General

bogo wrote:
Cool how your finishes are going in order of mission 1, 2, 3, 4, etc.

again, you all need to step it up. i forgot to update after two books ago because nobody else is reading

Finished up:
-Eye of the Pharaoh: Black Ocean: Mercy For Hire, Mission 8 by J.S. Morin
-Ship with no name: Black Ocean: Mercy For Hire, Mission 9 by J.S. Morin

Work, kids, Baulders Gate 3 has consumed my life. I have so many things to read too. The struggle is real. I just need to get another audio book for my commute.

I've been reading a super long book, for example Eye of the Pharaoh, that's only 185 pages according to Good Reads. If I were reading books that short I'd be way over my goal of 25 books.

I've actually been making good progress on a book recently, hoping to have it finished next week.

Finished Callahan's Crosstime Saloon yesterday. It's a series of humorous sci-fi adjacent vignettes that take place entirely in a bar with a lot of the same barflies involve. What a charming read. Never heard of this book or author previously which surprised me since it has such a fun setting. Apparently there are 9 more of these. Probably something I'll sprinkle in over the next few years when I need something light.

I'm most of the way through 2 other books so I'll be posting again within the next couple weeks.

Started Lockwood and Co book 1. Loved the Netflix series (boo they canceled it) and the book has been fantastic so far. I'm listening to it on my commute.

Kommie wrote:

It's called gaming the system lol

bogo wrote:

Sounds like someone from the Beat A Game Thread purposely playing short games to "win" no prize at all

I mean, it just happens to be an entertaining series that has a lot of shorter books.

and on that note: finished up No More Mr. Nice Girl: Black Ocean: Mercy For Hire, Mission 10 by J.S. Morin

What Is This Thing Called Love? - Gene Wilder - Series of short stories centered on love/romance. Some are relatively tender, some are humorous, some appear to semi-biographical. Each story is pretty light and the book is a breeze to get through. Gene Wilder is charming as ever the more I read him.

I finished up Milky Way Coalition by GameTZ very own Yoda5. Humorous sci-fi romp. Influence from Hitchhiker's Guide is very evident.

I am giving this book away to the first user on here who posts that they are interested. The only requirement is that you guarantee that you will read it and pass it on once completed.

Heir to the Empire (book 1 of the the Thrawn Trilogy). This takes place about 5 years after Return of the Jedi and has Luke, Leigha, Han, etc starting another adventure against the Empire. Came out in 1991, I first read it around 2008, and just listened to the Audible version which is awesome because there are plenty of sound effects added in.

Heard a lot o good things about heir to the empire recently with Mandalorian and Ahsoka touching quite a bit on that vein.

Also, i finished up:
-Magic's Little Helper: Black Ocean: Mercy For Hire, Mission 11 by J.S. Morin
-Mortanian Rhapsody: Black Ocean: Mercy For Hire, Mission 12 by J.S. Morin

[Citation Needed] The Best of Wikipedia's Worst Writing - Conor Lastowka
Didn't enjoy this at all. I'm all for snarkiness and poking fun where its due, but this fell completely flat for me. None of the jokes/quips landed. Some of the Wikipedia entries had obvious reasons for some of the info. I'm usually a fan of Lastowka among rifftrax, podcasts etc. but this was a complete miss for me.

Lockwood and Co The Screaming Staircase by Jonathan Stroud. Onto book 2....

I am listening to them from audible while I drive to and from work. The voice work on book 1 was fantastic... the person doing book 2 annoys me because she makes a nasaly female voice for George and sometimes it's hard to tell who is speaking because she doesn't really change her voice. Man I hope she doesn't do more of these... I will probably look before buying the audible version of book 3 unless I somehow get used to it.

back4more wins, sinnie well into extra credit territory

I'm counting myself up two books, I don't even care crap was over a thousand pages. Bleach 3-in-1, picked up the first two collections, takes you up to Rukia getting arrested by Soul Society. Honestly... I thought the manga would be a bit faster paced than this? This is basically Episode 1-15 of the show, so for six volumes, was pretty surprised. Still, you can finish that in a couple evenings without feeling like a slug, so it's probably still the best way to check out the story. And the price is right, 15 bucks a book, sometimes they go on sale and obviously if you're turning bing points into amazon bucks it's even better. That's all I use that credit for now, taking a third of the price off these, even better than Kindle Rewards bonus bucks.

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Finished up two books this weekend. next in the big series was: The Girls Are Back in Town: Black Ocean: Mercy For Hire, Mission 13 by J.S. Morin

Also finished up the latest book in the series that the wife and I listen to on long drives: The Hollow Crown by Jeff Wheeler

Made dents in both next books as well...too much time in the car this weekend

Haven't been online much recently...but finished up another couple:

Stuck in the Astral with You: Black Ocean: Mercy For Hire, Mission 14 by J.S. Morin
Lair of the Dog: Black Ocean: Mercy For Hire, Mission 15 by J.S. Morin

only one left in this series and I'm already half way through it. After this is over, i think i'll try to do knock out a one off book before jumping to another series

and i officially finished up the last one: Empathy for the Devil: Black Ocean: Mercy For Hire, Mission 16 by J.S. Morin

Comedy Bang! Bang! The Podcast: The Book - Scott Aukerman
Fun, silly and completely ridiculous. I'm a fan of the show so I definitely enjoyed it and found myself laughing out loud at some items. Some really great formats/ideas for some of the well-known characters. Loved the involvement from many of the show regulars as multiple characters. If' you aren't familiar with the show/characters I imagine this would be a mess of random nonsense.

Finished Lockwood and Co Book 2. I might take a break and listen to the Harry Potter series. I read them years ago, but supposedly the narrator who does the books is amazing and I keep seeing all these raves about it.

