Gord’s Comments (group member since Apr 06, 2017)

Gord’s comments from the Vampires, Weres and Fae! group.

Talk, talk, talk, talk. If the whole point of things is to get angry and smash things talking is the opposite of it. Get angry and start smashing things already.

From previous experience (with everything but the hot chili hummus) it is indeed delicious. The samosas are precooked so I can eat them cold or toss them into the toaster oven for a few minutes and they are great either way. The dark chocolate stuff is great. I prefer cranberries over raisins honestly. It's a better taste combination for me.

I suffered from a random and violent case of noodle arm today. I was simply going to pop over to the Farmers Market to get some fresh bread and some lunch. I grabbed my bread no problems. I wanted some pita and hummus so I headed there next. I was placing my order and the first twist of the arm started. "Oh we have a new flavor. It's hot chili. Do you want to try? Of course I can't resist and it's no price difference so why not. Then I had a full on cave of resistance to anything. I turn around and the sorbet place has their little chalkboard out with their specialty flavors. They brought back earl gray white peach which is an amazing flavor. I was going to get only one tub but my mouth said two tubs and that's when the lady behind the counter let me know I can get three for $30. Can you guess what happened next? Yup, I now have three tubs in the freezer. At that point all reason was out the window. I then got veggie samosas (amazing) and my iced coffee with cookie pucks (also amazing). I then went on to treat myself to some dark chocolate covered coffee beans, dark chocolate covered cranberries, and dried mango.

I now have many, many, many snacks and don't want to work the rest of the day. I'm ready to go home to consume my snacks and read books.

I've been on a bit of a streak lately and I'm now down to three.

Toilet Stall (I swear I've probably stumbled across this already)
Dark Chocolate (So much chocolate is eaten/drank/talked about etc but none of it is of the dark variety or at least specified)
Hamster (I see you lurking there Stephanie Plum and no, not yet. If it's December and I haven't found another hamster I'll consider it)

Neon sign guy is back this morning with some changes. It actually has a name of a company that works here. Looking closer at the message it looks like someone who wants a union brought in. I think my original idea of this being someone who got fired/laid off is much more likely.

I remember hearing her songs when I was kid, that news sucks. I'm watching the music video for What's Love Got To Do With It and man that hair is amazing. It's a very 80's thing and oh man I'm feeling nostalgic right now. I know I've belted this song out before.

I wonder if the guy had been laid off and was drinking to much of the "kool-aid" about what was going on in the world.

Overall it was rather uneventful. It was just one guy in a truck with a neon sign on a trailer. Apparently he moved down the street at some point but by the time I was out there around lunch time he was just gone. No yellowing, no fuss, nothing. Just some guy with a neon sign.

Well that is a first. I arrive at work this morning and there is a blinking neon sign complaining about a company. Now I'm going to be intentionally vague here on purpose but they are upset with a company for taking jobs from hard working people. The thing is that the company is not one of the three in the building I work in. I know we do some business with them and our neighbors do as well. Probably a lot more than us but neither of us are that company.

I've watched protest, I participated in a couple of marches in my time, but I've never been on the receiving end of one. It's... odd. The thing that is funny is that many at work weren't even aware of it. They saw the sign but never bothered to read it.

Time for the first day of my two week solo stint. My coworker is off for the next two weeks to help his wife after her surgery. I'm a wee bit stressed as there is already a lot to get done in the next couple of weeks and that's not counting whatever new orders come down in that time.

That sounds fun

Time for my weekly update and this week it's all novels and I have things to say about some of them. I think I'm going to run this from best down to worst this week.

Solo Leveling, Vol. 5 (novel) (Solo Leveling -4 Stars
This was kind of an in between book. We had the conclusion of one story arc and the start of a new arc. The conclusion of the one arc was a bit shocking but that the same time it was kind of anticlimactic. That being said the start of the next arc dropped some nice little bombshells on us and I am very curious about where things go next.

Reincarnated as a Sword (Light Novel) Vol. 3 -4 Stars
I'm still enjoying this series but the weakness of the author is showing a bit here in my opinion. This series started out as a dungeon crawler of sorts and it was good. In this book the author shifted gears and tried doing a multi kingdom political thriller kind of plot and... it was alright but it wasn't great either. There was a lot of moving parts, characters, and lore that were just dumped on us in this novel and while the MC's had reasons and motivations to be involved in the plot they kind of felt like they were along for the ride. They were there to deal with the truly epic level threats while everyone else dealt with overthrowing a kingdom. It was still entertaining but there were a few cracks in this one.

The Hunchback Assignments -3 Stars
I'm now getting into the stuff that I read for my monthly challenge where I needed a couple of steampunk novels. This was a reread of a series I read several years ago and this novel is still fine. It's a YA action adventure style novel set in Victorian London with all the expected steampunk elements. Flying dirigibles, mechanical objects, steampunk robots, etc. It was a fun little romp but nothing outstanding at the same time.

