Bookstooge's Reviews On the Road

Saturday, October 28, 2017

The Scarab Path (Shadows of the Apt #5) ★★★★ ½

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Title: The Scarab Path

Series: Shadows of the Apt #5

Author: Adrian Tchaikovsky

Rating: 4.5 of 5 Stars

Genre: Fantasy

Pages: 721

Format: Digital Edition

Synopsis:

The Lowlands are not at war but Stenwold knows that won't last. In an effort to help Che get over the death of her lover Acheaos and to fulfill his mission of finding new allies, Cheerwell is sent as an ambassador to the near mythical city of Khanaphes, where a small Collegium delegation has been studying their history. When Che finds out that the whole city is supposedly Inapt, she jumps at the chance, figuring she can find a way to fix her own Inaptness.

Thalric, now Regent and forced lover of Seda the Wasp Empress, finds himself the target of high level assassination attempts. He is also being drawn deeper and deeper into the Empress's bloody magical rituals and it is destroying his soul. The Empire is trying to co-opt the natural enemies of Knanaphes and Thalric jumps at the chance to get away from the Empress and figures he'll be safe from assassins as well. Thalric is given the ambassadorship and he believes he is trying to find allies in Khanaphes, not knowing that the Rekef are working with the Many of Nem, scorpion kinden, to destroy Khanaphes.

Totho the halfbreed, after rebelling from the Empire and running off with Drephos, has started his own Arms Dealer company called the Iron Glove. He is in Khanaphes to expand his market but everything takes a back seat when he finds out Che AND Thalric are in the city. He ends up fighting for the city and eventually realizes that Che will just never be his.

Everyone meets up in Khanaphes and nothing goes according to anybody's plans. The beetles are not Inapt, the Collegium delegation from before is either dead or mad, Thalric is still being hunted and no one can believe that the Scorpion horde attack will be any different from all the previous times.

Che and Thalric hook up for mutual survival, awake the Masters of Khanaphes [the Slug kinden, the original masters of magic], save Khanaphes, find out that Che is being haunted by Tisamon's ghost and then they both go chasing after said ghost when it is freed from its ties to Che and begins to hunt for its daughter Tynisia.

My Thoughts:

Every time I go into this Shadows of the Apt re-read, I wonder if the book will be as good as I remember from my previous read. So far, every book has been as good, if not better, than the original read. This was one of the better times.

My only complaint was Che. She can be a real Debby Downer and at times is just frozen with self-doubt, recriminations and fear. It is awkward to read about and rather embarrasing actually. But she's not that way ALL the time and most of the time I liked reading about her. But that is the only reason I knocked a halfstar off, other than that, this would have been a 5star read.

Tchaikovsky can write! I know I say that in these reviews, but I just sat back half way through this book and thought about it. He has talent and it's obvious he's worked hard as well. The combination of hardwork, practice and talent make for a fantastic book, or series in this case. It isn't just that he can follow the rules of grammar, etc, but he knows how to use his words outside of the written rules. It is kind of like watching a true martial artist. They can take any formalized move in their art and turn it into a thing of beauty just by executing it.

I liked the story this time around, a lot. It is really interesting how the Apt races want to not only turn their backs on magic but pretend it never existed. With Che being Inapt now, she must learn to do away with that attitude. It separates her from so many people, because they don't believe it and she can't explain it. The Battle for Khanaphes was awesome! The Khanaphir were just not ready for modern warfare and it was only thanks to Totho and his Iron Glove associates that the city even stood a chance. But even that wasn't enough and it was only through the magic of the Slug Kinden that Khanaphes survived. But even then, they aren't a very nice Kinden, very much an old Master Race of Inapt magicians. But no worries, they just go back to sleep, like the sluggards they are.

Finally, I enjoyed how Tisamon has gone from a hero, albeit, a somewhat broken one, to a ghost who will do anything and use anyone to further its aims. I know he plays more of a part in later books, but right now, I can't really remember how and I'm looking forward to seeing how it all works out.

Completely recommended, but definitely part of a series. Start at the beginning and enjoy!

★★★★ ½

Thursday, October 26, 2017

Encounters (Mobile Suit Gundam: The ORIGIN #12) ★★★★ ½

Series: Mobile Suit Gundam: The ORIGIN #12

Author & Artist: Yoshikazu Yasuhiko

Rating: 4.5 of 5 Stars

Genre: Manga

Pages: 400

Format: Hardcover

Synopsis:

Amura and Char continue and finish their fight. Char ends up taking a rocket launcher and blowing up the spaceship which Kycillia is on, thus completely destroying House Zabi and the leadership of Zeon. Everyone gets out safely and a bunch of the kids exhibit newtype mental powers, ie, they have a connection with Amuro while he's escaping. The main story ends at page 160.

