[Kinda Book Report] Elminster in Myth Drannor by Ed Greenwood

Ed Greenwood is a giant in the world of D&D. as the creator of the massively-successful Forgotten Realms. His slate of adventures for TSR are a mixed bag, but most are good enough. I had never been exposed to his fiction before (I am not a big fan of D&D litterature).

This book did not endear me to either.

Things happen randomly and the plot armor reaches deific level. Litterally. Most of the book is complete, boring filler as he goes around from one random event to another, meeting random NPCs. And their events are best described as "the GM rolls random shit and you see it."

- The names.... the long, unpronounceable name
- The many, many, many characters whose importance is dubious
- Exactly what happens in parts is difficult
- Elminster changes sex (and back) for no reason
- NPCs get major introduction then get kill off then come back to life only to die(?) again.
- The Epilogue is where the important and interesting event happens, even if what is happening is not fully clear.
- But then we are introduced to NPCs we never heard from before (or after).

Now... I would have dropped this book one third of the way in. BUT it did something that I found I could apply to my own current novel, the sequel to One Hundred Daughters. The characters introduced to be disposed of later. In my own book, I use this to expand and present elements the main characters would not know, yet provide the reader with the information to better understand the situation.

The funniest part of this was that my wife kept telling me to "Stop reading it if you don't like it" every night when I picked it up to read a few pages.

[Kinda Book Report] African Samurai by Thomas Lockley and Geoffrey Girard

I got this book in a trade for one of mine. I was interested in learning more about Yasuke, the African Samurai. Where do I begin to talk about how bad this book is... And how much I got screwed in the deal.

First off, it is more interested in not offending modern audiences and apologizing rather than explaining the realities of the era and letting the reader discern what he wants to think about it.

Second, we are presented with the history of a minor character among several very interesting characters. In fairness, they list their sources at the end and admit most of it is made up of conjecture.

Yasuke is presented as a Gary-Lou. He's always perfect. Makes the right thing. Does the right thing. Is on the right side of decisions all the time. Things always turns out right for him, except where the sources explicitly tell us.

All Europeans are presented as two-dimensional, moustache-twirling villains with dark ulterior motives for everything they do.

The "ending" include a number of fan-fiction possibilities of what may have happened to Yasuke.

In one section, I woke up my wife because they spend 2 pages arguing whether Yasuke was gay, but without proof - which they admit later. Pure speculation and conjecture. Most of this book is just that... Speculative fiction.

Did Yasuke exist? Yes?

Did most of what in this book happen? Maybe...

I would have up-voted with if this was the 10-page book of real material about Yasuke, not a 472 page book. I hope to get something from the secondhand bookstore.

In short, this is book is garbage. 1/5. I could not wait to be done with it.

[Kinda Book Report] The Red Star Vol 2

A dieselpunk Russia? Yes! A post WWII what-if tale? Yes! Interesting weapons? Yes!

I'm in.

But what I got was a wonderful sketchbook from a talented artist and a story that's hard to follow and in the end... unsatisfactory.

If this had "40k" or "Warmachine" on the cover (Khador especially), I would have rated this higher. But I'm tried to make sense of the plot, the characters, what happened before. But no. I had to read and massive two-page spreads (remember the sketchbook comment) with bits of text spread across the page.

Never heard of this? Yeah, there's a reason.

Tanks falling and people getting shot - or not. I didn't care. Then this goddess-like appears to talk to characters who I don't know. Oh yeah and there are non-linear timeline in parts of it all.

I got ripped off by the local library, having paid 2$ for this!

1/5. Garbage.

[Kinda Book Review] The Blacktongue Thief by Christopher Buehlman

I did not finish this one. I hated it.

My head spun from the most minute and insignificant of details, and the constant thief-jargon. It was not a fun experience to read.

I found myself constantly reading back to try and make sense of what I was reading. Needless to say, I did not like this book and when I put it down, I felt light and joyful.

I was looking forward to this one, after really enjoying Between Two Fires, I expected to like this one too.

Nope. 1/5. Not worth using as toilet paper.

[Review] Doctor Who: Joy to the World

I just finished watching this dumbassery of a car crash.