Soulless -3 Stars
Now we start getting into the controversial takes. I read this because I need a book from this Best Steampunk Novels list here on Goodreads and this book was near the top. Out the gate I'm just going to say that this did not feel like a steampunk novel. This was an urban fantasy set in Victorian London with a slight sprinkle of steampunk elements on top as a garnish. This is not a negative or anything but it just didn't feel like a steampunk novel to me. Now we get to the book itself. This book had some genuinely good moments that I enjoyed. There were moments where I found myself chuckling, moments I was wrapped up in what was going on, moments I was charmed but what was happening, and then there were moments were I was smacking my head against the wall because of the sheer stupidity of what I was reading. I know I said that this was an urban fantasy but I think the author was really wanting to write a Victorian romance novel with werewolves. The number of times where the MC never passed on pertinent info, ignored blinking neon sign level of clues just to get back to building the romantic/sexual tension was aggravating. Overall I though the main characters were smart and knew how to do their job but then the author felt the need to crowbar in some more tension and it derailed the characters. There is no greater example then towards the end of the novel. I won't get into specifics here but lets just say that both our leads find themself captured by the enemy and are being held in a cell deep in the enemies base. The enemy will be back in one hour to check on them. Now in that time they could plan an escape, plan an ambush, seeing as the male is an alpha werewolf he could just go on a murderous rampage to save friends, other prisoners, the kingdom, etc. Now that it the logical thing to do but that's not what happens. The author figures that this hour time frame is the perfect time to build even more sexual tension and even talk about marriage. I could be wrong here but I think the characters might some more pressing matters, some bigger priorities shall we say then some sexy times. Sexy times might I remind you in a locked cell, in a dungeon, deep within the enemies stronghold, while a close friend of the female MC might be getting tortured to death. This kind of writing just makes the characters seem like the most stupid morons ever. I'm not sure if I want to continue with the series. I like the world and the characters, some of the times, but some of these writing choices are a bit frustrating.

Killing Them Softly -1 Star
There are a lot of books that I read solely to help fill a challenge. Most of those books fall into the good to great rating and I've discovered some really interesting reads by trying to fill challenges. This book was not one of those books. This book was just plain awful from beginning to end. If I didn't want to fill this task so I can move on so much I would have tossed this book part of the way through the first chapter. Now in theory this should be an interesting book. It involves several criminal underworld types, a heist involving an illegal card game, and a mystery around all this. What I got was 216 pages of people doing nothing but talking and mostly about the most inane crap ever. This was book was probably 95% people talking and 5% things actually happening. This wasn't the worst part either. Those conversations were so bad. A lot of the characters involved in these discussions were the most stupid of stupid people. If there were two people in a scene you would be hard pressed to find two brain cells in that scene. These discussions were horrible and pointless as well. Many of these conversations were full of racism, sexism, and just in general people being human scum.. You could cut entire chapters out of this book and it would have zero impact on this book. For instance there is a character called Mitch, yes I am spoiling things and I don't care, and he is brought in to do a hit. We get several chapters where he complains about his wife, his life, sex, hookers, and so on. There is even a section where he is berating hookers for being bad at their job while the hookers are still in the room. He is in general just a garbage character. By the end of the novel he isn't used for the hit and has no impact on the resolution of the story. His entire character, every scene that he is in, all that filth that I read him saying was entirely pointless. It had zero impact on the story. It meant nothing. It was just there to pad the page count essentially. But it gets worse. This takes place in Boston and the author wanted to write this with a Bostonian accent. Again I'm no accent expert and can't tell you how accurate this is but what I can tell you is that this was grating as all hell to read. I've said this before and I'll say it again. Accents can be a massive help to a novel if done properly. They can help elevate a novel and really sell a setting or character. If not done well though it can become incredibly grating. Many of my complaints about this novel can fall into this as well. Even things like racism or sexism can help sell a setting or character if handled properly. This just felt like a constant barrage of stupidity and vileness for no real reason. I was so bored reading this novel and every chapter felt like it dragged on forever. I am so glad that this is done and over with.

Now, what is coming up next? More challenge stuff honestly. Most of my audiobooks are just that. Challenge books that I need for what ever challenge I am focused on at that moment. I usually only have one or two downloaded at a time and it's not as easy to swap them out mid walk.

Heroine Complex
It has a demonic cupcake on the cover. Surely that is a good sign right?

As for physical books I have this giant stack of manga 15 books high including 5 omnibus editions that I need to tackle.

Ahh yes, same cell but now there is talk of marriage. Again, perfect place and timing. Talk about priorities.

This book is not making it easy to like it. It's an engaging book and I'm digging it and then it does something utterly stupid. Like lets have sexy times while in a cell deep in the enemy base instead of escaping, saving the other prisoners, saving their friends, etc, etc, etc. Nope sexy times are more important. Just stupid.

Holy cow it's so smokey here today. The last few days have been various degrees of smokey but today is just yellow. It's so bad out there.

Good luck today and have a ton of fun.

Yah, happy fanboy/girling all around this morning.

I've never cosplayed in my life but Vash was one of the few characters I ever considered cosplaying. For those that are curious this is Vash

This might be exciting for only me but meh...

Dark Horse Comics announced that they are giving the Berserk treatment to Trigun. You guys may have noticed me slowing working on the Berserk Deluxe Editions over the last couple years and they are beautiful books. They are three volumes in one and run from 6-700ish pages. They are blown up from the original tankoban size to an 11"x14" page size with a leather bound hardcover. If you are a fan of the series these are beautiful books. The original Trigun series will be in one book coming out in December and then Trigun Maximum, the sequel series will be starting next year.

This has some extra meaning for me as well. Berserk was the series that got me into Manga and Trigun was the series that got me into anime. I've wanted to read the series that the anime was based on but it's hard to find. I wonder if it's to early to request that the library buy a copy?

https://twitter.com/DarkHorseComics/s...

The challenge book is done and that was such an awful read. My first 1 star book this year and it earned that rating with great gusto. Thankfully it's Friday and I've got a great stack of books I know I'll like lined up for next to purge this nasty thing from my mind.

I think the odds are stacked in my favor on this one. It's a Canadian publishing company and a Canadian author. Libraries here like to carry Canadian content for obvious reasons so it's stacking the odds in my favor. That being said it's a bit of a long shot so I won't be surprised if it gets shot down.