Bookstooge's Reviews On the Road

Wednesday, August 01, 2018

Play the Man ★★★★☆

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Title: Play the Man
Series: ----------
Author: Mark Batterson
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre: Inspirational Non-Fiction
Pages: 224
Format: Hardcover

Synopsis:

Synopsis taken from the book:

"Somewhere along the way, our culture lost its definition of manhood, leaving generations of men and men-to-be confused about their roles, responsibilities, relationships, and the reason God made them men. It's into this 'no man's land' that New York Times bestselling author Mark Batterson declares his mantra for manhood: play the man. In this inspiring call to something greater, he helps men understand what it means to be a man of God by unveiling seven virtues of manhood. Mark shares inspiring stories of manhood, including the true story of the hero and martyr Polycarp, who first heard the voice from heaven say, 'Play the man.' Mark couples those stories with practical ideas about how to disciple the next generation of men. This is more than a book; it's a movement of men who will settle for nothing less than fulfilling their highest calling to be the man and the father God has destined them to be. Play the man. Make the man."

My Thoughts:

I read this book over the course of July for our men's group at church. One of the reasons there were so many “man” posts in July.

It started out a bit rough. I felt like it was an updated version of John Eldredge's Wild at Heart and I didn't find that particular book at all helpful. But once Batterson got into the 7 Virtues of Manhood, things turned around.

The specific 7 Virtues didn't really enter into the equation. I was more encouraged in how Batterson showed that being a Man of God was something purposeful, something you had to set your mind to. It was goal oriented and something that will last for your whole life. Just because I've done X, Y and Z in the past doesn't mean I get to slack off and coast later on. A Godly Man is always striving after God and since God is Infinite, our striving will never end. Some days I might have found that thought discouraging, but not during this book. It reminded me of just how great our God is and how much He loves us.

Batterson also goes into Jesus as Man a little bit and that was good too. Too often I think of Jesus as a superman just gliding through His life, snapping His fingers and making everything work. It was good to be reminded that He had to learn to read, that He pooped His diapers (or whatever the equivalent was in 4BC) and that He had hormones too. And yet through it all, He was Perfect.

The final thing that really made this work for me was that Batterson isn't trying to change the whole culture with some “7 Virtues” program. He doesn't say that this book will change the whole nation if only we all follow it. He presents it as something that each man must do on his own and must pass on to his sons. He makes being a Godly Man that individuals responsibility. He looks at the building blocks. If the foundations are solid, you can then build a good house. He also practices what he preaches with his kids and I found that immensely encouraging as well.

★★★★☆

Monday, July 30, 2018

Nicholas Nickleby ★★★★★

Title: Nicholas Nickleby
Series: ----------
Author: Charles Dickens
Rating: 5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Classic
Pages: 1029
Format: Digital Edition

Synopsis:

Nicholas Nickleby dies of a broken heart after speculating all his families money and losing it. He dies and leaves behind a wife and his young son Nicholas and a younger daugher Kate. He leaves them to the tender mercies of his brother Ralph, a rich money lender.

Ralph sends Nicholas to a school master as an aide with the promise that Ralph will take care of Mrs Nickleby and Kate as long as Nicholas stays the course. Said schoolmaster, one Wackford Squeers, is in cahoots with Ralph on various usurous objectives that Ralph has in mind. Squeers uses and abuses his charges and also gets free labor from a simple minded orphan named Smikes. When Squeers begin to beat Smikes almost to death, Nicholas intervenes even though he knows it means his Uncle Ralph will kick his Mother and sister out onto the streets.

Nicholas and Smikes join an actors troupe to earn a living. Nicholas receives a letter from an employee of his Uncle begging him to come back to London.

During this time, Ralph had used his niece Kate as bate to entice a young lord to get money from him. Kate begs her Uncle to spare her the shame of such a thing but Ralph will not relent. Money is his god.

Nicholas returns to London, defies his Uncle, starts a new job with the Cheeryble brothers. He comes across a beautiful young woman and has to contend with his Uncle and Wackford Squeers trying to kidnap Smikes. Many schemes of Ralph all come together around Nicholas and with the help of various friends, Nicholas overcomes all and sees Ralph ruined.