What follows for the next 100+ pages are 3 smaller stories. One taking place in the past, with the birth of Char. One after the peace agreement between the Federation and Zeon in which Sayla is almost abducted to be used by Zeon loyalists as a new rallying point. The final story is of one of Amuro's friends being engaged to Fraw and begging Amuro to not take her away from him. Amuro realizes all his ties to the past are now cut and decides to go back to space and begin the work of helping humans, spacenoids, earthers, newtypes and oldtypes to all get along as one united family. Thus ends the ORIGIN manga.

Then there are 10-20 pages of interviews with various people involved in the manga. I skipped those, as I didn't care one bit.

My Thoughts:

First, it's been over 18months since I read the previous volume. Way back in March of 2016. I think I stopped because the library didn't have this final volume yet and I was slowly buying them. So they sat on my shelf. But now I've read the whole series and I have to say, Good Stuff to the series as a whole.

This ending volume got bumped down a 1/2star because of the pie in the sky utopian idealism exhibited in the storyline. I know that is the foundation for the Gundam franchise, starting with the original series back in 1979 but to see it so plainly stated here kind of made me cringe. The underpinning of it all is that Newtypes won't have war because they can understand each other through their shared mental connections. It is based on the idea that Man is basically good. Sadly, as a Christian, I know that isn't the case.

When the story ended at the 160 page mark, I was kind of shocked. I was barely over half way through the book and bam, the main story is done. Thankfully, the 3 other stories fill in a good bit. The prequel story about Char's birth I was really “meh” about, as I didn't care about the past. But the other 2 stories that took place after the ending, they were good wrap ups. Pretty much an Epilogue and I was satisfied with the story closing on them.

I think I would have enjoyed this final volume a little more if so much time hadn't elapsed since my last read. The tension, the impact, the “what will happen” feeling, that were all building up in the previous 11 volumes had gone. Kind of like a bicycle tire that has sat in the garage for 18months. Whenever I re-read this in the future, I'll definitely make sure to read the whole series at a regular pace and I hope that would make a difference.

Once again, I would have bought these even if I hated the story just for the quality of the books themselves. The hardcovers are sturdy and the pictures on them are fantastic. The paper itself is a joy to turn. It is heavy and glossy and it was made to be felt as you turned the pages. The color artwork mixed in with the regular black and white was balanced perfectly. I never felt thrown when it switched from one to the other. I also liked that this was oversized and so could see the detail of the artwork better. This was not your typical manga sized released. This was a very high quality release and I'm glad I've got them.

I recommend this for the story, as the Gundam franchise is so quintessentially “manga/anime” and I recommend the books from an artistic viewpoint as well. It is always good to have a high quality production to judge everything else by. They are expensive though. MRSP is $30 and some volumes are as low as $20 but still, you're looking at a couple hundred of dollars. That is an investment. Borrow them and if you are as smitten as I was, then starting buying a book at a time.

★★★★ ½

Tuesday, October 24, 2017

Sackett (Sacketts #8) ★★★☆ ½

Series: Sacketts #8

Author: Louis L'Amour

Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars

Genre: Western

Pages: 160

Format: Digital Edition

Synopsis:

William “Tell” Sackett decides that since his younger brothers are so successful that he needs to do something important too. So he finds a hidden valley with a gold mine and a beautiful lost woman.

Gets hunted by golddiggers, some gunslingers out for revenge for their dead brother and a banker. Now THAT is scary! Just imagine the banker from The Bank of Evil in Despicable Me.

The beautiful woman rejects him because he's such a “savage killer”. Then he rescues her again, kills most of the badguys, gets shot and hooks up with the beautiful woman, who sees the error of her liberal, big city, gun hating ways.

Oh, if only more stories had that kind of happy ending.

My Thoughts:

Besides Ride the River, this was the most enjoyable Sackett story yet. It is also one of the simplest and straight forward ones as well. As well as eye rollingly western tropish. But that is WHY you read L'Amour.

When I married Mrs Bookstooge, if I had known that all I needed to do to get her to agree to me owning a gun was rescue her from a mountain, in a blizzard while being chased by desperadoes, well, that would have totally changed the equation. And doing it while carrying a wounded man who had tried to kill me? Psshawwww! But obviously, real life isn't that simple. I had to prove to her that her wishes came first for 9 years.

Honestly, I don't think that Tell Sackett was as big a man as me! I'd like to see him put up with some of the people I have. Of course, he'd probably just shoot them and have done. Ahh, the good old days

* huge grin *

★★★☆ ½

Sunday, October 22, 2017

Mr Mercedes (Bill Hodges #1) ★★★☆☆

Series: Bill Hodges #1

Author: Stephen King

Rating: 3 of 5 Stars

Genre: Thriller

Pages: 449

Format: Digital Edition

Synopsis: Spoilers!!

A madman runs through a crowd of jobseekers, using a stolen Mercedes. He is never caught and the detective in charge, Bill Hodges, retires and always regrets that he never caught Mr Mercedes.

Then Mr Mercedes sends a letter to Bill, taunting him. And the chase is on. Mr Mercedes wants to break Hodges and make him commit suicide while Hodges wants to catch Mr Mercedes. Other people get involved. Things get personal for Hodges with the death of a lady friend. Mr Mercedes decides to go out with a bang at a teeny bopper concert put on by the nations latest and greatest boyband.

