Tag: Joe Schreiber

The Unholy Cause (Supernatural #4)

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cover This review is written with a GPL 3.0 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 Bookstooge.booklikes.blogspot.wordpress.leafmarks.com by express permission of this reviewer

Title: The Unholy Cause

Series: Supernatural #4

Author: Joe Schreiber

Rating: 3 of 5 Stars

Genre: Media Tie-in

Pages: 231

 

Synopsis:

Sam and Dean head down South and get involved with a demon that is trying to use Judas Iscariot’s Noose for some nefarious plan that will further the Big Plan of Lucifer making Sam his vessel.

Castiel is searching out Judas himself to find out the Truth about God [because talking to the guy who betrayed the Son  of God is SUCH a good idea].

 

My Thoughts:

When it comes to Supernatural, I really have to turn off my Theology’ometer because it is so mixed up and silly. It isn’t serious enough for me to take the time to pick out all the stupid bits.

But there are times when something makes it buzz so loudly that I just have to.

Overall, the book was just a typical Supernatural episode. Sam and Dean ride into town, fight demons and then take off. Castiel is all powerful and still whining about searching for God. And there is a LOT of action. Would have been a good episode.

So, this bugged me in the show, as well as this book. Cas’s ‘search’ for God. They are angels, His messengers and are, according to the Bible, right in God’s Presence. Kripke, the creator of the show, sidesteps all this by making God an absent god. It just pisses me off. And Cas keeps asking the badguys about God for goodness sake.

It was just one of those things that I really can’t overlook, unlike much in the show 🙂

Maul: Lockdown (Star Wars)

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77327472dd33e852e40af5cb9424d21c This review is written with a GPL 3.0 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 Bookstooge.booklikes.blogspot.wordpress.com by express permission of this reviewer

 

Synopsis:

Maul is sent undercover to a prison to ferret out the identity of an Arm’s Dealer and to buy a proscribed weapon from him to further one of Palpatine’s devious schemes.

 

 

My Thoughts:

I enjoyed this book more than I did the previous 2 by Schreiber. Mainly because it wasn’t lame-o horror but a typical action/thriller.

Think Cage Match on a self-contained prison satellite. And Maul gets to do most of the fighting. The whole reason he is there is razor thin plotwise, but let us be honest with ourselves, I don’t read Star Wars for it’s Dickens’ like plots, characters and settings.

I can see people enjoying or not enjoying this book, depending on their mood at time of reading. If I’d been grumpy, I’d probably have torn this book apart for the shallow piece of tripe that it is; but I wasn’t grumpy, so I enjoyed the rollercoaster action and the all most non-stop fighting.

I also went into this with ZERO expectations. After the news about the gutting of the Extended Universe a little bit ago, my fandomometer went right down to empty. So since I enjoyed the action, I ended up enjoying the whole book.

Also, I really liked the fact that Schreiber makes a no holds barred confession that he’s a Christian in his intro/ending/thanks/whatever. That encourages me.

 

Rating: 3 of 5 Stars

Author: Joe Schreiber

Maul: Lockdown

Star Wars

Red Harvest

~ Bookstooge ~ 2 Comments

Red Harvest
Star Wars
Joe Schreiber
Horror
2 Stars
DTB, 244

the prequel, by several thousand years, to Death Troopers. Some Sith lord finds a sith holocron with plans for immortality and experiments on sith students. Thing go horribly wrong and everyone gets infected. A jedi gets involved and some random bounty hunter and pilot. Lots of descriptions to make creepy settings, but there was not really any tension or scariness involved. Enjoyed it a little more than Death Troopers though.

Slightly more enjoyable than “Death Troopers”, but not by much. If SW is going to have a horror line, they need to get an author who can make the reader feel something, not just describe things gruesomely.
I did like the fact that simple decapitation wasn’t the easy way out like in the rest of of the zombie genre.
Finally, why are zombies equated with horror? I want to be scared, not bored or grossed out.

Death Troopers

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Death Troopers
Star Wars
Joe Schreiber
2 Stars
epub, 138 pages

the first foray into the Star Wars universe that is outside the typical fantasy/action genre.

A prison ship goes derelict next to a dead star destroyer. Turns out there is some sort of plague, genetically engineered zombie ceator thingy and just about everyone buys the farm. Han Solo and Chewbacca are in the prison ship and they and 2 others escape.

I guess this was supposed to be creepy and scary, but it came across as hack to me. Telling me that a corridor seems to go on forever, instead of making me feel the character’s terror, makes me feel like they are a complete idiot.

Nothing in the story interested me, and having Han and Chewie thrown in for a connection came across as very weak and lame.