Fairy Tale Spotlight: Machabees I [Book Review]

"Machabees I" is a book found within the "Douay-Rheims Bible," which is one of the Catholic Bibles. It's author is not known. The book is mostly a war story giving account to the famous Hanukkah story. Although the book is very good in its direct story telling, it is a bit lacking in the more spiritual narrative that is so common in the Bible.

That is not to say the book is bad. It isn't bad at all. I'd even say it is one of the best, but it doesn't give the spiritual context that other books about war does. When the Jews properly submit and humble themselves before God, God wins the battle for them. This is the same even in "Machabees I;" it just isn't explained as well. It focuses more on the war itself, telling of the battles in marvelous detail. You can gather the spiritual context from it if you are more familiar with the earlier war books.

Names of characters are often difficult to figure out. Everyone seems to like naming their son after themselves, causing the translation to not always be clear. It's always weird to have a character die and then immediately hear that same person doing something else (because it was really the man's son.) I've had that problem more than once with the Catholic Bible. It's not really a complaint as much as a little gripe.

One thing that I did love about the book was how absolutely hardcore the historical account was. When one nation wrote a letter to another, the book would simply show you the letter. It did this multiple times, making things very clear as to what was happening. This attention to detail was highly welcome.

They also went into a very enlightening description of Rome at the time. It almost made me want to visit them. As stated, the book did a great job at clarification, despite having some naming hiccups here and there.

Although I do like "Machabees I," and the battles were fairly exciting, I do see it as more of a simple history lesson and nothing more. It doesn't properly explain man's relationship to God, which was a big deal when it came to the Old Testament. If someone who knew nothing about God read this book first, they might not even notice why anybody would win or lose these battles. And for the latter reason, I don't really recommend the book without first going over the rest of the Old Testament. It'll just make more sense if you read it last. Not my cup of tea, but I don't regret reading it at all.

This blog was written on May 11, 2022.

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Fairy Tale Spotlight: The Sword in the Stone [Book Review]

[Some spoilers included.]

"The Sword in the Stone" is a novel written by T. H. White, and it was published in 1938. It was later adapted into an animated movie by Disney, which was what got me interested in this book. I do this a lot with Disney films. I'll even read movie adaptations if I can gain a greater insight into the story of the film. In this case, the movie came way after the book because World War 2 got in the way.

The story covers the early days of a boy who everyone is calling the Wart, but he is really just a young Arthur, who will inevitably become King Arthur after a particular event plays out. The bulk of the story is mostly about his adventures with his tutor named Merlyn, who is a magician who is living his long life completely backwards.

The book differs from the movie quite a bit. The biggest loss for me was the lack of the squirrel scene from the film. I was really hopping that was in the book to give me more insight into it. I love that scene, and it was really the reason I wanted to read the book. Despite this sad reality, the Wart still gets turned into a lot of different animals, and many of them were fascinating experiences.

Probably the most notable transformation in the book was when the Wart asks to be turned into an ant. This one chapter actually played out very similarly to the book "Nineteen Eighty-Four." The similarities are so stark, that I actually wonder if Orwell read this book first! I have no way of knowing though.

One somewhat annoying thing about this book is the author's obsession with birds. The Wart gets turned into birds more than any other animal. Although the birds of prey were very interesting and entertaining, he went a little too far with the goose chapter. It's sort of just there. I got bored with it frankly. I do get the idea that the author really loves geese and just couldn't help himself.

My final disappointment with the book came by way of different versions. There are a couple different versions of this book where the author added some stuff and took others away. Apparently, the version I got, a revision done in 1958, did not have the "Madam Mim" witch chapter. It was a very big portion of the movie, and I am a little irritated that I did not get to read about it. Apparently the added material was the ant and goose episodes. Although the ant section was brilliant, I would have rather seen the bit about the witch. Why did he drop it?!

