Bookstooge's Reviews On the Road

Tuesday, October 09, 2018

The Mistletoe Murder and Other Stories ★★☆☆½

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Title: The Mistletoe Murder and Other Stories
Series: ----------
Author: P.D. James
Rating: 2.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Mystery
Pages: 176
Format: Hardcover Edition

Synopsis:

A collection of 4 stories about murder. None are connected nor did I care enough to outline each story or even bother to list them.

My Thoughts:

* Spoilers *

Sordid. That is the one word that I felt best described this small book of short stories by P.D. James. One of the stories is told by the murder/rapist and left me feeling disgusted. Another one was told by the Granddaughter of the murderess and it is justified in their eyes. Homosexuality, blackmail and suicide. Filth.

Two of the stories dealt with James' detective character Adam Dalgliesh (which I still can't spell without looking it up) and he might as well have been as invisible as a hat on a hat rack. You could have changed the name to John Smith and it wouldn't have made a lick of difference. He had zero personality and almost no part to play in either one.

From an entertainment standpoint, this was a complete failure. I was not impressed and I suspect I would not have liked James and her disgusting love of all things perverse.

That being said. She can WRITE. I hate it when this happens. Why does someone who writes like she can have to delve into the filthy underbelly of humanity and seem to ENJOY it so much? Upon finishing this I immediately went to the library and got the first Adam Dalgliesh book. I'm giving that 2 books for James to convince me that she doesn't actually like murderers and rapists. But if I get that sordid vibe again, James will be off my list.

★★☆☆½

Friday, October 05, 2018

Wizard's First Rule (Sword of Truth #1) ★★☆☆☆

Title: Wizard's First Rule
Series: Sword of Truth #1
Author: Terry Goodkind
Rating: 2 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 852
Format: Digital Edition

Synopsis:

Richard Cypher, still dealing with his father being brutally murdered, and forbidden from investigating by his elder brother who is about to become the most powerful man in Westland, rescues a young woman from the clutches of four men. Her name is Kahlan.

Kahlan is from the Midlands, a land where magic abounds and that is cutoff from Westland by the Border, a magical construct. But the Border between the Midlands and D'Hara has already fallen and Lord Rahl, lord of D'Hara, has taken over the Midlands. A prophecy says that Kahlan will find the Seeker, the wielder of the Sword of Truth, in the Westlands. This Seeker can only be appointed by the last remaining wizard, a wizard so powerful that he cast a spell that made everyone in the entire world forget his name and his face.

Richard takes Kahlan to his old friend Zed, a rascally old man who has trained Richard throughout the years in woodcraft and various other skills. Richard does something or other that makes it obvious that he is the Seeker Kahlan is looking for, but where will they find an unkown wizard who has the Sword of Truth to give to Richard? Oh wait...

Richard, Kahlan and Zed are on the run, as Lord Rahl is able to send magical creatures across the Border to hunt down Kahlan. Richard has memorized a secret book and Lord Rahl has done some magical stuff with some magical boxes. These boxes will either give Lord Rahl complete power, certain death or the destruction of all living things. Only Richard knows the correct box to pick.

Lord Rahl pulls shenanigans and ends up with everybody at his castle. Everyone is so busy trying to protect everybody else that they give Lord Rahl exactly what he wants. He opens a Box of Orden, only Richard, being such a super smart Seeker, tricked him. Lord Rahl dies and it is revealed that Richard Cypher is actually the son of Lord Rahl and the grandson of the Wizard Zeddicus. Long Live the Good Lord Rahl!

My Thoughts:

Awwwww man! This went from a 5star read in '04, on my Loved side of the 100 books of Bookstooge down to a 2 star! Folks, that is a crushing blow. I am not sure that Life itself is worth continuing. With a blow like that, my confidence is shattered, my ego destroyed and my ham-handed self-righteousness has been shish-kebabed.

Where do I start?

Well, the writing I guess. It was bad. It was clunky. It was choppy. It did not flow. When I read the words I felt like I was in a wagon going over a cobblestone road. Richard did things. Richard said things. Kahlan also did and said things. Zed AND Lord Rahl both said and did things. It felt like watching a marionette show. I have no memory of the writing being this unskilled 14 years ago. Guess I've matured in that time. Thank goodness!

The characters. Most of the issues with the various characters stems from the writing skill (or lack thereof) and not because of any inherent flaws in the characters. They are mainly flat without any real individuality. The romance between Richard and Kahlan has all the texture, flavor and excitement of drying cement. Zed, for being a wizard of great strength and age, is as much an idiot as Richard.

