Bookstooge's Reviews On the Road

Tuesday, July 09, 2019

Cornerstone (Shaman King #25) ★★★☆½

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Title: Cornerstone
Series: Shaman King #25
Author: Hiroyuki Takei
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Manga
Pages: 192
Format: Digital Copy

Synopsis:

Yoh steps in between Marco and Luchist. Yoh sets himself in opposition and yet another battle begins. Just as the fallen angel Lucifer is about to destroy's Amidamaru, “Lady Jeanne” appears and captures Yoh. It's all a deception though, as this “Jeanne” is a creation by Lyserg and a part of a plan by Yoh. Only it is a double trap because they know Luchist will see through it. The real Lady Jeanne appears and destroys Lucifer, causing Luchist to faint.

Turns out Jeanne was being used by the X-Laws while Marco was the real leader. And the angels were just sports cars imbued with spirit energy. Marco starts blabbing it all out and then prepares to blow his brains out in despair. Lady Jeanne tells him to keep on fighting and stay alive and she tells Yoh they'll face each other in an official shaman fight to determine who will get to take Hao down.

Then everyone, Luchist, the X-Laws and Yoh's gang all have breakfast together and hijinks ensue. The X-Laws are “x”ing all over the place and the little minion of Hao's that's hanging out with Yoh starts copying them.

Yoh reveals that Hao's winning the tournament is inevitable but that at some point the winner must undergo a purification ritual where he is helpless. Then he can be attacked a new Shaman King declared. But the ritual is protected by the 10 most powerful Patch Warriors.

The next day Team Ren faces off against the Wisdom Kings, a sub-group of the Gandala gang that helped Joco. They can negate mana and oversouls, so Ren has to figure out how to take them down. He exposes their weakness and then we get a flashback to Super Joco training Ren and Horohoro to make them stronger.

The volume ends with Ren defeating his opponent and the next Wisdom King stepping up to fight.

My Thoughts:

There is a small character named Opacho, one of Hao's minions, who's been sent to spy on Yoh and his friends. He's only 5 years old and he is funny as all get out. Thankfully, the manga-ka makes full use of him in this volume to provide a lot of comic relief, if you're looking for it. Opacho is in a lot of the panels but off to the side or something and usually doing something funny. Made me laugh several times and definitely brought the “humor” back into the series.

The revelation by Yoh about their ultimate plan makes a lot of sense AND neatly solves most of the issues the manga-ka created by backing everyone into their corners. How it works out though, well, I guess I'll just have to wait and see.

It is also a lot of fun to see how Yoh makes friends of everyone he comes into contact with, even those opposed to him and allied with Hao. After the battle with Luchist and Lucifer, you see everyone sitting down at a breakfast table the next morning and Anna complaining about yet even more people hanging out. Very light hearted and brought the focus back on Yoh and his ethos for becoming Shaman King.

As a side note, I also started using the Adobe Reader program instead of the CdisplayEx program and every page rendered correctly. Made for a much more enjoyable read. Really weird why CD wouldn't properly display the last couple of pages though. Eh, whatever, I've got it working now with Reader.

★★★☆½

All My “Shaman King” Reviews

Monday, July 08, 2019

[Manga Monday] Shaman Fight (Shaman King #24) ★★★☆½

Title: Shaman Fight
Series: Shaman King #24
Author: Hiroyuki Takei
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Manga
Pages: 200
Format: Digital Copy

Synopsis:

Anna shows up and calls out the ghost. He's already seen the error of his ways thanks to Super Joco though and un-possesses his daughter and asks the gang to destroy the golem. Anna refuses and tells him to stop being stupid. They need the golem in the fight against Hao. So Munzer the ghost becomes part of Team Yoh.

The Patch are looking at their records and only 39 shamans are left in the fight. The Patch chief goes on about the Shaman fight not being a moral fight but one only of strength. He then sends 2 other Patch officiants to teach Silva (the officiant who qualified Yoh) a lesson, as Silva tried to steal some Patch artifacts to do something on his own.

One of Hao's minions confronts Yoh and tells him if he doesn't get back in the Shaman Fight that he, Hao, will destroy the golem AND the children. Yoh has a personal crisis with this threat. He doesn't WANT to fight but he also wants to be Shaman King for a variety of good reasons. Anna tells Yoh to stop sulking and to get back in the fight. She'll be a laughingstock otherwise.

