Bookstooge's Reviews On the Road

Tuesday, November 20, 2018

The Vindication of Man (Count to the Eschaton Sequence #5) ★★★☆☆

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Title: The Vindication of Man
Series: Count to the Eschaton Sequence #5
Author: John Wright
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 450
Format: Digital Edition

Synopsis:

Rania returns! And she is carrying new Monument coding from M3 that will bring peace to all of humanity in all its forms. Problem is, she's a false Rania and the coding will turn humanity into docile sheep who demand a ruling hand.

Montrose runs away and ends up fighting Blackie, again. They are forced to make peace as they want to go to M3 and find out what happened to the real Rania.

Blackie pulls a fast one and forces a duel, the apparent Final Duel, between them. Which they both want. However, Blackie has rigged the game and leaves Montrose in a dead ship with no energy while he continues on to M3 and Rania. The book ends with Montrose's intelligence shutting down to keep its coherence.

My Thoughts:

Unfortunately, this book was just plain boring. Wright delves deeply into philosophical and science fictional asides and the plot has barely advanced from the previous book.

By the halfway mark I could tell when it was safe to skip a page or two of SF-babble. When he does decide to actually plot, it is good. Montrose and Blackie are awesome characters, when they're actually DOING something. But my goodness there is so much talking about energy and various types of future technology that it became pointless. Nano-technology leads to pico-technology which leads to phenitol-technology which leads to fermo-technology which leads to poop-technology which leads to..., and on you go.

Thankfully, there is only 1 more book in this series and while I'm ok with reading it, I'm not “excited” to read it.

I follow Mr Wright on his blog, one of the extremely few authors I feel comfortable doing so. Once I'm done with this series he has a couple of others that I do plan on checking out.

★★★☆☆

Monday, November 19, 2018

The Road to the Tao Stronghold (Shaman King #8) ★★★☆½

Title: The Road to the Tao Stronghold
Series: Shaman King #8
Author: Hiroyuki Takei
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Manga
Pages: 192
Format: Digital Copy

Synopsis:

Yoh and Ren conclude their fight to a draw. The Great Spirit declares they both get to advance and Tao joins the group that has coalesced around Yoh. Now that the prelims are over, the real tournament will begin in a month.

Yoh is confronted by BoZ the Rocking Monks, who are acting as lackeys for someone named Hao. Ryu appears and saves Yoh and cuts their hearse in half. Ryu is also a contestant in the Shaman Fight and now a shaman in his own right.

Ren heads home to confront his father. Jun had already done so during Ren's fight with Yoh and the father Yuan, put her into his dungeons. Ren cuts through his father's forces only to be crushed by one blow by Yuan and put into the same place as his sister.

Bason, Ren's spirit cohort, escapes and begs Yoh and Co to come rescue Ren and Jun. Manta arranges transport and the gang all head to the ancestral home of the Tao's. Horohoro and Ryu tell the others to go on while they take care of Yuan Tao's special goon squad, a set of 5 suped up dead bodies, each a fusion of human and something else.

My Thoughts:

Ok, I felt cheated. While I figured out that Ren and Yoh would end up as friends, the “Great Spirit” declaring the draw as a win for both of them just felt like the manga-ka was taking the easy way out since he couldn't figure out a way to reconcile Ren's animosity with the need to make Ren and Yoh friends. Eh, whatever.

I find all the setup in this book pretty impressive. Yuan Tao is dang impressive, both physically (he “accidentally” crushes a panda bear he is petting) and psychically (not even Ren could have created the special hybrid creatures). Of course, it's all overshadowed by this “Hao” character, whoever he is.

I like the group dynamic. Horoho with his enthusiasm coupled with Ryu's humorous machismo works perfectly. I am really looking forward to their battle in the next book. Ren is going to make a great backbone to Yoh's laidback stoner approach to life.

★★★☆½

Friday, November 16, 2018

Galloway (Sacketts #14) ★★★☆½

Title: Galloway
Series: Sacketts #14
Author: Louis L'Amour
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Western
Pages: 152
Format: Digital Edition

Synopsis:

Flagan and Galloway Sackett are ambushed by renegade Indians and Flagan is captured. He makes an escape and heads naked and unarmed into the mountains. He has a runin with with some local tough and ends up being rescued by Galloway.

The brothers make it to town and decide that they want to settle down there. Unfortunately, the same local tough who gave Flagan a hard time is the son of the local cattle rustler who wants to settle down and rule the town. But when the Sacketts are in trouble, the whole gang comes piling in.

