Welcome

Welcome to my ever-evolving blog. It started out as a blog on Beachbody workouts and products, mainly when I was a Beachbody coach. I no longer coach, not because I don't believe in Beachbody's programs (I subscribe to Beachbody on Demand and use their workouts every day), I am just not a salesperson and hated that aspect of it. I am more than willing to answer questions about my experiences with their products and the various workouts, and I feel freer to do so without the appearance of giving a biased review of something.

I have also started adding reviews for various things I have purchased like movies, books, CDs, and other products. This was brought about by a fight with Amazon in which all of my reviews were removed over a completely bullshit allegation that I posted a review that violated their terms of service. After going back and forth with the morons in the community-reviews department (even after they admitted that my posts did not violate their guidelines) they restored my account (which took them six months to do), but I have been posting my reviews on my blog to have them preserved in case something like that happens again. And here, I will post uncensored reviews so I will swear from time to time and post reviews that may be longer than Amazon's character limit. Everything I post here on any topic or product is my personal opinion, and I take no compensation for any product reviews I post. I am a member of Amazon's vine program and because I get those products for free, I keep those reviews on Amazon only, but everything I have purchased with my own money, whether from Amazon or some other store/website/outlet, I will post here.  

I also plan to do some longer blog posts on various topics, such as how to learn physics, how to get through calculus, and longer reviews of workout programs as I do them. Basically, whatever strikes me as interesting at the time.  As you can see if you navigate around the blog, I had many years in between postings. During that time I was going back to school to get an engineering degree, and learning material that I avoided my first time through college was a different experience and one that gave me a lot of insight into how to do well in those classes, which I will try to impart here for those who are looking to get a science or engineering degree. 

Saturday, June 3, 2023

Book Review: The Survivor: (Mitch Rapp Series Book 14)

 


The Survivor, published in 2015, is the 14th book in the Mitch Rapp series of novels, and the sequel to the 2012 novel, The Last Man. The fate of this book was in limbo for a long time because Vince Flynn passed away in 2013. He had started writing the novel but had only written a few chapters before he was too sick to finish it. Flynn's estate and publisher commissioned author Kyle Mills (who had written several books in the same genre as the Rapp series) to finish this book and write another in the series. Of course, as most fans of the series know, Mills stayed on to write several additional novels.

The focus of this book is on the fallout from Joe Rickman's betrayal of the CIA, as videos that he made in the event of his death revealing the identities of various CIA assets around the world begin to leak out. The "real world" storyline from the book is about Pakistan, and how the country is a tenuous ally with the US. And, in continuing Flynn's tradition of having antagonist politicians, the role of Senator Ferris is greatly expanded in this book. 

The book is another very good one in the Mitch Rapp series. When it was announced that Mills would finish the book, many people were skeptical of whether Kyle Mills could take up the mantle of writing the characters that Flynn popularized, and write them as well as Flynn did. Mills apparently re-read all of Flynn's books to prepare for finishing this book and taking meticulous notes on Flynn's wording choices and overall style, and as a result, you cannot tell where what Flynn wrote ends and what Mills wrote starts. Mills stayed true to the characters and the tone that Flynn had set over the course of the prior 13 books and told a very good story. This is definitely worth reading.

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