All in all, I am left with a feeling of disappointment. The book is still good. I did like most of what I read, but the fact that the author fiddled around with his work in such an annoying way makes it hard to recommend this one. If there was a supreme version that included all of his chapters, then that would make it worth it, but breaking up your own story for no reason like this just makes things a chore. That said, the movie was the reason I even bothered to read this, and it is brilliant. I'd recommend seeing that over the book at this point.

This blog was written on May 8, 2022.

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Fairy Tale Spotlight: Baruch [Book Review]

"Baruch" or "The Prophecy of Baruch" is a book found within the "Douay-Rheims Bible," which is one of the Catholic Bibles. It was written by Baruch who was... kinda like a secretary for Jeremiah. And if this book is to be believed, he was also a prophet himself.

In many ways, this book feels like an extension of the books by Jeremiah that were in the King James Version that I read earlier. This book is a powerful, heavy-hitting piece of literature about how stupid people in the Old Testament were... and why they deserved to be taken over by Babylon. That said, it does end up being slightly redundant.

But I was particularly curious about this one. I was surprised to find out that Baruch even had a book. In fact, it was this book that made me want to dust off the extra books from the Catholic Bible. It didn't really disappoint. I liked it. He definitely had the angry spice of the guy he worked for.

What I didn't expect was that he was considered a prophet too. That's a little weird. A prophet working for a prophet? I am a little bit skeptical. Could it be that he was just parroting the things he was hearing from Jeremiah? There's nothing wrong with that, if that's what he was doing, but that wouldn't make him a prophet. Either way, I don't actually know. This paragraph was more speculative than anything.

There were a couple things that popped out to me. There was a passage that suggested that one of the sins was that parents were eating the flesh of their children for some reason. This is seriously difficult to imagine, but it's not below the sinful people of the time. They were also burning their babies alive, so I rather think it was probable.

The book also talks about the giants that walked the earth. He mentions that they were experts at war. God did not like them and made it so that they would perish. I always like it when these giants are mentioned.

There was also an interestingly written prophecy of Christ. He speaks of Jesus in the past tense as if he has already shown up and walked among us. This is actually not incorrect if he is really receiving the message from God himself, since God has a different perspective of the whole story of humanity. The tense of this reads like this: "Afterwards he was seen upon the earth, and conversed with men." Note that this was written within the Old Testament.

The final chapter of the book seems to be a letter from Jeremiah about how stupid it is to worship lifeless idols. It's pretty straightforward and logical. A good read, all in all. I recommend "Baruch" honestly. It's about a 30 minute read, and no reason to skip something so severely written. Good stuff.

This blog was written on April 29, 2022.

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Fairy Tale Spotlight: Ecclesiasticus [Book Review]

"Ecclesiasticus" is a book found within the "Douay-Rheims Bible," which is one of the Catholic Bibles. It was written by a man named Jesus who was the son of a man named Sirach. This is not to be confused with Jesus Christ of the New Testament. The names are simply the same, but the men are different.

Right off the bat, this book was a weird one. It had a prologue that was not broken down onto chapter and verse. The prologue was about its translation, and I did not find it particularly interesting. It made some remark about it not sounding as good as if it was in the Hebrew tongue. Whatever.

So... this is a long book. Very long. It took me about 4 hours to read, but because of my Bible reading schedule, it killed the better part of a month. After going from one end to the other, I rather feel that the book is a bit redundant to be included in the Bible at all. That is not to say that it is missing good material, but that much of the material can already be found in many other places in the Bible, namely Ecclesiastes, Proverbs, and much of the epistles of the New Testament.

"Ecclesiasticus" is a big, fat book with advice. It covers almost every topic. It's all there, but like I said, this is all stuff that is found in many other places. But there are a few interesting bits and pieces I should mention. The author, Jesus, really likes wine. Like, it brings him a lot of happiness. Now, he isn't getting drunk off of it, for that would be a bad thing. But he pretty much heavily encourages you to drink it to bring you some kind of joy. To be honest, I've drunk wine before, and it didn't bring me anything of the sort. Even though the talk against gluttony is here, I still think this is more of this man's opinion on wine than anything else.

