Bookstooge's Reviews On the Road

Wednesday, August 07, 2019

The Devil's Delusion: Atheism and its Scientific Pretensions ★★★★☆

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Title: The Devil's Delusion: Atheism and its Scientific Pretensions
Series: ----------
Author: David Berlinski
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre: Non-Fiction
Pages: 258
Format: Digital Edition

Synopsis:

The title really does sum this up. Written as a foil to Dawkin's The God Delusion, Berlinski, a non-practicing Jew, shows just how shaky the ground is, philosophically AND scientifically, that many out-spoken atheists stand on.

Using humor, sarcasm and other rather ham handed approaches, Berlinski pokes the High Priests of Scyenze and lets the hot air out of them, much like a balloon. He doesn't approach things form an angle of “They are wrong and I'm right” but more of a “their attitude is untenable given their arrogant, boasting statements about Faith and Religion”.

My Thoughts:

I had a hard time with this. Even while I agreed with much of what Berlinski wrote, I am not a fan of the style he uses, ie, poking the bear with a stick. The problem is, people like Hawkings, Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris, etc, NEED to be poked. They are arrogant, proud, boastful and self-centered and all of their might and effort is put forth proving that God doesn't exist just so that they don't have to kneel before Him. Reading this was like getting a splinter removed with a needle. It was necessary and good but you don't like the process.

I was high lighting sentences left and right on my kindle but I don't care enough to type them all out. Honestly, I don't know if I was the target audience for this or not. Berlinski is an Evolutionist but realizes that the pat “We Have All the Answers” attitude put out by the scientific community as a whole is a bunch of bologna. He pokes and pokes and shows that no, they don't have all the answers. In fact, some of the contortions they must go through make the planetary epicycles of Ptolemy look positively straight!

The biggest thing I got was that most of the people he mentions by name are arrogant blowhards and that Pride shapes how they think and how they approach existence itself. Pride is what led to Satan's fall from grace and Berlinski shows how Pride is still blinding people today, even people of great intellect.

Recommended as a Counter Cultural Argument against the monolithic religion of our day, Scyenze.

★★★★☆

Monday, August 05, 2019

Time Thieves ★★★☆☆

Title: Time Thieves
Series: ----------
Author: Dean Koontz
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 146
Format: Digital Scan

Synopsis:

Peter Mullion wakes up sitting in his car in his garage and can't remember a thing about how he got there. He knows he went to his cabin to work on it, but that is it. When his wife comes home and sees him, she tells him he's been missing for 3 weeks! Peter sets out to investigate just what happened to him.

Unfortunately, he's having trouble counting or keeping track of time or even where he is. He loses his way one day in his office building and when he comes to his wife tells him he's been missing again, for several days. Peter sees the same man watching him, at a restaurant, at home, wherever he turns, there he is. Peter and his wife Delia head up to the mountain cabin to see if that holds any clues. They find the cabin painted, which means Peter was there. However, upon further examination, it appears that the painting was done less than a day ago, not weeks ago like it should have. Peter's paranoia isn't so misplaced after all.

One night Peter begins hearing voices and he realizes he can hear other people's thoughts. Peter ends up in communication with an alien being, who has been spying on him using its robot servants. Peter flees, honing his mental skills. During a cat and mouse game, he destroys the minds of the robots. Now he just has to deal with the aliens.

The aliens mentally kidnap his wife and tell Peter that they accidentally killed him 3 weeks ago. They rebuilt him but due to them not being familiar with human biology, accidentally gave him telepathy. They say Humanity isn't ready for that and they just want to take that ability away from Peter. No harm, no violence, just remove a mistake that they made. Peter refuses and tells them every single human is alone and that they shouldn't be. Peter kills the aliens, who are pacifists at heart and he and Delia go off to live a happy life, spreading telepathy to all and sundry like corn kernels to chickens.

My Thoughts:

First, that cover has ZERO to do with this story. There is no sexy woman with a ray gun, Peter doesn't dress up like a ninja and crouch on a mountain and the UFO is only talked about. It's actually parked inside a mountain for the whole book.