Yoh heads over to the X-Laws and tells them he's back in the Shaman Fight. This obviously doesn't go over well with Marco, the Captain. 4 or 5 of the X-Law's and their angels attack Yoh. Yoh avoids everything easily and tells Lyserg to stand clear so he doesn't get hurt. Yoh fights off the minor Angels and then directly attacks Marco and his Archangel. Marco goes ballistic and then some stranger walks up to the boat claiming to be the creator of the X-Laws.

He, Luchist, also says he's working with Hao and he has the 000 Angel, the Lucifer. He effortlessly destroys the minor shamans and their angels and Marco and his angel the Michael spring into attack mode. They beat the snot out of each other and Luchist is about to kill Marco when Yoh intervenes.

Both Luchist and Marco suddenly transform into skimpy leather clothing and Luchist begins lecturing Yoh about “Battle Clothes”. Then he and Marco really start fighting. Yoh and Lyserg wonder if they even should intervene and Lyserg wants to get Lady Jeanne to intervene but Yoh realizes Luchist's real goal is to destroy Jeanne.

My Thoughts:

Much better. Michael and Lucifer fighting each other? That is the level of power I want to see!

Sadly, while I really did like the increased fighting, the battle scenes were wicked busy and it made it hard to parse out just what exactly was going on. It also didn't help that the last 10 pages in this ebook version had the pages sideways. Not the fault of the manga-ka but still something I had to take into consideration.

I really want to kill the whole Patch tribe at the moment. They are NOT my favorites with their recent reveal about how they're treating Silva for trying to help Yoh.

★★★☆½

All My “Shaman King” Reviews

Friday, July 05, 2019

Epilogue IV (Shaman King #23) ★★★☆☆

Title: Epilogue IV
Series: Shaman King #23
Author: Hiroyuki Takei
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Manga
Pages: 200
Format: Digital Copy

Synopsis:

Yoh and his friends face off against the Golem and Hao's gang but Hao is reminded of the one friend he had, Matamune the cat spirit, who taught Yoh a lot of what he now knows. Hao decides to amble off.

Anna and Manta are slowly making their way to the scene and Anna begins to tell Manta a story about Yoh's past.

The golem revives, fully under the control of the ghost of it's creator. To replenish its mana it must consume the souls of other shamans, so it begins to attack Yoh's group. Horohoro and Ren are first in line. With Lyserg's help they slow the golem down but then everyone is running away on Lyserg's new angel ally. The golem gives chase and the crew has to figure out how to stop it without killing the little girl inside. Suddenly a stronger than ever Joco shows up and fights off the golem.

Hao reveals to his minions that he can read minds and that he left the golem fight so he didn't have to fight Yoh yet.

Super-Joco begins beating the ever living daylights out of the golem with new shaman powers and his ghost teacher shows up and starts lecturing the gang (and the audience by extension). The audience then gets a flashback sequence via Ghost Teacher about Joco's training in the other-world.

Joco and the golem continue their fight but Joco isn't fighting to defeat the golem but to make it realize its dreams so the ghost will pass on. The fight ends with Joco lying in a pool blood.

My Thoughts:

Super New Joco looked super new stupid. I have no idea where the manga-ka gets his ideas for what looks cook, but Joco was a complete fail in this regard.

The manga-ka also can't seem to help himself from preaching at his audience. It is really getting annoying. If it was consistent or more than skin deep pop psychology I could deal with it better. But it isn't and it comes across as Dr. Phil-lite. If you don't know who Dr. Phil is (and good for you if you don't), he's a tv personality who hands out self-help advice like gummy vitamins.

How can the manga-ka go on and on about shamans being keepers of peace and not interested in politics and greed and all the other crap he spews while at the exact same time he has not just Hao in complete opposition to that but every single one of Hao's minions. They are all shamans too. And they're evil shamans. My running theory is that everyone in the last volume will have a kum-bai-ya moment and suddenly be all fething lovey dovey with every one else.

I hope I'm wrong.