The book does seem to include a small prophecy of Jesus Christ in one of the chapters. It's probably the most original part of the whole book. The rest of it is simple advice and concludes with praises for various saints that have lived up to that point. I rather liked the latter selections. And also, where he gave much praise to Solomon for his wisdom, he still rebukes the man for falling into the very behaviors he spoke against. Good stuff.

All said, I'm not sure I needed four hours of this. It was boring, not because it wasn't interesting, but because I had gone over this stuff several times before. It was like back when I had to read the dimensions of the temple over and over again. It's redundant and therefore boring.

I wouldn't call the book bad. If its the only thing you read, then you're getting a lot of good advice, but do be clear that I think some of it is tainted with personal opinion. I would not at all say that this was inspired by the Holy Spirit, canon or not. I think this man is simply a good follower of God, and he wanted to preach about it. And he did. And it was good. But I have no reason to ever come back to this one again.

Read "Ecclesiasticus" only if you are a completionist like me. If you just want to know the material, the rest of the Bible will serve you just as well. Aside from that, I don't really recommend going through the trouble.

This blog was written on April 27, 2022.

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Fairy Tale Spotlight: The Four Diamonds [Short Story Review]

"The Four Diamonds" is a short story written by 14-year old Chris Millard. It was never published, although it is rather easy to find on the internet. A PDF version of the original paper written in cursive was made available by the Four Diamonds Fund at Penn State Hershey Children's Hospital. Although the original story was released to the public in 1973, I read the Seventh Edition which was released in 2002.

Chris Millard was a young boy who had cancer. Going through this trial was very difficult for him. He had many things that was expected of him at the hospital. To deal with these trials, he wrote a short story about Sir Millard who went out questing from Camelot. During this quest, he runs into an evil witch called Raptenahad, who captures him almost instantly.

Raptenahad tells Sir Millard that if he performs certain tasks for him, she will give him one of four diamonds representing Courage, Wisdom, Honesty, and Strength. The story is Sir Millard's trial to obtain these diamonds and break free from the curse of the evil witch.

I don't want to spoil the bulk of the story, but it is extremely well written for a mere child. He tells a strong and interesting story that is worth experiencing. It wasn't easy to read though, since the entire story is only available in cursive. It also contains all of Chris' mistakes as well as little notes made by his teacher at the time. It is definitely a strange way to read a story, but I suppose teachers at the time had to do this on a daily basis. Someone had to anyways.

It wasn't really that much of an imposition. The story is only 20 pages, and some of those pages are full page illustrations. It's actually really short. The cursive only slows it down slightly.

Interesting factoid: this story was made into a Disney movie. It only premiered on the Disney Channel in 1995, and I did see it. I never really forgot it. I may have remembered it wrong, but it seemed in the movie that Chris dies before he can finish the story, but the actual story is finished. If the movie really did play out like that, they did it to romanticize the story more than was needed.

"The Four Diamonds" is recommended by me. It's not hard to obtain, It's free, and it's short. You just have to stare at cursive for about twenty minutes, and that's the worst of it. This is a wonderful story that was written to deal with a terrible situation, and I am glad this boy left a legacy for other cancer patients to experience after he died in 1972. Rest in peace, Chris.

Click HERE to download/read the story.

This blog was written on April 21, 2022.

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Fairy Tale Spotlight: Unidentified Flying Oddball [Book Review]

"Unidentified Flying Oddball" is a book written by Vic Crume and published in 1979. It was an adaptation of the Disney movie, which in turn was an adaptation/spoof of Mark Twain's "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court." And right off the bat, I want to say how absolutely horrible the name of this book and that movie is. I just need to get this out there. "Unidentified Flying Oddball" is the most ridiculous, stupid, and inappropriate title to represent what is actually in the story. The movie has actually had a different title based on where it was released. The other title was "A Spaceman in King Arthur's Court," which is a waaaaaay better title and is a good callback to its inspiration. Whoever had the idea to give it its current name is an idiot. He just is. I'm not taking it back.