Nicholas marries the beautiful young lady, Kate marries Frank Cheeryble, the nephew of the Cheeryble brothers and everything works out well for the good guys and the bad guys all get their just desserts.

My Thoughts:

First, let's deal with something here. Wackford Squeers. I have been saying that name in dulcet tones for the last 2 weeks. I mean, how PERFECT is that name for a villain? Wackford Squeers, Wackford Squeers, Wackford Squeers. This could probably have been a 5star book just on the strength of that name alone. Thankfully, the rest of the book carries its weight as well.

The characters, all of them, are fantastic. From youthful, hotheaded and sometimes silly Nicholas to grasping, hate filled Uncle Ralph to poor, pathetic, heart breaking and sympathy inducing Smikes to cruel, petty and cowardly Wackford Squeers. Dickens doesn't just write ABOUT these characters, he brings them to life, in all their glorious ups and downs. I know that Dickens is shamelessly manipulating me with how he describes poor Smikes but I don't care because he does it so well. My heart broke for the poor wretch even while I KNEW that Dickens was doing this cold heartedly to bring about just such a reaction from me. And Wackford Squeers, my goodness, such a vile pot of avarice, cowardice and bulliness that I loved to hate him. Plus, singing his name to the tune of ♪Davey,♪ Davey Crockett,♪King of the Wild Frontier♪ fit perfectly and almost had me dancing with glee.

The trials and tribulations of Nicholas, Kate, various other side characters, all tie into a wondrous tapestry that simply enchanted me. Now, this being Dickens, and originally serialized, and Dickens being paid by the word, there were times that I was tempted to skim or let my mind wonder during some of the more descriptive pages or while Mrs Nickleby would wax eloquent about something that nobody cared about, but I overcame and read every word and I must say, I am richer for it. While Dickens isn't by any means a sparse writer, neither is he a wasteful writer. His descriptions bring the people walking the street alive. His words make the characters as real as real can be. When I was tempted to simply skip anything involving Mrs Nickleby and her pointless reminisces and get annoyed by her, it was what Dickens was aiming for. He wanted a character just like that and he created her from thin air.

While I gave this 5stars back in '07 and 5 stars again, I don't know if I'd recommend anyone starting their exploration of Dickens with this or not. First off, it is over 1000pages for the entire novel. Even the broken up edition I read back in '07 was almost 600 pages for each volume. However, thanks to the likes of Sanderson, Martin and Co, the Mega-Novel (trademark pending) is becoming main stream and the mere size of Dickens might not be quite the impediment it would have been even 20 years ago. The other thing would be this showcases the Victorian ideals to a T(ea) (haha!!!!) and that might be off putting those of modern culture. Nicholas not pursuing Madeline Bray because it wouldn't be proper as he wasn't of the same class anymore (she was monied while the Nickleby's weren't anymore) and Nicholas persuading his sister Kate to not accept Frank Cheeryble's proposal (at first) because it wouldn't look right since Nicholas worked for the Cheeryble Uncles. It is very much outside the egalitarian ideas we carry around today that I can see it turning people away. Now, that being said, anyone who IS turned off from Dickens because of something like that doesn't deserve to read the Master anyway. So no great loss.

After arguing with myself in the above paragraph, I have realized this book not only gets my unadulterated acclamation, but my highest recommendation AND the first of the year Best Book of the Year tag. I wish I could praise this book more, I really do but this will have to do.

Sincerely,

Bookstooge

★★★★★

Friday, July 27, 2018

Prador Moon (Polity #9) ★★★★☆

Title: Prador Moon
Series: Polity #9
Author: Neal Asher
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 353
Format: Digital Edition

Synopsis:

Chronicling the beginning of the war between the Polity and the Prador Second Kingdom. We see how the Prador exotic metal ships are so incredibly tough and how the war factories of the Polity came into being.

A renegade scientist, on the run from the Polity for experimenting with humans and augs, manages to sneak past the Polity's oversight and installs a bunch of new augs on several people. One of them is a Separatist and one of them is a scientist working on the Runcible project. The separatist uses his to coordinate an attack on a Polity world to destroy the AI and to open it up to the Prador. The scientist is using her expanded sensory apparatus, under the watchful eye of an AI, to begin using the Runcible system for ships in space and not just planet bound travellers.

