Top 9/10 Analysis

 So, what are my favorite genres? I would say horror, but most books I have are fantasy.

So let us make here a quick chart. I will put Warhammer Fantasy & 40K in a different take

So 35 books with 10 stars  (Some were re-reads)

7 - Warhammer Fantasy (Gilead's Blood, SkavenSlayer, The Palace of Plague Lord, Daemonslayer, Dragonslayer, Beastslayer, Darkblade: Reign of Blood)
5 - Fantasy (Elric Melniboné, The Sailors on the Seas of Fate, The Weird of White Wolf, Emperor's Soul, SpiderLight) 
3 - Warhmmer 40K (Shadow Knight & The Dark Path, Daemon World, Last Day of Ector)
3 - Horror (Dark Gods, Uzumaki, Remina)
2 - Mystery (Murder of Roger Ackryod, And Then there was none)
2 - Sword & Sorcery (Bran Mak Morn, Darkness Weaves)
2 - Sci-Fi (HitchhikerGuide, Dune)

Alternative History  (Fatherland)
Adventure (Journey to the center of the Earth)
Post Apocalpytic (On the Beach)
Forgotten Realms (Homeland)
Dragonlance (Soulforge)
Dystopia (Nineteen Eighty-Four)
Thriller (Far Empty)

So, if you join all the fantasy , of the 35 would be 14 (2+ reread so 16)

That's surprising, I enjoy reading horror but they are not the top... Now total with 9 / 9.5 / 10 (plus the total books of that particular genre)

64 Fantasy (269)
47 Sci-Fi (406)
21 Horror (294)
4 Historical (30)
4 Mystery (48)
3 Thriller (53)
3 Classics & Children Books  (36)
0 Non- Fiction (11)
0 Romance, Steampunk. Western (1)

So it seems that I enjoy more fantasy and read more sci-fi ? Odd... To be honest 90 were Doctor Who so it can go either way.

Book Review: The Girl in Red - Christina Henry

Year: 2019 
Pages: 316
Reading Time: August 2022 (5 days)
Rating: 5 Stars

Well this is going to be a conflicted review BUT - it's my review so, I don't care.

Let go from the start - I enjoy the plot and I even enjoy parts of our MC character. What I didn't enjoy was the overtly hate that our author has against Male White People.

So let's go to the basics - we know that racism exist and it's a bad thing but going every chapter, for every White character and making them evil (without even knowing) and characterization of a entire "race" as racist, evil, mysogist etc - what makes you? It makes you racist.
WHERE the fuck still white people ask a black teacher -- oh isn't funny you are teaching us english? WHAT? What decrepit reality do you live?

Some examples;
"...the man was still cursing, still calling Red every name a man calls a woman when he's angry" - Yeah women never curse or swear against a man.

".... only all-white guys trying to prove something about their masculinity... " yes, because black, asians and mix races go to university because they need to learn to be able to live. All white people don't. They just go as you say - to prove something about masculinity.. my god...

"... truckload of racists that want to eliminate miscegenation - to go around trying to earn their white supremacy badge" LOL oh my god you dumb fuck- she doesn't even know who are the people in the trucks are at that time...

I am going to end here but this is only the first 100 pages. You should check yourself to see if you are okay living in "that" society. Bearing in mind that the book was publish in 2019 - Trump was in power, BLM was starting and such - very much influence? I Bet her new novels will deal with Trans. I BET. Edit: I WAS RIGHT - HORSEMAN written in 2021 has a Trangender character as MC. LOL Oh you do like to sell and to appeal to the masses.

Then another thing, this book was written, where you can see the author ticking all the boxes. Our main character is not only black, has a disability and it's bisexual.


OH well, about the book now...

Basically the end of the world come with a cough - Covid? Well it was written before, so not that inspiration and the majority of population died - or at least we thing because the information we have is very scarce. It's a dystopia, apocalypse with strange monsters and white people to stop Red to arrive to her grandmother's house.

The tale is told in one perspective (our MC) but it's told in two timelines. The Now and the Before. Every chapter or two chapters they change and give a bit more info on what happened and how they arrived at the situation/moment.

Our main character, Cordelia aka Red she is a survivalist. Basically she sees a lot of movies of horror and apocalpyses and try to work things out (supplies, drugs and so on) because, of course the rest of the family didn't do anything. She is a know it all (with some merits) but people , even her family downplay her - maybe due to her disability or maybe because she is trying to hard to out-vote everyone else. She wants her family to go the grandmother's house and is against any type of government solution. She is anoying beyond belief (she is 21 I think) and she is so self-righteous and idiot that don't even understand that attitude drive people away.

As some reviewer said here ". Red also didn’t feel genuine to me, coming across more like an idealized character that checks off all the right social justice boxes. I consider myself pretty middle-of-the-road so maybe that’s why stuff like this tends to leap out at me, and Henry isn’t exactly subtle when it comes to shoving issues like race and guns in your face, reminding you at every turn how Red feels about such things, and most of the time it’s done in a very awkward and ham-fisted way. Many authors have done better."

