deal with that. I don't actually know how many books are in the A Fortress in Shadow series. I just don't care enough to go look for it.

★★★☆ ½

Friday, October 06, 2017

Dancer's Lament (Malaz: Path to Ascendancy #1) ★★★★ ½

Series: Malaz: Path to Ascendancy #1

Author: Ian Esslemont

Rating: 4.5 of 5 Stars

Genre: Fantasy

Pages: 418

Format: Hardcover

Synopsis:

Before there was Cotillion and Kellanved, there was Dorin Rav and Wu. Taking place in the city of Li Heng, this is the story of how they became partners.

The plot of the book, however, is how the city of Li Heng survived a besiegement by a jumped up king who thought he was somebody. The 4 mages of the city, under the direction of the Protectress (a tiste liosan) end up confining Ryllandaras, the man-jackal in a magical prison. The Itko Kan'ians, the besiegers, have the help of a Jaghut and it takes the Protectress unleasing the full might of her Warren of Light to drive back the besiegers.

Wu, and Dorin, have plans to take over the city during the turmoil but they simply aren't strong enough and end up being exiled from the city. But now they are partners and can begin working together.

My Thoughts:

Finally. A Malazan book that I can simply sit down and read straight through and enjoy fully without feeling like I'm juggling 3 different 5000 piece puzzles all mixed together. You have no idea how much that upped my enjoyment of this book.

I think Esslemont showed his true colors with this book. He is a good standard fantasy writing kind of guy. His Malazan Empire novels felt very much like he was trying to copy Steven Erikson's style and it just didn't work for me. But this? Besides Gardens of the Moon, this was the most enjoyable Malazan book that I've read. Now I am really looking forward to the rest of the trilogy.

In the Malazan books, Cotillion/Dancer and Kellanved were shadow'y characters doing things behind the scenes and never being fully fleshed out. Even when they were supposed to be main characters, they were actually hiding and felt like side characters. This time, they were simply people. It was refreshing.

There were lots of hints and little asides from other Malazan characters, so if you're one of the Book of the Fallen fanboys who who loves unlocking a ton of meaning from 2 sentence fragments, you'll still have something to chew on with this book. The rest of us can simply sit back and enjoy the story.

In Esslemont's The Return of the Crimson Guard the malazan army unleashed Ryllandaras and in this book we see how, and why, he was confined. It was nice to make a clear cut connection between one book and the other instead of having to guess and speculate and turn my brain into 77 pretzels to make my pet theory fit.

Another aspect of this that I enjoyed was the lack of Existential Despair philosophy. Everybody was NOT whining about how meaningless their lives were. In fact, they acted like real people and didn't even think about that. Dorin and Wu had to survive, plan how to take over a newly discovered Warren of Shadow and see if they could take over the city. Not much time to sit on their fat asses and complain about how hard they have it (unlike almost every Steven Erikson character. Man, that guy has his characters doing more talking than doing, in the middle of freaking battles for goodness sake!!!).

To end, I really enjoyed this book. A lot. In fact, I plan on buying it in hardcover, I enjoyed it so much. How don't know how much more of an endorsement I can give a book. * grin *

★★★★ ½

Wednesday, October 04, 2017

The Phantom Tollbooth 50th Anniversary Edition ★★★★★

Series: ------

Author: Norton Juster

Rating: 5 of 5 Stars

Genre: Children's Fiction

Pages: 288

Format: Hardcover

Synopsis:

Milo is a discontented, bored little boy. Until one day he gets a tollbooth and goes on an adventure to rescue the Princesses Rhyme and Reason. With his friends Tock the Watch-Dog and the Humbug, Milo will learn the importance of words and numbers and just how they can affect everything.

Milo completes his adventure and once back home realizes just how big of a place our world is and how much there is to do. No more boring days for Milo!

My Thoughts:

This is one of those books I read as a kid and that has stuck with me ever since. I couldn't remember every detail, but the clever word plays and number games always stuck in my head. So when I saw this 50^th Anniversary Edition a couple of years ago I had to pick it up. Of course, it's taken me several years to actually get around to reading it.

It is a children's book so some things are childish. But even now, I never felt like Juster was trying to talk down to his audience or dumb things down. I enjoyed the heck out of this. I had forgotten just how quickly everything happens. Bam, Bam, Bam.

If you've never read this book, I highly recommend you do. It is good even for adults. If you happen to know some kids, I'd even higherly recommend this to them.

This 50^th Anniversary Edition had a forward from Maurice Sendak [which was actually from the 35^th Anniversary Edition] and several “How the Phantom Tollbooth Affected Me” stories from various people at the end of the book. I wasn't impressed with Sendak's blabbing and will definitely be skipping that if I read this again. I WAS looking forward to the various stories at the end, but sadly, I only recognized 1 or 2 names and nobody told a good story. It was all the same “I love it, my children loved it, the dog loved it.” blah, blah, blah. It did make me wonder who all those people were whose names I didn't recognize. Maybe someday I'll care enough to look them up, but not now.

To end. The story was fantastic, the addons, ie the forward and the stories at the end, not so much. Ignore those, read the story and have a wonderful time!

★★★★★