This probably would have gone down to a 2 ½ if it weren't for the fights. Takei can draw a most excellent fight scene.

★★★☆☆

All My “Shaman King” Reviews

Tuesday, July 02, 2019

Epilogue III (Shaman King #22) ★★★☆☆

Title: Epilogue III
Series: Shaman King #22
Author: Hiroyuki Takei
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Manga
Pages: 192
Format: Digital Copy

Synopsis:

Ryu's fight with the Minions isn't going so well so Yoh heads back his way to see if he needs to intervene. Another Shaman team intervenes on Ryu's behalf and Ryu falls in love with their leader (like he does every girl he meets).

Joco goes for a walk and is looking for his old gang and finds them. All dead. He is confronted by the kids of the man he killed 3 years ago. The kids are shamans and control a nigh unstoppable golem. The kids were with Yoh's father but they attacked him to go after Joco. They're little psychopaths. Joco cuts the golem up but it simply regenerates and slices him up. Yoh and Ryu show up on the scene and Ryu takes Joco away leaving Yoh to face the brats and the golem. Yoh confronts the children and tricks the golem into cutting it's own head off. Then when he's convincing the kids to be good again the golem regenerates and stabs him.

Meanwhile Joco is on the edge of death and having his own little experience.

Yoh and the brother are on the run from the sister and golem, only to run directly into Hao and his entire team. Hao reveals that the children's father has possessed the daughter and he's the one killing everyone who killed him.

Yoh tries to defend the golem and the little girl inside but Hao has his minions casually brush him aside.

My Thoughts:

The manga-ka gets a bit preachy in this volume with a lot of talk about “hurting others only makes them hurt you” and such silly talk. The thing is, Yoh then turns around fights when needed. The manga-ka has him not kill anyone, but that is a hypocritical line with all the words the manga-ka has poured through Yoh's mouth. It's as evil as someone who will defend a mass murderer and then turns around and kills infants with a dull spoon as soon as they exit the mother's womb. You know, I bet Takei is a Democrat in a former life before getting hit by Truck-kun and reincarnating to atone for his horrific life from before. Of course, I'm not sure Truck-kun operates in America, so maybe it's distantly related cousin Mack Truck-kun?

Really, not much else to say. We still haven't gotten Yoh's Super Secret Get Everyone Together to Explain Plan. I figure I'm going to be lucky if that plan gets revealed within the next 3 volumes. Onward!

★★★☆☆

All My “Shaman King” Reviews

Monday, July 01, 2019

[Manga Monday] Epilogue II (Shaman King #21) ★★★☆½

Title: Epilogue II
Series: Shaman King #21
Author: Hiroyuki Takei
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Manga
Pages: 192
Format: Digital Copy

Synopsis:

Manta, Ryu and Tokagero arrive at the abandoned mansion where the X-Laws are reviving Ren. Ren is a spirit and doesn't want to be revived since he knows it will mean Yoh has to drop out of the Shaman Fight but he can't communicate with anyone, not even his spirit ally Bason. Lady Jeane revives him. He has a huge increase in mana ability so when Marco and his Angel spirit attack hims, he simply dodges out of the way.

Horohoro and Joco are walking along the beach trying to figure out what they're going to do, as they don't know Ren is back. They come across minions of Hao harassing some defeated shamans. Horohoro steps in even though there is no way he can materially affect the fight. At the same time his father and little sister appear and are watching to see what Horohoro does. Horohoro's dad leaves and Hao's minions try to stop him. Even though his mana is much lower than theirs, he flattens them with one punch and leaves. This gives Horohoro hope and he starts a fight with a Lego Man (no joke). He wins using his brains and ingenuity instead of straight up brawn. Lyserg shows up and defeats the final minion and brings Horohoro back to Yoh.

Another minion of Hao tracks them down and attacks them. Yoh has important news to tell the group so he designates Ryu to fight the minions while the rest of them simply leave. One of the minions falls to his death and his partner is all “eh, whatever”. That pisses Ryu off so he decides to stay and finish the fight instead of just delaying them.

My Thoughts:

Interesting tidbit that death and resurrection increase mana ability exponentially. Not the way I'd choose to get more powerful though!