We also follow Jebel “Ucap” (Up close and personal) Krong, one of the few survivors of the initial contact with the Prador. They killed his woman, so now he leads the survivors of the world of Avalon in fighting the Prador on the ground. By planting mines on their shells. It doesn't get much more Up Close And Personal than that!

One of the Prador has been tasked with capturing the Space Runcible and we get a real look at the Prador and their culture. Everything comes together when the Prador tries to capture the runcible and the scientist uses it to send a small moon through to destroy the Prador ship.

My Thoughts:

I really enjoy the stories about the Prador, mainly because Asher can go full bore violent without offending my sensibilities. I mean, how can I be turned off when he's writing about giant crabs eating each other and experimenting on humans and whatnot? They're the perfect villains.

When I read this back in '11 I noted that it was only 173 pages. This time around the page count was listed as 353. The only difference immediately noticeable was the 173page version was from TOR back in '08 and this version was from Nightshade Books in '13. But even then, there are various publications from both companies with wildly varying counts. Whatever, I do wish it had been longer, as it really worked for me.

The thing that kept this from getting bumped up a half star (most times when I re-read something and enjoy it just as much as last time I bump it up) was the lack of a single focused main character. The focus was split between the Separatist, the Scientist, Jebel Krong and the Prador Captain. It was fine, as their stories all were converging stories but I have to admit, I do really prefer a single character that ties it all together.

I'm listing this as Number 9 in the Polity universe just because I feel anyone reading Asher's Polity books would be best served to have read the Agent Cormac quintet and the Spatterjay trilogy. I believe this is Number 1 chronologically but a lot of what you'll read here won't be explained here and is explained in the aforementioned series.

If worlds getting nuked and tech and awesome fighting and giant sentient man-eating space faring crabs are your thing, this book gives it in spades.

★★★★☆

Wednesday, July 25, 2018

Labyrinth of Reflections ★★★☆☆

Title: Labyrinth of Reflections
Series: ----------
Author: Sergei Lukyanenko
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 271
Format: Digital Edition

Synopsis:

A Diver, a person who can exit the Deep at will, is caught up in something much bigger than he can imagine. It starts with him stealing the information for a new “cure for the common cold”, which leads to a job offer by the company he stole it from. He is then kidnapped and given the same job offer by a mysterious Man without a Face. This job? To go to the 33^rd level of a first person shooter game and rescue a user who has somehow become stuck and who the company hired Divers can't rescue.

The Diver has adventures, finds the love of his life in a virtual brothel and rescues the stranded user, only to find that the User isn't a human. He might be an alien, a human from the future, a human from a parallel universe or a newly emerged computer mind. Nobody knows but they all want a piece of the action.

Leonid, the Diver, takes the rescuee to a safe place and allows him to make his own choice. In the process. Leonid is attacked by all the forces the Deep can muster as well as by the creator of the Deep itself. With the help of the rescuee, Leonid fights them all off and somehow gains the ability to connect to the Deep without a modem (hahahahahahaa). The visitor leaves and Leonid leaves the Deep and decides to meet his virtual love in real life.

My Thoughts:

This was originally written in '96 or '98 I believe and my goodness, does it show. Lukyanenko waxes eloquent about the tech of the day and it isn't pretty. Pentium computers, MEGS of ram, 28800 modems, Doom. Then he mixes it with non-existing tech like full virtual reality body suits and the Deep, which works on the unconscious as a way to get around the horrible graphics of the day. It was such a mish-mash that it kept throwing me out of the story. You just can't DO the things he writes about on a 28.8K phone line.

This was pre-Matrix and the ideas are pretty cool, when Lukyanenko isn't waxing full on melancholic Russian that is. That gets old really fast. And I mean, really, really fast.

This felt more like a book where Lukyanenko was writing out his ideas of what it means to be human (while denying God and Communism in the same breath) and it felt rather sophomoric. At the same time, several of the ideas here were carried over almost wholesale into his Nightwatch series.