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1746 more pages. The last two pages of Naruto was Naruto hunched over in furry mode and he's like "I'll kill you", I was like sick, that's three words in two pages, I'm not fluffing my page count at all with this crap. I was gonna start buying up Ranma 1/2 but three strikes; one, it's 2-in-1 instead of 3 at the same price as the 3-in-1s. Two, half of it's out of print and digital only. Three, and most importantly

fudge that noise.

Finished up the next car ride book with my wife: The Silent Shield by Jeff Wheeler

only one more left in that series before we have to find another

While I might have beaten my goal here, I forgot I had set a goal of 20 books for 2023 on Goodreads. So I am only about halfway there, lol.
I ended up starting Finding Me: Viola Davis. I love her so much as an actress and I'm currently 1/3 of the way through the book and it's apparent her upbringing is why she has such a range and can play so many hard/damaged characters so well but also STRONG characters.

It reminds me of part of an interview about Woody Harrelson and why he was chosen to play Mickey Mallory in Natural Born Killers. Supposedly it relates to people "having" a demon, which is a common theme in the movie. Woody's dad was a character (supposedly an assassin and super abusive. I need to look for a book on that dude I think.) So coming from that sort of upbringing puts a taint or mark on a person. While Viola doesn't quite have it to that extent, she has a lot of abuse (including racial) from her childhood that resonates with me, simply because "that's how it was in those times." I find that I cannot ever understand fully if people hated me just because of the color of my skin, but I absolutely can understand extreme poverty she speaks of and physical and emotional abuse from family members. Having that sort of thing in your life from an early age tends to fudge you up for life, whether you can hide it well or not. I find myself thinking about my mother and the deep dark family secrets I learned after she died and I'm glad she never knew of them.

Anyway, TLDR don't fudge up your children.

Finished Finding Me by Viola Davis. Man I just love her. I'm gonna have to re-watch some of her stuff. I listened to the audio book (read by her so that was nice) but was surprised to see color photos at the end of the book. Nice touch.

On to Stephanie Land's Maid -- loved the Netflix series so I'm gonna read her books.

Finished up The Icarus Hunt by Timothy Zahn. an interesting Sci-Fi space whodunnit. I guessed the 'who did it' pretty early on, but they threw another twist at the end that I didn't see coming, so that was cool.

Finished up The Last Novel by David Markson. I can't say I've ever read anything like this. Not sure I understood what he was going for.

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3600 give or take a few hundred pages into my picturebook, very proud

finished Mission Clockwork by Arthur Slade; book one of a new series

historical fiction in Victorian era London with some sci-fi/fantasy elements. interesting concepts and I can see this really jumping the shark by the last book

hobbes21 wrote:
Different how? What's it about?

DarkFact wrote:
How's the manga?

I might or might not have skipped to the very last episode of Bleach recently. I didn't intend on watching it anyway. Figured might as well.

nonamesleft wrote:
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I plan on watching Thousand Year War or whatever the new show is so I need to actually start to finish it, either by anime or manga. Manga is great! Awesome art, OKAY pacing, still not done with Soul Society by volume 12 (fourth 3-in-1) but I think it'll be over in the next one. Action is very, very well represented in this manga, in opposition to say Demon Slayer which is nearly incomprehensible. I have no idea what I'm looking at in that series on paper. Interesting to see quite a bit of the filler in the show is also filler in the manga. Bleh

I love these 3-in-1s! Great value, tied with Microsoft points rewards each three volumes is down to like $10 as singles, which outside of occasional full set sales from Amazon (just got Demon Slayer and Chainsaw Man for $130, that's about four bucks a book). Great way to read it if you're interested. Probably gonna finish Bleach and Dragon Ball with these.

Haven't posted in a while but have finished some stuff:

The Traitor Baru Cormorant
Howling Dark
Vita Nostra
Queen Amid Ashes

DarkFact wrote:
I wasn't sure if I'd watch thousand year war. But now that I saw the ending of the original, maybe.

Interesting what you mentioned about the action being representated well. I'm actually in middle of reading Demon Slayer. I don't find it to be particularly confusing, but I also haven't watched much of it, so it's not like I can compare watching it vs reading it.

I thought $10 a book was standard pricing, no?

$4 per book is amazing, especially if it's brand new. Good deal.

Dragonball. Ah, the nostalgia. So good.

nonamesleft wrote:


For single volumes yes, 3-in-1s are typically 15 out the door retail. Which is already a much better deal for obvious math reasons

The action on screen works so much better than on paper, I look at crap like this and I'm like "The fudge is even happening"

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Yep, one of those things where I was like "Well, l want Demon Slayer and I want Chainsaw Man, so." It's funny, they both had their own plastic bags and they like, taped them together and delivered it within 4 hours of me placing the order, like they had it in town just for me or something haha :|

nonamesleft wrote:

Kinda hard to explain without looking at the actual book. The entire thing is a collection of 1-2 sentence quips and anecdotes about historical figures/actors/painters. It's almost like a stream of conscience of random non-sensical facts that ever so gradually outline the thoughts of the so-call "Narrator". It's a really strange 150 pages and I'm not really sure why I read it.

Below is an excerpt taken from a completely random page:

hobbes21 wrote:
Hmmm. Definitely different. Like you said, I don't know what to make of it.

DarkFact wrote:
Now that I think about it, although I think I understand what's going on it that scene, it is depicted in a strange way.

Both sets delivered within 4 hours? Wow. Yeah, sounds like it was placed there for you, just waiting for you to make the purchase.

finished up Dark Deeps by by Arthur Slade. two books in and they're already bringing in some fantastical elements. still expecting it to be way over the top by the end, and looking forward to it lol