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Merissa (12066 KP) rated Betrayed (The Emrys Chronicles #2) in Books

Jul 5, 2021 (Updated Jul 17, 2023)  
Betrayed (The Emrys Chronicles #2)
Betrayed (The Emrys Chronicles #2)
E.E. Everly | 2020 | Romance, Science Fiction/Fantasy
8
8.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
BETRAYED is the second book in The Emrys Chronicles and Einion is now all grown-up. Catrin has changed from his aunt to someone who sees him as a man, and it leaves him very confused. A time apart sounds like a good thing, but then along comes Rhianu to confuse him even further.

I didn't enjoy this one as much as book one. There are reasons for this, so let me explain. First of all, the thing with Catrin and Einion. I don't know, but this just didn't work from the start for me. I found myself losing patience with both of them. Maybe because I knew they wouldn't be together? I don't know. The other was the angels. I understand what the author was going for, but that word just seemed out of place amongst all the dragons. And finally, Aerona. She flipped too quickly for me. For so long saying one thing, and then changing her mind on the flip of a coin.

Now I've said that, let me say this. I DID enjoy this book. It is full of action and adventure, light and darkness, and choices to be made. I thought Einion was a great character, all too real with his worries and concerns about doing a job to the best of his abilities. I liked Catrin in Ahnalyn’s book, so I'm hoping once I read hers, I'll be back on the same wavelength again. Meinwen is another fantastic character.

This was a good addition to the series that moved the overall story arc forwards. I enjoyed it and recommend it.

** same worded review will appear elsewhere **

* A copy of this book was provided to me with no requirements for a review. I voluntarily read this book, and the comments here are my honest opinion. *

Merissa
Archaeolibrarian - I Dig Good Books!
Jul 5, 2021
  
AT
After the End (After the End, #1)
Amy Plum | 2014 | Fiction & Poetry
8
8.0 (2 Ratings)
Book Rating
[After The End] by [Amy Plum] has a deceptive tile because it leads you to think it is an dystopian novel. Although I love those books this was a welcomed surprise. It turned into more of an action/adventure with a little coming of age thrown in for good measure.

[Plum] did an excellent job of developing a creative, fearless, intelligent character in Juneau. Although she is naive do to lack of exposure she know how to survive. Her loyalty to family even though they hurt her is endearing.

Miles, on the other hand, is a spoiled rotten brat who has had the easy life. He starts out for his own gain but what he really gains is a new insight about life and love.

This story has some supernatural aspects but over all is more of an exciting journey of discovery for two young people who have a lot to learn from each other.
  
The Lost Expedition
The Lost Expedition
2017 | Adventure, Card Game, Exploration
El Dorado – the lost city of gold. Many have searched for this fabled civilization, but none have prevailed… yet. Gather up your team of experts and pack your bags for the jungle – you’re headed on an adventure! Can you find the path to this lost city and get there alive? Or will the encounters of the wilderness prove to be too much to handle? Only one way to find out….

Disclaimer: The Lost Expedition can be played cooperatively, solo, or head-to-head. This review only covers the cooperative version of the game! -L

The Lost Expedition is a cooperative (in this case) game of strategy and hand management in which players are trying to traverse the jungle to reach El Dorado by carefully managing their Resources and utilizing their collective Expertise. To setup the game, choose 3 explorers to form your team, and collect 3 Ammunition and 4 Food from the supply tokens. Shuffle the adventure cards, dealing 4 to every player, placing the remainder in a face-down draw deck. Depending on the difficulty selected, place the corresponding number of Expedition cards in a row on the table (we played Normal mode, using 9 Expedition cards). Place 4 Health tokens on each explorer card, place the phase token with the Morning side up, select a starting expedition leader, and the game is ready to begin.

Each round consists of 2 phases: Morning and Evening. During the Morning phase, players will take turns playing adventure cards from their hand, one at a time, until each player has played 2 cards. This line of cards forms the path that the explorers are traveling in the morning. After all cards have been played, they will be rearranged in numerical order, from lowest to highest. Once the cards are organized, they will be resolved one at a time, from lowest to highest, until all cards have been addressed. Examples of card actions are: discarding the next card in play, swapping two cards on the path, adding a new card to the end of the path, or moving the team pawn one card closer to El Dorado. Adventure cards have different colored boxes that indicate action choices that the players must make. Some actions are mandatory and must be completed. Some cards offer 2 or more choices, one of which must be selected and performed to clear the card. And some cards have optional choices, that do not have to be completed for the card to be resolved. Certain actions will require the team to gain/spend Resources tokens or Expertise from your explorers (in the form of Health tokens). At the end of the Morning phase, the team loses 1 Food token, and play continues to the Evening phase.


