Lapvona ✬☆☆☆☆

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Title: Lapvona
Series: ———-
Author: Ottessa Moshfegh
Rating: 0.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 190
Words: 79K

From Wikipedia.com

In Lapvona, a corrupt medieval fiefdom, deformed 13 year-old Marek lives with his cruel shepherd father Jude and was nursed from birth by the village witch. When Marek commits a crime, the cruel lord Villiam demands that Jude give Marek to him as reparations, and Marek goes to live in his castle.


This was a perverse book without a single redeeming quality. I cannot fathom a mind that could create such filth. Needless to say I will not be reading anything else by Moshfegh ever again.

✬☆☆☆☆

Majestic ★★☆☆☆

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: Majestic
Series: ———-
Author: Whitley Strieber
Rating: 2 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 267
Words: 95K

Majestic is the name of the secret government agency tasked with dealing with aliens, etc in the United States Government. This book was published in 1989 and in 1993 the tv show The X-Files started airing. I will eat my hat, and quite possibly my boots too, if Chris Carter, the creator of the X-Files didn’t read this book and lift parts of it whole sale to create the X-Files mythology. The head of Majestic is even a bitter old man who has given himself cancer by smoking so much (one of the main villains in the X-Files is the Smoking Man). Because I have seen the X-Files, this felt like an origins story and was rather boring since all the bits and pieces had already been revealed. The differences and specifics were small enough and didn’t matter enough so I wasn’t really interested.

This is supposedly non-fiction posing as fiction to protect Strieber, but come on. And it committed the cardinal sin of being boring. I mean really, really, really boring. And aliens invading us, or protecting us or evolving us, or whatever the heck Strieber is claiming (all of the above at the same time plus some other stuff as far as I could tell) should NOT be boring.

I am debating whether I want to try again with Strieber. Part of writing reviews is so I can think about things like this and not make a snap decision. Sometimes not continuing isn’t even on my mind (like with Universe 2 from yesterday) until I start writing and then I can easily make a decision. This isn’t like that unfortunately. I have been considering this since about halfway through this book and I still can’t make up my mind. Am I hitting a bad run of Strieber or is he really just not for me? Is he really boring like this book? If he is, do I dare give him a 3rd chance? Cat Magic was also very boring, so you know what? I’m done with Strieber. I’ll leave him to those who want him.

★★☆☆☆

Latency (Hunter Bureau #2) ★★☆☆☆

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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

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.

★★☆☆☆

Unsouled (Cradle #1) ★✬☆☆☆

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Title: Unsouled
Series: Cradle #1
Author: Will Wight
Rating: 1.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: YA Fantasy
Pages: 243
Words: 89K

This novel starts with a dedication “To Devin, who reads as many web novels as I do”. That right there is a big fat warning sign that I should have given more weight to. If you don’t know, web novels tend to be written by chinese authors, chapter at a time centered around the most tropey of tropes that you can possibly think of. It would be like if 1000 authors suddenly started writing like David Eddings about castles and princes and princesses and wizards and stuff. It’s not necessarily bad, but it is by no means good quality stuff.

The writing is just fine but I want nothing to do with web novel inspired trash. Call me a snob, but that’s what it is. And I don’t want to support it in any way. If a place like Royal Road is your jam, then this novel and this series might be right up your alley. But for heavens sake, please don’t tell me. I don’t want to know that I helped anyone in this regards :-/

★✬☆☆☆

Jackal of the Mind (Tales of Wyverna #2) ★☆☆☆☆ DNF@2%

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Title: Jackal of the Mind DNF@2%
Series: Tales of Wyverna #2
Author: Madolyn Rogers
Rating: 1 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 6/287
Words: 2/106K

Sexuality and sexual preferences are important enough that I refuse to allow them to be perverted and to pass it off as “well, it’s only a piece of fiction”.

I was disappointed but it happens enough now that I think I’m to the point where I can just shrug it off and dnf the book without much regret. Ahhh well, on to another book and another author.

Rating: 1 out of 5.

The Ball and the Cross DNF@10% ★★☆☆☆

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Title: The Ball and the Cross DNF@10%
Series: ———-
Author: G.K. Chesterton
Rating: 2 of 5 Stars
Genre: Christian Allegory/Mysticism
Pages: DNF @29
Words: DNF @8K

★★☆☆☆

Hunting Zero (Agent Zero #3) ★☆☆☆☆

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Title: Hunting Zero
Series: Agent Zero #3
Authors: Jack Mars
Rating: 1 of 5 Stars
Genre: Thriller
Pages: 293
Words: 102K



Synopsis:

From the Publisher

“You will not sleep until you are finished with AGENT ZERO. A superb job creating a set of characters who are fully developed and very much enjoyable. The description of the action scenes transport us into a reality that is almost like sitting in a movie theater with surround sound and 3D (it would make an incredible Hollywood movie). I can hardly wait for the sequel.”–Roberto Mattos, Books and Movie ReviewsIn HUNTING ZERO (Book #3), when CIA operative Agent Zero finds out his two teenage girls have been kidnapped and are bound for a trafficking ring in Eastern Europe, he embarks on a high-octane chase across Europe, leaving a trail of devastation is his wake as he breaks all rules, risks his own life, and does everything he can to get his daughters back.Kent, ordered by the CIA to stand down, refuses. Without the backing of the agency, with moles and assassins on all sides, with a lover he can barely trust, and being targeted himself, Agent Zero must fight multiple foes to get his girls back.Up against the most deadly trafficking ring in Europe, with political connections reaching all the way to the top, it is an unlikely battle—one man against an army—and one that only Agent Zero can wage.And yet, his own identity, he realizes, may be the most perilous secret of all.