Overall, I don't feel like this was a waste of my time but I certainly wouldn't want to introduce anyone to Lukyanenko's writings with this book. I'd definitely steer them towards the Nightwatch.

★★★☆☆

Monday, July 23, 2018

Lucky Starr and the Pirates of the Asteroids (Lucky Starr #2) ★★★☆☆

Title: Lucky Starr and the Pirates of the Asteroids
Series: Lucky Starr #2
Author: Isaac Asimov
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 144
Format: Digital Scan

Synopsis:

Something funny is going on with the Pirates who inhabit the asteroids. While they seem to be growing in number and strength, their attacks have become more focused, tighter and a lot more strategic. Lucky and others from the Science Council build a spaceship meant to be captured and then exploded in a Pirate base. It's all a double, triple, never ending ruse though, as Lucky sneaks on board after alerting the Syrian Embassy anonymously of the “real” mission of the ship. The Syrians are in league with the Pirates and when everything in place, Earth will face a two fronted war.

Lucky uncovers just how far along the plans actually are and sets in motion events to prevent the war from ever starting. He comes across the man who had his parents killed 25 years ago who is the mastermind of the Pirates. While the Military is looking at dealing with the Syrians, the Science Council goes in secretly to the asteroid belt and using the information from the mastermind, clean out all the pirate nests. This collapses one front of the potential war, so the Syrians withdraw without a fight.

My Thoughts:

Yeah....this was rather boring. Also, Lucky wasn't much of a Space Ranger at all. He only used the mask the aliens gave him, in the first book, as protection so he could fly closer to the sun and catch up with some bad guys. No cool fight scene with it.

There were a couple of “fights” but they took place mainly in space and were as slow and clunky as you would imagine. No space ninjas here! It really boiled down to Lucky figuring things out last minute but not willing to tell his mentors because he didn't have all the “facts” to back them up. Then he'd race off to get facts.

I must have glossed over it in the first book, but apparently there is another Galactic Empire of the Syrians, from Sirius. I felt like I was stumbling over them without knowing who or what they were. Are they humans or aliens? What is their beef with Earth? This should have been dealt with a little more clearly.

If the series stays tonally the same as this book instead of the first, it is going to be real easy to understand why this series never became very famous. Even Andre Norton wrote more exciting stuff.

★★★☆☆

David Starr, Space Ranger (Book 1)

Friday, July 20, 2018

The Lives of Tao (The Lives of Tao #1) ★★★★☆

Title: The Lives of Tao
Series: The Lives of Tao #1
Author: Wesley Chu
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 464
Format: Digital Edition

Synopsis:

Tao is an alien. An amorphous creature that along with a whole ship of his kind, crashed on Earth 1 bajillion years ago. They cannot long live in our atmosphere but have found that if they inhabit a terrestial life form, it protects them. And they can communicate with and in some cases control, their host. Tao has been in symbiosis with some of the greatest characters in human history, as the aliens want humans to advance enough so they can build them a spaceship to get the aliens back home.

Some hundreds of years ago the aliens split along lines of domination and mutualism in regards to humans. The Gengix want to dominate humans and force them into endless wars to produce better and better tech, hence getting the Gengix home quicker. The Prophus, of whom Tao is part, want humans to advance peacefully so the Prophus leave the planet in better condition than they found it when they all leave.

Tao's latest host was killed and Tao had to inhabit Roen Tan, a lazy, fat, apathetic and generall all around useless piece of humanity. But Tao, a high ranking Prophus, doesn't let Roen stay that way. With help from other Prophus members and humans working for the Prophus, Roen is turned into a decent fighting machine. Which is good, because the Gengix end up kidnapping his girlfriend and training mentor and he has to lead a group of special forces to rescue them both and find out just what the Gengix are up to.

My Thoughts:

If you had had me read Time Salvager and this back to back, I would have sworn they were written by different people. Glad I didn't give up on Chu after TS was such a phracking load of debacle'ness.