The Sacketts take out a sniper, beat the snot out of the cattle rustler and make a good place for themselves.

My Thoughts:

This was more about Flagan Sackett than Galloway. And really, Flagan already had his story in a previous book, The Skyliners. To add to my confusion, in that book, it ends up with Flagan seeming like he's all set to marry a girl named Judith and take over a ranch from her father. So how does this fit in? In many ways this was the same story as the Skyliners but almost presented as an alternate history version.

I enjoyed the story a lot and really wasn't thinking much about the above until I went through to my previous Sacketts reviews to write this one. I did some “indepth investigation” and apparently everyone else who has read this book has the same issues. Thinking about it, I'm wondering if Lamour had a scheduling deadline and needed to churn out a “story” quick with not even minimal work? I believe it was originally published in 1970 and it wouldn't surprise me if that was the case. Because its that or Lamour was going full on alzheimers and since he was still writing in the 90's, weeeeeeeeeellllll.....

So a good fun standalone story as long as you don't try to fit it into the overall Sacketts narrative.

★★★☆½

Previous Sacketts Reviews

Wednesday, November 14, 2018

The Old Curiosity Shop ★★★★☆

Title: The Old Curiosity Shop
Series: ----------
Author: Charles Dickens
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre: Classic
Pages: 632
Format: Digital Edition

Synopsis:

Little Nell's Grandfather runs a Curiosity Shop and everyone, including her older brother and a money lending dwarf, think he is rich as Croessus. Unfortunately, he's also a secret gambler and ends up spending every penny they have on gaming, trying to win big so Nell can live in luxury for the rest of her life.

The help, a young man by the name of Kit, is dismissed, the brother plots to marry Nell to his friend because he is still convinced the Grandfather is rich (just miserly) and the dwarf causes trouble because of his evil nature.

Nell and Grandfather take to the road and meet various characters, some good, some bad and are saved from privation and death by working at a little church in some tiny town. The Grandfather's younger brother returns from faraway parts, very well off and begins searching for his brother and Grand-niece.

The dwarf plots rot and ruin for everyone and Kit finds a kindly couple to work for and settles down pretty well. Everyone caroums off of each other and does the thing called life and at the end Nell dies, Kit marries happily, Nell's brother is killed in France by bad company and the dwarf drowns and his poor wife finally marries happily.

My Thoughts:

This felt like Dickens used Nell as the white ball in a game of billiards. It is the focus of each player but what it does is defined by how it interacts with all the other billiards. Nobody cares about the white ball very much. In the same way Nell 's importance to this story was more how she drove interactions with the other characters.

I liked all the various stories. They were great Dickens' stories but the ties that bound everything together felt a bit weak. I almost wished that there had been more of the Marchioness (another young girl who ends up marrying and helping reform another side character) and not so much Nell. Nell was not a strong person and as such didn't have the personality to drive this story forward.

Don't get me wrong, this was still a good, fun, interesting story. But it didn't have quite that “pop” that I found in some of my other reads by Dickens. Could also be that coming after the Pickwick Papers didn't do this any favors for me either.

Overall, I enjoyed this but didn't find much to say about it and nothing made me sit up and go “Awesomesauce”. Definitely on the lower end of the Dickens Ladder.

★★★★☆

Sentenced to Prism (2000 Review)

Tuesday, November 13, 2018

Clash at Mata Cemetery (Shaman King #7) ★★★☆½

Title: Clash at Mata Cemetery
Series: Shaman King #7
Author: Hiroyuki Takei
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Manga
Pages: 192
Format: Digital Copy

Synopsis:

Yoh and Ren begin their fight and Ren comes out very strong. Yoh evades but eventually Ren gets serious and pulls out a second ghost that integrates with Bason. Yoh learns a couple of things as Ren rants and rants and the book ends with Ren about to unleash everything he has onto Yoh.

A couple of side vignettes break up the fight,thankfully. Ren's older sister Jun is talking to their father and begs him to release Ren from the course of becoming Shaman King. The Tao's have a history of violent bloodshed and it is killing Ren inside to particpate in such a family tradition. He is coming to hate all Life and should he become Shaman King, he plans on wiping out humanity in a global apocalypse.

My Thoughts:

We now fully move on to the Super Special Named Power Moves!!!! Oh my goodness. Eye rolling. Its fun as long as you read through it fast enough. One page spreads of physical manifestations of powering up don't quite have the same affect on me as they might on a teenage boy.

