Thoughts and Images

  Book: Our Mortal Days Author: Elizabeth Blackson Pages: 221 Hard Core Scale: 2/4 Normal Scale: 7/10 Publish Date: 2004 About: The wolf clan is starving. Political unrest shakes the tribe as the chief has died. Will they turn to raid human settlements or find another way to survive the harsh winter. Review: Well done. A simple plot that follows its formulas well. It avoids the pitfalls of human as “other” genre. Though sometimes it falls into repeating sentence structure at times Elizabeth breaks her way out it. Character and anthropomorphic description is weak and is a shame as it would help ground character and add far more to this world of hers. Some small questions of world design not well thought out leading to some logic issues. Fantasy tropes ugiling their way in the perceived every day when they are not supposed to be nor valid for the situation. Everything wrapped up by an acceptable Deus Ex so that clears out well enough, usually when such a thing could hurt a ...

  Book: The Cursed Land Author:Teri Mclaren Pages: 290 Hard Core Scale: 1/4 Normal Scale: 3/10 Publish Date:1995 About: A dipshit destroys an ancient sacred tree cursing everything and then another dipshit plots to steal the magical acorn that would make everything better. Review: I have not read a book this terrible in a long time. Teri is a fellow professor of literature of the Kentucky School? SHAMEFUL display.   Marked Bibilos Terribles Excommunicado Cannot writeo. I could barely read this thing: Lack of description, repeating sentence structure, constant telling over showing, weak transitions with dependency upon temporal transitions, lack of tags, indentation for speakers, run on sentences, weird and pointless metaphoric descriptions, lack of follow reactions to complete scenes, scene skipping, time wasting elements that served no purpose to the text, Scoobey doo running around, lack of proper semicolon use. On top of that the story auto resolves destroying ...

  Book: Mamelukes Author: Jerry Pournelle with contributions by David Weber and Phillip Pournelle Pages: 592 Hard Core Scale:2.5/4 Normal Scale: 7/10 Publish Date: 2020 About: Rick Galloway, a military Janissary slave from earth on the world of Tran, has just reunited with his wife. Political treachery from his allies after his recent victory begins to reveal itself. The island Nation of Nikiean has isolated itself. And the shinning lights in the sky only mean one more thing, more Star Men from Earth.   Review: I read the first one of these long ago… the first one written so long ago, back when there was a Soviet Union. The book had to catch up with the times in this installment. The fourth and final book in the Janissaries series. The last book Jerry Pournelle ever wrote due to his passing. Finished by his son and David Weber from his notes. Such a long wait… and many I feel would be disappointed. Hard to gauge success when it was written partially by other people ...