During the Evening phase, the gameplay is like that of the Morning with a couple of changes. Players again will alternate playing cards, but will play until all remaining cards in their hand have been played. Cards in the Evening phase are resolved in the order that they are played, and are not organized numerically like in the Morning phase. Again, after all cards are played, they will be resolved one by one as normal, paying Resources/Expertise as required. Once the Evening phase is finished, the team loses 1 Food token, players draw a new hand of cards, select another expedition leader, and a new round begins with the Morning phase. Play continues in this fashion until either the players have reached El Dorado, all 3 of the team’s explorers have died (have no remaining Health tokens), or if the adventure card draw deck runs out 2 times during play.
Pretty straight-forward, right? Play cards, resolve cards, repeat. That is one thing I really like about The Lost Expedition – it is simple, yet so strategic. Ultimately this is a game of Resource/Expertise management. You need at least 1 explorer to make it to El Dorado alive. There is no reward without risk in this game. Couple that with the multiple action options on each card, and you’ve really got to have a strategy. Maybe you’re low on Ammunition, but in order to gain back some much-needed Health, you’ve got to spend Ammo. Or are you willing to deal damage to an explorer if it means the team can advance a card? There are so many things to consider, and so many ways in which you can strategize, and that keeps all players engaged.

That being said, players are not allowed to reveal the details of any cards in hand. So how can you best communicate with your team about what types of cards to play if you can’t tell them point-blank? That added aspect of working in a team creates some unique strategies in and of itself. Ultimately, the final decision comes down to the expedition leader for the round – but what if they choose the action you didn’t want? How can everyone help balance everyone else out? You really have to work together to be successful. The flip-side of that teamwork is that the game can be frustrating in some aspects. You never truly know what your teammates are going to play at any given time, and the card they choose could totally unravel your plan. Not being able to discuss the specifics of cards in your hand makes sense (because then why wouldn’t the team just have one collective hand of cards?), but it adds an element of randomness and luck to the game that seems counterintuitive to me. Playing the wrong card at the wrong time might just turn your team against you, and that undermines the spirit of the game.


Let’s touch briefly on components. The cards are nice, oversized, and sturdy. The artwork is colorful and thematically appropriate. All of the Resources tokens are thick cardboard, and the meeples are nice and chunky. All in all, good production quality overall.
So how do I really feel about The Lost Expedition? I think it’s ok. It is strategic and entertaining, with the added elements of teamwork and cooperation – you either win together or lose together. As a group, you’ve got to have an adaptable strategy and manage your resources as best you can. Is it a game that I love? No. But it’s one that will probably stay in my collection for a bit, before it moves on to someone who might see some hidden quality that I may have missed. If you want a nice and relatively simple team game to play, maybe check out The Lost Expedition. And if risk/reward or resource management isn’t your jam, then maybe keep looking beyond this one. Purple Phoenix Games give The Lost Expedition an eventful 6 / 12.
  
Questeros
Questeros
2021 | Card Game, Fantasy
You know that messed up deal when you are just chillin’ in the forest doing goblin-y things when you are caught and forced into a life of servitude by the king of the realm, and then when he needs someone to go on a dangerous quest he calls upon you, the now court jester, to fulfill said quest? Doesn’t that just chap your hide? Such is exactly the setting in which our hero(?) finds themselves in Questeros, or more fitting, Ero’s Quest (the solo adventure variant).

Ero is the goblin court jester from the open who has been “chosen” to quest about the land to rid it of the ne’er-do-wells of the realm. In this solo adventure mode of Questeros the player will be donning the visage and character of Ero as they travel about developing their skills and having encounters with powerful beings. It is up to the player to guide Ero through the kingdom and rid it of the foul that is plaguing it.

DISCLAIMER: We were provided a prototype copy of this game for the purposes of this review. These are preview copy components, and I do not know for sure if the final components will be any different from these shown. Also, it is not my intention to detail every rule in the game, as there are just too many. You are invited to download the rulebook, back the game through the Kickstarter campaign, or through any retailers stocking it after fulfillment. -T


To setup the solo game, fondly and ingeniously-named “Ero’s Quest,” follow the rulebook to divide the tarot cards into their specific stacks and splays so that it roughly imitates the photo below. Draw a hand of five cards from the deck and the game may begin.
On a turn the player has a choice of seven actions that may be performed in any order. Each action may only be performed once per turn and when the turn is over the final action is Rest. To use the Develop action the player will place a card from their hand onto the Blades, Staves, or Orbs stacks in next-numerical order. This increases Ero’s attack and spending power. To Puchase cards Ero will spend Orb cards to look at the spent Orb value worth of cards from the draw deck, add one to their hand, and place the others at the bottom of the draw deck. At times Ero will need to Forget cards from hand in order to make room for more cards to enter it via the Learn action. Forgetting simply discards cards from hand while learning draws cards into hand from the draw deck. Recover is used to stand any kneeling/turned/rotated cards into an unused state by destroying cards of higher value from hand. As stated previously, to Rest is to end the turn by discarding the top card of the draw deck to setup the next turn.

