Got a copy of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction from March 1957. Some nice stories about escaping Mars, ghosts, scientific time travel, and infernal popcorn. Also non-fictional matter, like the movie review column where four out of seven movies the poor critic watched have since been featured on MST3k.
The Man from Murmansk by Trevor Scott This is another self pub/indie pub by a retired US Air Force Captain. According to his bio, he has been rather prolific writing around 70 espionage novels. Going in I thought it was going to be over the top. Like taking down 20 Russians with your bare hands and BASE jumping off a cliff into the open cargo hold of a military plane. But this was a rather subdued cat and mouse game. The Russians are moving their nuclear weapons to parts unknown and our protagonist is responsible for sending intel back to the CIA. I might pick up the next in the series but it will be quite some time.
Yesterday’s Son by A.C. Crispin Trek fans will recall the famous TOS episode “All Our Yesterdays” where the trio met Mr. Atoz and went back in time on Sarpeidon, a planet that was about to be destroyed by its star going supernova. This book picks up two years after those events when an ensign onboard the Enterprise is reviewing the Sarpeidon archaeological records and discovers a photo of a cave painting that clearly shows a Vulcan. Upon seeing this photo Spock determines 1) that’s my son! 2) family means more to Vulcans that anything else! 3) we must retrieve him from the past! and 4) oh rats Sarpeidon was blow to pieces so I guess we will have to pull rank and use the forbidden Guardian of Forever to go back in time. This was A.C. Crispin’s first novel so it’s a little rough around the edges. I was fine with the concept and was going along for the ride but I took issue with how some things were handled. Like, why is Kirk totally OK with Spock carrying out this crazy plan? And what if Spock’s son doesn’t want to leave his home planet? And why does his son look 100% Vulcan on the front cover? Remember he’s only 1/4 Vulcan. Anyhow, I digress. It’s a decent, quick read. As expected, Spock has trouble connecting with his son. McCoy does a much better job of that. It doesn’t end with the giant Reset Button but it does end with an opening for a sequel (which Pocket Books obliged).
Stoner by John Williams Not a reference to drugs but to the main characters name, Stoner is set in the American Midwest in the early 20th century. After growing up on a farm, our main character goes to university, falls in love with literature and becomes a Professor. Alongside this he endures a disastrous marriage, has a love affair and becomes involved in some professional disputes. Much of it is about academic life. Published in the 1960s, it drifted into obscurity for several decades before being "rediscovered" recently through promotion by John McGahern (a big favourite of mine) and others. It's an unremarkable story about an unremarkable man, told using simple language that a child could read. And yet it is a shattering experience. In style it evokes Hemingway, if not in content. One is left wondering what of make of Stoner's life. There are failures, lost opportunities, moments you want to scream at him to be stronger. There is also beauty, love and achievement. I think I come to the conclusion that his life (nor anyone's) is not merely one thing. And that the power behind this novel is it's stoical, unflinching truth.
Teenage me- Can I make this move? My HS English teacher- Not only can't you, if you even try it, you're a bastard, and no one will ever love you. Coked up "Tommyknockers" Stephen King- Not only can you make that move, you can make this one, this one, this one, and this one. Me now- THANK!!! YOU!!!!
Behold the Man by Michael Moorcock It's an interesting idea and I'm surprised not more has been done with it in fiction - someone builds a time machine and decides to travel to Galilee in the 1st century to observe proceedings. This was written in the 1960s and is fairly obscure but I'd added it to my "to read" list some time ago. Unfortunately, Moorcock's execution is disappointing. It's a short work and he spends a good portion of it in the present day exploring the (mostly unpleasant) background of the main character - there's sexual abuse and other dysfunction. When the action is in the 1st century, much of that is an extended section where despite the presence of John the Baptist, not much happens. Things kick into high gear later as we meet other New Testament characters, but it feels rushed, reductive and at times poorly researched (The dominant priests in Jerusalem were not Pharisees). Some of the choices are clearly calculated to give maximum offense and even if that doesn't apply to me, I'm left wondering what a more considered effort in the hands of a different writer might look like.