The first half or so... Was entertaining. But then... Pffff... He's always crying and he seems like the dumbest person on screen. There is a paradox that is never explained how he learned the secret combination. How he did that? Dunno! Who gave him the secret? Dunno! And the quick question about it is brushed away without questioning.

The "Companion" was the most stoic and emotionally stable character ever. She doesn't challenge anything, just goes with the madness as if she got on a bus on a Tuesday.

I never believed there was a serious threat and the resolution was pretty frikkin weak. I'm just so happy I did not pay to see that.

Would I rewatch? OOOOOOOOooooooh hell to the no! I had a tough time watching it to the end... So glad I'm not paying for that. I'll gladly watch the animated/ remastered versions of old Who. Unfortunately RTD's second stint is pretty craptastic.

Rating? 1/5 easy. It sucked. Everything was just... Bad.

[Kinda Review] Rings of Power... I tried

I tried to watch Rings of Power on Amazon Prime. I really did. And quite frankly... it is terrible.

The overall look and the scenery is breathtaking and fantastic. It LOOKS like the Peter Jackson movies. Good.

Now let's get to the story...

The uh story.

You know, the things that happens between the plot holes.

OOPS. I meant what you are told happens. (Cuz the coolest elements are narrated, not shown on a visual medium).

Well... Yeah, nothing of consequence really happens. The worse the character is, the better the outcome. But actually, everything is not revealed at any point, forcing you to wait to the end for some reveal that will no doubt let you wondering why you wasted all this time. Nothing feels like it builds to anything (other than a Season 2).

There is an ensemble of characters, I could not tell you most of their names because they are wallflowers and decorations. Everything they try to do leads to something pointless that is immediately addressed without a later payout. In the end, you recognize the character, but their name is not important. "hobbit girl," "fat hobbit girl," "black elf guy," "Scottish dwarf," "not-Elrond," "black dwarf wife," "rogue-like-guy-from-the-boat" etc...

The one exception is Galadriel who walks around with that strange "no expression" movies love to give tough women. It's that same face you see throughout Marvel movies (if you saw Captain Marvel, that's the face). There are two looks: either a scowl of contempt at everyone around them and the shocked/confused but disgusted look.

For a famed centuries-old commander, she doesn't give two craps about her troops. She scowls at them in disdain and disgust. For troops who followed her for centuries (as we are told, not shown), you would expect her to have respect for them. To at least consider their opinion rather than be faced with mutiny before going back.

Well.. seeing how she kills the troll by herself while her troops just look around like 1st-level sidekicks... She may have a point. But I cannot accept that centuries-old elves be that useless. Not in Tolkien. Maybe your 1st-level D&D character... but not Noldor elves.

The actress' (I can't be arsed to look for her name) performance is made even worse because of the contrast with the stellar performance given by Cate Blanchett in the original. Her portrayal was great as she comes across as someone of great power but still have emotions and feelings, almost vulnerable. Particularly after she is offered the One Ring. Cate wasn't scowling in disgust of the hobbits and humans.

Then she fails in her task but everyone gives her accolades... That is addressed when you learned the elf king wants to get rid of her later: "Yeah there is a shadow, but I don't want to rock the boat" kinda bull-crap.

That's not how you create a lovable, interesteing character. The character must grow, learn from its mistakes and either succomb or overcome its flaws. Sometimes they are sad, sometimes they are happy. Triumphs and failures. Mistakes and learning.

Comparing Galadriel's performance with that of "Hobbit girl" is night and day. The protagonist of the story scowls in disdain while the halfling goes through various emotions that gives us insight into her character. I really her portrayal in the scene where she finds a worg track: her expression changes from carefree to worried and she takes charges of the young ones. I remember when I was watching going, "Oooh, that won't end well for the Hobbits"

Then nothing happened after we saw the worg on a nearby hilltop. It doesn't attack the hobbits, because they fled too quickly.

All of this. All my issues are things that could EASILY have been addressed, but as it is modern TV, that's not something we are going to talk about/deal with. Galadriel is better than everyone and everyone knows it because she is just that good! There are some flashes of potential but the door is quickly closed again or the threat is made quickly irrelevant. The snow troll. The worg. The orc mine. The sea serpent. The Numenor prison. No build-up for no payoff. The monsters appear, are defeated or cause a problem then are gone/ killed/ defeated.