Hodges, with help, prevails and Brady, aka Mr Mercedes, ends up in a coma.

* very weak cheering *

Yay...?

My Thoughts: Spoilers!!

Did a buddy read of this with BookCupidity. Unfortunately, due to life circumstances, BC wasn't able to participate as much as hoped in the back and forth. However, I was able to do a couple of updates as I read this, so this review is pretty much a compilation of those updates.

First, and most importantly in my mind, there is NOTHING supernatural going on in this book. This is just a detective thriller about chasing a madman who is halfway intelligent. I read King, once a year in October, for his supernatural, other worldly, stuff. So that was a huge disappointment for me.

Second, the whole relationship between Brady the villain and his drunk mom. It was incestuous and while they never actually had sex, it was clear that they toed that line. It turned my stomach. Also, being inside Brady's mind was not a pleasant experience nor was it one I ever wish to repeat. Which leads into the next point.

Third. I am done with King now. Every year I vacillate about whether I'll keep reading him. He can write a heck of a story. He draws me in every time and makes the characters and situations come to life. But this? It was just filthy and disgusting and I am done using my brain as a filter for that kind of thing. In some ways that is a relief, as I don't have to wonder every year what I'll be exposing myself to in my next King read, but there is also a tinge of regret as I know that King has some great stories that I probably would have really enjoyed. But there are things that are not worth desensitizing myself to just for entertainments sake.

And the ending, where Brady wakes up from his coma, caused by being bashed in the head multiple times to prevent him from blowing the plastic explosives at the concert, was just lame. That should have happened in the 3^rd chapter and he is then possessed by supernatural powers and Hodges goes toe to toe with Evil Incarnate. THAT is what I expect from a King book. This was like a weak version of the Strawmen Trilogy by Michael Marshall, in tone.

★★★☆☆

Saturday, October 21, 2017

The Compleat Bolo ★★★★ ½

Series: ----------

Author: Keith Laumer

Rating: 4.5 of 5 Stars

Genre: SF

Pages: 320

Format: Digital Scan

Synopsis:

A collection of short stories and whatever you call a 50page story, not really a short story but not a novella either. Anyway, stories about the evolution of the tanks known as Bolos. From their mechanical beginnings to their self awareness to their “we're smarter than humas so lets help them out”ness.

Bolos are loyal, brave, determined, nigh unstoppable and better representatives of humanity than any human. In other words, they are great mechanical main characters without the Skynet vibe.

My Thoughts:

I really needed this read. After The Punch Escrow I needed something to remind me that not all humans are bastard baby killers. So of course, I read a book where tanks are the main characters.

The humans in these stories are props for the most part. While they figure more prominently in earlier stories, as the stories progress the Bolos take center stage more often than not. Honor and duty are big points in these stories and I actually teared up at one story about a bolo sacrificing itself to save the humans. Sometimes I'm so weak.

This is probably more of an actual 4star book, but when compared to Punch, it rockets up. Some of the problems might be insurmountable for some. While this book was published in 1990, the stories come from the 60's through the 80's. In places, it shows. Word plays making fun of a politician's name [McCarthy anyone?], communications, the 40 people in the one town on one world all talking like Jeb Clampet. I read more “hick talk” in this short book than I have in a long time.

Having read this in the 90's soon after it came out and then during college and then again in '01, I can't say that I'm exactly unbiased. I like this collection of stories. I've never been tempted to try the full length spin off Bolo novels by other authors though. This book I recommend. Those others, try them at your own risk.

★★★★ ½

The Compleat Bolo [2001 Review]

Thursday, October 19, 2017

The Punch Escrow ☆☆☆☆ ½ DNF@42%

Series: ----------

Author: Tal Klein

Rating: 0.5 of 5 Stars

Genre: SF

Pages: 333

Format: Digital Edition

Synopsis:

8 All things are full of weariness;
a man cannot utter it;
the eye is not satisfied with seeing,
nor the ear filled with hearing.

9 What has been is what will be,
and what has been done is what will be done,
and there is nothing new under the sun.

10 Is there a thing of which it is said,
“See, this is new”?
It has been already
in the ages before us.

11 There is no remembrance of former things,[d]
nor will there be any remembrance
of later things[e] yet to be
among those who come after.

Ecclesiastes 1:8-11

English Standard Version

My Thoughts:

SYLVIA

“I had an abortion, Joel.”
….
“I guess about a month later , I realized I was pregnant. Keeping it was never an option. I had career plans, and my dad wasn't well,so I...”
….
“I'm sorry I never told you.”

JOEL

“I love you, Syl. You made the right choice.”

That “you made the right choice” killed this book completely. Between the, once again, complete lack of originality [go watch the movie The Prestige, or read some foundational science fiction] that I moaned about in Dark Matter and that complete disregard for the most helpless of human life, I am done.

☆☆☆☆ ½

Tuesday, October 17, 2017

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

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.

★★★☆☆