tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-41693247644337902802024-03-13T10:26:55.348-07:00DrPat ReadsPat Cummingshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05476249942977497820noreply@blogger.comBlogger582125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4169324764433790280.post-20229251549166931952020-12-11T19:21:00.000-08:002020-12-11T19:21:23.925-08:00Turkey and Stuffing Soup<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-u1W8eJiUlJg/X9Qq-ESvSNI/AAAAAAAAJ3c/_gA4_oNUYEovJRi2BheW3DNDcJgmMVT2QCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/20201211_190943.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-u1W8eJiUlJg/X9Qq-ESvSNI/AAAAAAAAJ3c/_gA4_oNUYEovJRi2BheW3DNDcJgmMVT2QCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/20201211_190943.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;">I set out to make another use-em-up leftover soup with the final slices of now-dry turkey, some fresh celery and carrots, and some white rice left from a Chinese-food lunch today -- because what is more after-Turkey Day normal than turkey-rice soup?</span></div></div><p></p><p>At the last minute, I spotted the cup and a half of stuffing from Thanksgiving Day and decided to swap it for the rice. The result was a tasty thickened stew, perfect for a cold December night with the threat (promise) of snow in the air. The stuffing seasoning mingled well with the Better Than Bouillon broth.</p><p><b>INGREDIENTS</b></p><p>3 cups Better Than Bouillon (BTB) Roasted Turkey Broth</p><p>1/2 cup carrot, diced medium</p><p>1/2 cup celery, sliced medium</p><p>1/2 to 1.5 cups leftover turkey meat, diced small</p><p>1 to 2 cups leftover bread*-based stuffing</p><p>*Cornbread-based stuffing might work, but I haven't tried it. I leave that as an exercise for the reader.</p><p><b>ASSEMBLY</b></p><p>In a slow cooker set to Low, stir the BTB Roasted Turkey into 3 cups of boiling water to create the broth. Add the chopped vegetables and meat, and cover the pot. It should cook on Low for at least 4 hours to combine the flavors and soften the carrots.</p><p>In the last 15 minutes, stir in the stuffing, and recover the pot. The goal is to soak broth into the stuffing, and warm the stuffing to the best eating temperature of the soup.</p><p>Serve as soon as the broth absorption is complete. </p><p>I have yet to try re-heating this soup. Both times I've made it, there was nothing left over. And that's great, for a soup made of leftovers.</p>Pat Cummingshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05476249942977497820noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4169324764433790280.post-37098350322488757232020-12-05T21:35:00.000-08:002020-12-05T21:35:17.657-08:00Easy Pork and Bean Soup<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-AqNAWFtG84o/X8xGT1fuIRI/AAAAAAAAJ0I/1j7E9V5pQNYhNlU6k4MlWAhIT44fIZMGwCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/PSX_20201205_193102.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-AqNAWFtG84o/X8xGT1fuIRI/AAAAAAAAJ0I/1j7E9V5pQNYhNlU6k4MlWAhIT44fIZMGwCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/PSX_20201205_193102.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">This is another slow-cooker soup that comes together easily, and takes advantage of added leftovers and the slow simmer of a crock-pot to create a soup that tastes hand-crafted. Yet, like many of my favorite recipes, it starts with "open a can of..."</div><p></p><p>This particular iteration was built on a base can of <b>Campbell's Bean and Bacon Soup</b>, with leftover pork from a tenderloin roast, and some additional carrot and celery.</p><p>Other *meat additions that have worked for this soup in the past are ham or bacon, even dark-meat chicken or turkey. For **vegetables, I almost always add carrot and celery, and when I have them, leftover roasted roots (although not beets). And while they don't suit <i>my</i> palate, I think adding fine-chopped onion or red/green/yellow peppers would also serve. For these, as well as for the raw carrot and celery I added here, you may need an extra amount of water to ensure they are cooked.</p><p>This recipe serves two with a generous bowl of soup for each. For more servings, simply increase the amounts.</p><p><b>INGREDIENTS</b></p><p>1 can <b>Campbell's Bean and Bacon Soup</b></p><p>Can (and a third) of water</p><p>*Four to five slices from roasted pork tenderloin, diced small, for a cup to a cup and a half of diced meat</p><p>**Carrots and celery, raw, diced/sliced, about 1 cup of extra raw vegetables </p><p><b>ASSEMBLY</b> </p><p>In the slow-cooker crock, dump the contents of the soup can, then add the can of water called for by the can instructions. Since we're adding raw vegetables, we'll also add an extra 1/3 can of water.</p><p>Dice the *added meat small, add to crock.</p><p>Dice **added carrots small to medium (to taste), add to crock. Slice celery into thin crescents (across the stalk). I like the stronger-flavored darker celery stalks for this purpose.</p><p>Stir enough to break up the soup concentrate, and set the slow-cooker control to Low. </p><p>This soup is best if cooked on Low for 4.5 to 5 hours, but you can shortcut by cooking on High for an hour, then turn to Low for another hour. (If you have added only <b>cooked</b> meats and vegetables, one hour on High is sufficient.)</p><p>Serve the finished soup into bowls and enjoy!</p>Pat Cummingshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05476249942977497820noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4169324764433790280.post-76837267688006455612020-04-23T08:52:00.000-07:002020-04-23T08:52:42.700-07:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-eWEEcsFjo7o/XqG43wHR-AI/AAAAAAAAJCs/QUoVndArTJsKg74qJer-ZVHw0tUn511hwCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Cover_Piratica.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="688" data-original-width="464" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-eWEEcsFjo7o/XqG43wHR-AI/AAAAAAAAJCs/QUoVndArTJsKg74qJer-ZVHw0tUn511hwCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/Cover_Piratica.JPG" width="215" /></a></div>
<h3>
<b><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>Piratica: Being a Daring Tale of a Singular Girl's Adventure Upon the High Seas</i> by Tanith Lee</span></b></h3>
<br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818;">I bought this book to put into my Little Free Library, but wondered where it might fit on the range of age-appropriateness—especially because I intended to loan it first to a neighbor teen. The best way to determine this, of course, was to read it myself.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818;">Surprise! It's a great book, and despite the story line, has little gore, with zero vulgarity and profanity. (Unless you're worried about exclamations like <i>"Great shells!"</i> or <i>"Upon my father's coat!"</i>)</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818;">The cross-dressing teenage girl Artemisia (Art), who sets out to convert her crew of actors into real pirates, is a genuine sweetheart. The acting troupe she carries along in her wake are truly interesting characters themselves, and the young artist she robs at their first encounter, then later kidnaps to the West (or "Blue") Indies and carries onward to the Southern Indian Ocean's "Treasured Isle" (which may be Île Saint-Paul in our world), is an honestly intriguing figure who refuses to fall into the "true love" trope of any ordinary pirate romance.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818;">The setting is global, but it is not the globe </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #181818;"><b>we</b></i><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818;"> live on. In Art's world, 1820's "Lundon" is the capital of Free Republican England (which ousted its monarch quite a while ago, erasing all hereditary titles and freeing slaves in all its colonies at the same time). The islands of the "Blue" Indies are still pirates' havens. The ocean south of the east "Africayan" coastal island "Mad-Agash Scar" is named "Capricorn Sea." Even the calendar is different; by Art's reckoning, the year in which the story's events occur is "Seventeen-Twelfty."</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818;">Some things stay the same, though. As in 1820, in the "Seventeen-Twelfty's," the same once-hereditary elites mostly remain in power, though with different titles. People are free to starve or freeze to death, though no one we meet does so. And a young woman who has the audacity to wear men's clothing and successfully captain a ship is a criminal because of </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #181818;"><b>that</b>,</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818;"> regardless of the theft of ships and booty. It's there, though soft-peddled. For a younger reader than I am, I suspect these disturbing ideas will vanish into the tension of the tale.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818;">I would recommend this seriously twisted plot for the reading pleasure of any advanced middle-school reader or young adult of my aquaintance, and many an adult as well. It will appeal to both girls and boys for its story; adults can enjoy the extra layer of twisted geography and history.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818;">Outstanding!</span></span>Pat Cummingshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05476249942977497820noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4169324764433790280.post-64431062007429837862020-02-03T21:53:00.000-08:002020-02-03T21:53:01.619-08:00The Gift of the Shaman: Hearing the World<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-GnzHY0gHhVk/Xjckmj3fu5I/AAAAAAAAI4M/3xMVIf_9av4vBFDh7ZeqahT80uAfxruYwCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Cover_CapeGrace.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="526" data-original-width="352" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-GnzHY0gHhVk/Xjckmj3fu5I/AAAAAAAAI4M/3xMVIf_9av4vBFDh7ZeqahT80uAfxruYwCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/Cover_CapeGrace.JPG" width="214" /></a></div>
<h4>
<b><i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Grace-Shamans-Tales-Golden-Clipper-ebook/dp/B08465H33P/" target="_blank">Cape Grace</a> (A Shaman's Tale Book 2)</i> by Nathan Lowell</b></h4>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>“Normal doesn’t really apply to people. The statistical distribution of characteristics are sometimes useful for looking at big pictures but are totally useless when dealing with the individual.”</i></span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Book 2 of Lowell's <b>Shaman's Tale</b> duology introduces Sarah Krugg, Otto Krugg's daughter, born post-mortem when her mother was killed by a boxfish. The premie newborn may be tainted by the boxfish toxin herself. Thus the slightly-scary, strangely spooky Sarah Krugg comes into the world as the Shaman's Daughter.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Boxfish toxin and other near-death experiences serve as a real-world explanation for the mystical powers of those who possess the true gift (as opposed to the title) of a shaman. After all, as we learned in <b><i><a href="http://drpatreads.blogspot.com/2020/02/the-son-of-shaman-listening-to-world.html" target="_blank">South Coast</a></i></b>, Otto's father had the title, but did not have the true gift until he was stung by a boxfish and recovered. Otto's grandfather began as a rancher, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"></span><br />