After three episodes, I just had to give up. I have better things to do with my time. Like watching reruns of Family Feud or wondering what my dogs are barking at. It is just awful. Nothing of consequence happens.

Rating? The beauty of the sceneries and sets cannot offset the abysmal nothing happening or how unlikeable most characters are. So I can easily put this in the 1/5 and turn the TV back to Family Feud.

Read my more contrite review on Amazon.

[Review] Doctor Who Flux: Survivors of the Flux

As the season keeps crashing down, I keep watching this ever-growin trainwreck of a season, we continue fitting a house boat, a car, and all the garden tools we can on this 10 square feet shed and wondering why things aren't going well.

So the lead-in at the end of the previous episode with the Doctor turning into an angel turns out to just fizzle out. ANOTHER let-down. So in turn, we got nothing new about the angels, nothing interesting.

Most of the episode were a series of monologues where the NPCs speak with the Doctor about their masterplan. Again, Dan and Jericho (another NPC we keep from Village of the Angels) are the only people who have normal reaction. Dead fish Yaz is never affected, surprised, curious, or scared by anything, so she's a waste of screen time.

Add to that Dog-Guy, Cute-Asian, Kinda-Black-Dude, and the blue guy and gal.

The joke-pushing Himalayan hermit was just... BAD. He's making modern-day jokes about gossip. I mean does Chibnall have any concept of time travel or how long paint stays on the group if untended? Nope. When you are trying to set the tone for something catastrophic slapstick and Disney-Channel humor does not help.

Did I forget the many scenes with some other villain we never heard of before. And Kate Stewart, whom I was happy to see whose appearance had gravitas.

Oh yeah, half that time, we get back to the Timeless Children person and keep trying to showhorn that arc into the overall story. To be honest, I expect that to be retconned or simply abandonned later.

So this over-plot is just bad. A mega conspiracy that includes everyone that only the Doctor does not know about. Oh wait, her memories are locked away. Pffff... Everything about this is just BAD.

I cannot wait for the season to end and Flux gets forgotten. This is another episode that should be 2 or 3 and that does not want to drop any character for any reason, or allow the Doctor to experience and discover what is happening and piece together for us in a Sherlock Holmes-like fashion. Instead she looks confused with her upper lip curled as if someone farted on set (that is also Yaz' usual face).

The only survivors of the flux are us, and after watching this, I'm not sure if I don't want to just disappear in it.

1/5 with no care for a rewatch.

[Kinda Book Review] Captain America: America First

Captain America. After Chris Evans' turn in the suit - which I thought was pretty good, I was excited to find a trade with Cap. At a quick flip-through, this was a collection of war stories. Good!

The book contains three stories. Operation Zero Point, Prisoners of Duty, and Commie Smasher.

The first two stories are "okay." Cap. Evil Nazi doctor. Punching. Explosions. Hot girl (who Cap makes no moves on). Girl dies.

Operation Zero Point has decent art. But resembles more a movie where every move Cap makes is drawn. It reads super-fast since there is almost no dialogue. There is no morality, no serious choice to make here. Cap = Good. Nazi = Bad. Punch = Face. At least give cap some meaningful choice here: destroy the nazi UFOs but kill the other prisoners. Something. Weak writing.

Prisoners' art is pretty bad at times and is a retelling with Cap of the Young Indiana Jones tale when he is taken to the escape-proof castle. Do you think a castle will hold Cap? Nope. Okay this one has an partial choice to it: Cap swears he'll rescue a nurse. Then he breaks out, comes back but her place was bombed in an air raid. Puts a downer on things and robs both Cap and the Nurse of the choice of what to do next. In the end, this was a futile story with crappy art that almost has interesting writing.

The final story, Commie Smasher, was written by a complete idiot, drawn by a drone, and edited by a total moron who has NO IDEA what Cap's Lore is. I mean... Even fans who know Cap only through the MCU know that he was frozen from World War II until "recently." Right? I mean Steve Rodgers spent the 50s encased in ice.