Okay, now that I got that out of the way, the story here is about astronaut Tom Trimble and his look-alike android Hermes as they accidently go back in time in an experimental spacecraft. They end up in Camelot, much like Hank did in Mark Twain's book. Here they go on a brief adventure where different levels of technology clash in some very amusing ways. It is intended as a comedy, and it does a good job to amuse the reader.

The main villains are Sir Mordred and Merlin who are trying to plot a take over of the throne. This plotline is really where the story differs from Mark Twin's vision. But there are some aspects of the plot that do borrow from it, such as the false imprisonment of a man in order for Sir Mordred to do a land grab. The book still shows the problems with the mistreatment of peasants, but it never harps on it like Twain did. It keeps the mood fairly light and friendly.

I do enjoy the fun use of modern/futuristic tech that Tom uses to defeat Sir Mordred throughout the book. Some of the stuff he uses are probably not even possible, but I guess everyone back then thought NASA was capable of anything... even laser pistols. It did not bother me. It was fun seeing clever Merlin take to the technology with his natural cleverness.

So let me lay it out for you: This book is silly. It is not to be taken seriously, and to be honest, it's not really that great an alternative to the movie. Having experienced both, I think the movie is just better. The book feels like it just kept to the movie's narrative with strictness, only sidestepping occasionally to explain what someone was thinking or feeling. There's no reason to read the book if you have seen the movie, but I still think the movie is better in this case.

"Unidentified Flying Oddball" is not recommended if you can get your hands on the film. I have no regrets in reading it though. Sometimes movie adaptation books are based on original scripts which can cause it to have new scenes or better insights into what is going on. The "Return to Oz" book and "Tron" are good examples of this happening, but it doesn't always work out, and this is a good example of that. But seriously guys, why the heck did they pick that stupid title?!

This blog was written on April 17, 2022.

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Fairy Tale Spotlight: The Wonder City of Oz [Book Review]

[Contains spoilers for a book nobody reads anymore.]

All right! Let's do this!

"The Wonder City of Oz" is the thirty-forth book in the Oz series originally created by L. Frank Baum. It is the first to be written by John R. Neill, best known for being the series illustrator since the second book. This book was published back in 1940.

The story tells about a girl named Jenny Jump from New Jersey who encounters a leprechaun. After briefly capturing it, she persuades the leprechaun to give her fairy powers, which he does. She has the ability to see fairy things, but must impressive is her ability to stomp her foot and jump as high and far as she wishes to. In fact, she manages to jump all the way to Oz.

The celebrities of Oz are able to predict her arrival, but they are also able to predict her bad temperament. Jenny has a bad temper, which drives her to do some rather rough stuff in the story, as well as bully a Munchkin boy named Number Nine for most of the book.

The story deals with a number of plotlines:

1. Jenny persuades Ozma to hold an "ozlection" to see if they will vote for Ozma again or for Jenny who also wants to be queen.

2. Jenny finds a turn-style that can actually create new clothing styles, and so opens a style shop in the Emerald City.

3. After some misadventures in one of the Ozoplanes from the previous book, Jenny finds out that some giant chocolate soldiers are planning to invade Oz, and so she has to try and warn Ozma of the coming danger.

4. Towards the end of the book, Jenny throws a tantrum and lets all the animals in the zoo loose, which the people of Oz have to work together to round up.

5. There are a number of other plotlines mixed into this book, but I chose to mention the big ones. This book is a mixed bag full of ideas but are assembled in a somewhat undisciplined way.

Let's talk about what this book does right and what it does wrong. The five main countries in Oz have a particular color associated with them. For example: The Munchkin country prefer the color blue, the Emerald City likes the color green, and the Winkies like the color yellow. It had always been more of a preference for them, like as to the color they paint their houses and their clothing. But John went all out and had anything and everything from a region have their respective color: the trees, the water, the grass, and even the skin color of the natives. This is not only in stark contract to the earlier 33 books, but there is no way John could NOT have misunderstood it... because he was the illustrator that whole time. It's a terrible idea, and I don't like it at all.