<div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">'...a sheep farmer from up-country who survived getting gored by a goat and came out of it a changed man.”</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Sarah Krugg is thus set up to be more than an ordinary girl. But the post of shaman is defined as "the son of a shaman," or someone who a conclave of other shaman can agree has the gift. And due to pressure, subtle or explicit, from corporate management, no woman, however gifted, will be confirmed as a shaman.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The company planet is unfair to women, right? Except fishing captains are more female than male, likewise plant managers, and so forth. It is only the hereditary position of shaman that is so restricted. That is the mystery to be resolved in this novel, with Sarah's tale winding through it to provide the personal flavor.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">With Nathan Lowell's experitise at telling this story, there is much more here than gender inequality. There is a real stretch toward explaining what might be dismissed as "woo woo" in his other <b>Golden</b> Age tales, and a revealing glimpse of Sarah herself, before she signed on to the <i>Lois McKendrick</i>. The duology can be read stand-alone, although for best effect, I recommend reading at least the first two books of the </span><b style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "trebuchet ms", sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;">Traders Tales From the Golden Age of the Solar Clipper</b><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "trebuchet ms", sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;"> series, <b><i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Quarter-Share-Traders-Golden-Clipper/dp/1940575001/" target="_blank">Quarter Share</a></i></b> and <b><i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Share-Traders-Tales-Solar-Clipper/dp/194057501X/" target="_blank">Half Share</a></i></b>.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
</div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Finally, consider this: If there is something out in the world worth listening too, that gives the gifted shaman his power, how much more might be gained to actually <b><i>hearing </i></b>what you are listening for?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>Pat Cummingshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05476249942977497820noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4169324764433790280.post-67473574288605269112020-02-02T21:08:00.000-08:002020-02-02T21:08:26.084-08:00The Son of the Shaman: Listening to the World<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-d6hC9WsffKA/XjcjDMfGZQI/AAAAAAAAI4A/mQrNTm-1ZAoRJjz9SP5Wb9qPmZ3_Os_awCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Cover_SouthCoast.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="528" data-original-width="356" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-d6hC9WsffKA/XjcjDMfGZQI/AAAAAAAAI4A/mQrNTm-1ZAoRJjz9SP5Wb9qPmZ3_Os_awCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/Cover_SouthCoast.JPG" width="215" /></a></div>
<h4>
<b><i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/South-Coast-Shamans-Tales-1/dp/1940575141/" target="_blank">South Coast</a> (A Shaman's Tale Book 1)</i> by Nathan Lowell</b></h4>
<i style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><br /></i>
<i style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">“Honey, everyone here fishes,” his mother said with a smile. “Even your father. It’s just some of us catch different things."</i><br />
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms", sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms", sans-serif;">We met the slightly-scary, strangely spooky Sarah Krugg in</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms", sans-serif;"> </span><b style="font-family: "trebuchet ms", sans-serif;"><i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Share-Traders-Tales-Solar-Clipper/dp/194057501X/" target="_blank">Half Share</a></i></b><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms", sans-serif;">,</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms", sans-serif;"> Book 2 of Lowell's </span><b style="font-family: "trebuchet ms", sans-serif;">Traders Tales From the Golden Age of the Solar Clipper</b><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms", sans-serif;"> series.</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms", sans-serif;"> In one sense, this is the first volume of Sarah's backstory. More than that, it is the background tale for the <i>whelkies</i>, carved animal figures inlayed with purple-shell hearts, that play such a crucial role in those stories.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms", sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms", sans-serif;">The whelkies that Ismael Wang purchases at the flea market (in </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms", sans-serif;"><b><i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Quarter-Share-Traders-Golden-Clipper/dp/1940575001/" target="_blank">Quarter Share</a></i></b>)</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms", sans-serif;"> on the orbital above St. Cloud speak to him. At various points in the <b>Traders Tales</b>, each whelkie "finds" someone it will help, and Ismael makes it a gift. </span><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms, sans-serif;">Shamans on St. Cloud create the whelkies—and by tradition, they are never sold, only given to those they match. The shamans walk the beaches to collect driftwood and purple whelk shells that are carved and combined to form the mystical figurines. And they "listen to the world." </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms", sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: trebuchet ms, sans-serif;">Otto Krugg is the son of such a shaman. By company rules on St. Cloud, he will be a shaman because he is the son of a shaman, and as such, he is exempt from the requirement to be working for the company by age eighteen, or he will be kicked off-planet. Only Company employees—and shamans—may reside on St. Cloud. But Otto really would rather be a fisherman, like most of his schoolmates. His father Richard, however, insists he must "go into the family business," and learn to listen to the world as he does.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: trebuchet ms, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: trebuchet ms, sans-serif;">When a business threat derails the fishing community's comfortable way of life, many things will change. Including Otto's future, his parent's, and indeed, that of the entire South Coast of St. Cloud.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: trebuchet ms, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: trebuchet ms, sans-serif;">There are multiple levels of story here. At its simplest, it is a tale of a community industry under threat, and the clever ways its members find to work together to solve their dilemma. Slightly more nuanced, it is the story of how a father can teach his son to follow in his footsteps when he himself isn't quite sure where he is going. </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms", sans-serif;">And deeper than that, it shows how the respect of man for his environment can lead beyond mere survival to contentment.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms", sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms", sans-serif;">But only if we are listening.</span></div>
Pat Cummingshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05476249942977497820noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4169324764433790280.post-26352510700990885122020-01-31T22:18:00.000-08:002020-01-31T22:18:14.124-08:00One Charm to Rule Them All<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Yj-fsJhB_Vw/XjUOdV66P8I/AAAAAAAAI3Q/2EZHveSNLYUJc23DgH6eLtYVWfYP0i08ACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Cover_WillAndTheWilds.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="522" data-original-width="354" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Yj-fsJhB_Vw/XjUOdV66P8I/AAAAAAAAI3Q/2EZHveSNLYUJc23DgH6eLtYVWfYP0i08ACLcBGAsYHQ/s320/Cover_WillAndTheWilds.JPG" width="217" /></a></div>
<b><i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Will-Wilds-Charlie-N-Holmberg/dp/1542005000/" target="_blank">The Will and the Wilds</a></i> by Charlie N. Holmberg</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Enna and her mentally-damaged father live far from the village, but close to the Wilds, a dangerous locale for anyone who doesn't know how to control or fend off the "mystings," ravening creatures that can come into the world from its shadowy depths.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Her father's damage came from descending into the normal world of the mystings, to retrieve a charm to help his daughter track them so she can avoid them. Now he has just sufficient memory to grow mushrooms, although he frequently mistakes Enna for her mother, who was killed by a mystings pack of "grinlings" in the Wild when Enna was younger.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Enna lives a semi-secluded life, caring for her father and their small farm, selling their mushrooms in the village, tending her herb garden, and studying the Wild and the mystings. She dreams of attending a school and sharing her knowledge with the world, but neither the money it would require nor her need to stay close with her father will allow this luxury.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">All that changes when a demon-beast from the Wild charges past their protective herbal boundary, and marks Enna for destruction. Her solution is to make a bargain with a different kind of mysting, and trade a willing kiss for a pledge to destroy the pack that has targeted Enna.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">And that is when things <i>really </i>begin to go wrong...</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Charlie Holmberg's material magician novels—starting with <b><i>The Paper Magician</i></b>—often share this tension between gifted-yet-ignorant young women and powerful, skilled men who serve as their tutors. In <b><i>The Will and the Wilds</i></b>, Enna and her pledged demon Maekellus are equally ignorant of each other's worlds and abilities, and the tension comes as much from what they share with each other as it does from their battle to save both worlds from the power invested in Enna's Ring-like charm.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The tale neatly skirts the trap of fairy-tale Beauty and Beast, and goes directly to a deeper question: can a woman surrender to a man, yet retain her self? Can a man truly love a woman, yet not conquer and consume her?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The answer is worth the trip into the deep, dark Wilds.</span>Pat Cummingshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05476249942977497820noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4169324764433790280.post-80622407175310047262020-01-31T08:25:00.000-08:002020-02-02T21:20:58.214-08:00Homeless in High School<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-IJD8p6XhaWE/XjRGTluz1hI/AAAAAAAAI3A/ela6uPOQYNQ8xS83eYv3JZMMic9BIPqCACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Cover_Roam.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="530" data-original-width="351" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-IJD8p6XhaWE/XjRGTluz1hI/AAAAAAAAI3A/ela6uPOQYNQ8xS83eYv3JZMMic9BIPqCACLcBGAsYHQ/s320/Cover_Roam.JPG" width="211" /></a></div>
