Bookstooge's Reviews On the Road

Friday, February 17, 2023

Latency (Hunter Bureau #2) ★★☆☆☆

Title: Latency
Series: Hunter Bureau #2
Author: Blaze Ward
Rating: 2 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 197
Words: 62K

When I read and reviewed the first book, I mentioned that there were key words or phrases that usually only came from a political side that was completely opposed to everything I stand for in terms of morals, principles and guiding principles. So instead of either brushing it off or making a mountain out of a molehill, as I was reading, I just highlighted stuff that caught my eye. That’s mostly what this review will contain, is quotes from the book. I am not trying to provide context within the story or anything like that. I’m planning on hiding it all behind the Details code so you don’t have to read it if you don’t want to.

Location 147: (speaking of handguns)Greyson’s grandfather had had something like that, demilled when the aliens decided to make humans safer.

Location 378: Back when the US was a thing and had an army they liked to sic on weaker nations.

Location 611: be allowed

Location 726: And they hadn’t done androgynous in those days. Being less than stridently hetero in the late 20th Century was an invitation to get beat up. Fucking barbarians.

Location 793: The bits that were left were generally the ones the Army had found useful as tools. Deliberate cruelty. Premeditated self-defense.

Location 972: Universal Basic Income kept people from starving,

Location 1184: Mostly, ex-special forces, so knuckleheads who liked to solve problems with extreme firepower.

Location 1332: Honest men got no reason to bolt,

Location 1904: Superfast trains had already worked in other countries because the governments had been able to get right of way. In the old United States, NIMBY had delayed everything for so long that it was never economical to actually build. Not In My Back Yard. Then the middle-class bastards had the audacity to complain about bad roads and crowded….

Location 2135: Greyson was just old enough to remember the great awakening in this culture, when everyone discovered that there were more options than white-bread hetero. Folks like that had always been there, but for the longest time the power structure in his country had come down hard on anyone deviating from the strict party line, both legally as well as socially.

Location 2277: would still be the rest of his lifetime and maybe all of Rachel’s before the planet started cooling down again, but hopefully they’d managed to save it in time.

Location 2686: Back in the bleak days of a War on Crime that was a thinly-veiled War on Black People that had started before 1618 and never really been forced to subside until aliens landed and threatened to crack heads together.

Location 2849: Sandwiches he brought from home instead of lunch out.

Location 2927: where a young white boy like him had had no business being.

Location 2951: But then, most men didn’t know how to deal with a woman who was tougher than they were, and probably smarter.

Location 3206: If Greyson had shown some of his otherwise private political leanings with the places he had mailed his packages, that was between him and God. And God supposedly loved everyone, so Greyson figured he was on safe ground</details>

I read to the end of the book and with all of those quotes decided that I won’t be reading any more by Mister Blaze Ward. Now I just have to figure out what I’m going to replace this series with. Choices, choices, choices.

★★☆☆☆

Mirrors (Book 1)

Thursday, February 16, 2023

Mansions of the Gods (Asterix #17) ★★★✬☆

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress & Blogspot by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission
Title: Mansions of the Gods
Series: Asterix #17
Authors: Goscinny & Uderzo
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Comics
Pages: 53
Words: 3K

Caesar has the VERY clever idea of surrounding the Gaul’s village with luxury roman apartments and thus subsuming the Gauls culturally. He sends his best architect and a whole galley of slaves (former pirates) to cut down the forest and build the Mansions of the Gods.

Of course, the problem is that the Gauls can regrow trees overnight, beat the stuffing out of the roman soldiers AND give magic potion to the slaves. Not even this though is enough to overcome Caesar’s plans and a mansion is built and tenanted (even if it’s that or the circus maximus!). When Cacofonix the bard empties the building of regular tenants, the soldiers move in and then the Gaul’s attack en masse and destroy the building. The architect gives up and the gauls replant the forest over the ruins.