The Mord Sith. This was just disturbing this time around. A group of women broken in every single way so that pain is pleasure to them. Lord Rahl then somehow makes them able to control any magic used against them and the Mord Sith can torture the magic user until they are the Mord Sith's slave. This was gone into in way more detail than was needed and I just felt dirty after reading it.

Everything is resolved because Richard is the golden boy. I usually like a protagonist who is capable and smart and able to handle everything thrown at him. This time though, Richard didn't work that way for me. He's so golden King Midas would be envious. It didn't encourage me, it made me nauseous. It didn't help that Goodkind uses Richard as a mouth piece and Goodkind blows the trumpet loud and long.

Overall, a very bleh read that really crushed me with how disappointed I was because of my memories.I will be removing this from the Bookstooge in 100 Books once I find a suitable replacement to go on the “Loved” side. Way to go Goodkind, make MORE work for me almost 15 years after I read your book. You're a real peach...

★★☆☆☆

Wizard's First Rule (2004 Review)

Wednesday, October 03, 2018

Harpist in the Wind (Riddlemaster #3) ★★★☆ ½

Title: Harpist in the Wind
Series: Riddlemaster #3
Author: Patricia McKillip
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 260
Format: Digital Edition

Synopsis:

The shapeshifters from the Sea continue and escalate their battle against humanity. But their fighting makes no sense, as they simply occupy areas where the old Earthmasters cities used to be.

Morgan keeps on running away and Raederle keeps finding him and getting him back on track. It is revealed that the High One's harpist, who betrayed Morgan, is actually the High One and that he was using Gwych for his own ends. Morgan and Gwych duke it out and Morgan, as the Starbearer, wins.

The Shapeshifters are revealed as the losers in a war between the Earthmasters. The High One is the last Earthmaster and when he dies, they will break loose and rule all creation. The High One has made Morgan his landheir and hopes his power can lock them away again.

Morgan succeeds with the help of all the kings and the queens of the land and he is now the High One, a fully human High One married to a sorceress of Earthmaster descent.

My Thoughts:

Honestly, so much happened so quickly that if you didn't read every single sentence huge things would change in an eyeblink. Take Deth the Harpist. He' supposedly dead and then he shows up as a Wizard and it all takes place in a sentence or as an aside.

Morgan was just as stubborn as the first book and I don't realy like when a character is fighting against what they know is right “just because”. And then when he seals up the Shapeshifters so he doesn't have to kill them, that was the exact same problem that the original High One had, for at one point they'll break loose AGAIN and start the cycle all over. You don't hold a threat in a pen, you destroy it.

Most likely the least enjoyable McKillip I've re-read so far. I wasn't quite so confused as last time but my goodness, I wasn't enthralled just kind of whirling along hoping to stay conscious until the end. Definitely would NOT recommend this for a first timer of McKillip. If I ever do another re-read of her stuff, I'm going to try to remember to skip this trilogy.

★★★☆ ½

Monday, October 01, 2018

The Lizard Man (Shaman King #3) ★★★★☆ (Manga Monday)

Title: The Lizard Man
Series: Shaman King #3
Author: Hiroyuki Takei
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre: Manga
Pages: 192
Format: Digital Copy

Synopsis:

Wooden Sword Ryu and gang continue to look for their happy place. They find an abandoned bowling alley where Ryu sees Anna and falls in love. When he finds out she is Yoh's fiance, everything comes crashing down for him as Yoh was the one who cut off Ryu's pompador AND broke his sword. This leaves Ryu open to be posssessed by a bandit ghost that Amidamur killed 600 years ago.

After lots of blathering, Yoh lets the ghost, one Tokagero, possess him to see what trust is all about. Tokagero has a change of heart and lets Ryu go. Ryu and gang clean up the inn where Yoh is staying as payment and Ryu's latent shaman powers are released. Unfortunately, without a spirit OR a trainer, he's left on his own. He asks the stars for a sign and a comet suddenly appears blazing across the sky.

The comet is one of a pair that herald the start of the fight for the title of Shaman King. We get a shot across the world of various shamans gazing at the comet and the book ends with Ren Tao claiming that he will be the Shaman King no matter what.

My Thoughts:

This volume relied almost completely on the Friendship trope in manga. Yoh and Amidamaru are as strong as they are because of their friends and even Ryu has friends to help him out. Once the nasty bad Tokagero realizes just how lonely he was, suddenly he's alright once someone shows him some friendship. In one sense it was eye-rollingly corny but at the same time you can see the truth behind the trope. Friendships have allowed people throughout history to go beyond themselves and to do things they didn't think they could. The flipside to that is that no one can hurt you more than a friend can.