The Hinge of Fate - Winston Churchill The war in Asia goes badly (until America turns the corner in the Pacific at Midway). The war in Africa, after initial setback, goes well (with America finally coming in fully with Operation Torch). The Russians put an end to German hopes of conquest at Stalingrad. Churchill continues to narrowly avoid disaster whenever he gets into a plane. By the end of May 1943, the Allies are plotting an attack on Sicily with the hope of plowing straight on into mainland Italy. The stated theme of this volume is the rise of Allied power, which is initially at odds with the British presence in Asia being crumpled backwards into India by Japanese superiority and the horrifying lack of proper defenses at Singapore. Rommel claws back territory in Africa as well. Enough grumbling arises back home that Churchill calls a vote of confidence against himself and later faces a vote of censure. He easily survives both. The new Australian prime minister, ascending amid a wave of fear of the Japanese, does not help matters when he publishes his intention to look to the US or Russia for help rather than Britain. The US meanwhile puts more value on Kai-shek's Chinese forces than Churchill thinks is wise. FDR also takes an interest in India politics and prods Churchill to resolve tensions there in a way Churchill clearly considers naive and unhelpful even as the war comes to India's doorstep. Churchill also finds his expectations for fighting contrast with General Auchinleck's current desire for a lengthy build-up before fighting a smaller but more aggressive force (Rommel). It's very reminiscent of Lincoln trying to get one general after another to fight before he put Grant in charge. After bad to indifferent results, Auchinleck is relieved in favor of Alexander, and victories against Rommel pave the way for Operation Torch's success, with Churchill deeming the battle of Alamein the hinge upon which the fate of Africa turned. With eventual victory in Tunisia, the Axis are pretty well cleared out of northern Africa. With all the action comes a lot of political consideration. Stalin is happy, or at least neutral, to get shipments of supplies but is still often focused on a British invasion across the English Channel (and gets snippy whenever a shipment has to be skipped, or it looks like British ideas of invasion are being pushed back or neglected). Churchill relatedly often expresses embarrassment when he feels that the British military isn't keeping up with the Russians in engaging the Germans' attention. There are two conferences with the Russians, one in London (to which the Russians bring their own maids, police, and guns), and one in Moscow (which Churchill quite enjoys). Churchill likewise meets with FDR several times, in Washington and in Africa, and finds pretty near complete strategic and ideological agreement every time. Atomic bombs and walkie-talkies figure into the conversations. Once Torch meets with success, local politics tend to leave Vichy officials in charge, despite de Gaulle and the world being upset that the Free French were not shown more favor. (The Free French were not even given proper warning that Torch was coming. Churchill does not regret this.) The Americans have to be coaxed into accepting the Mediterranean as a viable battleground and argued into setting their next sights on Sicily rather than Sardinia. In addition to the main powers, there is unrest in India, friction between Poland and Russia over the fate of Polish captives, and Churchill still thinking that backing "Michailovitch" in Yugoslavia will continue to pay off marvellously. Churchill hopes at this time that after the war, there will be a World Council led primarily by Britain, the US, and Russia (plus China if the US insists). Europe will be a dozen or so states forming a Council, and similar Councils will prevail in other areas. Ministerial minutes at the back cover things like the ever-disappointing production quotas, tank and bomber obsolescence, suspicion of psychiatry, naming the submarine fleet, reading Steinbeck, and checking internal wars being waged against chickens, florists, bees, and ice cream. January 1943 finds Churchill expecting Germany's defeat by the end of '44 and Japan's defeat by the end of '46. Two comments on the American character: we don't like being outdone in generosity, and we don't get scared, just angry. New words: impedimenta
Used up the last of my Barnes and Nonle Christmas gift card today. Used it to replenish my "to read" pile: I'm going to start with Blood Meridian, which I've heard a lot about. I read, and enjoyed, The Road, so I'm looking forward to this.
Or not. Still waiting on that Winds of Winter. He needs to line up Brandon Sanderson or someone similar before the cardiac arrest.