I thought the idea was quite a workable one (culturally subsuming a small group of hold outs) but it can take generations. The Amish are a good example. They have held out (and continue to do so) against modern civilization, but as a group they are slowly shrinking and are being forced to make changes simply to continue to exist.

Goscinny and Urderzo make this a quick, funny event and everything turns out ok for the Gauls this time, but my cynical adult self realizes that what was proposed here is what would eventually happen if this were real. Since it is NOT real however, I can laugh at Obelix accidentally planting a magic acorn in the middle of Asterix’s house and them all eating dinner 100 feet up in the air :-D

★★★✬☆

All of My “Asterix” Reviews

Wednesday, February 15, 2023

The City of Water, Water Seven (One Piece #34) ★★★✬☆

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress & Blogspot by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission
Title: The City of Water, Water Seven
Series: One Piece #34
Arc: Water Seven #3
Author: Eiichiro Oda
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Manga
Pages: 230
Words: 10K

The Straw Hats win the Davy Back Fight and sail on to the island of Seven Waters where there is a whole city of shipwrights to work on the Merry Go. The shipwrights show their power and the Straw Hats convert all the gold into ready cash and immediately start having robbery attempts on them.

While the end of the Fight was stupid, the introduction to the shipwrights was as madcap as I could want in the One Piece world. And Luffy’s response was just what I would expect from him, as evinced by this panel:

I now have higher hopes for this Water Seven arc than I did when it started out. That makes me happy.

★★★✬☆

All My "One Piece" Reviews

Tuesday, February 14, 2023

Conan the Defender (Conan the Barbarian) ★★★✬☆

Title: Conan the Defender
Series: Conan the Barbarian
Author: Robert Jordan
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 193
Words: 65K

This is a direct sequel to the previous Conan book, Conan the Invincible. More in terms of characters than in plot. Conan gets together with the prince of the bandits from the previous book and they go to some city and try to earn gold as guards. There’s a revolution brewing and a sorcerer is the prime mover and shaker and Conan works out said sorcerer is using the revolutionaries (who are the spares of rich royal families and thus have nothing to do) as patsies. When he reveals they get all butt hurt and toss him out. He goes to work for the king and runs across the Queen of the Bandits from the previous book. He also comes into conflict with the sorcerer and with wit and mighty thews bests him. Everyone realizes Conan was right about everything and peace reigns supreme. The end.

My goodness. Jordan knows how to write some pulp here. If I had been in a more scathing mood I’d probably have trashed this 6 ways from Sunday. But as I was rather raw inside at the time of reading, the simple hack, slash and bash of Conan outpowering everyone was like a balm upon my heart. Conan’s ability to literally cut his way through any and all problems is what I WISH I could do today. Sadly, it just doesn’t work that way. And it really doesn’t work that way for little chubby bald guys who don’t like people ;-)

This stuff is pure wish fulfillment and I enjoy it as such.

★★★✬☆

Monday, February 13, 2023

The Vicar of Nibbleswick ★★★✬☆

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress & Blogspot by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission
Title: The Vicar of Nibbleswick
Series: ----------
Authors: Roald Dahl
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Childrens Fiction
Pages: 6
Words: 1K

I have no idea how this story got to be on its own instead of being folded into some sort of collection. Be that as it may, this feels like a good ending to my Dahl re-read. Short and sweet and amusing.

The Vicar says words backwards and Dahl has a blast figuring out language tricks to make things sound not just nonsensical but actually correct grammatically while being totally wrong in what the poor Vicar is trying to say. One funny instance is him trying to tell the congregation not to “park” their cars alongside the front of the church but to use the back parking lot. I laughed, as it comes out like telling them to not krap in front of the church, hahahhaa. Good stuff!

Having started my Dahl re-read back in December of ‘21 with Matilda, which is close to being one of his longest books, like I mentioned at first, this short story felt like a great way to finish things up. I’ve enjoyed this almost year and a half journey of exploring Dahl all over again but I’ve realized that I probably won’t do it again on my own. I feel like Dahl has a magic circle that his books work in and I’ve simply aged out of that circle. They are still wonderful and amusing stories and I’ll remember them very fondly, but I am now done.