Now, with that being said, I still didn't care for Roen Tan for the entirety of the book. His attitudes were everything I've ever despised, namely, that selfish apathy that is impermeable to any and all reason and takes the path of least resistance every single time. He got better by the end but was still thick as mud sometimes and had me shaking my head. It was obviously deliberate on Chu's part and I can roll with it, but it is something to be aware of. It is also something that had better not be in the next 3 books or I'll dnf. One book I can handle, not an entire series.

For some reason I was under the impression that this was going to be funny and comedic. Not so much really. A few quips here and there were really about it. It was dealing with humanity as a whole being used by an alien race for their own ends and some of the horrific things the aliens had caused, like the bubonic plague, Chernobyl, World War I and II, the atomic bomb, etc. Death and Destruction on a scale that is almost unimaginable.

The split of the aliens into factions between the Gengix and the Prophus, I'm not sure why Chu chose to do that except to show that all life is approximately the same the universe over, ie, corrupt and terrible? I repudiate that, but on theological not philosphical grounds.

I was reminded a couple of times of the tv show Chuck. While Tao doesn't magically allow Roen to become a super karate expert like the Intersect did for Chuck, the whole idea of having a wealth of knowledge in one's head was almost the same.

The badguys were pretty good badguys. The Gengix and their human hosts were wonderfully despicable and the only thing I love better than a bad badguy is a good goodguy. Since I didn't get that, I had to settle for the first half of the equation.

I guess why I'm giving this 4stars is that I stayed up past midnight to finish this because I wanted to see how things worked out. That says a lot to me when a book can hook me like that. Hopefully the next 3 in the series can keep that hook in.

★★★★☆

Wednesday, July 18, 2018

The Holy Thief (Brother Cadfael #19) ★★★☆½

Title: The Holy Thief
Series: Brother Cadfael #19
Author: Ellis Peters
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Medieval Mystery
Pages: 288
Format: Digital Edition

Synopsis:

Two fellow Benedictines from a neighboring enclave come in search of offerings of money, prayers, skilled labor and materials for help in rebuilding their plundered abbey. A great amount of all 4 are raised and sent on back to the abbey while the 2 brothers head to other abbey's to keep on raising more support. The cart and its inhabitants are waylaid by bandits and while the men escape with their lives, all the materials and money is gone.

At this time, it is discovered that the reliquary supposedly containing the bones of the welsch Saintess has gone missing. Suspicion falls on the younger of the monks from the ruined abbey and a witness is called to prove he did take the reliquary. Said witness ends up dead and discovered by the younger monk. Lots of twistings and turnings later, it all comes out that it was done by the assistant to a travelling musician who had stolen the valuables and then murdered the witness to the stealing of the reliquary on the off chance he had seen the assistant take the gold and jewels.

Said young monk, who has a voice from heaven, runs off to Wales with the slave girl of the travelling musician who also has the gift of singing. The bones of the Saintess are returned safely to Shrewsbury, the murderer is taken and everything works out for the best, with the exception of the murdered shepherd, poor sap.

My Thoughts:

It is about phracking time that this series got back to having Cadfael as a main character again. I bumped this up at least half star just for that reason alone!

The other thing I really liked was that brother Jerome, that sniveler, that ass kisser and general sucker upper to Prior Robert, lost control and whacked the shepherd over the head. He thought he killed the guy but sadly, it turned out to be someone else put the finishing kabosh on the poor shepherd. I have to admit, I was hoping it WAS Jerome just so the sheriff, Hugh Beringar, could string him up and hang him dead. Jerome has been a worm since the first book and I want him dead. Oh well.

The whole young love thing is just such a trope in this series at this point that I just shrug my shoulders and think “oh well”. The problem I do have it is that it allows Peters to give voice to her rather ecumenical and unscriptural theology using a monk and so add weight to her thoughts.

I enjoyed this read from start to finish, which is a good change from the last couple of Cadfael books. I only have 2 more to go in this series and I'm really hoping they end strong and not with a whimper.