Dr. No - Percival Everett This is not a book about nothing. A book about nothing is a book about something, and true nothingness is not something but nothing, not merely the absence of something, which is itself something. So might the main character of this book reason. His name is Wala Kitu, which means "nothing nothing" in two different languages that neither of his parents ever spoke, and he is a delightfully unreliable narrator when he isn't busy being a professor of nothing who is an expert on nothing despite, sadly, never encountering nothing. This expertise attracts the attention of a would-be Bond villain who wants to plunder Fort Knox of the nothing it contains. This book impressively balances whim against hard reality, plot against digression, apathy against empathy, vacuity against focus, and absurdity against cold consequence, while blurring dreams with waking life, so that I was always just a little off-balance. Very good writing throughout. Everett is an author I will keep in mind for the future. New words: bocote, various topological theorems about things I don't understand
Alien Earths by Lisa Kaltenegger Having read a little to update myself a couple of years ago on the current state of SETI and the latest thinking around the possibility of alien life and become quite pessimistic about the possibility, this seemed like it might have potential to spark a change in my thinking. It's about the new science of exoplanet astronomy, which uses very powerful telescopes, most notably James Webb to analyse the light from other stars and by detecting either a change or a wobble deduces the presence of a planetary system. This practice is an astonishing feat of human ingenuity and Kaltenegger appears to be one of the the leading people involved in it. Unfortunately I can't say anything as positive as that about her book. There are several related problems. It's not hugely long but it takes more than halfway to even get to the point where she's discussing alien worlds. That first half is spent explaining everything from what a planet is to what the doppler shift is - and while a certain amount of grounding is probably necessary, too much of this reads like it's aimed at twelve year olds. Then there's the editing - far too many random asides, clumsy metaphors and repetition. And finally while I appreciate that she's continuing the legacy of Carl Sagan and that I may be more cynical than when I read him decades ago, the "sense of wonder" she attempts to convey comes off as cloying and sacharine. It served as a reminder that we now know that planets are ubiquitous in our galaxy and that some of them are strange. But by the end I'd actually learned very little.
Got me a whole bunch of older books. I'm a disaster film fan, and the books are just as much fun. Right now I'm working on "The Tower" by Richard Martin Stern. It's one of the two books that were drawn from when they made the film "The Towering Inferno" (1974).
The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Stories - Bret Harte Short stories from the late 19th century that paint a traditionally romantic view of the wild West, particularly California. Stagecoach drivers, miners, and gamblers all made rough and rowdy in a dangerous environment, who nevertheless have a sense of justice and can be noble for orphans and women of varying innocence. Harte uses these tropes, and a set of recurring characters, to tell appealingly human stories in a richly wild landscape. Very enjoyable. It's notable how many different fabrics I'm introduced to by old fiction. Used to be, the general public just knew their fashion, I guess. New words: Infelix, fetich, riata, nankeen, holland cloth, honeyfogle, mésalliance, Juba, madrono, coulisses, pongee, objurgation, machillas
The Hunt for Red October by Tom Clancy I’ve seen the movie four or five times and it’s excellent. Reading the book gave a good background story on Captain Ramius to better understand why he did what he did. As a young child he had been unfairly labeled an informer. As a young man he rose through the naval ranks and became disillusioned with Marxism. And as a seasoned submariner he lost his wife due to the incompetence of a drunk surgeon. That was the final straw, and thus begins the hunt for Red October. This is a big ass book (as are most Clancy novels) and it took me longer to read than I thought it would. The cast of characters was naturally larger than the movie, and it was hard keeping the admirals, captains, commanders, enlisted, and civilians straight. Could definitely see James Earl Jones as Admiral Greer, though. Good casting there. The middle third tended to drag a bit because it’s a lot of military fan service. From what I read online, Clancy was an insurance salesman and a really big Navy history buff. This was his first novel and it was published in 1984 in relative obscurity. Somehow it made its way into the White House and Ronald Reagan read it. As soon as Reagan mentioned he liked it sales took off and it spent most of 1985 on the NYT Best Seller list. Red Storm Rising is next up in the publication order, but I understand that one is not set in the Jack Ryan universe.