1955: Cap/Steve Rodgers goes after a terrible and overly predictable communist subversion plot in the States. A bad imitation of McCarthyism. The only thing about this story that's any good is the art - which resembles something drawn by classic Disney. Btw, without Cap, this story is "fine," not great and rather forgettable.

My rating for this one is a 1/5. After two uninspired tales, getting that non-sensical tale that completely ignore mythology of the character. Finally done with that crap.

[Kinda Book Review] Deathstroke Vol 1-3

Wow... a triple review all at once! It's been quite a while since (way back in September of 2020). I bought those three at my local comic shop. I was very excited about this one because I remember when I first read the New Teen Titans #1 back in the 80s.

And more recently, I really enjoyed his portrayal in Teen Titans Go To the Movies. Slaaaaaaaaaade. Hehehe It was funny.

It wasn't long before this enthusiasm ended.

The worse part is the storytelling. The pacing is ridiculously slow. With MANY page show the same panel copied two or three times as the characters talk. Vignettes of characters standing there in the oddest positions. The fight scenes just suck, I don't understand what they are doing, where the characters are. Having just read Batman: Knightfall with great spacial awareness. Here we have characters jumping around in odd positions in unclear locations. And the fighting is a very tiny part between pages of characters that just talk about stuff that inevitably turn out to be a scheme Deathstroke planned from the start and everyone else is an idiot.

Not here.

The story reads like one of these old 60s DC comics where the character surprises the reader with a last-minute reveal. It's fun once but over and over, it gets tiresome. It is tiresome. Again contrasting with Knightfall, this should be a detective story. Whereas the former does it right, allowing the reader to get the same pieces as Batman, so as the story progresses, you can look back and go "Oh yeah! That detail makes sense now." Deathstroke is so good because he does not need any character development, only revelation of his level of awesome.

Ravager (girl-Deathstroke) is super eye candy, I think her costume is a tight panty. The highlight of the story. Only bright spot in a drab, predictable, heartless, soulless, and ultimately pointless comic book.

I rate this an easy 1/5. Quite frankly, other than eye candy, there was nothing fun, interesting, or intriguing here. Pass.

Save your money.

Save your time.

[Kinda Book Review] Harley Quinn Vol 1: Die Laughing

I like Harley Quinn. I was intrigued by her when she first appeared in the Batman Animated Series. She made me both laugh and facepalm at once. This is another trade I got for 5$ at a sale from a local comic shop, this one for Jojo who also likes her antics.

The cover promised all kinds of mayhem and craziness. I was WAY more interested in this one than in Flash: Blitz.

Pfff... This book is a teenager boy's dream like watching the "Side-Boob Hour". The art is just an excuse to put Harley (often with Poison Ivy) in semi-porn positions for no reason. Showers, baths, massages, nighties, pantie-shots, and the girl-on-girl not-so-innuendos throughout. Now let me be clear: I ENJOY WATCHING HOT WOMEN. It is pleasing to my eye. I make no apologies for that.

BUT (only 1 T)

Now that I'm not longer 14 years old, I want the story to mean something, to add a purpose. Here it does not.

The plot is meaningless and Harley rarely has anything to do with it.

So in the first arc, an alien comes to Earth, sees a cow, shape shifts into one then get turned into hot dog meat all sent ONLY to Coney Island. Those who eat him turn to zombies. Okay. Stupid but I'm still on board. It's full-on apocalypse. Harley falls into the mob and kills and escapes it for what seems like forever as the scenes keep moving her from one scene to another. Again. The situation is resolved without any of the characters doing anything: more aliens show up and summon their friend's body back. Apocalypse over.

Then for some reason, she decides to go to India to stop call centers. She gets on a commercial plane and goes there. What follows is a 5 year old idea of stopping a call center: go see the Russian boss and kill him.

Harley Quinn. On a commercial plane.

She in NOT a good guy. She's a villain. She's the Joker's Girlfriend. She is NUTS.

The storytelling is JUST ATROCIOUS. The plot makes no sense. No one ever dares to say anything to her, they just roll with it. Sure! It's fine. You just killed people? Okay.