★★★☆½

Previous Brother Cadfael Reviews

Monday, July 16, 2018

Code of the Woosters (The Jeeves Omnibus #1.2) ★★★☆½

Title: Code of the Woosters
Series: The Jeeves Omnibus #1.2
Author: P.G. Wodehouse
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Humor
Pages: 263
Format: Digital Edition

Synopsis:

Bertie Wooster is bamboozled into helping out various friends and relatives as they try to get what they want, whether it be a wife, a husband, a policeman's helmet, a diary, a superb chef or even a silver cow creamer, Bertie is at his best, messing everything up. Since he has ignored Jeeves' recommendation to take a world tour on a cruise ship, Jeeves is less than completely helpful.

But in the end Jeeves doesn't let his master down and everything works out ok for everyone except for the Justice of the Peace who once fined Bertie Wooster 5 pounds. Imagine the gall!

My Thoughts:

I enjoyed this but it was just a touch too long. If Wodehouse had knocked it back to 200 pages, the humor would have been more palatable. I mean, after a point rich people having problems like not being able to keep their cook just isn't funny when you're dealing with 8 other rich people, almost all of whom are so stupid it is surprising they haven't walked in front of a bus yet, all dealing with similar “problems”. It starts out funny but like a fish, starts to smell after a while.

That being said, up until the 75% mark, there were quite a few instances where I was just chortling to myself at the pure outrageousness of the happenings. I mean, Bertie is such a good hearted idiot that you want him to succeed even while knowing he's an idiot and is going to flub things up.

I only gave this 3stars back in '02 even while my review from then leads me to believe I found it funnier back then than this time around. However, I wasn't actually using a 5star system (that started in '07 or '09 with my time at Goodreads) but retconn'ed all my books into the 5star system. I was using some vague and completely subjective 100 point system based on my highschool grading system. Man, how the times they have a'changed!

Despite all my complaining, I did enjoy this quite a bit and laughed out loud enough times so that Mrs B stopped asking me what I was laughing about. I think that says just how good this book actually was.

★★★☆½

Friday, July 13, 2018

The Man with One Name (The God Fragments 2.5) ★★★★☆

Title: The Man with One Name
Series: The God Fragments 2.5
Author: Tom Lloyd
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 68
Format: Digital Edition

Synopsis:

Lynx is wandering and comes into a small town. He accidentally kills an employee of the local warlord. He is then made Reeve by an enterprising old woman and has to survive the wrath of Therien, the man he has bucked.

After killing half of Therien's crew, Lynx proposes a duel of mage pistols at dawn and Therien agrees, knowing that if he kills Lynx, he will then be the legitimate authority in the town. Lynx simply snipes him and heads out of town.

My Thoughts:

This was a story of Lynx before he joined up with the Cards. Honestly, I was expecting a prequel novella to book 3, much like Honour Under Moonlight leads up to Princess of Blood. Seeing what Lynx dealt with as an ex-Hanese soldier wandering around was enlightening and it definitely made him a slighter fuller figure (ha, yes, that is a pun on him being fat).

Knowing Lynx from the previous books and novella, I suspected that the ending would go the way it did. Lynx is pragmatic until it runs counter to his set of morals. Sniping a warlord who had used his underlings to try to kill him presented no moral qualms for Lynx.

★★★★☆

Wednesday, July 11, 2018

The Comedy of Errors ★★☆☆½

Title: The Comedy of Errors
Series: ----------
Author: William Shakespeare
Rating: 2.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Play, Comedy
Pages: 272
Format: Digital Edition

Synopsis:

20+ years ago, a family with twin sons and a servant with twin sons, were separated at sea. Now they all come together in the city of Ephesus and mistaken identity comedy errors ensue. With a lot of beatings for the servant twins, who both can't seem to keep their mouths shut.

The error is realized and everyone ends up happy. The End.

My Thoughts:

This completely did not work for me as a read. The humor was not funny on the page nor did the situational humor do a thing for me. I kept wanting to shout “Somebody USE YOUR BRAIN!”

I can see this being very funny if acted out, much like a 3 Stooges scenario. But those wouldn't be funny either on paper. The actors are what make the situations funny, not just the situations themselves.

I also don't find humor about marriage funny. Me and Willy have very different outlooks, that is for sure. That doesn't stop me from being glad to read this or to appreciate it. I just don't like it * grin *

★★☆☆½

Previous Shakespeare Reviews