Ryu moves up from a bit character to someone with shaman capabilities which means he is now part of the Team. It is fun to watch as people move into Yoh's orbit without him even trying.

I also have to say that after reading this volume and still enjoying it so much that I'm going to be reading a volume every week and putting out a Manga Monday post each week for at least this month. Just so you know so you can avoid them or pay particular attention, depending on which way your interests lay.

Finally, that cover. That is just plain ridiculous and yet it captures the essence of the story told. Ridiculous AND funny at the same time.

★★★★☆

Friday, September 28, 2018

Brother Cadfael's Penance (Brother Cadfael #20) ★★★★☆

Title: Brother Cadfael's Penance
Series: Brother Cadfael #20
Author: Ellis Peters
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre: Medieval Mystery
Pages: 292
Format: Digital Edition

Synopsis:

King Stephen and Empress Maud, the 2 contending Monarchs for the English throne, have been brought together to see if there is anyway to stop the war or at least cease the hostilities. One of Maud's cohorts recently turned coat and gave over several castles to Stephen so she's not in the best of moods. The talks go as expected (no where) but King Stephen's man, who helped engineer the turncoat's plans is killed.

This leads to a young man, who knows Cadfael from a previous book, being accused and then spirited away to said castle of the turncoat. At the same time, Cadfael's son, who is on Empress Maud's side, was lost in the shuffle of the castles changing hands and while presumed captured, there has been no ransom put forth. Cadfael goes on a quest to find the missing young man and his son and to exonerate the young man and gain the freedom of his son.

Cadfael risks losing his place in the Abbey to rescue his son and at the end of the book is in full contrition in front of his Abbot waiting for his judgement, as he, Cadfael, left without leave to do his own thing.

My Thoughts:

Not really a murder mystery this time around. More of politics and Cadfael trying to rescue some young men. It allowed Peters to write on a slightly grander scale and it was pretty enjoyable.

My only issue is of Cadfael breaking his monastic vows. I don't know his exact vows when he became a Benedictine monk, but I'm sure that severing all ties was part of it. And yes, he finds out about his son AFTER he took the vows, but it felt like he really weaseled his way around them and flat out broke them. As a Protestant, I don't believe in monastic vows nor do I think that the Bible encourages such things, BUT, once you do make a vow, you need to stick with it. If there is any doubt about keeping such vows, don't make them. But don't vacillate and give me the old tear jerk fountain when you want to break those vows.

I think part of why I enjoyed this more was because of the action going on. When Maud finds out that the Turncoat is in the castle he turned over to Stephen, she immediately musters her army and lays siege to it. Cadfael has to deal with going through that and figure out a way to make sure Justice is done and not just revenge. He does an admirable job in that regards and it was so much fun watching him maneuvering everything around. Cadfael's best friend Hugh Beringar is on Stephen's side,but Cadfael's son is on the Empress's side and basically it is a really messy situation. Cadfael walks that line without tripping and helps all those who need it.

With this being the second to last book in the series, I feel like Peters has her second wind and is ending things on a good note. I was very concerned the opposite would happen, so I'm doubly glad to see things turning out as they are.

★★★★☆

Previous Brother Cadfael Reviews

Wednesday, September 26, 2018

Cloak ★★★☆½

Title: Cloak
Series: ----------
Author: Timothy Zahn
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Thriller
Pages: 566
Format: Digital Edition

SPOILERS AHEAD AND BOY DO I MEAN SPOILERS

Synopsis:

A scientist is working on an invisibility cloak. He and most of his team are murdered and the cloaks stolen. The scientists wife is ambushed by skimasked killers and it is only through the intervention of a local private investigator that she stays alive. The detective convinces her not to go to the police but to stay on the run with him. His motives are murky at best.

At the same time, a tactical nuke is stolen from India and somehow the responsibility for finding it rolls right off the Indian government's shoulders and into the United States' lap. But the group that stole it knew the US would be looking and plays so many games of misdirection that nobody is sure where it is, where it is going or what the final purpose for it is.

At the same time, the President of the United States is touring the country trying to drum up support for an initiative he wants to pass at at upcoming United Nations meeting. The initiative? To give the UN their own true army, fully weaponized, including tactical nukes.

It call comes together in New York where a rogue Indian General and his agents are trying to nuke the UN meeting to wipe out a lot of political dissidents from around the world and it is up to the scientist's wife, the PI (who is really a retired FBI agent) and 2 others to stop them. But how do you stop an invisible nuke that you aren't even sure is in the city?

You figure out it is on an invisible zeppelin floating down the streets of New York of course! And then deactive it.