Oh and India Security has this bad-ass-looking robot. She whacks it (quickly but I will let it go) and out comes... A boy of about 5! WTF?

At some point she trashes the Penguin's lair IN FRONT OF HIM. And what does the Penguin do?

Nothing. He asks her if she is fine now.

NOTHING.

Next panel she is walking the street with her cop buddy.

Atrocious. Atrocious.

I will avoid any product by the horrendous team of Amanda Conner and Jimmy Palmiotti. These people have no idea how to tell a story.

So to rate this... The art is of good-to-high quality, the one redeeming quality of this book. However even that cannot overcome the garbage that it wraps around. You can wrap a turd in bacon, put batter around it and deep-fry it. But it's still a turd. Rating the art alone, I would give this a 4/5. But the story made me angry I spent money on this and that the paper was glossy so it could not be used as emergency toilet paper.

Yup 1/5. The lowest score I can give.

Rubbish.

Garbage.

Now I remember why I don't like modern comics. Thanks DC.

[Doctor Who Review] 12-10 Timeless Child

The season finale... The moment when we expect to learn a lot of new things and tie together the odd threads of the season.

So... The Master returns. And the Cybermen. And Rusty. And the forgettable NPCs. And the massive crew of companions. And this old guy they met at the end of the previous episode.

I expected this old guy to have an interesting story or tweak, or plot hook that would change the situation and surprise the Doctor in some way. Something that would make you go hmm with the reveal they were heading to Gallifrey... But as usual this season, no. Forgettable, useless, meaningless people. I care more about the red shirt who died in that episode of Original Star Trek than any of them.

No... I like the companions. I'd like 'em more if they were not always there all at the same time. These guys are cool.

This episode was just the worse of all. All the good will the series gained in the previous episode turned stupid within the first five minutes. The Doctor forcing the mobs of NPCs to stay behind and face the Cybermen "because".

The Master killed all the Time Lords and destroyed Gallifrey. (Wow! WTF!)

Then the Cyberlords idea was just stupid. (eye roll)

Then the "death particle" idea was telegraphed, stupid, and just plain unimaginative. (eyes blinked, then closed.)

And the re-imagination of the Timelord history was terrible. This "Doctor is immortal" and "the Time Lords all descend from Doctor DNA" made me say out loud "BOVINE SCATOLOGY! WHAT A LOAD OF CROCK" of course, with more French Canadian color wherein most of what can be seen in a church was named. Repeatedly. Julie even said "If it is that stupid, why are you still watching?" (this made me angry)

But the biggest eye roll was when the unnamed NPC came in at the last minute and sacrificed himself for the Doctor. Convenient. Unimaginative and o-so boring. (Colorful French Canadian curses thrown at the TV)

I thought that guy may be some forgotten time lord or something. Nope, just another red shirt NPC there to save the Doctor. Her sacrifice was the one thing I thought would'a made sense. But no... Again, cheapening anything with meaning, like the gay astronaut's husband's sacrifice. Cheap.

I expected the Doctor to be ready to die and have Jack Harkness show up and save her against her will. That would have been something to make my eyes open, sit at the edge of my seat and go "Woah, what just happen?" But like almost every time this season, the answer is no.

Then right at the end when all the crew returns to Earth and the Doctor is alone in the Tardis, the Judoon appear. IN THE TARDIS and take her away to a jail cell "somewhere". Now that is just crap and stupid. The Tardis should be inviolable, not breachable by random, minor aliens.

Still putting the Doctor in jail made me smile. "Maybe she's gone and we can have a good Doctor," I thought wishfully. But I am wrong, she'll be back.

So for the rating. This was full of stupid from start to finish. Not only the stupid but the wasted opportunity. And if I did not commit to writing a review for each episode, I would NOT have written this one. 1/5. I'm not re-watching this again.

[Doctor Who Review] 12.03 Orphan 55

Guh... Whu... Pfff...

No surprise here. I guessed the overall thing a few minutes in the episode. Re-hashed. Tired. Boring. Unimaginative mega-cast of NPCs going through the motion. The plot is old and has a lot of nothing going on.