Another thing that almost made me hate the book was the large amount of wacky, random nonsense that occurred throughout the book. Everything was alive. All inanimate objects were living breathing people, even the very houses you lived in. Even conceptual things such as musical notes and sound had a physical presence, giving you the ability to pluck the musical notes out of the air and reutilize them somehow. I spent the first several chapters of the book, not only frustrated, but angry. But then something hit me.

Have a look at the cover of this book down below. What does it look like to you? If you thought an old cartoon, then you'd be right. It is modeled after the popular cartoons of the era, and this story is an actual written narrative of a then modern cartoon. And once I realized what was going on, I started having fun. A LOT of fun. It was like I was watching an old bouncing Betty Boop style cartoon in my head while I read the story. That's never happened before, and dear Lord, I had a blast!

And there is no denying that this heavily breaks the canon of the older books, but I didn't care. I fell head over heels for the stylization of it. It was fun, humorous, and ever so clever. Neill did a great job at this, and it made me wish the cartoon was real.

The title of the book itself was an unfortunate mistake. When I first saw the title, I assumed that some characters were going to go traveling and find this new city. Unfortunately, the "Wonder City" only refers to the Emerald City itself. It was a lost opportunity to call the book "The Emerald City of Oz." That would have been a far more appropriate title. The whole book is about that city.

Apparently the "ozlection" plotline was not even written by Neill at all. It was added in by the publishers because they didn't think his book was interesting enough. I know that sounds really shitty, and it is, but it doesn't really hurt the story. I did find myself super interested in the whole event. I do wish the publishers had minded their own business though. I am more than ever convinced that Ruth Plumly Thompson was having problems in her latter stories after hearing about this.

There is a very controversial thing that happens at the very end of the book. Although Jenny does a lot of good in the story, nobody really appreciates her temper. I didn't mind it. I thought her temper was a lot of fun and gave her a very unique personality, but Ozma and the Wizard thought to cure her of it... and so... they basically... lobotomize her at the end. They do it in a sort of magical way, removing her temper, her envy, and her... ambition. Yes, that too.

All that was left was a happy, sweet girl who would be allowed to stay in Oz forever. She would always be happy and she would skip and frolic everywhere she went. You know, as it turns out, lobotomies were just beginning to get popular around the time this book came out. It kind of makes you think, doesn't it? It just makes me wonder though. What the heck has Oz become?

Listen to me when I say this: I loved this book. It's not a perfect book, but it is entertaining as hell. I couldn't put it down. There's something so uncanny about it, something so... broken, but in just the right ways to fascinate the mind. I'm not sure if it was entirely a good thing, but whatever the case may be, "The Wonder City of Oz" stands out as one of the most original and strangest Oz books ever written. I do recommend it!

This blog was written on April 13, 2022.

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Fairy Tale Spotlight: The Hobbit [Video Game Review]

No, I didn't read the book.

"The Hobbit" is a video game released in 2003 for a number of platforms. The version I recently played was the GameCube version. It was the second time I bothered to finish it, having multiple rage quits between the first and second.

"The Hobbit" is an example of a game that has so much love in it, but it is left with so many frustrating problems, and not in a good way. The developers of this game went out of their way to capture the original story so well that it hurts to say anything bad about it, but there is a lot of good here too.

The game has you playing Bilbo Baggins, a hobbit on a quest almost too big for him. The game functions mainly as a combat platformer. It is hard, very hard. But the game throws so many chances to save at you that you never feel like you're getting knocked back too far from failure. Once the Ring is obtained, the game adds some stealth options. All this works well enough. Between using your walking stick, your sword Sting, and throwing rocks, combat is entirely serviceable, but still quite janky at the best of times.