The fighting is back and I'm glad for it. However, with all of these fights taking place outside of sanctioned Shaman Fights it just further cements the fact that the Patch are a corrupt bunch of scumbags. Or they're playing a long game that we the audience aren't aware of.

It is also obvious that Yoh has a plan even with him being out of the official Shaman Fight. I guess I'll find out what it is next volume.

★★★☆½

All My “Shaman King” Reviews

Saturday, June 29, 2019

Waylander (Drenai Saga #3) ★★★☆☆

Title: Waylander
Series: Drenai Saga #3
Author: David Gemmel
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 321
Format: Digital Edition

Synopsis:

The Drenai Empire, forged by an Iron King, is now under the hand of his son. Said son is soft and would rather play at court than make the hard decisions that a King must. The Vagraim have invaded though, just after the King disbanded the Drenai army. The Vagraim hire an assassin who kills the king thus depriving the country of one leader to rally around.

The assassin, Waylander, goes to collect his money but is double crossed. In retaliation he kills the son of the Vagraim's most important general. The Vagraim General, Kaem, sends the dark brotherhood after Waylander. At the same time various Drenai forces are after Waylander as well once Kaem releases the fact that Waylander assassinated the king.

Waylander rescues a priest and then a young woman and several children. He is also sent on a mission to find the Armor of Bronze to give to one of the Drenai generals so that said General will become a rallying point. The priest becomes the First of the 30 and Waylander finds the armor. He gets it into the hands of the young woman he rescued and she gets it to the General.

The Vagraim are shattered and Waylander fades into obscurity.

My Thoughts:

This takes place before Legend and is how the Duke of Brass came into being (the Duke of Brass being the General that the armor was delivered to).

Waylander was supposed to be this soulless mercenary but right off the bat he doesn't act like and he and everyone who knows him comments on it. In fact, this book is filled with people suddenly not acting like themselves. There is a lot of pseudo-philosophy talk about the Source and Gemmell even goes so far as to introduce an agent of Chaos that goes by the name Son of the Morning Star, the Arch Deceiver. But all the talk boils down to “I'm the center of the Universe and I have to decide what is right and what is wrong”. If you've never thought about some of the issues raised, then this might appear to be brilliant stuff but once you've done a bit of research into the real philosophy you'll realize how shallow this actually is.

Gemmell definitely has a thing for writing about sieges and multi-walled cities. That idea played a big part here as it has in the previous 2 books.

It has been cemented in my brain now that I would have liked this a lot more 10-15 years ago, even 25. But the time for this series and this author has pretty much passed for me. I've read enough fantasy that was almost exactly like this that I don't need to read more like this. I “can” read more like this, but there is no need.

I'm going to read the next book and if my feelings are exactly the same as this I'll probably be done with Gemmell. Not bad, just no longer good enough for me.

★★★☆☆

Friday, June 28, 2019

Ghostmaker (Warhammer 40K: Gaunt's Ghosts #2) ★★★☆½

Title: Ghostmaker
Series: Warhammer 40K: Gaunt's Ghosts #2
Author: Dan Abnett
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 416
Format: Digital Edition

Synopsis:

The Imperials are on the world of Mothraxx trying to prevent the forces of Chaos from taking it. On the morning of the final assault Gaunt walks among his troops and talks to various ones. Each time he talks with a trooper we get a story flashback from that soldier about a previous battle. We get 5-10 of these and then move on to the battle.

Mothraxx was home to a Lord of Nature (I don't know the proper term in WH40K vernacular) and there is a gateway to a Homeworld that Chaos wants to invade. Humanity has been drawn there by the will of the Nature Lord even while thinking they're doing it for themselves. A huge battle ensues, the Nature Lord gives his life to hold off the Chaos Forces and one of the Psykers, an Inquisitor goes to the Homeworld to close the gate.

Humanity destroys the forces of Chaos and everyone is less sad.

My Thoughts:

Having a bunch of short stories to fill in past battles worked really well. Considering how many troopers die, getting some backstory before they die feels more satisfying. At the same time, you don't get invested enough in somebody that you're emotionally scarred when they get their head ripped off by some Chaos warrior or their guts torn out and eaten or something like that.