Score for the good guys.

My Thoughts:

When I read Zahn's Soulminder back in '14, even though I enjoyed it, I wasn't impressed. I enjoyed this one a good bit more. The misdirection is impossible to ignore so I didn't even try to figure out what was going on. I just sat back and let things happen.

I didn't know WHAT was going to happen until it did and letting go was good for me. I felt like it was the real strength of the book while at the same time being its kryptonite. I doubt this has any re-read value and honestly, the older I get, the more I like to re-read. So some of my consideration of a book is “would I want to re-read this”. With knowing everything, I suspect most of the punch would be gone.

But since I didn't know everything, this really packed a punch. Sometimes Zahn would misdirect purposely and at other times it was like he was using previous instances of misdirection to make me question if this current situation was a misdirection or not. I love having my chain yanked like that, when I know it is happening anyway.

This was a kickstarter originally. Honestly, I wish he'd do more kickstarter projects and write the books he wants to write instead of sticking to the miserables sods in the Star Wars universe. Well, I don't know, maybe he LIKES writing in that “wretched hive of scum and villainy” but since I'm no longer a Star Wars fan I want other stories by him. I guess this will have to tide me over.

★★★☆½

Monday, September 24, 2018

The Pickwick Papers ★★★★★★

Title: The Pickwick Papers
Series: ----------
Author: Charles Dickens
Rating: 6 of 5 Stars
Genre: Classic
Pages: 943
Format: Digital Edition

Synopsis:

Samuel Pickwick, gentleman bachelor and amateur scientist, has formed a small group of like minded men and they all decide to go exploring the Countryside of England to expand their knowledge of their Great Country.

As such, the 4 Gentlemen, Mr Pickwick, Mr Snodgrass, Mr Tuddle and Mr Tuppman, set out to see what they can see. Along the way Mr Pickwick picks up a servant by the name of Sam Weller, the company meets an honorable countryman by the name of Mr Wardle, the 2 younger gentlemen of the group fall in love and marry the niece and daughter of Mr Wardle, Mr Tuppman is disappointed in love with Mr Wardle's spinster sister Miss Rachel. Mr Pickwick becomes embroiled in breach of promise suit with his landlady due to the machinations of the dastardly duo Dodson & Fogg, attorneys at law and ends up spending 3 months in debtors' prison for refusing to pay the fine, as it would all go to the lawyers instead of the landlady. Pickwick and Weller have multiple runins with their lowclass counterparts, Jingle and Trotter and are made fools of several times over. Sam Weller's father comes into the story with his own adventures of his second wife, a widow who owns a tavern and is a strict adherent to the sect of Preacher Stiggleton, who preaches teetotally while cooling drinking pineapple rum punch by the hogshead.

These are but a part of the adventures the Pickwick Club has over the course of 2 years and at the end of the book everything turns out for the best. Marriages and children abound, bad characters reform, love and generosity overcome all hardships and obstacles and Mr Pickwick retires to a city house with Sam and his wife Mary to keep him in order.

My Thoughts:

First off, yes, I did give this 6 stars. I know circumstances played a part, ie, several dnf's had my reading expectations abysmally low. But even without that, this was just a fantastic book.

It started a little rough and in a rather formal vein but that was for the first chapter only. Then it turned into Dickens' more relatable style. I'm a Dickens' fan through and through.

This was an interesting little plot-less book. I say little because even though the “official” page count is over 900 pages, when I used Calibre's page count plugin, this was barely over 600 pages. I suspect the pictures and chapters each had their own breaks which artificially inflated the page count.

I think humor was the most prevalent of the emotions that Dickens was trying to call forth and my goodness, he did a grand job. Sam Weller, Pickwick's man servant was a font of pugnacious, pugalistic one liners and retorts that had me in stitches. He was also a bit more knowledgeable about the world at large than his master and thus was able to guide him safely through some troubled waters.

Romance, pathos, politics, social justice'ing of the day (Dickens was dead set against the whole idea of Debtors Prison. But to be fair, he actually had solid reasons, not just vapid, idiotic, baseless, pointless and generally useless ideas like the sjw's of today), hijinks and lots and lots of drinking.

Through it all, Pickwick navigates the adventures as best he can and we can cheer him on, groan with him, laugh with him (and Sam Weller) and generally love every second spent reading this book. I'm also giving this the Best Book of the Year tag.