★★★✬☆

Sunday, February 12, 2023

The Return of Santiago (Santiago #2) ★★★✬☆

Title: The Return of Santiago
Series: Santiago #2
Author: Mike Resnick
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 278
Words: 122K

So, a hundred or two years after the first Santiago book, some small time thief discovers the original manuscript from Black Orpheus and decides that he wants to become his successor, a Dante. So he realizes that he needs a Santiago to center the continuing poem around sets out to find one. With the help of some colorful characters he attempts to recruit various bigger than life characters to become Santiago only to realize that each one is pretty flawed each time. Eventually, with the help of his co-horts hitting him over the head with it, he realizes HE is the new Santiago.

Santiago was published in 1986 and was a completely standalone novel. Return was published in ‘03 and did a bit of fancy dancy stuff to make it possible to need a “return of Santiago”. While I still enjoyed this, it simply wasn’t in the same league as the first book and really felt like Resnick was trying to recapture the magic (and failing). Thankfully, he doesn’t recycle the same set of characters as was presented in the first book, so that was good. But none of them quite lived up the engaging’ness of the cast of characters we met in the first book.

If you liked Santiago, then I would recommend Return if you really need to be a completionist. However, I would strongly caution you to think twice, as this just isn’t as good. Not bad, but not as good.

★★★✬☆

Friday, February 10, 2023

Full Moon (Blandings Castle #8) ★★★✬☆

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress & Blogspot by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission
Title: Full Moon
Series: Blandings Castle #8
Authors: PG Wodehouse
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Humor
Pages: 200
Words: 78K

A full novel with the further (mis)adventures of the residents and guests of Blandings Castle. Ther_e is the usual crossed lovers denied entry to paradise by disapproving aunts. There are wayward sons doing stupid things. There are in-laws and Uncles calling everyone else pigheaded. There are artists. Of course there is the Empress, the Queen (pig) of the Castle. And jewelry.

Throw it all together into a blender, select high speed to take the edge off that chunky jewelry, blend for 1minute and voila, another perfect Blandings Castle story. I mean, that is all Wodehouse really does. He takes various well-used but still amusing ingredients and simply mixes them together in new ways. It is genius.

Now, most of Wodehouse’s works are just plain silly and if you’re not ready for it or feel in the need of some big fat literary literature, they probably won’t tickle your funny bone. But I was not in the mood for big fat literary literature with out of touch snobs telling me lies about crap that didn’t matter, so this hit the spot exactly. I was tempted to give it 4stars for how much I enjoyed it, but that was more down to circumstances (that hopefully won’t be duplicated) than to the book itself. So 3 ½ it is!

★★★✬☆

Thursday, February 09, 2023

The Quarry (Groo the Wanderer #14) ★★★✬☆

Title: The Quarry
Series: Groo the Wanderer #14
Author: Sergio Aragones
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Comics
Pages: 23
Words: 2K

Groo gets lost in the desert, passes by an oasis of comely babes and ends up working in a quarry. Where he does everything wrong, everything. He pushes when he’s supposed to be pulling. He threatens the slaves with his sword. He gets crushed by a massive stone block. He ties up the ship wrong so it floats away and crashes and sinks. Eventually, he destroys a massive edifice to the local king and runs away. Of course, the destruction revealed a cave of jewels that was enough for the local folks to all buy their freedom.

Despite Groo’s inability to do anything correctly, Aragones has the knack of giving us that twist right at the end. It is almost always there and it is impossible to predict. I love that! It’s like a tragic comedy version of the Twilight Zone, except Groo is the butt every time, hahahahaa.