The psyker who gave her life was introduced with just a hint of possible romance for Gaunt, so I knew she had to disappear. Can't have attachments in this universe! Outside of Gaunt, his cabin boy and some of the ranking officers, anybody is liable to be killed off. I've adjusted my thinking for these books so it doesn't bother me.

What does bother me though, still, is the very nature of this universe. If Chaos is bad, and the Inquisitors hunt down any human with psychic powers, using psychic powers, how does that work? And the Emperor. I'm going to have problems with him just existing, so get used to me complaining about him. He is as Chaos'y as Chaos so why does Humanity worship him? Grrr, I just don't understand.

As Ground Pounder SF goes though, this is pretty enjoyable. Gaunt's Ghosts are scouts and fighters so no spaceship to spaceship battles. I'm all for that!

★★★☆½

First and Only (Book 1)

Wednesday, June 26, 2019

Kneel or Die (Kurtherian Gambit #7) ★★☆☆½

Title: Kneel or Die
Series: Kurtherian Gambit #7
Author: Michael Anderle
Rating: 2.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 336
Format: Digital Edition

Synopsis:

There is one son of Michael left, one final Forsaken, who is defying Bethany Anne. He begins the process of a multi-prong attack based on what he learned from the last attack in the previous book. However, BA and Michael teleport in and Michael simply kills him. Bam, Forsaken are no longer a problem.

BA has been pushing for space worthy vehicles and her crew is really pushing themselves to get this project off the ground. BA needs a moon base to get out of the control of Terrestrial Powers. The team uses the new and improved vehicles on several missions and being able to get from one point on the Earth to another in a matter of minutes makes them even more deadly.

ADAM continues to grow and confronts a group of chinese government hackers. Now some part of the world knows it exists.

At the same time, the Team begins going after some terrorists that had struck in France. They begin hooking one member after another and working their way up the food chain. BA simply disappears each victim into the Etheric. No body, no mess, no evidence. This does lead to a lowly analyst at a small government agency discovering the disappearances and she begins tracking them. She realizes that “somebody” is making raids into foreign countries and killing people. So she sets out to track down this mysterious group of blacker than black operatives.

The clock is now ticking. BA must get her defenses in order: militarily, politically and technologically, as she is about to be discovered by the world at large.

My Thoughts:

The profanity has reached stupid levels now. It's not all the time. It's almost like Anderle has a checklist and there is one scene or two exclusively written so BA or one of her teams can simply swear in the ridiculous manner that Anderle has plotted. It simply is annoying and trying to figure out how I can just skip over it in future books.

I felt like the whole Forsaken problem was wrapped up way too easily. It was like the Forsaken were setup as bowling pins and then between BA and Michael, the author knocks them all down with a spare. It was rather anti-climactic. Hard to believe the Forsaken were such a problem if they were taken care of so easily.

Unfortunately, at the end of the book the author felt the need to include pages and pages and PAGES of reviews of previous books. Even more tactless and stupid was the fact that he RESPONDED to those reviews in the book. I believe most of them came from Amazon, so I'm not sure how he legally did that(Anderle being an indie I suspect he just did whatever he felt like without giving 2 figs for anyone else). Who the feth does he think he is doing something like that? If I found out he'd done something like that with one of my reviews without permission I'd buy a plane ticket to the nearest metro area, gear up and hunt him down for being the sick son of a bitch he is. This was completely inappropriate to be included in a book, without even going into the legal side of things. I knocked off a whole star for this section. Things like this are why I detest indies in general.

Other than those 2 major items, this was fun, just like all the previous books. There are some real kick butt action scenes and the little bit we get to read about TOM and ADAM and their interactions are fun. Anderle also pulls no punches about terrorists and what religious group they mainly come from. Of course, he soft peddles it with some pretty Politically Correct appeasement language but considering how blinded the West is to Islam, that really isn't surprising, even if just a bit disappointing.

I really liked the whole Analyst figuring stuff out. It wasn't that she was a super character but the implications are pretty important. Of course, Anderle will probably deal with that in the same way he dealt with the Forsaken. He seems to be much better at setting up cool scenarios than in writing them out with the right balance of tension and “the good guys win”ness.

There are 15 or 18 books in this particular series. I was sure I was going to be able to work my way through them all when I started but after this one, I don't know. Him including and responding to reviews really undermined the enjoyment I had experienced. It tainted everything.