I purposely left out the final action choice, Encounter, for a specific reason. Ero’s Quest is won when the entire deck of 21 Encounter cards is defeated. Each of these cards depicts a person or persons that Ero meets in his travels. Some require Ero to give them cards in order to pass. Some require Ero to succeed in battle against them in order to progress. In either case, Ero will need to get through the entire deck before his draw deck runs out in order to win the game.

Battle in Ero’s Quest is turn-based, where the Encounter persona attacks first, thus handing Ero wounds immediately. Wounds are suffered by spending Cups cards in value of the wound taken. For example, the Assassin is a value of 12, so they immediately wound Ero for 12 damage at the start of the encounter. Ero will spend a value of 12 Cups cards to simulate damage taken. Ero may then attack with a combination of available Blades, Staves, and any Ally cards obtained – one of each per attack turn. If the Encounter is defeated, Ero lives on. If the Encounter is not yet defeated, the battle continues with the Encounter card dealing damage and Ero responding with damage until one is defeated.


As mentioned earlier, the Encounter deck contains 21 cards with six of these being combat encounters. Ero has a ton of work to do and when each turn requires a card to be discarded before a new round may begin, they also have an in-game clock ticking and ticking each turn. However, if Ero is able to Develop their skills and overcome all the Encounters, the game is won and Ero becomes a Hero.
Components. Again, this is a prototype copy of the game, and many items are not fully completed in this version. That said, what we were provided is a large stack of tarot-sized cards, a first player Ero token (for multiplayer games), and a large pad of scoring sheets (also for multiplayer use). The cards are great quality and feature some really excellent artwork (on the cards that have the completed artwork on them). I do like the art style employed here, as I am a fan of fantasy themes, and I know that the game will probably ship with similar iconography, but may also be color-coded for ease of reference. All in all I believe Questeros is headed in the right direction for components, and a successful Kickstarter campaign may improve that even further.

The gameplay for the solo adventure of Ero’s Quest is really decent and engaging. So often I have found myself crunching numbers in my head and attempting to utilize my horrible card-counting “skills” to determine my next actions to take. Turns can be very intense and fruitful, or very frustrating and minimal, especially when you are waiting to draw that 3 of Blades so you can place it on the 2 of Blades sitting there, but it just won’t come up. And here you are sitting with the 4, 5, and 6 of Blades in hand and a Necromancer staring right at you awaiting combat. That is the definition of frustrating, but games usually take less than an hour, so even if an entire game is chock full of these turns, you can always setup a new game quickly and hope for better luck.

I like this one. I really do. It is interesting, has a great theme, so many delicious choices, and multiple ways to use the cards for game modes or tarot decks or even RPG FATE decks! On versatility alone I would rate this one high. If you are looking for a little card game to satisfy your mid-weight solo thirst, then check out Questeros. If you need a tarot game in your collection (as I look at mine and see no others), consider this one. It takes up very little shelf space, but looks great on the table and offers a great little solo experience. I have yet to beat the solo adventure, but Ero is calling my name for another go, and I might just have to give in. Again. And again.
  
Sharknado: The 4th Awakens (2016)
Sharknado: The 4th Awakens (2016)
2016 | Horror
6
7.4 (5 Ratings)
Movie Rating
In what is become an annual event for Sy the latest in the Sharknado series titles “Sharknado: The 4th Awakens”, delivers more of the cheesy one-liners, highly improbable situations, bad acting, celebrity cameos, and chintzy visual effects that have made the series a pop culture mainstay.

The latest installment picks up five years after the events of the previous film with star Fin Sheppard (Ian Ziering), in Las Vegas to meet his son. Thanks to a new technological breakthrough that dissipates the storms, there has not been a Sharknado in over five years which is causing fin great concern as he believes they are long overdue.

When the storm mysteriously emerges despite numerous attempts dissipated, the Las Vegas strip and several high-end hotels are subjected to the bloody carnage that is caused by a storm filled with all manner of sharks.

Fin and his crew naturally leapt into action to save the day and using all manner of material that is at hand from tourist attractions to fireworks attempts to save the day.

As the situation unfolds there appears to be more than just a random storm behind the latest outbreak which sets Fin on a breakneck mission to save the day.

If you have followed any the previous films in the series you know what to expect. There will be one outrageous scenario after another with multiple celebrity cameos popping up rapidly throughout the film.

The action sequences trip more cheese than the Stadium Nacho Bar and many of the one-liners and acting performances are so bad the groan inducing. The thing about the series is that director and series stalwart Anthony C, Ferrante knows what the audience expects and delivers it with a big wink and smile that lets them know that he’s in on the game.

While from a technical standpoint there’s much that somebody could find fault with in films, that would be missing the point of the series as it is an over-the-top and ludicrous adventure series that does not take itself too seriously and instead attempts to have fun in the most outrageous ways possible.

The film sets the next film in the series very well and don’t be surprised if next summer you find yourself glued in front of the television watching the next installment in what has become an absolute ratings gold mine for the network.

http://sknr.net/2016/07/31/skarknado-4th-awakens/