I enjoy the fast pace story, I enjoy some of the people they meet and the ending really left an impression because I knew what she was trying to do and the end - the conclusion, the finality - wolf - red hiding hood allegory turn out pretty nice.

So, in conclusion is a woke apocalyptic novel, fast paced story...
Note to the author; if the world turn out like you say (to shit) nobody would care if you were white or black, racism would be the least of your problems, nobody would give a fuck if you want to be treated as them instead of he or she. Just saying...

I have two more of her books and I am undecided if I should buy the box about Alice BUT I've already saw they all deal with kind of crap social justice warrior... You can put your values, your ideals but not sounding as preach (on the other side of the fence).

If I offended you - well as a white male I felt offended - and I bought the book(s).

Book Review: After the Funeral - Agatha Christie

Year: 1953 
Pages: 378
Part of Series: Herculae Poirot
Reading Time: August 2022 (5 days)
Rating: 4 Stars

So another Agatha Christie novel read, I a missing 5 or 6 novels I Am not completely sure to finish reading every Poirot novel.

So we are in after WW2 and Christie was very bluntly hating to write more Poirot stories - and this is no exception - how do I know this? Well first of all, in a book with a length of 370 pages how is it possible that he only appears after one third has pass? Then he is rarely present, just to give some feedback and to discover the criminal. Most of the tale is told by other characters.

Just to take of the bat I didn't find IT , well to be honest I had two suspects - one was the killer.

A man dies, supposedly from normal circumstances but one of his sisters say "Well, he was murderer was it not?"; afterwards she is found dead at home. Now, something really happen right? Our investigator is called to solve the crime and there are plenty of peoples-suspects. In that regard it was interesting because most didn't have any particular motif.

Either way, a fast paced novel but don't expect much of Poirot.

Book Review: The Truce at Bakura - Kathy Tyers (Star Wars)

Year: 1994
Pages: 314
Reading Time: August 2022 (14 days)
Rating: 5 Stars

After some consideration I don't think this book worked for me. I was wondering between 2 or 3. IT's a solid 5 out of 10. But nothing really that blows you away. I didn't enjoy several things but I appreciate the effort of continuing the movie story. This book is set 1 day after the last 6 star wars movie.

THe emperor and Darth are dead but new threats emerge; in this case in a start system called Bakura. There is a contingency of imperial forces but they are unable to defend lonely with their forces stretched everywhere so the alliance under Leia, Solo & Luke goes forth to help and maybe start to join forces and make the imperial forces realize that there is no other way.

There are some interesting characters, no character development for Han, Leia founds herself in the presence of her father - which I didn't enjoy at all.

The actions scenes are not the strenght of the writer - boring to be honest. The plot goes forward and the only thing it shines is in the politics between the imperial, alliance and the planet govermenet - and the aliens.

The most upsetting to me was Leia & Darth... he asked for forgive and she say something ""I can forgive what you did to me, I can forgive the people you've killed, but I can't forgive what you did to Han." - that's absurd. Yeah Han suffered but compare with HER PLANET BEING DESTROYED! damn.. love is beautiful, blind and stupid.

IF you want to read everything, go right ahead. Don't need to know anything - just watch movie 6. Apart from this, if you are not thinking of reading evertyhing - then don't.

Book Review: Fall of Cthulhu Omnibus

Year: 2015
Pages: 500
Reading Time: August 2022 (16 days)
Rating: 7 Stars

First of all just so you know this is a compilation of several comics that tell an overachieving story... It started with The Fugue, The Gathering; the Gray Man, GodWar, Apocalpyse and finally Nemesis (the latter tells a different yet connected tale to the other 5).

There is more than one tale here, or plot and there are multiple characters on different stories....The story behind is a war in the Dreamlands or at least the main story is about the war between Cthulhu vs Nodens (sure looks like Poseidon & Zeus?). Nyarlathotep is there in mist as well and Harlot (didn't knew about this one)

At times, it's a character driven story, at times , someone shows the great scope (mainly in Godwar part 4) and how the war has been set in place for thousands of years... Now about the art, I don't enjoy comics to be honest.. I've read of course, I read manga as well but usually I don't enjoy that much of comics but since I was enjoying the tale the art was there... I will not be giving much on that as I am not an expert if it is good or bad. I like the dreamlands parts; I like the depiction of the ancient ones. At times the art didn't felt the same for me (besides the art style chose to differentiate our world vs dreamlands). But this took some time and the artist evolved I would deduce so it can be that

If you have played the games, you may enjoy this feeling ; if you read the stories you know it should end poorly to our main characters.. I think it has that grandiose element of battle.

Recommendation: Is it for you?

Let me ask you two or three things; if you are sick of nowadays "interpretations" and "modernizations" and other stuff people write to feel good about themselves by stealing an idea of cosmic horror for their own gains while at the same time spitting on Lovecraft and Cthulhu Mythos - then yes. This is a good tale.