The one thing I really did enjoy about this volume was the almost continual references to Ren's pointy hair. During one of the powerup times I think Manta makes a comment like “Look! He's gotten even pointy'er!” It was a good light moment. I missed having Ryu involved, as he really brings the comedy.

Since this fight ends right in the middle, I'm diving into volume 8 right away. Hopefully that review will go up this week too.

★★★☆½

Monday, November 12, 2018

The Technician (Polity #12) ★★★★☆

Title: The Technician
Series: Polity #12
Author: Neal Asher
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 512
Format: Digital Edition

Synopsis:

We the readers are returned to the world of Masada, introduced in the Agent Cormac books. Now that the Polity has “been invited in”, things are changing. One of the few surviving Proctors from the old regime was attacked by a hooder but not killed. This Hooder, known as the Technician, left something in the proctors head and the Polity wants to know what. The proctor goes on a crazy trip for about 20 years where he just sits as an invalid on a prison island until an AI decides that it has had enough. Things are orchestrated to start a chain of events to give the proctor back his memories and for the Polity to find out what was in his head.

The gabbleducks, the native life of Masada, are shown to be the devolved descendants of the space faring race the Atheter that went extinct millions of years ago. They commited race extinction after being exposed to Jain tech and left behind a machine whose sole job was to prevent them from ever regaining sapience again.

Now that the Polity has an Atheter AI, the gabbleducks and some unknown something inside the proctors head, all on the same planet, this machine awakens. There is a climactic showdown between it and the Technician and some top of the line Polity vessels. The proctor transfers his memories (or, the last living Atheter's) memories to a gabbleduck and the AI wakes up. The Atheter appear to be on the rise.

We are also introduced to Penny Royal, a black AI. It was split into 8 parts and the 8^th was excised, as it contained the psychotic bits. However, the AI Amistad kept that 8^th part for study and during all of this Penny Royal gets its hands on the 8^th part. It apparently destroys it.

My Thoughts:

I somehow messed up and read this before reading The Gabble and Other Stories, which introduces how the Polity found the Atheter AI and does a bit of setup for this book. However, Asher does enough fill in for the reader that it isn't strictly necessary to have read that book first. It just would have been nicer.

Ok, first. Asher is in fine form with his bashing of religion and returning to the world of Masada allows him free reign to setup strawmen that he not only knocks down, but pretty much uses a flamethrower on. I've stated it before, but Asher's god is Scyenze and he's as vitriolic and mocking as any old high priest you could think of. That was pretty much why this stayed at a 4star rating like the last time I read it. If it wasn't for that, this would have been approaching 5star easily.

This was AWESOME. Splatterpunk space opera at its finest. The proctor gets his face eaten off by the Technician and then gets a prosthetic from the Polity medical team later. On his journey he CUTS HIS OWN FACE OFF AGAIN because he hates the Polity so much. I'm sorry, but how can you not love that?!?

The introduction of Penny Royal was good on this re-read. It is a side character and so when I read this the first time it didn't even register when Asher ended up writing a whole trilogy about it. Now that I've read that trilogy, seeing its introduction is pretty cool.

The human side was done just as well. The proctor, with his mix of literary attendants both for and against, makes for a great survival story. Between the planet and the wildlife and the Tidy Squad (a group that hunts down the former regime) and then the Polity forces, you get a full range of interaction.

Asher does good work on single novels. I won't call this a standalone because knowledge of the Polity and Masada is pretty vital to really understand it but I think someone “could” read this and figure out what they needed. I'm pretty pleased with this read through.

★★★★☆

Friday, November 09, 2018

A Rare Benedictine (Brother Cadfael #21) ★★★☆☆

Title: A Rare Benedictine
Series: Brother Cadfael #21
Author: Ellis Peters
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Medieval Mystery
Pages: 130
Format: Digital Edition

Synopsis:

3 short stories. One about how Cadfael chose to become a monk and then 2 that were referenced in other books but never fleshed out.

My Thoughts:

Apparently, the previous book, Brother Cadfael's Penance, was the “real” final book in the series. I kind of wish I had known that going in to this book so I wasn't constantly looking for a series wrapup.

This was just a series of short stories about Cadfael. Beyond the first one where we find out just how Cadfael becomes a monk, the other stories felt extremely familiar, almost like re-treads. Nothing bad but nothing really good either. Decent reads is what I'd qualify it as.