"Janky" really is a good word to describe this game. Things seem like they work, but they don't always work the way you want them to. This leads to unintentional misses across the board. Misses in combat. Misses in platforming. Misses in stealth.

The game's major strengths is in the presentation. This really is the ultimate video game Hobbit experience. The character of Bilbo is well voiced, and his animations are extremely well done. However, everyone else's animations are crap. I'm sorry. Even Gandalf looks hideous. Nobody but Bilbo can move their eyes. And their mouths just sort of open and close. That said, their voice acting is excellent, so I'll give them that.

Likely the worst aspect of the game are 1. the spiders and 2. the treasure chests. The spiders are just terrible and glitchy. They can poison you even if you block, and if you don't have any antidote, you better just give up, because this game is over for you. I prepared for this happening from the beginning and you should too. Stock up!

The treasure chests have little puzzles that are just annoying. If you fail the puzzles, it either takes a lot of health away from you or poisons you. Really poison is the worse thing this game has to offer.

If you can get past those two things and the janky controls, then what's left is actually wonderful. There's a lot of content too. Tons of content. The game goes on for hours and hours. It never seems to end. I would say however to be warned that some iconic moments in the story were left to mere cutscenes, such as the encounter with Gollum. That's too bad. It was a really odd place to cut corners.

With all of its flaws, I still recommend "The Hobbit." It's an old game now, but the developers really seemed like they were trying to make the best game they could in the time they had. I applaud their effort, even if it does win the award for worst spiders in any game in history. It really does.

This blog was written on April 11, 2022.

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Fairy Tale Spotlight: A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court [Book Review]

"A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court" is a novel written by Mark Twain, otherwise known as Samuel Clemens. It was published in 1889. I read the physical copy of this book, and I am glad I did. It had over 300 illustrations in it that really did add to the enjoyment of the book. A lot of Kindle books I get don't have the illustrations included. If you can believe it, I have read 33 Oz books without seeing one of their famous illustrations.

"A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court" relates the story of a man named Hank Morgan who gets decked by some guy he worked with and ends up being sent to the place and time of the reign of King Arthur. From the get-go, we have ourselves a time-traveling science fiction from Mark Twain!

The thing about Hank is he is a jack-of-all-trades. He can really do anything he sets his mind to, and that was an interesting sort of person to introduce to a primitive society. Through Hank, we see that a lot of the romanticized legends of the days of chivalry are extremely overhyped. He even exposes that the writing of the time was underwhelming to read, and later generations were forced to spin those stories into better literature to make it more interesting to us.

The world that Hank fell into was full of slavery, diseases, extreme mistreatment of individuals based on class. The knights of of the Round Table came across as mostly delusional, likely to having too much power. It also showed the overreach of the Roman Catholic Church which, according to their own Bible, should not have been rising to such power as they did. Everything has essentially turned into a caste system.

Although the book does have numerous humorous moments, such as when Hank had to wear armor for the first time [It got really sweaty and itchy in there!], much of the book is actually taken seriously, and I found a story that was very immersive from beginning to end.

I don't have the heart to spoil much of the book, but I do want to say that Mark Twain has created a science fiction adventure masterpiece here. The fact that Hank is coming from an older time does not mean that you won't be able to understand him. In fact, I related to him perfectly well. Much of the technology he tries to introduce to ancient England was stuff we all still use to this day, such as telephones, electricity, and guns. Even his point of view on politics, wages, and such are things still discussed to this day.

Nothing feels too overwritten, although there are times where it seems done on purpose. I'll give him a pass on that. But however you see it, this book feels way ahead of its time. It was a thrilling adventure filled with a number of adventurous genres such as romance and war. There's a lot here to digest, but it all works perfectly well as if the event actually took place.

I absolutely recommend "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court." I would also recommend the Barnes & Nobel classic version which has all the illustrations. It's very rare to find such a large book so heavily illustrated. Usually novels like this are left only to the written word. Pick this one up. It's very good.

This blog was written on April 8, 2022.

