Leman Russ: The Great Wolf by Chris Wraight Cover illustration by Mikhail Savier Published in 2016 Pages: 171 Genre: Science fiction, military fiction “The night was clear of cloud, lit only by a scatter of blue-white stars above the towering flanks of Krakgard.” Leman Russ: The Great Wolf, by Chris Wraight, is the second book […]
via Leman Russ: The Great Wolf – Review — The Past Due Review
So I am rummaging thru Netflix and I come across this movie. Now I am a sucker for a wrestling movie, I used to be one. Then I see it has Roddy Piper in. I was a huge fan. There is no way I’m not watching this movie. opening credits end with “Inspired by a true story”. I am hardly convinced. So I watch the movie. But we will get to that,but I want to share this.
Yes for you book lovers, there is a book by Chris Whaley that the movie is based on, he also happens to be the Pastor/wrestler from the story. I have not read it, but it is something that is out there.
Now back to the movie. First, the acting is pretty good, better than I expected. I was honestly expecting some train wreck level acting like many of these style of “true story” movies have, but that isn’t the case.
The story itself is rather interesting, a retiring wrestler is injured after a shady promoter ( Piper) breaks his word and the new up and comer (The Reaper) intentionally breaks The Saints leg. When he takes over the new perish Chris discovers it is failing pretty hard as most of the people have abandoned it and it is mostly kept running due to one wealthy man and his donations that he will soon lose when he gets into a fight with him.
When Chris is invited to a wrestling event by a friend, coincidentally his former employees event, he prevents The Reaper from injuring his friend which gets him an invite back into the ring. Trust me, leaving the ring is not easy, and it never truly leaves your system. On the way home however he puts his mask on to stop a woman of the night from being mugged, and that is when things truly start to change.
I won’t get into too much more detail. The movie is however worth watching and unsurprisingly the wrestling segments are pretty well done. They don’t give away anything you honestly can’t google, but they don’t treat people like they are stupid either. We all know in 2018 the stuff is scripted and they don’t hide that and I appreciated that. So go give the saint a watch, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.
Dante’s Inferno, the first of his epic poem Divine Comedy (no not the way we know it like haha funny). The other 2 are called Purgatorio and Paradiso which as you can imagine if the Inferno is Dante traveling thru hell those are Purgatory and Heaven.. But those aren’t important right now.
Inferno is believe it or not a poem of Dante traveling the 9 circles of Hell, being guided by The Roman Poet Virgil. Each circle is dedicated to a different type of sinner. I don’t normally like to quote Wikipedia but if you are interested in the deeper things on how the poem is structured Divine Comedy isn’t a bad for a general idea.
The actual read while can be interesting is honestly a bit boring at times. This isn’t the kind of book you are likely to sit down and just read in one night for fun. Its good, but it is a dry read so to speak. You read it a bit at a time probably while drinking some coffee or like I did while I was at work. Its worth reading by the way, it just wasn’t a quick read. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.
One of my favorite books of all time even when I was younger is The Art of War, by Sun Tzu. The book is famous for being a military strategy guide discussing topics that range from how to use a spy properly to why capturing enemy supplies are worth far more than your own. However the book is also used by many other people in life. For a time many business people all over the world have read it for guidance.
Looking into the history of the book tho it becomes even more interesting. Sun Tzu wrote what even today is considered by many the greatest military book ever written. Its thirteen chapters weirdly don’t focus much on actual combat but how to make plans. Born around 545 BCE Sun Tzu was a Taoist that believed combat was at times unavoidable, but was the most dangerous thing the state could undertake and as such should be done only as a last resort and only when plans were meticulously planned.
What is also surprising to many, he may not have existed at all. More on that here. Some believe Sun Tzu was actually a title of a man in the Sun family ( I once read maybe Sun Wu but admittedly can’t remember where or how reliable it even was) and many people over the years have added to the book and left it under the name Sun Tzu.
Regardless of who wrote the book, over 2,500 years later lawyers, military generals, sports coaches and people in business still use it today. It is very much worth reading. Best wishes and may the gaming gods bring you glory.
When David Weber puts a book in your hands and tells you to read it, you do, and so here is my book report on my recent ARC of Valiant Dust by Richard Baker. In Valiant Dust, Sikander Singh North is an aristocrat-turned-soldier, off to begin his first mission on the Aquilan Commonwealth starship CSS […]
Sword in the Storm is book one of the Rigante series by David Gemmell and is the story of Connovar, the son of a dead man many believe to be a coward. This drives him to do many foolish and downright stupid things at times, but like Legend that i discussed in a previews review it is the starting point for an entire world full of people, cities all with different morals and cultures.
This book will take Connovar on an adventure from childhood to being a young adult on his way to eventually becoming the leader of his people. You will meet a ton of different people including a witch and what is this worlds version of a god, tho there are many variations of them. This one grant wishes but those wishes won’t always turn out how you want and are rarely given away for free, sort of like an old school genie. This series however does have a set order to them and you really do need to stick with that order to truly understand the story. Thanks for your time, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.
Legend is the first book by David Gemmell in what is known as the Drenai Saga. The story of this book is the drenai are under attack by people from the desert known as the the Nadir. As people gather to defend the wall from attack and await the hero, Druss the Legend. Intermixed with the story of war are many smaller stories about various people manning the wall along with plenty of back story for the world as a whole. You eventually find out that the Nadir are far from evil and actually are victims of many raids by the Drenai as well as other countries and powers. See the story with in this book actually builds for what will become an entire series based around many people and countries and in different time periods within the same world. You can actually read any of the Drenai saga books in any order you want,but I would recommend this one first. As always thanks for reading, and may the gaming gods bring you glory.
Savior Gaming 