I felt very “whatever” at the end of the book and am glad I'm done with Cadfael. Between this and the bomb that P.D. James turned out to be, I think I'm done with any sort of “mystery” genre or sub-genre for quite some time.

★★★☆☆

Previous Brother Cadfael Reviews

Wednesday, November 07, 2018

Chasm City (Revelation Space #2) ★★★★½

Title: Chasm City
Series: Revelation Space #2
Author: Alastair Reynolds
Rating: 4.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 708
Format: Digital Edition

Synopsis: Spoilers

Tanner Mirabel wakes up with his memories scrambled. All he really knows is that he has to track down and kill one Argent Reivich, the man who killed his boss and boss's wife. Tanner is now on Chasm City, light years from Sky's Edge and he is without allies, without money and without much information. Thankfully, his memory is slowly coming back.

Tanner gets involved in problems on Chasm City when he's kidnapped and used for a Hunt. The rich immortals living on Chasm City are bored and the Hunt is one way they alleviate such boredom. Between some unexpected allies and his own military background, Tanner turns the tables and suddenly has some allies, some money and some serious firepower. Unfortunately, while his memory is returning, other memories are also returning, the memories of Sky Haussman, the founder of Sky's Edge. Which is impossible as Sky was crucified and killed a LONG time ago. Maybe Tanner is just going insane.

Tanner tracks Reivich down to an asteroid where Reivich is undergoing a Deep Scan, one where he will destroy his body but upload his mind. During all of this more and more memories are returning and Tanner finds out that the real Tanner is hunting HIM. Tanner is Kahuella, a war criminal from Sky's Edge. There is a showdown between the two Tanners and “our” Tanner wins when he releases an unknown ability, the ability to bite with envenomed fangs and kills the original Tanner. ALL of “our” Tanner's memories come crashing back and he realizes he is Sky Haussman and that the dreams of Haussman he's been having aren't from a bio-plague but true memories.

Tanner chooses to remain as Tanner and start a security company on Chasm City and give the Hunt the set of rules we are familiar with from the previous book.

My Thoughts:

In-freaking-credible! I enjoyed this read so much that I'm not really sure what to focus on. The only downside I guess.

I didn't give this 5stars because I'm not sure how this will hold up to a re-read. 75% of the tension was not knowing what was going on with Tanner and his memories and now that I know, I don't know how that will affect future re-reads. And that is it.

This had everything I wanted in a good Science Fiction story. Aliens, sentient and otherwise, weapons of mass destruction and little weapons, a grand amount of fighting and death and carnage that really racks up the body count. It was very similar to a Polity novel but Alastair's style is so different from Neal Asher that there is NO mistaking the difference or feeling that you're retreading territory.

The Sky Haussman episodes felt very much like history lessons but there was enough intrigue going on that it didn't come across as boring info dumps. I have to admit though, most of the time info dumps don't bother me, except when they do. I still haven't figured out what the difference is though.

Alastair handles the time differentials skillfully. This book pretty much takes place at the same time as Revelation Space and so we get ties to make that book slightly fuller and here we find out information to make a re-read of RS richer.

Tanner makes for a great character. He's driven, has a great skill set, has a conscience and still isn't above killing people who are gunning for him. Following him as he remembers things was great fun. The whole memory thing was wicked weird, as the very idea was unsettling. If the mind can be so easily mucked around with, nothing is then sacred. But then, most materialists believe that the mind is just a series of synapses and electrical responses that can be transposed onto another medium “once we know enough”.

Apparently this was a novella first before it was expanded to this full length novel. So check the length of the one you're reading if you're not sure. I read the full novel and am not sure I'd want to try this as a novella.

★★★★½

Revelation Space (Book 1)

Tuesday, November 06, 2018

Right Ho, Jeeves (The Jeeves Omnibus #2.1) ★★★☆½

Title: Right Ho, Jeeves
Series: The Jeeves Omnibus #2.1
Author: P.G. Wodehouse
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Humor
Pages: 212
Format: Digital Edition

Synopsis:

Bertie comes back from the Continent with his Aunt and Cousin and things fall apart. Bertie tries to wear a white suit coat and clashes with Jeeves. Jeeves lets him have his way and solve everything on his own. So, Bertie's cousin is engaged but the couple fights and calls off the engagement. A friend of Bertie's is in love with a girl but can't work up the nerve to even talk to her. This girl is a friend of Bertie's cousin and is staying with them. Bertie is called down to the countryside to assist in giving a speech at a local boys school and hand out prizes. He avoids this by sending the love struck friend down with the promise that it will help him court the girl he loves. Bertie goes down to help restore bliss between his cousin and her fiance. He also finds out that his Aunt needs a lot of money from his Uncle to fund her vanity magazine, money which he already gave her but she lost in gambling on the Continent. Throw in Anatole the French chef who is threatening to leave and you have a problem only Jeeves can fix.