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Fairy Tale Spotlight: Wisdom [Book Review]

"Wisdom" is a book found within the "Douay-Rheims Bible," which is one of the Catholic Bibles. It is believed to have been written by Solomon, but there are some that believe it was not. That said, it rather fits his style. The author also references himself in a manner that suggests it really was him.

This book is aptly titled "Wisdom," because that is what it is about. It is about the wisdom of God and how it has benefited humanity since the beginning of time. Interestingly, wisdom is always referred to with the pronoun "her."

The book covers a wide array of things. It starts off with a very detailed prophecy of Jesus Christ. It is so detailed that, if true, it should very well mark Solomon as a prophet himself. He'll, of course, give credit to the wisdom of God, but it is still very surprising that this was not included in the other Bible I read. It's fascinating if true.

The book also details the stupidity of worshiping man-made idols. It redundantly and efficiently gives reasons why this is an incredibly stupid thing to do. In brief, a man makes an image by his own hands and then claims to be subservient to the thing he created. It's entirely ludicrous.

"Wisdom" also details some very frightening aspects about Egypt and the plagues. It is a disturbing part to read, but it shows that angels do their jobs with cruel efficiency when set to a task. Damn scary stuff when it comes down to it.

The book is rather preachy, but all the information contained is stuff worth reading. I liked it. I still have a problem with the Catholic Bible constantly adding its own extras to it, but I have been doing my best to ignore them. The book reads perfectly fine without their help. I recommend "Wisdom" for those who are itching for some more Solomon.

This blog was written on April 7, 2022.

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Fairy Tale Spotlight: Judith [Book Review]

Another happy ending!

"Judith" is a book found within the "Douay-Rheims Bible," which is one of the Catholic Bibles. It is believed to be written by Eliachim, but I don't really know or much care. I was unable to get anything very concrete on the matter.

"Judith" is about an evil king called Nabuchodonosor who employs a man named Holofernes to lay siege against the Israelites. Judith is the literal heroin of the book, something that is not often seen within the Bible. It does not read much like most books in the Bible but feels more like a story narrative that you would find in a regular book.

There are some extremely fascinating things about this book. The Israelites are no stranger to being invaded by bad people, and it is often because of their sins. When they became under siege, Holofernes found a way to completely cut off their water supply, and their people realized that their days were numbered. One of them says that they should wait five days, and if the Lord does not help them, they can resign themselves to their fates. I'll be honest: I didn't have a problem with this when I read it.

This is where Judith comes in and surprisingly points out that what the man suggested was a sin. Apparently the man was making terms for God when everything that happens on earth is on God's own personal terms. He wasn't supposed to make that decision. All they were expected to do was repent and leave it to God to deliver them if they so deserved it. This changed my initial perspective on the matter.

Now, Judith ends up being an absolute hero by he end of the book. Not only does she use her beauty to entrance Holofernes, but she ends up cutting his head off while he was sleeping. The book clearly suggests that God gave her the beauty and strength to do this, and it did not seem like an easy thing for her to do. She was very emotional about the whole thing, constantly asking God to give her the will to accomplish a task that usually fell to a man to complete.

After Holofernes was killed, the Israelites attack. This led to an absolutely comical scene where the enemy were having tons of trouble waking up their dead master. Apparently it was extremely bad form to barge into his sleeping chamber. They made a bunch of noise, hoping he would just come out. Eventually they walked in and clapped their hands and did everything short of tap dancing to get him to wake up. Finally, out of desperation, they threw open the curtain only to find him without a head. This scene may be the funniest thing I have ever read in the Bible. It was the very definition of comedy.

If this book is true, then Judith was a true heroine. She was, as it said, empowered by God by her own request and because of her service to Him. She lived for God. She won by God. And she lived and died a monument to the heights that women can rise to through submission to God. I absolutely recommend this one. It was an exciting story from beginning to end and actually surprisingly sexy too. Like... I'm not joking. It was hot. It was a sexy Bible book.

This blog was written on March 30, 2022.