The title only makes sense if you consider the aliens to have stolen time from Peter when he went missing those several times. They can't actually manipulate time. I kept waiting for that right up until almost the end of the book.

The tension was pretty high for most of the book and I liked that. Koontz kept me edgy and wondering just what was going to happen.

My issues came down to the fact that Peter killed the aliens because they were going to take something back that had been given by mistake. His life was not in danger, his wife's life was not in danger but Peter had something and he wasn't going to give it up. The justification given is because of how much Peter loves Delia, but that just rang false. He was an adult who knew enough about how Humanity would use such a gift and he was even told that it would spread but he chose to keep it anyway. It almost felt like Koontz was writing about a modern Adam and Eve, but ones that weren't deceived into eating the forbidden fruit but ones who willfully chose to take and eat such a fruit. Even “love” can be corrupted and that is really applicable in this day and age with every idiot bleating about “love” all the time but having no concrete concept of what Love actually is.

My kindle had this at about 140 pages. I think the paperback runs around 100, so either way, it was a short little novel bordering on the novella. I wasn't expecting a mind blowing experience and I wasn't disappointed. On the other hand, I wasn't disappointed. Glad I read this but don't plan on ever reading it again.

I am thinking of adding an author's name as a tag to any series of books that don't have a series associating them together. I've been doing that with Dickens and I'm going to start now with Koontz. I will have to decide if I want to start that with every book or not. The problem with NOT doing it for every author is then remembering which authors I AM doing it for. But if I do it for every author then my tag cloud is going to grow humongously, even more ridiculous than it already is. Do any of you have any thoughts or opinions or anecdotes or experience to shed some light on this issue?

★★★☆☆

Friday, August 02, 2019

The Savage Tales of Solomon Kane ★★★☆☆

Title: The Savage Tales of Solomon Kane
Series: ----------
Author: Robert Howard
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 432
Format: Digital Edition

Synopsis:

The collected works following the adventures of the Puritan Swordsman, Solomon Kane. From the deepest depths of Africa to the windswept shores of England, Solomon Kane follows wither the spirit leads. Avenging wrongs, rescuing maidens, defeating evil incarnate, Solomon Kane knows no fear, for he is God's Avenging Sword against Evil.

My Thoughts:

Not as enjoyable as the Essential Conan collection I read last year. Part of that was that there just wasn't nearly as much material for Solomon Kane as there was for Conan. Almost 1/3 of the stories in this book were fragments that Howard had started and then either set aside or just never finished. Thankfully each story that was a fragment had the word (fragment), like that, next to the story name. There were also 2 or 3 poems and I'm just not a poetry buff of any sort.

My biggest problem however, was that Kane was supposed to be a Puritan. While he dresses like one, not once does he act in any way that I recognized as a Godly man. He consorts with sorcerers, uses gifts of magic from a devil worshipper, thinks that men are nothing but higher animals and generally displays no reverence for God. He occasionally mouths a platitude or two about “faith” but what he said could just as easily have come from a Hindu, a Muslim or a Buddhist.

Now with all of that out of the way...

There were some fine pulp stories here. Encountering lost civilizations in the heart of Africa, fighting off a tribe of flying cannibal creatures, torching a city of zombie vampires, fighting a whole crew of pirates, Solomon Kane has the chops to keep you entertained. Everydayshouldbetuesday talked about Solomon Kane back in May and that peaked my interest.

I would recommend this if you enjoyed Howard's Conan stories and wanted to try something different. However, if you haven't read any Howard, don't start with this.

★★★☆☆

Monday, July 29, 2019

Grave Thief (Twilight Reign #3) ★★★☆½

Title: Grave Thief
Series: Twilight Reign #3
Author: Tom Lloyd
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 548
Format: Digital Edition

Synopsis:

With the fall of Scree, the gods have been enraged at what the Shadow has done. Unfortunately, all this has accomplished is to make the priest of various gods more warlike and to incite them against their own citizenry. This in turn places a huge strain on the Kingdoms that are trying to oppose Styrax and his Menin, who are taking city after city.

Styrax's goal is to take all of the crystal skulls and to become a god himself. He is studying a puzzle at one of the conquered cities and unearth's another skull. He also happens to set free its guardian, a very big and very cranky dragon.

