Friday, March 15, 2024

Book Review - The Clockwork Scarab

I received an advanced reader's copy of The Clockwork Scarab ages ago, but somehow it slipped through the cracks. I remembered being intrigued by the overall premise—young female relations of Sherlock Holmes and Bram Stoker taking on a mystical mystery in a steampunk London. It sounded like fun. I finally cracked the cover and dove in but I found myself struggling to stay as interested as I would have liked.

The overall premise is intriguing. The development left me wanting more. The story is presented in first-person narration by Evaline Stoker and Mina Holmes as they pass the storytelling narrative back and forth between one another from chapter to chapter. The alternating narrative does help with the sometimes uneven delivery of plot elements since jumping from one perspective to another (often within different locations and with different knowledge) explains why we get unsteady introductions of information and plot points. 

We learn that the Stoker family is actually a bloodline of vampire hunters and that Miss Stoker is a sort of hunter in training, still working her way up to being a full Slayer. Interestingly, it seems that her brother, Bram Stoker, isn't quite as involved in the realm of the supernatural. He is merely writing what he considers to be fiction. Meanwhile, Miss Holmes is the niece of Sherlock Holmes, who is definitely a real character and not fiction. And although Miss Holmes has shown that she has intelligence and deductive skills, she is still relegated to being kept apart from all things Holmesian. 

Wednesday, March 13, 2024

Let's try that again...not dead yet

I know I made a post like this ~18 months ago....the past year+ have been a little crazy.  I'm truly hopeful that it will work out this time and I can/will get back into a regular regimen of posting.


Thanks for anybody who's still visiting this blog.  I'll be dusting off cobwebs and making more posts soon.


As a side note, while the posts are certainly smaller, I have been posting with more regularity on my Instagram accounts...so feel free to hop over there for some updates.

Personal instagram = TheOkester

Board game related instagram = BountifulGaming


Thursday, September 29, 2022

Book Review - The Delusionist

As a child, there were a bunch of things I wanted to be when I grew up. High up on that list was the career of magician. That history alone had me interested in The Delusionist. As the synopsis outlines, this book is about a teenager named Quinn who has a lifelong goal of being a magician. He is working towards earning a spot at a super exclusive Magic summer camp but naturally there will be a few obstacles in the way.

Quinn generally performs magic with his best friend Perry and even though it seems clear that Quinn is the mastermind behind the magic, Perry is the outgoing crowd-pleaser who always gets everything right.  Quinn generally doesn't feel jealous or resentful of Perry but it's clear throughout the book that Quinn feels like he's a second class person, especially next to his best friend. As the camp audition rules arrive, the wording seems to suggest that they are looking for SOLO performers rather than group acts like the friends have. Quinn is both excited and a little sad about splitting up to try out.  At about this same time, the boys meet a girl that recently moved into town who also has a passion for magic. Watching her tricks, they are quickly in awe of her talent and it's clear that she could be their main competition in the camp tryout. Add to this that Quinn has an immediate crush on her and things are really starting to get complicated for this competition.

The book is filled with a lot of Quinn's inner monologues as he tries to work through his emotions and struggles with his feelings of inadequacies and doubt. His parents are supportive but they are super quirky and hyper involved in their performance project. And with Quinn's friend and hopefully-girlfriend as his main competition, Quinn is left to try and figure out the path forward on his own.

Still alive -- 9 months since the last post


Wow....has it really been 9 months since I last posted?  Some years/months I was better about making posts than others but I feel like this might be the longest outage between posts.  I don't know if anybody subscribes to this or even visits anymore.  I guess we'll see over time.  My page counter claims that I get between 250 and 300 pageviews each month so there's at least something that wanders by even if it's just an automated web crawler.

I started this blog back in 2004 with no real specific aim or goal originally.  I figured it would just be a random dumping ground for ideas, writing or whatever.  Over the years it's morphed a little bit and has been filled with personal updates about myself and my family, creative writing, travelogs, reviews about movies/books/boardgames/theatre/videogames  or just random sharing of Internet minutiae and memes.

I'm not sure if I'll actually get this up and running again with any sort of consistency or momentum but for now I'm stopping by to say I'm still alive.  Back when I first started this blog, I had been married less than a decade and we had 3 very young children (one was less than a year at the time). My wife and I celebrated our 25th anniversary last year and all of our kids have graduated high school (one is married and the youngest just started attending college).  I did finally graduate with that English major and I still work in software even though I don't really love the field. 

I'll think about posting more updates later...even if just for the unknown human posterity who might stumble on this and find it interesting.

Thanks for sticking around.  If you're still here, feel free to drop a note and say "HI"

Tuesday, December 28, 2021

Books Reviewed in 2021


Each year I try to read and review a bunch of books. Some years I do better than others. Some years life gets too crazy and I either don't read as much as I'd like, or I don't write reviews on as much, or a combination of both.

Below are the books reviewed during this year.

Here are links to the past few years (202020192018201720162015201420132012201120102009)


  1. The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, and the Horse
  2. Codename Danger: Unmasking a Villain
  3. The Pillars of the Earth
  4. Real vs Rumor: How to Dispel Latter-Day Myths
  5. Dandelion Wine

Friday, December 10, 2021

Board Game Review - Viscounts of the West Kingdom

I recently had a fun time learning Viscounts of the West Kingdom from Garphill Games and Renegade Game Studios. This is the third in the "West Kingdom" series and yet another amazing game from Shem Phillips.     

As with the other West Kingdom games, players strive to earn the most victory points by hiring various workers and using their resources to advance their goals. Similar to the first two games, you must work to build a deck of workers that will best help ensure you have the right resources and influence to carry out the tasks at the right time.    

Available actions are determined by moving your Viscount figure around a Rondel that outlines a specific path around the board. The amount you can move depends on which worker you play on your turn (though you can adjust this slightly by paying coins or building a certain building). When your Viscount ends movement, you are presented with a handful of different actions. 

Friday, September 24, 2021

Book Review - Dandelion Wine

When I think of Ray Bradbury, I usually think of science-fiction or at least fantastical-fiction. Dandelion Wine captures the magic and fantastical of his other writing but it does so in a much more subtle manner. 

This book is a story of the summertime adventures of Douglas Spaulding, a 12-year old boy in the small town of Green Town, Illinois in 1928. Douglas' experiences vary wildly in scope and nature but from a high level, they could mostly be considered fairly ordinary. And yet, Bradbury weaves them into magical tales of growth and imagination. 

The title of the book comes from the story of Douglas' grandfather bottling dandelion wine throughout the summer and Douglas presenting it as a metaphor for bottling up the various experiences and memories of each summer day. Each golden bottle represents a different memory, tucked away to be retrieved and savored at a later date.