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Fairy Tale Spotlight: Tobias [Book Review]

Now for something different.

"Tobias" is a book found within the "Douay-Rheims Bible," which is one of the Catholic Bibles. I couldn't figure out who the author was, although I did give it a good search. I do have limited patience on such things.

Tobias is a story which is similar in theme to Job, but it has an entirely different feel to it. The "Job" here is an older man named Tobias who was doing good deeds, despite getting a bit of ridicule from those around him. This leads God to have a bird poop in his eyes and blind him for a couple of years. Why? Well, the simple reason is that when people do good things, they often do it because they are in a comfortable position. This prompts God to test him to see if he is the real thing or not. Just like Job!

Tobias had a son that was also named Tobias. This is an annoying thing in the book, because it sometimes ends up being unclear who is being referred to, The son Tobias goes on a journey with an actual angel named Rafael. The angel pretends to be a man and uses an assumed name as to not give away what he is.

The very idea that an angel is spending so much time with a regular human is really shocking. Don't get me wrong. I do love it, but it's just surprising. Along the way, Tobias is taught a few tricks by the angel. He is able to exercise a demon named Asmodeus from a woman who he intends to marry. This demon would murder any man that would marry her on the very first night.

So we have an angel and a demon, both named, and they play a major part in the Old Testament. This is some good stuff! The only thing that bugged me about the book was the presentation itself. The Catholic Bible has these little asides where they try and give context to what I was reading. I don't need this. I don't want this. I don't know who is saying these words, and I certainly wouldn't consider anything said in these asides as scripture. I did my best to ignore them and enjoy the story.

What rather set "Tobias" aside from "Job" was the absolutely heart-warming ending where everything just turns out wonderful. There was so much love and happiness among the characters. It was an absolutely GOOD ending. I'm not used to good endings in the Old Testament. This was a pleasure to read.

If you can get past the few annoyances of how "Tobias" is written and the little asides added to it, this is a highly recommended book for anyone interested in the Christian faith. Just ignore all the Catholic additions. This book works plainly well without needing to hear their opinion on the matter. Take the book for what it is and consider nothing else.

This blog was written on March 24, 2022.

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Fairy Tale Spotlight: The Holy Bible [Book Review]

"The Holy Bible" is a collection of sixty-six books, broken up into two main sections called "The Old Testament" and "The New Testament." It has many authors. It is also, just flatly, a freaking huge book. The version I was reading from was the King James Version. I didn't have that much trouble with it.

Although I still have some other religious books not included in this to read, I do honestly feel like I have reached the top of a very high mountain. I remember back when I was trying to read all of L. Frank Baum's books. I think it took about as much time all put together.

I read this book because I was disenchanted with the modern church and all the stuff I had been taught in Sunday School growing up. And after reading it, and truly loving the book, I am still, possibly even more, disenchanted with the church. It seems to me that very few Christians even understand their own religion.

Every time I see a Christian look aghast at me when I say a curse word, I pretty much know now that they likely have not read this book in full, and if they did, someone was probably feeding silly context to them while they did it. This book was meant to be read on an individual basis and not be given interpretations by worldly wise people. [That's a "Pilgrim's Progress reference for all you fanboys out there.]

I don't have a problem when people get together and discuss the Bible, but when people just turn into a big old echo chamber, constantly spouting these little quotes here and there, nobody really knows what they are talking about anymore. The Bible is a fantastic book. It is a fairy tale. It is also very true. Every bit of it. It is a true fairy tale. It actually happened, and will happen.

If you actually want to know what Christianity really is, stop letting people tell you, and read this book. Don't try too hard to interpret it. Don't look for metaphors. It's all plainly written and explained for those who want to bother learning. It won't take long. In the whole of a person's life, it only takes less than 1% of it to read the whole thing. I recommend "The Holy Bible" to anyone who actually wants to take Christianity seriously, but if you want to be lazy and just let the Church lead you around on a leash, then do... not... bother.

This blog was written on March 18, 2022.

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