While this has been going on, Isak has been trying to keep his kingdom from tearing itself apart. The priests are out of control and have hired their own mercenaries to act as their law. Eventually Isak declares a Crusade against Styrax and his godless Menin. This accomplishes getting all the nutjob priests out of the way and allows Isak to oppose Styrax and hopefully slow him down before he reaches Farlan.

At the same time, Azeur the Shadow has been born in human flesh. He attaches himself to a duchess of one of the soon to be conquered cities so as to remain under the radar from King Emin and Isak. He sets priest and citizen against the other so that at the right time they will look to him as a savior. He is growing at a rate of years in months time and at the time Styrax takes his city is about 5 years old.

Some of the gods, the lower hierarchy, realize that this time is an opportunity for them to rise. As such, they begin bonding with mortal humans and creating a new level of human power structure. Duke Vesna, one of Isak's closest allies, is one such human. How it all plays out and what the final cost will be is yet to be seen.

The book ends with a battle between Farlan and Menin. Isak knows he can't best Styrax so he follows a plan (that is unknown to us the readers) hatched by his Secretary of Everything. Isak kills a huge amount of the Menin with magic and then kills Styrax's only son. Styrax kills Isak and sends him to hell using the power of his skulls.

My Thoughts:

Much better. Now that I'm not floundering around trying to get adjusted to Isak as a character, I could concentrate a bit more on Azeur and Styrax. Of course, with Lloyd killing Isak right at the end, I'm not sure WHAT the next 2 books hold. I highly doubt Isak is “really” dead though. If he is, then I'll be wicked pissed off in the later books.

I still have issues with Lloyd starting a chapter and not naming the character we follow until several pages in. It is annoying. Plus the character point of view shifts with only an extra line break still gets me. I'm getting better at picking up on those though, even if only subconsciously. I guess Lloyd is training all his readers to be his own personal cadre of Manchurian Candidates.

I didn't like that some of the characters we'd really been invested in in previous books, King Emin, etc, were sidelined. I almost feel like I need to re-read the first 2 books just to place the new'ish characters like Styrax and his son into better context. I know I read about them in earlier books with all of my attention on the main character, what they did has slid right out of my mind. I think that comes down to the author not handling multiple characters and locations as well as he needs to.

There were also a couple of places where the words that were written weren't the words meant. I can't bring any specifics to mind but it is the kind of thing that needs a copy editor to look over and find.

On the positive side, what I am reading is reminding me and more of what I read, and liked, in the God Fragments series. The similarities in authorial voice are much more noticeable. Whereas the first book of this Twilight Reign series had me scratching my head over the fact that the same author wrote them, now I can see it. And I'm liking what I'm seeing.

★★★☆½

Friday, July 26, 2019

Dark Intelligence (Polity: Transformation #1) ★★★★½

Title: Dark Intelligence
Series: Polity: Transformation #1
Author: Neal Asher
Rating: 4.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 416
Format: Digital Edition

Synopsis:

Thorvald Spear wakes up in a hospital. Which is odd, because he remembers being killed by a Polity AI named Penny Royal, almost 100 years ago, an AI that was supposed to be rescuing him and his men on a Prador occupied world. With his memory still a bit glitchy, Spear does know one thing for certain, Penny Royal must die.

Spear tracks down Penny Royal's old spaceship. With the help of a powerful gangster named Isabel Satomi, who made a deal of her own with Penny Royal and is now regretting it, Spear plans on tracking Penny Royal down to whatever hidden lair it's hiding in. With Satomi's transformation having gone a bit further than anticipated (she's turning into a hooder), Spear abandons her and sets out on his own.

Satomi wanted revenge on Penny Royal for the changes it started in her. But with Spear's betrayal, she'll happily kill him too. She heads to a world in the Graveyard (an area of space between the Polity and the Prador Kingdom where neither has an official presence) where she can gather her forces and pursue Spear and then Penny Royal. While on The Rock Pool, a world ruled by a prador named Sverl who also made a deal with Penny Royal, the other Prador revolt against Sverl and he is forced to help Satomi if either of them want to survive.