★★★★★★

The Pickwick Papers (2007 Review)

Friday, September 21, 2018

Lucky Starr and the Oceans of Venus (Lucky Starr #3) ★★★☆½

Title: Lucky Starr and the Oceans of Venus
Series: Lucky Starr #3
Author: Isaac Asimov
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 174
Format: Digital Edition

Synopsis:

The Science Council has had a call for help from the domed Cities of Venus. They sent in a top operative but they received a letter of recall from the Head of the Science Council on Venus accusing the man of corruption. Lucky knows this man and doesn't believe a word of it. He heads to Venus but receives a radio communique from said operative warning him away.

Lucky and Bigman barely make it to Venues, as their pilots mysteriously black out and almost crash their craft. Lucky begins his investigation and is shown a whole slew of incidents where rational people have performed very irrational acts and then had no memory of it. The Head of the Local Council is convinced it is a Syrian trick so as to steal the rare Venus yeast formulas.

Lucky thinks otherwise and after some hair raising adventures in the oceans, finds out that telepathic frogs are the culprit! But the mystery doesn't stop there. It turns out one of the engineers on Venus has learned how to control the v-frogs (venus frogs. Get it? Pretty clever right?) and has been planning to become dictator of Venus.

Thanks to Lucky and Bigman, said Engineer is brought to Justice and the benevolent rule of the Science Council continues apace. Heil Scyenze! * salutes *

My Thoughts:

Maddalena pointed out in the comments of the previous book that this was written for middle graders. So when I went into this, I deliberately kept that in mind and you know what? It worked wonders for my expectations and how I read the book itself. I had a lot more fun this time around. I could see myself as a 5^th grader eating this up with a spoon. I wish I had known about these way back then but oh well.

A good rousing adventure tale. It also shows unabashedly, or perhaps unknowingly(?), just how strong a belief in science as a force for good permeated the society of the 50's. Science was going to solve every problem, only the best of men would be scientists and they would all get along because obviously, once you know something you have to act rationally and logically to that knowledge. Phraaaaack, what a naive outlook. Makes me wonder what Asimov was thinking at the end of his life, as he was a humanist and from what I understand didn't believe in God or any sort of afterlife.

Anyway, with that aside out of the way, this book gave me some hope that I was sorely lacking from the previous. I am now looking forward to the next couple of volumes instead of dreading them. Ha!

★★★☆½

Thursday, September 20, 2018

Empire (Warhammer: Legend of Sigmar #2) DNF@5%

Title: Empire
Series: Warhammer: Legend of Sigmar #2
Author: Graham McNeill
Rating: Unrated
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 420/DNF@5%
Format: Digital Edition

My Thoughts:

After slogging through The Deaths of Tao and giving up because I didn't care 2 farthings for Tao, I realized that I didn't care even 1 farthing about Sigmar or the ultimately failed world of Warhammer. So I dnf'd this before I got frustrated. As such, I'm not rating this. If you like most other Warhammer books, I'm sure you'll like this one. If you don't like Warhammer, then I highly doubt this book will change your mind.

Sorry Dave, I tried. But the Warhammer universe just isn't for me. But at least my initial interest helped get you online and blogging, right? And our friendship is definitely worth this little adventure, no matter how it turned out for me.

Wednesday, September 19, 2018

The Deaths of Tao (The Lives of Tao #2) ★★☆☆☆ DNF@67%

Title: The Deaths of Tao
Series: The Lives of Tao #2
Author: Wesley Chu
Rating: 2 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 464/DNF'd at 67%
Format: Digital Edition

Synopsis:

Four after the previous book, Roen is married to Jill and has a 3 year old son named Cameron. Unfortunately, under the urging of Tao, Roen has pretty much abandoned his family to fight against the Genjix and find out what their master plan is. Tao is convinced that the Genjix no longer wish to return to their homeworld and have nefarious plans for Earth and humanity.

This appears to be the plan and the Prophus, now very much decimated due to botched leadership, must play catchup, if at all possible.

My Thoughts:

I gave up on this book so late in the game because I was realizing I simply didn't care. I didn't care about stupid Roen Tan. I didn't care about the miserable alien Tao. I didn't care about the idiots at the top of the Prophus. I didn't care that the aliens were attempting to terraform earth to their own standards.

For phracks sake, I am more competent at command than those idiots in the Prophus. That really annoyed me. Not my can of energy drink at all and I'll be avoiding anything by Chu in the future. 3 tries is enough.

This book gave me the exact same vibe that I got from Time Salvager. So nothing particularly wrong with this book and I can't point to something specific and say “I don't like that” but it's just apparent that I don't like Chu's books and writing style and choice of protagonists.

I feel rather generous giving this 2 stars, but honestly, there is nothing wrong here to take it lower, I simply didn't like it.

★★☆☆☆

The Lives of Tao (Book 1)