My Thoughts:

I am so done with this series now. Agent Zero acts like an angry dad without one ounce of professionalism and breaks every rule even though he knows the rules are his best bet. He acts stupid, emotional and the man I read about would never in a million years have become a top agent of the CIA, or an agent for anything other than a Jihad. His emotionally driven reactions reminded me EXACTLY of jihadi’s in other books I’ve read.

So goodbye Kent Steele, you’ve wasted enough of my time with your lying ass claims to be a secret agent. You’re a dumbass, that’s it.

Rating: 1 out of 5.
  • Not Even Going to Link to the Other Books So You Don’t Waste Your Time On This Garbage

Dead Silence ★☆☆☆☆

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Title: Dead Silence
Series: ———-
Authors: Stacey Barnes
Rating: 1 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 319
Words: 109.5K



Synopsis:

From the Publisher & Me

Claire Kovalik is days away from being unemployed―made obsolete―when her beacon repair crew picks up a strange distress signal. With nothing to lose and no desire to return to Earth, Claire and her team decide to investigate.

What they find is shocking: the Aurora, a famous luxury spaceliner that vanished on its maiden tour of the solar system more than twenty years ago. A salvage claim like this could set Claire and her crew up for life. But a quick search of the ship reveals something isn’t right.

Whispers in the dark. Flickers of movement. Messages scrawled in blood. Claire must fight to hold on to her sanity and find out what really happened on the Aurora before she and her crew meet the same ghastly fate.

Turns out everything was caused by a machine put on board the ship by a rival company that was supposed to make everyone feel dread and uneasiness. The ship used a new alloy and the interactions between the machine and ship drove everyone insane.

Claire survives as does her loverboy and they get rich and own their own shipping company. The end.

My Thoughts:

I went into this with very high hopes. Both Mogsy and Maddalena had reviewed it and while there were some little things that niggled at me, what they wrote sounded fantastic.

Things started out really great. I’m talking Event Horizon levels of great in fact. Which is exactly what I wanted and was looking for. Then I find out the main character is insane, so I can’t trust a word coming out of her mouth, then the whole “scary” situation gets “scyenzesplained” to me and THEN romance right at the end where the man knows exactly what to do and what to say like he’d read the main character’s insane mind and was pretty much the perfectest man ever.

It blew my mind. In a bad way. I was pretty angry in fact. To go from people ripping their own eyeballs out to scyenze to romance was more than I could take. Stacey Barnes took a space elevator ride straight to my Authors to Avoid list with this book. What gets me is that it DID start out so fantastic. WHY did she have to go and change things and ruin everything? I could smell the hotdog. I could see the hotdog. Then the author gave me a celery stick and acts like it was that all along. GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR.

So if you want a scary story that is ruined by scyenze and romance, this is definitely the book for you. If I cared more, I’d cross post this review to all sorts of other platforms just to give people fair warning. But in about 10 years nobody will ever remember this book, because it truly is that bad. I’ll step aside and let Time be the author’s executioner.

Rating: 1 out of 5.

Calamity Town (Ellery Queen) ★✬☆☆☆

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Title: Calamity Town
Series: Ellery Queen
Authors: Ellery Queen
Rating: 1.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Mystery
Pages: 198
Words: 80K



Synopsis:

From Wikipedia & Me

Ellery Queen moves into the small town of Wrightsville, somewhere in New England, in order to get some peace and quiet so that he can write a book. As a result of renting a furnished house, he becomes peripherally involved in the story of Jim Haight and Nora Wright. Nora’s father is president of the Wrightsville National bank, “oldest family in town”, and when the head cashier Jim Haight became engaged to his daughter Nora, he built and furnished a house for them as a wedding present. That was three years ago—the day before the wedding, Jim Haight disappeared, the wedding was called off, and the jinxed house became known as “Calamity House”. Ellery rents it, just before the return of Jim Haight, and the wedding is soon on again. Ellery finds some evidence that Jim is planning to poison Nora and, after the wedding, she does display some symptoms of arsenic poisoning. But it is Jim’s sister Rosemary who dies after drinking a poisoned cocktail. Jim is tried for the murder and it is only after some startling and tragic events that Ellery reveals the identity of the murderer.

Haight had gotten married after the original wedding didn’t happen and his wife wouldn’t divorce him. So he married Nora and she found out that he was now a bigamist and it drove her right off the mental tracks. She planned everything and killed Rosemary, who was actually Haight’s wife and Jim escaped prison with the help of his real sister and killed himself by driving off a cliff in the escape car. Nora gives birth and dies. Happy times for everyone.

My Thoughts:

Why people think something like this story is fit entertainment, to be written OR read, is beyond me. But I am done with “Ellery Queen”. I didn’t like this and I haven’t liked any of the previous books, so kaput, I’m done.

Rating: 1.5 out of 5.

Morningside Fall DNF@55% Unrated

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Title: Morningside Fall
Series: Legends of the Duskwalker #2
Authors: Jay Posey
Rating: Unrated / DNF@55%
Genre: SF
Pages: 192 / 350
Words: 78.5K / 143K



Synopsis:

From the Publisher

The lone gunman Three is gone.

Wren is the new governor of the devastated settlement of Morningside, but there is turmoil in the city. When his life is put in danger, Wren is forced to flee Morningside until he and his retinue can determine who can be trusted.

They arrive at a border outpost to find it has been infested with Weir in greater numbers than anyone has ever seen. These lost, dangerous creatures are harboring a terrible secret—one that will have consequences not just for Wren and his comrades, but for the future of what remains of the world.

New threats need new heroes . . .

My Thoughts:

I was not enjoying my time reading this and so I stopped. I don’t care enough about Posey anymore to figure out if this was him or me. Doesn’t matter. Won’t be reading any more by him.