<h4>
<b><i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Roam-C-H-Armstrong/dp/1771681519/" target="_blank">Roam</a></i> by C.H. Armstrong</b></h4>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Nothing breeds angst like being a teenager in a new school. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Being new in school partway through your senior year is bad enough, but <b><i>Roam</i></b>'s protagonist Abby Lunde has been ripped from a comfortable upper-middle-class lifestyle with two working parents, and </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">a highly successful high-school life—cheerleader, member of a clique of "populars"—</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">to land in Minnesota, in winter, her family homeless in an otherwise-wealthy community.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">To add further apprehension to her social situation, Abby was badly traumatized by the way her "friends back home" reacted to her change in circumstance, and lives in fear of the day her new schoolmates will learn she is sleeping in a car with her family in the local Walmart parking lot, pretending to shop there when she needs to use the toilet, eating at the local soup kitchen, and doing her morning ablutions in the high-school restroom.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Nevertheless, she does gain friends almost immediately, from a ready-made group of Disney-nicknamed classmates to an interested young man who turns into a potential prom date. This rich-boy/poor-girl trope is a major part of the tale</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">—along with a </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">snobbish bully antagonist, a </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">pre-prom "makeover," and a vocal competition straight out of <b><i>High School Musical</i></b>. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">So is this <i>just </i>a soap-opera teen drama with a homeless twist? Not at all.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The strongest message here is the crucial importance of family in overcoming teen angst. From her perspective, Abby's family was broken by the unforgivable choices made by her parents. In her new school, and in the homeless support community they came to Minnesota to find, she builds a wider family, and eventually learns to heal what is broken in her own heart.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And nothing could be less soap-opera than that.</span>Pat Cummingshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05476249942977497820noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4169324764433790280.post-38794811891953819422020-01-18T11:40:00.000-08:002020-01-18T11:40:04.052-08:00The Magic Words of Babel<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-n3aJYxpW6X0/XiNR33euSAI/AAAAAAAAI0U/uD0cp-HHmNYxGmWy1LyNbdLkoo3HCytGgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Cover_Lexicon.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="527" data-original-width="347" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-n3aJYxpW6X0/XiNR33euSAI/AAAAAAAAI0U/uD0cp-HHmNYxGmWy1LyNbdLkoo3HCytGgCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/Cover_Lexicon.JPG" width="210" /></a></div>
<h4>
<i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Lexicon-Novel-Max-Barry/dp/0143125427/" target="_blank">Lexicon</a></i> by Max Barry</h4>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><i><br /></i></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><i>...to people at the top, the scariest thing is how many people there are below. They need to watch us. They need to monitor what we’re thinking. It’s the only thing between them and a guillotine. Every time something like this happens, anytime there’s death and fear and people demanding action, to them that’s an opportunity.</i> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">—Lexicon</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;">This terrifying science fiction thriller combines a host of sharp observations on society and individuals, a multitude of cultural origin stories that echo the Old Testament's Tower of Babel, and cutting-edge-of-tomorrow technology that might actually exist today</span><span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;">—only "they" don't want us to know. "They" are the verbal elites, a dark Illuminati who know the secret words that, when spoken, can enslave anyone</span><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">—even another member of the elite—and turn them into a virtual slave, permanently or for a defined time.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">The concept supposes a tower of puppets, a looming world-wide heirarchy of commanders and commanded. There are categories, of course, of these verbal whips, and for each personality type, some will work and others will not. In the lexicon of command, there are phrases to subjugate each group, as long as you can determine which type they are.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">The cabal of elites selects and trains likely youngsters to gather and interpret data about individuals so that their category is known. A hundred, even fifty, years ago, this would have been difficult. It would have been piecemeal, using the few persons able to determine the type of a person by direct interaction. Social media has changed that.</span></span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>People resist a census, but give them a profile page and they’ll spend all day telling you who they are.</i></span></span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">Then there is the "bareword." </span></span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">A bareword is a rare thought which, whether vocalized or visualized, can command everyone, regardless of their type. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">Except, perhaps, one immune. Maybe there are others, but one is known for certain. This unique individual may have died in an experiment—but if not, he or she has experienced first-hand the release of a bareword. And </span></span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">for the elite commanders atop their tower, </span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">this person may be their last hope to recover that bareword, to give them ultimate power. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">They pursue it despite knowing that, whenever this power has been acquired in the past, a Babel-like tower and the subsequent shattering of the common language has been the result.</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>Their power lulls them into comfort. They become undisciplined. Those who had to earn power are replaced by those who have known nothing else. Who have no comprehension of the need to rise above base desires. Power corrupts, as the saying goes, and the bareword... is not only absolute power, but worse: It is unearned.</i></span></span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">The interleaved neuro-linguistic concepts play well against the political-thriller action of <b><i>Lexicon</i></b>, provoking an intermittant recognition of real-world events, and leaving the reader at the end with a deep sense of satisfaction</span></span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">—</span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">as well as more than a little queasiness about using social media.</span></span>Pat Cummingshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05476249942977497820noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4169324764433790280.post-11913782069105290002020-01-15T10:23:00.000-08:002020-01-15T10:23:30.910-08:00Laughing at Death: Johnny Optimism<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7j-ov41puWY/Xh9XKlrdTnI/AAAAAAAAIzc/96FZpCOHX2YsO3mExebysxzgUXCsomLqACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Cover_JohnnyOptimism.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="492" data-original-width="396" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7j-ov41puWY/Xh9XKlrdTnI/AAAAAAAAIzc/96FZpCOHX2YsO3mExebysxzgUXCsomLqACLcBGAsYHQ/s320/Cover_JohnnyOptimism.JPG" width="257" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b><i><a href="https://smile.amazon.com/Johnny-Optimism-Doesnt-Makes-Stranger/dp/1672089565" target="_blank">Johnny Optimism - Volume One: What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Stranger</a></i></b> <b>by Stilton Jarlsberg</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">You can't read this book and stay blue! Well, not unless you hold your breath while searching in it for a cartoon that's<b> NOT</b> funny. Or one that is too dark to laugh at.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Truly, Johnny Optimism has the worst luck—and the best sense of humor—in the hospital, if not the world. You've got to love him!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">You'll also meet an astounding array of characters, like Tickles the creepy clown, the homicidal child with her duck puppet, cowboy-kid Pepe the epileptic, and the reading girl with her gloomy predictions of all the things that can kill you. Like a slipper. (I'm not telling. Read the book and find out. Or live the rest of your life in fear of comfortable footwear.)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The only downer in the book? It's <i>Volume One</i>. There's a whole 'nother book, at least, of Johnny Optimism jokes I'll have to wait to read.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>Note</b>: If you can't wait, try the <a href="https://johnnyoptimism.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">excellent blog</a> where new Johnny Optimism posts appear at a frequency of around three per week. A recent post:</span><br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-a0NFVct6xt8/Xh9WSOH24cI/AAAAAAAAIzQ/YM9lpA-8l4YJOzJ9PsJmgpn8VBIhh5WeACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/JO_Furnace.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="317" data-original-width="649" height="156" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-a0NFVct6xt8/Xh9WSOH24cI/AAAAAAAAIzQ/YM9lpA-8l4YJOzJ9PsJmgpn8VBIhh5WeACLcBGAsYHQ/s320/JO_Furnace.JPG" width="320" /></a><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>Note2</b>: Please observe the "Fair Warning" on the cover: These cartoons are "not for kids or the overly sensitive. (Read: <i><b>Easily Triggered</b></i>.)</span></div>