This comic is keeping me entertained, every time. Unlike certain Mutant Turtles, I haven’t had a bad experience yet. They’re not all top notch, but not a one where I question if I should continue or not. I guess Aragones and I have a shared sense of the ridiculous :-D

★★★✬☆

All of My “Groo the Wanderer” Reviews

Wednesday, February 08, 2023

Fullmetal Alchemist #2 ★★★★☆

Title: Fullmetal Alchemist #2
Series: Fullmetal Alchemist
Author: Hiromu Arakawa
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre: Manga
Pages: 187
Words: 9K

Even with the Shou Tucker (the Stitching Alchemist) arc, I still really enjoyed this volume. Unfortunately, Shou murdering his wife and then 2 years later his little daughter to create talking chimeras was just brutal. I still remember this from the anime and it had a lot more heart and punch than was presented here in the manga.

There is a lot of info revealed yet again. Another entity, Envy, is revealed and we’re also treated to the debut of Scar, an alchemist who is one of the last surviving Shambalans. Shambala was a country that defied the Government and said government used State Alchemists to wipe it off the map in retaliation. Lust, one of the entities, reveals that the Entities have some sort of master plan that the Elric brothers figure into but we’re not given much info beyond that.

Lots of existential angst and wondering if the rules are good and fights. Oh, the fights are grand. Scar has the power of destruction and explodes people and things and is also apparently superhumanly fast. Ed gets his arm destroyed and Al gets massive holes blown in him. The volume ends with them going back to their home village to be repaired by the mechanic who created Ed’s automail arm and leg in the first place.

My only quibble here was how everyone didn’t shoot first and ask questions later when it came to Scar. He has already killed over 15 state alchemists but nobody shoots him. They try to go mano a mano with predictable results. There’s a reason we have armies of soldiers now and not one of warriors.

★★★★☆

All My "Fullmetal Alchemist" Reviews

Tuesday, February 07, 2023

The Anubis Gates ★★★★★

Title: The Anubis Gates
Series: ----------
Author: Tim Powers
Rating: 5 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 353
Words: 162K

I’ve read this multiple times before and so I was wondering how this would turn out. After my recent experience with On Stranger Tides I had high hopes though and thankfully, this not only met those hopes but exceeded them.

Some old used up has-been magicians are trying to bring back the old gods of Egypt into our modern world (well the 1800’s through 1980) but with magic drying up like a raisin, things don’t quiiiiite go as planned. One of them gets possessed by Anubis and pretty much turns into a body switching werewolf. Another side effect is that time holes open up and people from our time figure it out and a dying tycoon takes advantage of it for his own purposes. Then the main character gets stuck in the past and has to deal with various other mad magicians who also cycle through time (they are trying to change history but their efforts simply make it happen, of course) and there is murder and mayhem and romance and lots and lots of weirdness. I loved every second of it. The magic was just different enough that it didn’t affect me like in Powers’ other books and for that I am grateful.

The only weak point is the ending. Once the main character accepts that he is now an obscure poet in a new body (that body switching Anubis guy causes a LOT of problems), Powers takes us through his life in about 10 pages and then right at the end, when he’s like 60 or something, (at least if I did my math right) he gets to live his own life. It was a very amateurish attempt to deal with Free Will and Pre-destination. That wasn’t the main point of the book, but it was a theme and I didn’t feel that how it was handled was very professional.

For a book that I am giving 5stars too it seems like I should have more to say. But since this is at least my 3^rd read, if not more, simply being able to enjoy the story and saying so is going to have to be enough.

This re-read has convinced me to seek out Powers’ earlier work, The Drawing of the Dark. From my experience, the further into the past I go with Powers, the better I like his stuff. DotD was published in ‘79 so if my hypothesis is right, it should be right up my alley and possibly the book I like best by him. Only time will tell.

I’ve included the original 1983 cover, because just like with Santiago, this image is what is burnt into my brain to be associated with this story. While some of the later covers look very nice and all, they’re just not the same garish awesome that I want. The little picture up above is clickable for a much bigger version for those who are curious.

★★★★★

The Anubis Gates (2006 Review)