All during this time Penny Royal has been dancing around and through everything, apparently orchestrating “something”. It shows up at Masada, an apparent guest of the newly sentient Atheter. Both Spear and Satomi also show up at Masada. Satomi is now a complete biomech warmachine, like the Technician before its demise. With such a weapon, the Atheter can now claim full control of Masada and kick the Polity out.

Satomi's consciousness is pulled from the hooder into a crystal memplant. Spear realizes he has been manipulated this whole time so Penny Royal can begin making good on all the bad things it did while a Black AI.

My Thoughts:

The only reason I didn't give this 5 stars this time around was because there was a very awkward, unnecessary and completely gratuitous sex scene ¾ of the way through the book. Other than that, I loved this book, again.

It has only been about 4 years since I initially read this but that is something like 600 books ago, so this was a good refresher. I remembered some of the larger details but that didn't in anyway detract from my enjoyment.

The first time I read this Penny Royal kind of came out of leftfield because I hadn't been paying any attention to mentions of it in previous Polity books. On my re-read of the Polity, I paid more attention to that and now it is paying dividends.

Asher is not telling disconnected stories all set in his Polity universe. Each series builds on the previous ones but without turning into a Never Ending Series. Each series has a definite beginning and a definite end, as does each book. You have no idea how much I appreciate an author that still writes that way.

I would not recommend starting Asher's Polity with this book. While you could, I guess, there is just too much in the background that you need to have read in his previous book for this to make sense.

★★★★½

Wednesday, July 24, 2019

Dark Run (Keiko #1) ★★★☆½

Title: Dark Run
Series: Keiko #1
Author: Mike Brooks
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 434
Format: Digital Edition

Synopsis:

Captain Ichabod Drift is the proud owner of the Keiko and the master of a rather disparate and ragamuffin crew. Before Drift became Drift however, he was someone else, someone who worked for the Federation and committed acts in their name that they disavowed. Having faked his death to escape that life, Drift is dragged back into it by his former boss. All Kelsier wants Drift to do is deliver a package to Amsterdam at a very specific time while avoiding all the tedious stuff like inspections, etc that Earth has setup. Kelsier is also paying quite handsomely.

With no way to say no, Drift agrees and counts on the greed of his crew to overlook any issues. They succeed in getting the package to Earth but don't quite make it in time to Amsterdam. As they're preparing to dump the cargo out in the middle of the city, they cut of the locks and discover a nuclear bomb. They immedately head out to sea and dump the bomb, where it explodes and starts a worldwide panic. The crew hide and shake the truth out of Drift. Nobody is happy with him, not at all. They all vow to get revenge on Kelsier.

With some help from their onboard hacker, the crew of the Keiko get GIA (Galaxy Intelligence Agency) credentials and forged letters telling any locals to help them out. They track Kelsier down to a hidden fortress and with the help of the local army, take him out.

The book ends with the crew deciding to stay on board and stay loyal to Drift, as they all have their own little secrets.

My Thoughts:

This was a very fun read and I'm thankful to SavageDave for bringing this to my attention.

I am having a hard time finding the words that I want to use for this review. This was a solid book, there was nothing wrong with it, I enjoyed it but at the same time nothing really got me excited about writing about it. I would definitely recommend others read it but I can't really muster up the “oomph” to write the why's and wherefore's. I know, my apostrophes don't really fit, sue me.

A captain with a past, a misfit crew, a first officer that is super competent yet has secrets all her own, the Laughing Man (the galaxies most efficient killer who has an electronic tattoo of a skull over his face to hide his identity), a nuclear bomb, cage fighting, an extremely diverse ethnic crew (not something I look for in my reading but I know a lot of shallow puss buckets do these days) and some good old fashioned fighting, well, this has it all. I've seen comparisons to Firefly and I think they're pretty apt. I didn't feel like I was reading a Firefly fanfic though. On the otherhand, I enjoyed Firefly, and Serenity, but it didn't bother me that the show got cancelled so maybe I'm not a big enough fan to comment on whether this is Firefly fanfic or not.