Pat Cummingshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05476249942977497820noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4169324764433790280.post-83930639818486440722020-01-15T09:38:00.001-08:002020-01-31T08:39:44.179-08:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Qy6ARypS0hs/Xh9Dzy0Zw6I/AAAAAAAAIzE/52y0zZRRZcMBJwzuSak92mff2UJwjweKACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Cover_CastleHangnail.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><i><img border="0" data-original-height="520" data-original-width="338" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Qy6ARypS0hs/Xh9Dzy0Zw6I/AAAAAAAAIzE/52y0zZRRZcMBJwzuSak92mff2UJwjweKACLcBGAsYHQ/s320/Cover_CastleHangnail.JPG" width="208" /></i></a></div>
<h4>
<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Castle-Hangnail-Ursula-Vernon/dp/0147512735" target="_blank"><i>Castle Hangnail</i></a> by Ursula Vernon</h4>
<div>
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Molly Utterback is my new hero. This twelve-year-old girl has persistence and the power of her convictions</span><span id="docs-internal-guid-23fbfc16-7fff-cd00-a96e-a353e87b556a"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">—</span></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">not to mention her witchy powers</span><span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 13.3333px; white-space: pre-wrap;">—</span></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">and she'll need every bit of it to rescue the semi-abandoned gothic Castle Hangnail and its resident minions.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Molly arrives on the doorstep of the castle with an invitation to become its Master/Mistress. Her problem is, the invitation wasn't addressed to her, but to "Eudemonia." Nevertheless, she talks her way into the hall, and sets about to meet the list of "Wicked Witch" tasks needed to qualify as the castle's resident owner. Some of these tasks, like fixing the plumbing, are ordinary (though perhaps not usually in the repertoire of a preteen girl), but </span><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">smiting and blighting </span></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">are decidedly wicked.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Molly will succeed</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">—</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">if she does</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">—</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">by studying diligently in the well-stocked library, relying on the help of her minions, and being clever about meeting the requirements listed in her Tasks scroll. And by being too stubborn to quit when it gets <i>really</i> difficult.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">This is a delicious story with plenty of twists and turns, and marvelous supporting characters. They try to be evil minions, but fail in the end due to an over-supply of empathy and love for the castle they have infested for so long. Yes, infested; among Molly's assistants are bats and moles. And a donkey.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b><i>Castle Hangnail</i></b> has clever twists to delight the adult reader, and a happy ending to please the middle-school reader</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">—plus lots of gothic details and snide asides to satisfy the young adults in between.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">You'll enjoy it.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>Pat Cummingshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05476249942977497820noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4169324764433790280.post-88276680090307591692020-01-11T12:51:00.001-08:002020-01-11T12:53:03.372-08:00Merlin, Henry VIII, and Elizabeth II Battle the Inquisition<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-39PLDXYd0bA/Xhow7zJI1wI/AAAAAAAAIyM/k_K3TOAXyEEsz_3UQHL-ebTyaQAWyjV2QCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Cover_OffArmageddonReef.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="523" data-original-width="323" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-39PLDXYd0bA/Xhow7zJI1wI/AAAAAAAAIyM/k_K3TOAXyEEsz_3UQHL-ebTyaQAWyjV2QCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/Cover_OffArmageddonReef.JPG" width="197" /></a></div>
<h4>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b><i>Off Armageddon Reef</i> by David Weber</b></span></h4>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Humanity exists on only a single world, but it's not Earth. The population of Safehold is the rescued remnant of near-extinction by an unpronounceable enemy that found them because of broadcasts, bursts of energy, and expansion into space from the humans' original home.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Instead of preparing Safehold to remain in a state of technological "quiet" until the colonists are eventually ready to take on the foe that devasted them before, their leaders choose instead to reprogram them, compelling them to worship their leaders, and to follow an over-arching Church that requires its believers not to progress from a feudal-level society's art and knowledge. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The colonists' programming defines their leaders as semi-divine "Archangels," and that status is </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">underscored</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">by their use of space-travel technology in which the Archangels indulge themselves. Finally, they recreate the Inquisition to ensure that even when their very-long-lived leaders are finally dead, the colony will continue to stagnate in its Dark Ages.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Unknown to these corrupt leaders, a safeguard has been put into place to undo their schemes at a far-future date. Nimue Alban (or rather, the near-immortal avatar that holds her personality and memories) must guide the Safehold colony to progress past this short-sighted program so that they will have a chance to defeat the enemy if and when it ever finds them. The Archangels are long dead when her avatar is roused, but their Church and its Inquisition are still very much alive.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">When I first read </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b><i>Off Armageddon Reef</i></b></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> years ago, it took me almost a year. I kept putting the book down—for months at a time—and coming back to it only when I had nothing else to read. I thoroughly enjoy all of Weber's <b>Honor Harrington</b> novels. Why couldn't I get into the <b>Safehold</b> series?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Re-reading it this year in the omnibus <b><i>Safehold</i></b>, I now recognize the problem. This series-in-one-volume begins with nearly 900 pages of prequel and exposition. Reading it in the omnibus Kindle version makes better sense of the initial novel, even though it doesn't quite cure another issue. Like many David Weber novels,</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>Off Armageddon Reef</b></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">is chock-full to bursting with <i>characters, </i>most of whom are crucial to the story, or essential to plot-points that will come later in the series. In Weber's other series, this is not an issue. If you like Weber, you've learned to accept that well-developed masses of players are part of his game.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">However, in the</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> </span><b style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Safehold</b><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> series, there is a bug in the game. Those abundant character and place names are all spelled weirdly. Weber says in the prequel/exposition that <i>"over nearly nine hundred years there had been a shift in the language such that words were pronounced differently, but spelled the same."</i> In the novel, the opposite occurs, </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">and the shift seems limited to names</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">—</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">plus </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">the rules for unraveling vowel and consonant shifts are not consistent. So "Bynzhamyn" is probably "Benjamin," and "Jhames" is obviously "James." But "Jherneau" and multiple others are beyond simple transcription. The effort to translate becomes a constant diversion from the story, and it makes it harder than necessary to unravel the cast of characters.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">That issue, however, is all that detracts from the novel, which like any Weber novel, is also full to bursting with action—political, naval, military, and yes, religious. Building a world like this one, with a culture begun as a <i>tabula rasa</i>, and then programmed and designed to remain in a technologically medieval state, offers Weber a wide scope to show the development of all the science and engineering that exploded at the end of our own Dark Ages, with the sweeping cultural and political changes that this explosion brought. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I expect that the subsequent novels in the series will read easier for me, now that I can be less distracted by the odd spelling choices, and just enjoy the interconnection of religious awakenings and social changes that follow in the wake of massive technological advances. As well as the stirring naval battles and political manuevers, of course!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">So if you've been puzzled, as I was, by the way <b>Off Armageddon Reef</b> seemed to be a puzzle with a few missing pieces, try the omnibus version, the first twelve hundred pages or so. With that addition, it becomes another thrilling Weber series with a strong female protagonist.</span>Pat Cummingshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05476249942977497820noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4169324764433790280.post-32969651493147939322020-01-03T23:07:00.001-08:002020-01-03T23:07:59.012-08:00A Quest to Middle School<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4q77-gpyp-8/XhA5BE3UkfI/AAAAAAAAIxk/gkcZWEA8W_4eZQ7MwvPjc4nXgcZZwzPAACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Cover_HomeRoomsAndHallPasses.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="475" data-original-width="320" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4q77-gpyp-8/XhA5BE3UkfI/AAAAAAAAIxk/gkcZWEA8W_4eZQ7MwvPjc4nXgcZZwzPAACLcBGAsYHQ/s320/Cover_HomeRoomsAndHallPasses.JPG" width="215" /></a></div>