But Jeeves isn't fixing anything since Bertie WILL insist on wearing the white suit coat. Thus it falls to Bertie to solve everything. Of course, he just makes it 100 times worse. Thankfully, Jeeves relents and solves everything BUT at the cost of making everyone hate Bertie and “accidentally” leaving the iron on the white suit coat.

Hijinks, wrong engagements, one spectacular instance of public drunkenness and sundry other mishaps occur, affording the reader an escape from the humdrum of life for a couple of hours.

My Thoughts:

You know, I have mentioned this before, but it really stuck out, AGAIN. Whoever put these omnibus editions together is a complete jackass. I hate them in fact. It is almost like someone who never read the books and is not a reader at all in fact, looked at the books and just randomly pointed them out and decided which volume each book would go in. It is just frustrating as it is obvious it is lazy no good incompetence that made such decisions.

Overall, I still enjoyed this. This was another novel instead of a short story collection but so much is going on that it almost might as well be a short story collection. There were times I felt like I had already read this but given that Bertie references these escapades in other books, turns out I was just remembering the references. Another reason to kick the jackass who put these together.

I have to say, it is incredible how much Bertie can wreck things. What's even more astounding is just how dense he is when Jeeves fixes everything at his expense. Bertie pretty thinks “Oh well, at least I'm not getting married now” and is happy enough. Egads.

I think one of these books every 6 to 8 weeks is working out well. Enough time for me to forget any lingering animosity and to simply remember the stupidly funny stuff. That's good enough for me!

★★★☆½

Previous Jeeves Reviews

Friday, November 02, 2018

Saints (Monster Hunter Memoirs #3) ★★★★☆

Title: Saints
Series: Monster Hunter Memoirs #3
Author: John Ringo, Larry Correia
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Pages: 288
Format: Digital Edition

Synopsis:

Chad blows up at MCB after the experience in New Orleans. This puts him on their Super Shit List and one of the agents starts making things personal. A bad scrying shows Chad is involved with a black magic group kidnapping virgins to raise an Old One. Turns out it is Chad's brother but that makes Chad involved anyway. Chad takes down his brother and stops the ring. That's enough proof for the agent AND Agent Franks. Franks beats Chad almost to death and hospitalizes him. Chad then sues MCB and while things are in full swing heads over to England to do some reasearch at the Van Helsing Institute.

There he investigates why some of the occurrences are happening in New Orleans. Turns out, his brother has slightly awakened an Old One's cocoon. The Agent in charge of MCB in New Orleans has taken MCB being sued by Chad extremely personal so he does nothing when even Earl Harbinger tells him there is a baby Old One about to wake up and eat the world. That means its up to MHI to toe the line again and stand between the Earth and total destruction. MHI wins. Was there any ever doubt? Of course, they get a little help from the Fey and a High Hunt.

The books ends with Earl taking over and describing the events at the Christmas Party where Ray Shackleford IV almost destroys MHI. Turns out it is Earl and Chad who close the Portal to the Old One and Chad gives his life to allow Earl to do so.

My Thoughts:

This was a great wrapup to the trilogy. A nascent Old One growing under New Orleans? Man, how much more of a threat can you get than that? Everything leads up to that though, so the story goes from threat to threat to threat.

Everything isn't directly connected, so things feel a little discombobulated sometimes. The whole thing with his brother ends so quickly that there was no tension and besides it leading into Chad getting the snot beat out of him, was rather anti-climactic.

Chad's time in England was boring. It didn't help that the story about the ghost and the super special metal was included in the Monster Hunter Files anthology so I kind of felt cheated. Him teaching was just as boring.

The final battle was EVERYTHING I want out of a Monster Hunter International fight. Guns, bombs, flamethrowers, Holy Water, and so many monsters. So many, many monsters. Ringo and Correia did a fantastic job of making this a pulse pounding fight!

The ending, with Chad's sacrifice, was how this trilogy needed to end. Chad's story had a beginning and this was his end. For all his philandering, dickheaded braggodocio and general arrogance, Chad goes out like a hero.

Overall, this was a worthwhile read in the MHI universe, even if a little bit off from Correia's style.

★★★★☆