It has some good story, as I said a bit confusing at times but good overall & some interesting characters - nice to see Portuguese from brazil there (The Grey Man)

Now the caveat is that it's comics...

The Harlot

Book Review: The Old Ones - P A Douglas

Year: 2013
Pages: 194
Reading Time: August 2022 (5 days)
Rating: 8 stars

AS you may know I Lovecraftian horror. It's one of my favorite types of horror so this month I try to read a couple of stories with that premise... This one, I've had for one year and I Thought it was time to read it. Short, under 200 pages so easy for a two day read or so.

This was a bit more focus on action that usually Lovecraftian tales are... In this tale we follow a couple of characters as they are dealing with the invasion of aquatic beings that are linked to a eldritch horror god from beyond the seas.

For those who expected something grandiose - well it's not here. This is run, hide, try to destroy the evil being - never really dwelling much on the lore- which is my favorite part of Lovecraftian tales BUT to be honest it felt good.

One thing that I expect from Lovecraftian horror is the ending - Lovecraftian tales to me, must be about hardships and usually ends with the demise or craziness of our main character(s).

So in this tale we follow a older man that has lost his wife and it's just basically holding on; we follow Max with his wife, a police officer, another older gentlemen that knows what is happening and a couple of other minor characters.

Let's go into spoiler, not because of the book but the final entry from the author ---- This is SPOILERS BEWARE

Why did he had to include that note to explain the reasoning of killing some of the characters? That's perfect man. You are the author. You decide and in my humble opinion you decide perfectly. It has that open-ending interesting on the Lovecraftian horror of old. I will see if I buy another of his novels since the are kind of cheap...

Book Review: Heroes of the Space Marines - Anthology (Black Library 40K)

Year: 2009 
Pages: 408
Reading Time: July 2022 (7 days)
Rating: 7 Stars

Well, this was very interesting try...

I was going on vacations for 7 days so I brought this so I could read one or two stories per day while reading all other novels at the same time.

Graham McNeill - Skull Harvest - 5/5 - Connects with Iron Warrior Series he has written.

This tale - don't know what it has to do with Heroes of Space Marines since it focus solely on chaos space marines and how they get more warriors under their belt. This is my first foray into Honsou but I sure love it. Oh there is the inclusion of Huron BlackHeart the Tyrant and it was interesting to see that every chaos space marines present on that reunion bow to him. IT felt strange but at the same intriguing.

Chris Roberson - Gauntlet Run- 2/5 - Connects with Sons of Dorn novel

Since I have not read the novel I don't know if this is set before or after... This is basically scouts from Imperial Fists trying to hunt orks. The least appealing story to me - but what do I know after all a follow up book was written afterwards

Gav Thorpe - Renegades - 3/5 It's avenging sons story - to my knowledge doesn't connect to any previous publish tale.

So they are helping a imperial world but things are not going their way. Decisions that must be made and well - Heroes as in the name of the book says are not present here. Well some are not. IT was a interesting fall from grace story.

Dylan Owen - Honour Among Fiends 3/5 - Black Legion vs Imperial Fists - Doesn't connect with anything

So a Black Legion's Scaevolla has a grudge against the imperial fists and so he hunts and kills them. As new space marines are "recruited" using previous progenoid gland he then goes hunting again. It's like a game... It was a interesting story.

Nick Kyme - Fires of War 2/5 - It's a prequel; connected with the Salamanders series.

I don't know much about Salamanders and I couldn't connect with this tale because I didn't understand that much about them.. It's okish short story.

Richard Ford - Labyrinth 4/5 - Sons of Malice story. Doesn't connect with anything else

Predictable ending? Well ... no. Basically the sons of malice from time to time (100 years) go to a place where any of their marines can try making a trial to be closer to Malice. Although the adversities where cool I really enjoy the ending since I predicted what was going to happen and then the author throws a curve ball.

Steve Parker - Headhunted 3/5 - Deathwatch short story. It's publish in at least two more novels - damn. I don't know the interesting on this tale to be publish on three anthologies. It's a team of Deathwatch (as you probably know,they are taken from different chapters with different beliefs trying to work together. It's a OK.

Darren Cox - And they shall know No Fear - 5/5 Black Templars

This is not connected to anything else but it was a interesting tale.

VERY good story and Helbrecht appears on the last page. Nice addition... even him started small.

Peter Fehervari - Nightfall - 4/5 It's the first publish story on his magnus opus. IT can be read individually.

Night Lords - how they recruit new recruiters? Well read the story. It's very cool, very short.

Aaron Dembski-Bowden - One Hate -4/5 It connects with Crimson Fists novel he publish on the Space Marines Battle series

This is very straightforward tale on crimson fists helping imperial guard while on their own mission. Very cool and I understand why Bowden is so much love overall. Eagearly to read something more from him.