<h3>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b><i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0062872141" target="_blank">Homerooms and Hall Passes</a></i> by Tom O'Donnell</b></span></span></h3>
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<span id="freeTextreview3078500983" style="background-color: white; color: #181818;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">What if the universe of <b>Dungeons & Dragons</b> is the real one, and to relax after heroic quests and battling trolls, young people in that world play a <i>non-</i>adventure game called <b>Homerooms and Hall Passes</b>, in which they roll dice and consult charts to learn if they will survive in the stressful world of a suburban middle school? That's the premise of this witty, engaging story from Tom O'Donnell. You know, the creator of <b><i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/006237754X" target="_blank">Hamstersaurus Rex</a>.</i></b></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818;">To spin the story anti-clockwise from a myriad of D&D-inspired fantasy novels, the H&HP players find themselves trapped in the world of the game they've been playing. The Viking-like wielder of a hammer named "Boneshatter" must settle into the role of a nerd; the gothic loner elf must transform herself into one of the "popular" girls; the habits of the group's thief threaten all of them with expulsion; the virtuous warrior maiden must learn to tell white lies. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818;">And the apprentice wizard finds himself faced with leading his group against a challenge that many full-fledged wizards would turn away from.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818;">Algebra.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818;">Even if you've never played a game of D&D, I guarantee you'll find enough detail here to make sense, and more than enough thrills, puns, and wry observations to make you want to play along.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818;"> </span></span>Pat Cummingshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05476249942977497820noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4169324764433790280.post-28844619449148280552020-01-03T22:57:00.000-08:002020-01-03T22:57:53.347-08:00Performing in a Mine Field<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b><i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Am-Radar-Novel-Reif-Larsen/dp/0143107917" target="_blank">I Am Radar</a> by Reif Larsen</i></b></h3>
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<i><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">[I]n every death, someone suffered and someone triumphed, and often those two were the same person... </span></i><br />
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<span id="docs-internal-guid-733d8420-7fff-152b-a456-7fa9a97e59bb"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">—Reif Larsen, <i>I Am Radar</i></span></span></span></div>
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<span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span>
<span><span style="background-color: white; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I have exactly two experiences of novels by Reif Larsen, and both are richly developed, densely entangled with science, observation</span></span></span><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">, and time; </span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">and both show Larsen is willing to kill off characters the author has spent some time introducing and weaving into the narrative. </span><br />
<span><span style="background-color: white; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span><span style="background-color: white; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The first for me was the wonderful <b><i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0143117351" target="_blank">The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet</a></i></b>, with its 10-year-old scientist protagonist. That novel was joyful and celebrated love and family by the device of separating young Spivet from his far western roots, sending him on a long journey by train, where he reflected on family history, geology and water flows, bird flock movements and their deep connections to the immense land he was traversing. If you happen to encounter and enjoy the movie <b><i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Young-Prodigious-T-S-Spivet-Blu-ray/dp/B0178ASLSC" target="_blank">The Young and Prodigious T.S. Spivet</a></i></b>, trust me, the book is a richer and more succulent exploration than the film.</span></span></span><br />
<span><span style="background-color: white; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span><span style="background-color: white; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Because I loved <b><i>T.S. Spivet</i></b>, I ordered the other novel, <b><i>I Am Radar</i></b>, and dug in, hoping for the same joyful info-rich experience. I was simultaneously disappointed and elated to discover a completely different exploration, this time relating the weird effects of quantum entanglement and sub-atomic forces with the experience of surviving the conflicts and deprivations of war. Info-rich it is, but there is very little joy here. The characters observe their embattled environment from a distance, and comment on it via a series of complex and never fully-explained "performances." </span></span></span><br />
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<span><span style="background-color: white; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">“Observation is precisely the problem. Observation, as we understand it, is the nemesis of understanding,” said Bohr. “We’re obsessed with this act of witnessing—yet witnessing is an action that irrevocably affects the subject. As it turns out, we can only witness the witnessing...” </span></i></span></span><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>Maybe telling a story of the event was more powerful than witnessing it yourself....</i></span></span></blockquote>
<span><span style="background-color: white; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">As with young T.S. Spivet, the title character Radar is a child through much of the narrative. In fact, he is an infant at the novel's outset, and a young man in his twenties at its conclusion. His life, as well as his mother's and father's, are entangled by the circumstances of his birth, and then by their attempts to "cure" his condition. Entanglement is a concept both explored and demonstrated throughout the novel, with some of the "spooky" effects of quantum physics simply tossed into the narrative and then ignored, as if it is sufficient to introduce them like a splash of paint onto an abstract stage backdrop.</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>“Olfaction operates via quantum electron tunneling—we actually smell a molecule’s vibration and not the molecule itself...."</i></span></blockquote>
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<span><span style="background-color: white; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">and</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>There’s evidence that epilepsy is a quantum phenomenon.</i></span></blockquote>
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<span><span style="background-color: white; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b><i>I Am Radar</i></b> was a more immersive read for me than <i><b>T.S. Spivet</b></i>, and yet with each I resurfaced at the end knowing that I would want to reread, that there is more to discover, that I must have missed a few points along the way.</span></span></span><br />
<span><span style="background-color: white; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span><span style="background-color: white; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">And as Radar observed,<i> "</i></span></span></span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i>To see the stars, you must be able to first see the night."</i></span><br />
<span><span style="background-color: white; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"> </span></span></span><br />
<span><span style="background-color: white; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></span>Pat Cummingshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05476249942977497820noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4169324764433790280.post-18807901122525225442019-05-25T10:06:00.000-07:002019-05-25T10:06:17.746-07:00Mother-Murder or the Right to Choose<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-U0s-QGJUvWs/XOllLTBpvpI/AAAAAAAAH44/9ZGLxGz-d_8RACoLcgvnUVQZ_axEs66rQCLcBGAs/s1600/Cover_UnPlanned.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="413" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-U0s-QGJUvWs/XOllLTBpvpI/AAAAAAAAH44/9ZGLxGz-d_8RACoLcgvnUVQZ_axEs66rQCLcBGAs/s320/Cover_UnPlanned.JPG" width="206" /></span></a></div>
<h4>
<i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Unplanned-Dramatic-Planned-Parenthood-Eye-Opening/dp/1414396546" target="_blank">Unplanned</a></i> by Abby Johnson</h4>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">There was a time in our lives when, spotting a protest outside a Planned Parenthood building, my spouse and I would make a point of crossing that line to go inside and express our support of the organization. If challenged by the protestors, we might tell them, "You just got Planned Parenthood a donation."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Then came the surprising revelation from a college friend, still single decades later, that she had obtained an abortion for herself just after graduation, and it had "ruined her love life." She confessed that every time she got into a serious relationship, the thought of that murdered motherhood (her words) eventually ate away at her.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Our friend's story might have been anecdotal, but the phrase, "murdered motherhood," began to resonate. It sprang to mind during the "partial-birth abortion ban" discussion, when pro-life advocates framed the argument "as one in which a partially-born infant's life is disposable, whereas pulling the infant only a few more inches down the birth canal automatically transforms it into 'a living person, possessing rights and deserving of protection'."</span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"> In the end, the Supreme Court decision in <i>Gonzales v. Carhart</i> simply "</span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">criminalized such a procedure only if an 'overt' fatal act is performed on the fetus after 'partial delivery'," leaving Planned Parenthood (and other abortion providers) free to kill the late-term infant in the womb before extracting it.