If it is fanfic, well, I'm just going to kill myself then. Because I hate fanfic, I mean with a loathing and scorn that only an aristo can summon up for pathetic plebes doing really stupid and pointless things. His Grace, Lord Bookstooge, despises Indies and Fanfic. You may now bend the knee.

If you like space opera in any form, you'll probably enjoy this. I did and I'm looking forward to the rest of the trilogy.

★★★☆½

Monday, July 22, 2019

[Manga Monday] A Song Someday (Shaman King #32) ★☆☆☆½ [Final]

Title: A Song Someday
Series: Shaman King #32
Author: Hiroyuki Takei
Rating: 1.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Manga
Pages: 224
Format: Digital Copy

Synopsis:

All the various groups are on the beach and Anna projects the mana numbers for everyone. The Gang is fighting the next Patch Officiant and Hao is at the last plant, preparing for the sleep that will put the Great Spirit within his grasp.

The Patch Officiant Number 3 kills Faust to prove how serious he is. He warns everyone to just give up, as they'll run out of mana before even reaching Hao. Faust resurrects himself. And is promptly killed AGAIN by the Patch. Yoh then defeats the Patch through the Power of Love and Faust is a now a ghost.

The two kids who use the golem disappear from Mikihasa's supervision. They want to attack Hao directly on Mu. They die in breaching the mana walls surrounding Mu but the golem is revealed to be powered by the soul of their mother and so they all keep on trying to kill Hao. Goldva, the Patch Chief, destroys them with the oversoul of the First Patch but the golem regenerates.

The next officiant takes down Horohoro but Yoh integrates with the ghost of Faust and fixes him up.

Team Gandala has gained 3 of the 5 ElementalSpirits and the Gandala leader is about to fight the King of Hell for the 4^th.

One of the golem children, now a ghost, delivers the Spirit of Fire to Yoh, as Hao doesn't need it anymore.

Yoh realizes, or reveals, or whatever, that the only true way to defeat Hao is to let him have what he wants and realize how empty that desire is.

The storyline ends with Anna and Manta saying they're going to wrap up loose ends while Yoh and the Gang deal with Hao.

The manga-ka then includes an afterwords apologizing for ending things how he did.

We then jump about 10 or 15 years into the future and follow the son of Yoh and Anna. Anna sends Hana (the son, a 6 year old) to an American Prison with Ryu to find Jocono, now known as the Legendary Warrior. Ryu tries to break him out and ends up in jail himself. Hana then attacks some tourists thinking they're trying to mug him. He ends up with Ryu in jail. Once released they make their way to a mountain seeking an old hermit. We then see the woman Hana knows as his mom, only she reveals herself to be Tamao, not Anna. She reveals that she's been taking care of Hana and will tell him the truth on his birthday.

The book ends with 5 mysterious characters making their way towards Funbari Hot Springs and 2 of them appear to be Anna and Yoh.

My Thoughts:

So the series got cancelled and that is why the manga-ka wrapped things up, or didn't. The fight scenes I didn't care about at all and I gave the rating I felt it and the “ending” deserved. It sucked. The power-up'ing trope was out of control and I was bored. This had become like every other fighting shonen manga I'd ever read or watched and the multiplicity of groups just diluted any connection I had from the beginning.

The ending with Hana and Ryu and the revelations about Tamao was fantastic. It captured the spirit of what Shaman King started out with. The 5 Mysterious Strangers was an awesome thing. That part I gave 4 stars to but it just wasn't enough to overcome the boring slugfest that came before.

Series Thoughts:

Shaman King started out fantastic. The friendships and interactions between Yoh, Manta and Ryu and Yoh and Ryu's ghost allies worked really well. Ren was a good frenemy and could have carried the villain/anti-hero part for the series.

Things started to go downhill when “Avengers, Assemble!” began happening. While characters like Horohoro and Jocono were ok in and of themselves, including them began to dilute what Yoh had with both Manta and Ryu. Both of those characters ended up being sidelined and not taking much part of the story later on. The main characters became those who had power instead of those who were just friends with Yoh.

When Hao was introduced as the Ultimate Bad Guy and he just kept getting bigger and bigger, that is when I felt this series slid off the rails. Instead of telling an intriguing story, like had been going on, the manga-ka devolved to Power Up and Escalation. It was boring and cliched in the bad way. I'm not surprised the manga was cancelled due to lack of interest by this point.