That one's next on my list, but I just started on Jurassic Park. I have to say I love the movie, but the book diverges in places that I find more enjoyable than the film. Still, loving it so far.
I'm currently reading The Bible™ for the first time. No spoilers. I'm guessing the Devil probably did it.
Dark Dawn Over Steep House - M.R.C. Kasasian Fifth in the series of a Holmesian setup. Private detective Sidney Grice, with his ward March Middleton as chronicler and would-be detective, is hired to find a brutal serial rapist. Obscure clues, lengthy interviews, and twists follow as people are not all they seem to be. First off, this is decidedly not "cozy". Bodies hit the floor and there is a good deal of anatomical squick. That's fine, it didn't feel too gratuitous, this is a case where the brutality and overwhelmed senses ground one more in the reality of events. But Mr. Grice (he likes his first name but dislikes hearing it spoken) is the make-or-break part. He is like if someone took the cold Sherlock Holmes stereotype and cranked it up, added the Poirot arrogance without any sense of irony, and piled on some misanthropy. Grice hates colors, lies, nature, Americans, beauty, idle children, showing weakness, and the living. He likes money, insulting others, patenting inventions, and above all precision in communication. This last can be a little tiresome when he is constantly challenging someone's phrasing ev-er-y sing-le line during a conversation. The prose is quite good, but its weakness is similarly when it narrows down to alternating every line of expositional dialogue with a report on Grice's latest meaningless fidget. Add in his exceptional senses, and the ways in which he hates or fears certain things, and the way he is completely immune to any social rules he doesn't care to respect, and it's very much clear that he's very neurodivergent, long before anyone ever thought of putting those two words together. But the book never pushes that idea and I appreciate it. Still, his constant interjections are something one must at least get used to. I found them mostly amusing, but there were moments I wished he would let the book flow a bit more. Imagine Poirot spending every page of an entire novel fussing over cleanliness and symmetry, and you get an appreciation for the importance of balancing these kinds of characteristics. Counterbalancing Grice is March, who has rather more liberal politics and makes up for Grice's cold rudeness as best she can when it isn't being directed at her. Molly, their housekeeper, is simple to the point of being addled. And there is a cat whose presence Grice can deplore loudly but pet when nobody's looking. Overall I enjoyed this. Grice is quite an entertaining character, but one can only take so much of him at once and I prefer my mysteries less lurid. I will likely return to this series in the future. Slowly. One book at a time. New words: Lincoln green, fernery, hunter watch, Garibaldi biscuit, Gretna Green, titivated, shepherdess chair, crepitates, parma violet, puggle, rattail cutlery, toby jug, poteen, Walter Sickert
Blacktop Wasteland by S.A. Cosby Beauregard “Bug” Montage is really up against it. His car repair shop is failing, his mother is about to get kicked out of her nursing home, his kid needs braces, and he just got swindled in a drag race he won. When a lowlife redneck with a plan to carry out a big heist comes his way, Bug decides the only way back is to return to the life of crime he had stepped away from. This novel has been described as Southern Noir. I can somewhat agree with that designation, although it’s more of a crime thriller with noir aspects. Bug is a complex character, but most of the other characters are pretty one-dimensional. I felt his wife Kia (see the car reference?) could have been a lot more interesting but she tended to fall into the “oh lawdy please don’t go” routine. I’m sure the production rights have been sold so this is probably coming to the big screen in the not too distant future. This author has received strong praise for his other novels Razorblade Tears and All the Sinners Bleed.
The Wounded Sky by Diane Duane Continuing with the Trek Pocket Books this one was published in 1983. The main story is that the Enterprise is selected to be outfitted with a new inversion drive that will make intergalactic travel possible. Of course, something is up because Spock and Scotty are both at a loss to explain how the drive works. It wasn’t developed by humanoids but by an alien species that resembles huge spiders or maybe jellyfish. And they make use of my science fiction pet peeve: unpronounceable names with no vowels. Well if Starfleet says the inversion drive is fine I guess it is, right? The Enterprise fights off a Klingon pursuit (they want the tech) and makes its first jump using the inversion drive. That’s when the weird stuff starts to happen. This novel could have been a lot better - the topic of traveling between galaxies is interesting but the execution here was off. Too much prose and too many intersections of the existential/paranormal.