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I remembered it when the videos of Planned Parenthood staffers negotiating for the sale of aborted fetal tissue emerged a few years ago. The material they were trying to sell was surely just surrendered tissue, voluntarily given up by the nascent mothers, whether in the first trimester or later in the infant's development. Still, I began to be uncomfortable with the idea that a human body, potentially capable of surviving outside the womb, was for sale after its killing by the agents of its death. And further, that the original agent of its life could legally choose to surrender that life, thus murdering motherhood.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">In the midst of the latest arguments for "full birth abortion," notably in the debate for relaxing Virginia's abortion restrictions (“In just a few years pro-abortion zealots went from ‘safe, legal, and rare’ to ‘keep the newborns comfortable while the doctor debates infanticide,” said one Republican senator), I began reading <i><b>Unplanned.</b></i> The author of this book had been a Planned Parenthood clinic director in the years when its mission was precisely that, to make abortion safe, legal, and above all, rare. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Johnson details how, despite the concerns of her parents, her pro-life husband, her church, and her own experience of abortion, she continued to believe in that mission. It was not until she was faced with the reality of the abortion procedure, at the same time being pressured to increase the number of abortions at her clinic to boost revenue, that she switched sides.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b><i>Unplanned</i></b> is not dramatic in the sense of a theater production, but more in the sense of a pregnancy, undergoing various medical and emotional threats, finally culminating in a live birth and the welcoming of a new human into the world of life. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Welcome, Abby Johnson.</span>Pat Cummingshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05476249942977497820noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4169324764433790280.post-44229876542119236812019-04-24T10:43:00.000-07:002019-04-24T10:43:32.915-07:00Coming of Age as a Saint<h4 style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 15.4px; margin: 0px; position: relative;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;">Review: </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;">The Kevin Kirk Chronicles:<i> <a href="https://www.amazon.com/My-Moms-Mortician-Patricia-Wiles-ebook/dp/B01AJ4S3FA" target="_blank">My Mom's a Mortician</a></i><span style="font-weight: normal;">, </span><i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Funeral-Home-Evenings-Patricia-Wiles-ebook/dp/B01AJ4S1DE" target="_blank">Funeral Home Evenings</a></i><span style="font-weight: normal;">, </span><i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Early-Morning-Cemetery-Patricia-Wiles-ebook/dp/B01AJ4S1BG" target="_blank">Early Morning Cemetary</a></i>, and<i> <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Final-Farewell-Patricia-Wiles-ebook/dp/B01AJ4S17K" target="_blank">The Final Farewell</a></i> by Patricia Wiles</span></h4>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms", sans-serif;">Kevin Kirk is that perenially endearing character: a young boy on the verge of life. Young Kevin does have a cross to bear. In </span><b style="font-family: "trebuchet ms", sans-serif;">My Mom's a Mortician</b><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms", sans-serif;">, h</span><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms, sans-serif;">is parents have moved the family to a small town to manage a funeral home—and it will be Kevin's home as well!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">This story of the way Kevin copes with, and eventually comes to terms with sharing his house with dead bodies, even as he discovers his goal in life and makes friends in a new town, is a most entertaining read. I was so pleased with it, I immediately went out and bought the other three books in the Kevin Kirk Chronicles. I was <b><i>not </i></b>disappointed. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">In <b>Funeral Home Evenings, </b></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms", sans-serif;">Kevin's family life expands to include the couple who work at the funeral home. Meanwhile, his goal to become a National Geographic naturalist seems closer than ever as he joins a special science class. To his horror, however, every step forward becomes a misstep, while his spiritual development begins to conflict with his dreams. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms", sans-serif;">Kevin's life as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-Day Saints becomes more apparent in this second book. (The book's title is a play on the practice of "family home evenings" in the Church.) As with the first book, Kevin grows through the guidance of the adults in his life, for a satisfying story arc, and a promise of more to come.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms", sans-serif;"><b>Early Morning Cemetary</b> (another play on a Church practice, "early morning seminary"), sees Kevin and his friends approaching adulthood in their community by way of exploring graveyards and making tombstone rubbings. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: trebuchet ms, sans-serif;">At home, the young couple who work for the funeral home want to renovate a delapidated house so they will have their own home in which to raise their child. Kevin and his father work to find a way to help them afford this purchase. Unfortunately, just as they seem to have it worked out, a figure from their past arrives with claims on their attention, love—and funds.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms", sans-serif;">Hints of religious bias rise in this novel, adding to Kevin's burden. His growth is driven by these struggles, including an unwelcome guest, a series of items that go missing, and the accusation that Kevin is the thief.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms", sans-serif;">In the end, <b>The Final Farewell</b> sees Kevin making a choice between his long dream of becoming a National Geographic naturalist, and taking the expected step for young adult in the Church, serving as a missionary. I am still reading this one, so I will say no more than it has been a worthwhile journey, </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms", sans-serif;">a Gentile </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms", sans-serif;">traveling with young Kevin through his Chronicles, as he finds his spiritual balance, becomes a young adult and an upstanding Church member, and reveals a few of the processes by which that faith guides his growth. </span>Pat Cummingshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05476249942977497820noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4169324764433790280.post-49814368435227081112019-04-13T17:41:00.003-07:002019-04-13T17:48:50.699-07:00A River Runs Through It<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zxFX9wAcbGs/XLKCchdrddI/AAAAAAAAHts/M4jxHpXkjEQLYus4AJs5Iu2hf9HllcCIwCLcBGAs/s1600/Cover_RiverRun.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="404" data-original-width="271" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zxFX9wAcbGs/XLKCchdrddI/AAAAAAAAHts/M4jxHpXkjEQLYus4AJs5Iu2hf9HllcCIwCLcBGAs/s320/Cover_RiverRun.png" width="214" /></a></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;">Review: <a href="https://smile.amazon.com/River-Run-Forensic-Geology-Book-ebook/dp/B07QN17JTS/" target="_blank"><i>River Run</i></a></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 15.4px;"> (Forensic Geology Series Book 5) </span></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "trebuchet" , sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px;">by Toni Dwiggins</span></h4>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Cassie </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Oldfield and Walter Shaws, the forensic geologists we met in <b><i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005466WQ6/" target="_blank">Badwater</a></i></b>, <b><i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00FL4VDK6/" target="_blank">Quicksilver</a></i></b>, and <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B006XJ5NC2/" target="_blank"><b>Volcano Watch</b></a></i> (reviewed here in December 2013's </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b><i><a href="http://drpatreads.blogspot.com/2013/12/truth-as-solid-as-rock.html" target="_blank">Truth as Solid As Rock</a></i></b>) and again in <b><i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00XZDHYY4/" target="_blank">Skeleton Sea</a></i></b> (reviewed here as <b><i><a href="http://goo.gl/9K42u1" target="_blank">Hematite and Franciscan Melange</a></i></b> in May 2015) </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">are back again with a mystery set in the awe-inspiring canyon walls that tower above the Colorado River.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<b style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><i>There are many ways to die on the river</i></b><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">, as this novel states from the outset. </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Our geologists, in the area to supply their expertise for a documentary film about the Colorado, are tapped to help solve the puzzle when a fishing party of four is lost from a raft found adrift on the river. Grand Canyon Park rangers hope they can narrow the search area based on a baggie of rock chips left on the raft, and recover the lost rafters alive.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The mystery deepens when the raft party leader, Reid Lassen, is found alive. He was the only one of the four in his party wearing a PFD (personal flotation device). Reid's an old geologist friend of Walter Shaws, but Walter had been told he was dead, decades before. And he can't help with the search for the other rafters, because he's got amnesia. So Cassie and Walter go back to searching for rock sources, including one for a new specimen found in the cargo pocket of a rafter who didn't survive. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Every new specimen serves only to widen the search area. And time is running out for survivors who have yet to be found.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The action of the novel switches breath-takingly from geology to techniques of river rafting and suspicions of eco-terror. It's exactly like a raft trip through Class Ten rapids on the Colorado: terrifying, engrossing, thrilling, and exciting at turns (and sometimes all four simultaneously.)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">As with the other novels in the series, <b><i>River Run</i></b> succeeds in making the science accessible and integrating the experience of field geology with the needs of ordinary people. In this story, these are all the water-using groups along the river's run: park rangers, rafters and canyon hikers, ranchers and farmers, communities and resorts.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Read it as a mystery; read it as a thriller; read it as science/fiction in the best sense of that term—but read it! </span></div>