The Epilogue with the son and everything was a complete return to form and if the manga-ka had managed something like this sooner I suspect the series might have lasted longer. Having said that, I looked up on Wikipedia and the sequel to Shaman King, following Hana, only lasted a couple of books then fizzled out. I'm guessing the manga-ka is great with initial ideas and creating fun characters but then runs out of how to keep them going. Maybe if he'd stuck with writing shorter series he'd have done better.

Overall, considering how this ended I'm pretty disappointed in it. The humor was what drew me in initially and that just slowly drained out as characters kept getting more and more powerful.

★☆☆☆½

All My “Shaman King” Reviews

Friday, July 19, 2019

Patch Song (Shaman King #31) ★★☆☆☆

Title: Patch Song
Series: Shaman King #31
Author: Hiroyuki Takei
Rating: 2 of 5 Stars
Genre: Manga
Pages: 192
Format: Digital Copy

Synopsis:

The gang must make their way through the 10 Patch officiants to reach Hao. Ryu fights and loses against the first Patch and Ren and Horohoro step up. They defeat the Patch while using the absolute minimum mana.

The scene then shifts to Manta and his dad. And Manta's dad is tied up and on a leash held by Anna. All of the shamans killed on the beach have been resurrected and everybody is everybody elses friend all of the sudden.

The second Path catches most of the group in a net but Lyserg and Ren are not caught and fight back. Lady Jeanne comes out of her coffin thingy and she and Lyserg take down Patch number two. Patch number three is being taken care of by Ren while Yoh talks to little Opacho about his skills.

Back on the beach everyone is having a cookout. Anna and Mikihisa are keeping track of the group fighting the Patch via an Oracle pager and realize that Jeanne is out of the running with her resurrecting Ren and Ryu and Horohoro.

Then we move on with another installment from Yoh's parents past. Part way through it switches to a future installment where a young boy is venerating at a shrine for Mikihisa and calls him “Grandpa”. An older Ryu bursts into the room calling him Young Master and the volume ends with the pictures that the young master was venerating. One was the former owner of the hotsprings Inn that Anna runs. The second was Faust. Apparently he died during the final Shaman Fight and refused resurrection. The final picture was of Mikihasa, who died in a car accident while coming home from a pachinko parlor. He was not resurrected due to his wife being mad at him for something.

My Thoughts:

At the beginning of the book there is an author's note where he says “something” is up with Shaman King but he's going to do the right thing. It sounds like Shaman King got cancelled out from under him and he's going to have to wrap things up in one volume instead of a bajillion more, ala Bleach.

Yeah, this was feth'ing crap. The manga-ka has lost control of his own story line and even the battles with the 3 Patch wasn't very good. It was fighting for fighting sake's and even worse, it was obviously that. I read everything to make sure I wasn't missing anything important but I just wanted this to end.

The ending with the Young Master venerating at the shrine and the little blurb about each deceased really came across as wrapping things up without having the time or ideas on how to actually wrap it up.

I am very disappointed even while not being surprised by this.

★★☆☆☆

All My “Shaman King” Reviews

Thursday, July 18, 2019

Extraordinary Days (Shaman King #30) ★★☆☆½

Title: Extraordinary Days
Series: Shaman King #30
Author: Hiroyuki Takei
Rating: 2.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Manga
Pages: 192
Format: Digital Copy

Synopsis:

Team Ren and Team Yoh are sitting in a hotsprings after recovering. Ren and Yoh start recapping everyone's power and level. Hao shows up and Lyserg immediately attacks him. Hao shows them a new form of an oversoul in defense and everyone starts talking buddy buddy. Hao reveals that the final round of Shaman Fights will take place on the Lost Continent of Mu and that is why Mr Oyamada has shown up. Horohoro tells Hao that he's nuts and Hao tells Horohoro to shutup or he'll tell everyone who he likes.

Hao also reveals that the Patch won't do anything about the battle fleet Mr Oyamada brought and it is up to the remaining Shamans to deal with them. It is also revealed that a former X-Law is helping Mr Oyamada and has brought some big shaman guns (figuratively speaking).