★★☆☆½

All My "Kurtherian Gambit" Reviews

Monday, June 24, 2019

The Hyena and the Hawk (Echoes of the Fall #3) ★★☆☆☆

Title: The Hyena and the Hawk
Series: Echoes of the Fall #3
Author: Adrian Tchaikovsky
Rating: 2 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 465
Format: Digital Edition

Synopsis:

The End of the World has arrived. The Kinden are soulless and whereever they go, they bring that soullessness with them and force The People into their animal shapes and into their animal minds forever.

The People, under the leadership of one of the Bears and with the help of the River Kingdom, prepares a mighty army to resist the Kinden. However, whenever they come into battle, too many of The People are lost by the affects of the Kinden.

Maniye gets captured and realizes that the Kinden can't transform and know nothing about “the soul”. They watch her as she transforms from wolf to tiger to Champion to human. Beatle researchers are intrigued and one of them tries to transform and dies. Maniye escapes.

There is a big climactic battle and Maniye and some others chase after their gods (who have run away) in the godsland. In the process they allow the gods of the Kinden into their land. Suddenly the Kinden are transforming left and right with no control. They retreat.

Everyone celebrates and prepares for the day when the Kinden return.

My Thoughts:

What a disappointment. This is the first book of Tchaikovsky's that I was disappointed in because I didn't care one way or another about the characters, the story or anything. If this had been almost any other author I probably would have DNF'd the book.

The whole soul thingy was cool in the first book but then when it kept on going with the Kinden it just started rubbing me the wrong way.

Then the whole “gods” thing pissed me off too. I am sick to death of “gods” being nothing more than some manifestation of the believers will. That isn't a god. And if the gods were running away from the kinden, good riddance I say. So when the kinden gods suddenly came into being, I rolled my eyes, mentally spit on Tchaikovsky and raced to the very end just to get it over with.

This has really shaken my interest in anything by Tchaikovsky that isn't directly related to his Shadows of the Apt series. Thankfully I've got 4 or 5 books of short stories about them to wash the taste of this dreck out of my mouth.

Highly NOT recommended.

★★☆☆☆

Saturday, June 22, 2019

The Hobbit (The Lord of the Rings Prequel) ★★★★★

Title: The Hobbit
Series: The Lord of the Rings Prequel
Author: J.R.R. Tolkien
Rating: 5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 235
Format: Digital Edition

Synopsis:

Bilbo Baggins is a hobbit. Who ends up with a wizard and 13 dwarves for dinner. And somehow gets finagled into going on an adventure to recover the dwarves lost treasure, that is guarded by the dragon Smaug.

Along the way Bilbo meets elves, runs away from goblins, plays a riddle game in the dark with Gollum for his life, finds a ring of invisibility, flies on eagles' wings, fights giant spiders and is almost eaten by 3 trolls.

Eventually he and the dwarves reach the Lonely Mountain and Laketown. They rouse the dragon and Bard of Laketown kills Smaug and then elves, humans and dwarves prepare to fight over the treasure. Until a huge goblin army shows up and everybody fights them. The good guys win, the treasure is shared and Bilbo returns home a better, wiser and more eccentric hobbit than ever.

My Thoughts:

What a book. I've read this enough times that nothing is a surprise. And yet... I am still in awe at how Tolkien weaves such a children's tale so as to keep me intrigued, for the umpteenth time.

What do I say? A simple tale of adventure that is the prequel to one of the worlds most renowned fantasy series? A tale of bravery, generosity and kindness overcoming perils, greed and hatred? A stout heart being greater than a dragon? I just don't know what to say beyond the fact that I enjoyed the heck out of this just like I have all the previous times and I don't have any issues with it.

Well, except maybe all the singing. I wouldn't have minded if there hadn't been any singing. In regards to the singing though, the only thing I can say positively about the horrific movie trilogy is that the song by the dwarves in Bilbo's house is absolutely haunting and enchanting. Who knows how long this link will exist, but here's a youtube link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8ymgFyzbDo

If only the Silmarillion had been this interesting. Well, at least I've got the rest of the Trilogy to look forward too!

★★★★★