Pat Cummingshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05476249942977497820noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4169324764433790280.post-11625053825436727322018-01-29T21:51:00.000-08:002018-01-31T13:56:10.477-08:00Standing Firm with a PatriotCane<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-7oO5rkktbCk/Wm_9D55PvAI/AAAAAAAAF18/PMhFCphk0bAmCcYQggHpijabM2tX4TjsACLcBGAs/s1600/BasicBlack.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="437" data-original-width="208" height="320" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-7oO5rkktbCk/Wm_9D55PvAI/AAAAAAAAF18/PMhFCphk0bAmCcYQggHpijabM2tX4TjsACLcBGAs/s320/BasicBlack.png" width="152" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Basic Black (Gun-metal)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<h4>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Review: <i><a href="https://patriotcane.com/" target="_blank">PatriotCane</a></i>: Stability and Self-Defence</span></h4>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The first time I saw the PatriotCane, I wanted one. I would buy one for its gun-barrel styling, and check it out. The concept was straight-forward: if you walk with a cane, you signal vulnerability to muggers. You may make yourself a target just by using this aide to balance.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The folks at PatriotCane had a better idea. They took a good, solid cane design with a pistol-grip handle, and added a strategically-placed weight system. This cane is <b><i>loaded! </i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The addition of the weight gives the cane a heft I hadn't anticipated—especially since, just before I actually received my cane, I managed to tear something in my left foot. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">In one day, I went from a "style reviewer" to someone to needed a cane to get around.</span><br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Z7sV5VnJPiA/WnAAus9wlWI/AAAAAAAAF2I/9EpKttyyk4ox-ZbzuueeZkgrDEJoqEKtgCLcBGAs/s1600/canebox.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="350" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Z7sV5VnJPiA/WnAAus9wlWI/AAAAAAAAF2I/9EpKttyyk4ox-ZbzuueeZkgrDEJoqEKtgCLcBGAs/s320/canebox.jpg" width="260" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">It arrived in a hand-made, cane-shaped box.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The weight at its base makes this cane swing naturally, compared to a standard walking cane. It is easy to see why that factor alone would increase confidence in its users. Knowing that the cane can double as a self-defense tool adds an additional layer of, well, <i><b>swagger</b></i> to walking with it.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The weighted end and pistol-grip handle provide another side-effect. Hang the cane from the edge of a counter, table, or other surface, and its low center of gravity swings the base below its hang-point. This angle catches the finger-dimples in the rubber grip, preventing the cane from sliding to the floor.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The cane comes in a wide variety of custom colors, patterns, and options, including flags, and military mottos. I'm even informed the wife of the company owner will add spangles to a cane for the user who prefers <b><i>sparkle</i></b> to swagger.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ <b><i><a href="https://patriotcane.com/" target="_blank">PatriotCane</a></i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">5 Stars: Style, substance, swagger, and sweet self-defense action! </span>Pat Cummingshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05476249942977497820noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4169324764433790280.post-26588257674981133712017-10-10T13:26:00.000-07:002017-10-10T13:26:03.120-07:00Here Be (More) Dragons<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/514MEEZPXVL.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="475" data-original-width="333" height="320" src="https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/514MEEZPXVL.jpg" width="224" /></a></div>
<h4>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Review: <b><i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Dragons-Kin-Pern-Book-4-ebook/dp/B000FBJDVQ" target="_blank">Dragon’s Kin</a></i></b> by Anne McCaffrey and Todd McCaffrey</span></h4>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />There are worlds we adore from the first novel: Harry Potter. Honor Harrington. Flinx and Pip. For many of us, the first of those instant loves was with the third world of Rukbat, called Pern. Here, there were dragons.<br /><br />Together with Anne McCaffrey, we explored the consequences of a telempathic, flight-capable companion which selected its life-long partners. Every lonely child could dwell for the space of reading in a place where one might be plucked up from the ordinary and removed forever to the realm of heroes.<br /><br />McCaffrey’s own hobbies and interests echoed throughout the Pern novels. Song and music, art and craft- and cot-hold technology flavored the tales of great dragons and tiny fire-dragons. </span><div>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Then between one breath and the next, it seemed, the author lost the taste for dragons. She launched the <b><i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Acorna-Unicorn-Girl-Book-ebook/dp/B000FCKBFW" target="_blank">Acorna</a></i></b> series. She co-authored novels with Elizabeth Ann Scarborough and Elizabeth Moon. Meanwhile, Pern languished unconsidered.<br /><br />With <b><i>Dragon’s Kin, </i></b></span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Anne got back on the dragon. The novel </span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">is a real addition to the Pern oevre, with the genuine flavor of McCaffrey’s writing, and the adolescent heros that won us to this world in the first place. Co-authored by Anne’s son Todd, the book tells how miner’s son Kindan finds the dragon-power and kinship in the watch-whers. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Todd’s story is slightly darker than his mother’s have been. No less than ten miners die in the course of the story, and Kindan and his friend Zenor are both orphaned. But like all of the Pern stories, the story ends with growth and satisfaction, not fairy-tale happiness—and the promise of a sequel. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">That’s happy ending enough for me!</span></div>
Pat Cummingshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05476249942977497820noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4169324764433790280.post-45466274285648218182017-10-07T12:33:00.002-07:002017-10-07T12:33:20.404-07:00My DNA Made Me Do It!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51n1VB3YFJL.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="325" height="320" src="https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51n1VB3YFJL.jpg" width="208" /></a></div>
<h4>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Review: <b><i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Time-Love-Memory-Biologist-Behavior-ebook/dp/B00JNQML1I" target="_blank">Time, Love, Memory</a></i></b> by Jonathan Weiner</span></h4>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Not since the Age of Enlightenment had the world seen such a crew of intellectual cutthroats, divinely assured of their rights of succession and their place in history. The philosophes of the Enlightenment also had their share of tall, thin, prognathous young men, and many of their contemporaries found them (in the words of Horace Walpole) “solemn, arrogant, dictatorial coxcombs—I need not say superlatively disagreeable.”</span></blockquote>
<br /><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">This book is the tale of the “intellectual cutthroats” who tracked down the mechanism of Mendelian inheritance, DNA. </span><div>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">From Watson and Crick (whose names are famously linked to the discovery) to Brooklyn-born Seymour Benzer (whose name is virtually unknown, even in scientific circles outside DNA research), Weiner has put together a brilliant presentation of the unfolding of a new science.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">After the eureka of Watson and Crick, one of the challenges for the new science (which did not yet call itself <b>molecular biology</b>) was to connect these classical maps of the gene with the new model of the double helix. It was Benzer who thought of a way to do it. Not long after Watson and Crick announced their discovery, Benzer hit on a plan that might unite the old revolution and the new revolution: classical genetics and molecular biology.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Weiner’s “cast of characters” reads like a Who’s Who of 20th century iconoclastic science: Richard Feynman, Max Delbrück, E.O. Wilson, geneticists Watson and Crick and Ronald Konopka, and the “Fly Room” scientists T.H. Morgan (whose name was given to the chromosome map unit “centimorgan”), Alfred Sturtevant and Ed Lewis. At the center of the tale, though, is Seymour Benzer, an innovative thinker who took the inheritance paradigm one step further, asking, can <b><i>behavior</i></b> be inherited?</span><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">With the discovery of the clock gene, the sense of time, mysterious for so many centuries, was no longer a mystery that could be observed only from the outside. Now it could be explored as a mechanism from the inside. This discovery implied that behavior itself could now be charted and mapped as precisely as any other aspect of inheritance. Qualities that people had always thought of… as if they were supernatural, might be mapped right alongside qualities as mundane as eye pigment.</span></blockquote>
<br /><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Benzer’s band of “cutthroat intellectuals” would have to battle for the new paradigm, both within the scientific community and outside it. Weiner’s book is, therefore a war story; but one in which the victories are celebrated by all combatants, and coups are bloodless. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">For those interested in behavioral science, genetics, or the concept of paradigm change, it is a fascinating read.</span></div>