But the worse is the preachy speech we get at the end about "Capitalism Bad. Global Warming Act Now." (I disagree with both of these ideas)

Guh...

Best part of the episode was the end credit.

Would I re-watch? Hell to the NO! NO! NO!

Rating: 1/5 (Because I limit myself to a 1-5 scale, or I would give it a 0).

[Doctor Who Review] 12.02 Spyfall Part 2

After a mostly positive feeling about the first part, I looked forward to the second episode to see where this would be going.

...And I was left holding a steaming pile of excrement. The goodwill from part 1 gave way to eye rolls almost from the start. I don't think I really followed what the glowy-things were as I must have dozed off.

And frankly by that time I flat out did not care. The Master's plot became so convoluted that I could not follow it. He acts like a simple bank robber rather than do things.

I want to thank Jesus for allowing me to doze through a significant portion of this episode (no I'm not watching it again).

And the presentation that "only the women are important" like Ada Lovelace being more important than Charles Babbage and that "Indian spy-chick" who no one knows about is more important than actual people who spied in occupied France. The Ada/Babbage particularly was rough with the flat-out dismissal of Babbage.

The final reveal failed to impress me. Not for the shock value - I did raise an eyebrows. But by how rushed and crammed almost matter of fact it was thrown in there. Rather than having the Master tease it through the episode for a payoff at the end, we have a massive cast fighting for screen time.

This is a show about time travel... So why do you cram so many things in there?

Would I re-watch? No

Rating: 1/5

[Review] Gundam Saviour G-Gundam

When Youtube proposed me a Gundam movie, I thought "bah what's the worse it could be? Gundam is awesome." And I put the movie on while I did something else (playing Shadowrun Online and editing Rhym).

The basic story deals with the Earth Government trying to hide a new discovery that could allow for undersea farming. From there, the plot takes us to space. This is very much in the feel of a Gundam story. One thing I like about the Universal Century Gundam story (which this claims to be) is that you can usually find that both sides are at once right and wrong. Many feel Zeon are the good guys in this. But the same can be said of the Earth government. In short, both sides are the villains. Not here, there is clearly a "good side" and a "bad side", although with a bit of thought, you could say that the main characters are acting as and helping terrorists, the manichean split is so obvious, the only wrong thing the "terrorists" do is attempt to steal the result of an experiment, unarmed, in secret, to use it for a positive result.

All the elements are present to make this a decent offering, it hits all the stereotypical Gundam scenes and tropes. So let's actually review this.

The movie was B A D, and not Sharknado bad (as in so bad, you can't help but chuckle), but just bad (as in you would never write a full review for this unless you promised yourself you would write one that says more than "it sucks"). The kind of horrible, bad stories where the movie takes itself seriously, with the crew thinking they are doing a good job of it.

They did not. For the longest time, the movie has the actors talking together about the issues of the world, which we do not really care about.

The infantry is dressed in outfits taken right out of the Starship Trooper franchise. I mean STRAIGHT out of the ST wardrobe.

I sat there waiting for some MS battles, holding against hope that they would at least redeem the movie a little and I could say "those battles were cool". They were not. The CGI was chunky and the MS moved in unnatural ways. It was just bad. Bad. Bad. The fighting did not feel like a video game... Which it could have... It should have, and it would have been significantly better.

Story: The story is bland and generic. Granted I watched it to see some MS battles, not see how scientists could create undersea agriculture. I will give this a 2/5. It hit the tropes and assured the basis but did not introduce any new element that would make us view the universe differently.

Characters: The characters just felt caricatured and poor copies of existing ones. The actors really wanted to feel as if they were in an action flick. The ruler of Side-8 felt real because his role was not to convince us that he was awesome. At no time did I ever believed that the leading lady was a scientist, she was eye candy (and good at it) but not a scientist. A 2/5 being generous.

Animation: Perhaps the biggest flaw of this movie. It would be a b-movie to Dino-crow vs. Sharktopus The model look the part, but they do not move right. Just horrible. 1/5

Overall: This movie is a 1/5. While it hits all the tropes, it is tired and reheated. I could not wait for the end.