Everyone, friend and foe, gather on the beach to fight the battle group brought by Mr Oyamada. Hao begins the attack and pretty much singlehandedly takes all threats down. The renegade X-Law in Oyamada's employ releases Azazel, the most powerful of Angels. Hao breaks Azazel and which destroys the X-Law. A shaman witch tries to stop Hao with voodoo and he returns the favor and kills her.

The Patch create a spirit submarine and all the shamans get on board to go to Mu. All the opposing Shaman Teams renounce their standing, giving Hao the win by default. Now Hao must commune with the great spirit and the Patch will defend him while he's in this helpless state. The opposing teams say they'll take the Patch down but only use it as training to eventually fight Hao.

Hao is taken to the ceremony and the others begin the journey to stop him. Silva, the Patch that initiated Yoh into the shaman fight is the first Patch they must fight to move onward. Yoh takes down Silva but 2 other Patch show up and tell the group that the Patch broke Silva to make him compliant and that the next 8 Patch are successively stronger. Ren realizing that they don't have enough mana to resurrect anyone so this is a do or die situation.

The volume ends with a short story about how Yoh's parents met.

My Thoughts:

The story is just getting messy. The manga-ka seems to pick up and discard ideas like a lint trap in a dryer. A huge fleet shows up in one volume, Hao takes it out in 3 pages. The 5 Warriors and the High Spirits are put forth and then just take a back seat. The whole feth'ing Shaman Fight, just ends because all the main characters decide so? Now the fights are going to be between the Patch and the good guy Shamans?

It feels like Takei is on drugs. Or he's lost the thread he started on. Whatever the reason, I felt like a pinball while reading this. It was not enjoyable and while some of it may be me reading these one after another, I'm just annoyed. I shouldn't be annoyed; the excitement should be building, the tension getting tighter. I shouldn't want this “just to be over with”.

There was nothing particularly “wrong” with this volume, it was just everything coming together, or not as the case may be.

★★☆☆½

All My “Shaman King” Reviews

Wednesday, July 17, 2019

O Jerusalem! ★★★★½

Title: O Jerusalem!
Series: ----------
Author: Larry Collins & Dominique Lapierre
Rating: 4.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Non-Fiction
Pages: 745
Format: Paperback Edition

Synopsis:

A brief history of the events leading up to Britain's departure from the Holy Land in 1948 and the war for survival that Israel then fought against 5 Arab countries.

Taken from newspapers, private journal entries, interviews, government documents, Collins and Lapierre weave a narrative of courage, horror, bravery, cowardice, ingenuity and turn what could have been a dry recounting by the numbers of the birth of a modern nation into something that had a face of its peoples.

My Thoughts:

My, my, what a good start to my first dedicated foray into non-fiction. I'd read this back in 2000 and just remembered that I'd really enjoyed it then. I thoroughly enjoyed it again.

I also enjoyed reading about events from both sides, both Israeli and Arab. Getting accounts from both sides allowed the authors to delve a lot deeper and to make connections that wouldn't be possible without that knowledge. They also don't fall into the trap of worshiping one side and demonizing the other.

That being said, they also don't pull any punches. The Moslem Brotherhood is shown for the terrorist group it is. Anyone who watched the events of the Arab Spring in Egypt a couple of years ago will know their name. They're as “moderate” as Hillary Clinton and President Obama. The authors also show how a splinter group of the Israeli military (the Stern Gang I think?) tried to pull a coup and caused the official army to have to fire on its own people, WHILE THE WAR WAS GOING ON.

It is amazing how politics played such a huge part. For all that the Arab leaders were talking publicly about wiping Israel off the face of the earth, privately they were dead set against such a war. But they wouldn't keep their mouths shut and their people were ignorant savages and when you get that kind of combination, well, you get war.

There were very few footnotes or anything, but at the end of the book were almost 30 pages of sources and each chapter had its own little heading showing what sources were used to substantiate the chapter. Made me feel much better and that the authors weren't pulling rabbits out of hats.

★★★★½

O Jerusalem! (2000 Review)