I love that one, but I love most of Duane's Trek work. Mudge's Best Short Stories - Frederick Blanch A folksy set of folksy tales and yarns mostly set around the folksy town of New Boonies, Wet County, Minne Soota. There's a folksy Swedish element sometimes, when the Olafs of the world come in and start talking about fika. Overall, it's a mixed bag of topics and a mixed bag of quality from mediocre to quite enjoyable. The folksy, and pseudo-folksy, misspellings and enunciations are an illustrative example. They can add, detract, overwhelm, amuse (Ham and Robbie for Hammurabi), or annoy (a woman literate enough to read a newspaper will not misname the Star-Tribune as the Steer-Trombone, amusing as that play on words may be). My favorites about the town were Pristine Digby, the retired, hard-drinking, no-nonsense Navy nurse, saving a man after a horrific collision, and a bit with Socrates the parrot about newspapers and wheels. Also a picked-on man who lived in a dump under a railroad bridge, and a nice lady who took a young Mudge on shopping trips to Duluth. In a broader view, Satan gets so desperate to find a good plumber to fix Hell's pipes that he sends Lucrezia Borgia to seduce a Swedish simpleton. Later there's some silliness about mammoths. Judge Harden Steel's courtroom is always welcome entertainment, even when his poetic judgements fall short of Solomonity, and his judgement against a chronic graffiti artist is a nice closure to the book. New words: Cellaret, veniremen, whippletrees, fika, avgolemono, cock-a-leekie, mulligatawny.
To be honest, I went and read the Goodreads reviews as I was finishing up the book. There were a lot of people who gave it 5 stars.
City of Lies by Ramita Navai Given how much Iran is in the news lately, I figured I should read this book from 2014 that was parked on my Kindle. The title suggests how Tehranis have to lie every day just to survive. Children are taught from a young age how to lie to avoid bringing suspicion on their parents. The book tells the stories of eight different Tehranis and their families/friends. Names and identities were changed to protect the innocent. The unfortunate part is that six of the eight stories end on a sad note. One story did have hope for the future, and that was because a woman had successfully divorced her cheating, addict husband. As an aside, I was aware that cousin marriage was common in the Middle East, but I didn’t realize for many teenage girls their first sexual experience was with a male cousin, often without consent. The misogyny of Iran comes through in most of these stories. Men are expected to be sexually active while women are labeled whores and prostitutes. This was an interesting read albeit depressing at times. As an American, I’ll probably never be able to experience Tehran. The city comes alive in the book as gritty and cosmopolitan, but always look over your shoulder. My personal opinion, the CIA should never have propped up the Shah. But what came after has been demonstrably worse.
This story was actually the foundation of the TNG ep "Where No One Has Gone Before." Given she was an unofficial script helper, bit of a shame they didn't use other works of hers - Doctors Orders would have been a good one to rejig, as would the Rihannsu series, albeit with major surgery to fit the TNG state of play.
I remember in that episode Data and Riker catch on that Kosinski’s warp equations are a bunch of BS gibberish. I was half expecting there to be a similar reveal in The Wounded Sky with Kirk and Spock exposing the spider species as a big fraud. But that’s not how she wrote it.
Everyone In The Group Chat Dies - L. M. Chilton Late-twenty nobodies sharing a nothing flat in a nowhere town have a Gen Z true crime notTikToker come into their lives. Something Very Bad happens and then, a year later, everyone in the group chat starts dying. Is someone back from the dead for revenge? Can our failed journalist narrator piece everything together before a serial killer peaces her out? It is funny, it is twisty, it's tense, sometimes it's even heartfelt, and the characters and background motivations add life to the plot effectively while allowing for plenty of false scents. Quite enjoyed this one. New words: hyperacusis, jalfrezi, dal, bhaji, zhuzhed-up, shearling
I read this pretty much everyday. Sometimes it's funny, other times boring, then there's a lot of childish immature stuff on there. But overall it;s more of a habit than anything else I guess.