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<h4>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Liner Note:</span></h4>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I was surprised that the ground-breaking crystallography of Rosalind Franklin, whose photographs of the helical structure supplied the data that Watson and Crick used to achieve their leap of insight, was scarcely mentioned. Of course, since Franklin died before the Nobel was awarded, she was not a recipient. And like Benzer, she might have been forgotten, aside from </span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">DNA researchers, had it not been for an amazing <b><i>BBC Life Story</i></b> episode usually referred to as <b><i>The Race for the Double Helix</i></b>. The movie, which gives full weight to Franklin's contribution, was only released on VHS, and is largely unavailable now.</span></div>
Pat Cummingshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05476249942977497820noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4169324764433790280.post-17967124886675649382017-10-05T13:12:00.000-07:002017-10-05T13:23:38.683-07:00The Revolt Against Asimov’s Second Empire<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/519HVHTPC1L.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="475" data-original-width="305" height="320" src="https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/519HVHTPC1L.jpg" width="205" /></a></div>
<h4>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Review: <b><i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Psychohistorical-Crisis-Donald-Kingsbury/dp/0765341956" target="_blank">Psychohistorical Crisis</a></i></b> by Donald Kingsbury</span></h4>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br />One of the pillars upon which the giant reputation of Isaac Asimov still rests is the sweeping <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Foundation-Empire-Second/dp/0307593967" style="font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">Foundation Trilogy</a>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">These three novels detail how mathematician and historian Hari Seldon foresaw a 30-millennium-long Galaxy-wide collapse of civilization, and devised a plan to shorten those coming dark ages to a single millennium. Seldon planned an openly-acknowledged path of historical development for the newly-created Encyclopedia Foundation located on a world at the fringe of the Empire whose collapse Seldon predicted. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Periodically, this Foundation would face a Seldon Event, a psychohistorical crisis, in which a threat to its existence which would constrain the nascent second empire to follow a single, pre-determined, path. To keep the Seldon Plan on track, a second, hidden foundation consisting of heirs to Seldon’s science of psychohistory would act as “wizards behind the screen” to ensure the coming of the Second Empire.<br /><br />In <b><i>Psychohistorical Crisis</i></b>, Donald Kingsbury looks at the re-established Second Empire, over 2700 years after the crafting of the Seldon Plan. In this far-distant future, Seldon’s name is lost in the mists of history, and psychohistory is a occult practice, whose “Psycholars” maintain their Galactic rule by keeping the tenets of their science a deep secret. Citizens of the second empire exist in their complex society only with the aid of a mind-enhancing outgrowth of Asimov’s mind-probe, the quantum-mechanical familiar, or “fam”. On the surface, all is pleasant and peaceful.<br /><br />Beneath that calm, however, are roiling currents of revolution. And bobbing along, pulled this way and that by these currents, is Eron Osa, a mathematical genius with a modified fam. We meet Osa as he is stripped of his fam for an unspecified crime. Condemned to live without his memories (but warned by the rebel Psycholar Hahukum Konn not to use the “prosthetic” fam supplied by the ruling council), Osa is forced to live by his native wit—even to the extent of actually reading with his eyes (gasp!) a purloined book of the Founder’s lessons as he attempts to recover the science he has lost.<br /><br />We then flash back to Eron’s childhood, where we meet Hiranimus Scogil, another rebel, who is seeking a brilliant student to place as a sleeper in the Psycholar’s Lyceum on “Splendid Wisdom,” the seat of the Second Empire. Scogil places his student in the hands of Nemia of l’Armontag, who modifies his fam, ostensibly to give him faster access times, but with a longer-term plan to allow the mysterious Oversee organization to activate their sleeper when desired. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">We meet Kikaju Jama, yet another schemer bent on manipulating events by training and releasing agents, the tattooed barkeep Rigone of Splendid Wisdom, and Frightfulperson Otaria of the Calmer Seas, all of whom have designs upon the mind and future of Eron Osa. In deliciously complex inter-woven character histories, Kingsbury examines the human desire to manipulate others, on the personal as well as the Galactic scale.<br /><br />Wrapped in layers of philosophy, history, metrical science and astrology, Kingsbury has also given us a closer look at the central premise of Asimov’s trilogy: that what men can predict, men can control. He then challenges this premise, exploring themes of free will vs. prediction; the scalability of government styles, knowledge acquisition and knowledge retention; and the quantum-cat nature of both prediction and history.<br /><br />This is a demanding read, with sly references to a wide range of science-fictional works in addition to its densely-woven core story. You can enjoy the novel as a mystery (why does Eron Osa merit the execution of his fam?), as science fiction (will the various rebels succeed in overthrowing the Psycholars’ rule, and what is the mechanism by which knowledge slides into myth?), or as skillful homage to Asimov. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">However you read it, the book is thoroughly enjoyable.<br /></span><br />
<h4>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Liner Note</span></h4>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">At the time of this review, the book was not available on Kindle.</span></div>
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</div>
Pat Cummingshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05476249942977497820noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4169324764433790280.post-76408122689819591532017-10-04T13:11:00.000-07:002017-10-04T13:11:00.284-07:00Light Horror from a Dark Past<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51g8o4GgVIL.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="304" height="320" src="https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51g8o4GgVIL.jpg" width="194" /></a></div>
<h4>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Review: <b><i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Boys-Are-Back-Town/dp/0553586157" target="_blank">The Boys Are Back in Town</a></i></b> by Christopher Golden</span></h4>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />“<i>Like Rod Serling. Stephen Donaldson. L. Frank Baum crossed with Stephen King.</i>” </span><div>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Reviewers have struggled to place Christopher Golden’s work into a specific niche of the horror genre, but previous books have defied such placement. <b><i>The Boys Are Back in Town</i></b> is no different.<br /><br />Oh, <b><i>Boys</i></b> begins typically enough, B-movie script expectable. Will James is a world-weary tabloid reporter, collecting yet another story before he heads back to the home town for a tenth-year high-school reunion. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">He’s made plans to meet with all his old friends while back home, </span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">exchanging eMails and setting up dinner plans with each of them. Aside from Mike Lebo, though, Will hasn’t seen most of them since high school. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Then he arrives for the reunion, and his innocent inquiries after Mike are met with shocked stares. Everyone else remembers Mike Lebo’s death during their senior year.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />As Will examines his memories, a darker history than he recalled before the reunion begins to emerge. There’s a reason he’s not an award-winning journalist. There’s a reason Will alone remembers Mike Lebo alive after graduation. And there’s a sinister reason Mike eMailed him before the reunion.<br /><br />It’s all tied up with the black magic these high-school friends practiced ten years ago. Will finds his world changing around him as his memories shift. He must travel back in time to undo the disastrous events that have set an entire high school class onto a twisted path.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /><br />Golden writes dialogue in a very “new age” style, with the choppy rhythm of eMail, tweets, and voice-mail. Yet he uses a descriptive technique straight out of Dashiel Hammett: objective, blunt and unemotional. The combination works to create a modern atmosphere for some very creepy action.<br /><br />The novel lightly explores the way our destinies are determined by choices we make, and how our identity is inextricable from our memories. Like most horror novels, the message is superficial. If you’re not looking for anything deep and lasting, this is an excellent choice.</span></div>
Pat Cummingshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05476249942977497820noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4169324764433790280.post-60489151534997478632017-10-02T12:13:00.001-07:002017-10-02T12:25:10.260-07:00Galaxy Quest It's Not—And That's Good!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BMTc5NTAxNzk2M15BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwMzYwODEyMzI@._V1_UX182_CR0,0,182,268_AL_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="268" data-original-width="182" src="https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BMTc5NTAxNzk2M15BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwMzYwODEyMzI@._V1_UX182_CR0,0,182,268_AL_.jpg" /></span></a></div>
<h4>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Review: <b><i><a href="https://www.googleadservices.com/pagead/aclk?sa=L&ai=DChcSEwih04yEwNLWAhXXW4YKHaHZBgcYABAAGgJ2dQ&ohost=www.google.com&cid=CAESEeD2FPULQOFXQlOGuLVbg2FZ&sig=AOD64_3bYhYGuNxe-ODwT5ofElJkajjcLg&q=&ved=0ahUKEwiC9IWEwNLWAhUEOCYKHWqoDEsQ0QwIJg&adurl=" target="_blank">The Orville</a></i></b>, Fox TV, Initial Episodes with Seth McFarlane, Adrianne Palicki, and—Liam Neeson!?</span></h4>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Touted as a comedy, set in the "hallowed" Star Trek universe—sort of—and helmed by its writer/producer, and often, director Seth McFarlane (<b><i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Family-Guy-One-Seth-MacFarlane/dp/B000083C6V" target="_blank">Family Guy</a></i></b>, but also <b><i>Ted</i></b> and <b><i>Ted2</i></b>), <b><i>The Orville</i></b> on Fox Thursdays was not on on my watch schedule. I have a favorite comedic space-opera movie in <b><i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Galaxy-Quest-Blu-ray-Various/dp/B00AEFY3DQ" target="_blank">Galaxy Quest</a></i></b>, and sincerely doubted this TV show could match it.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Then I got a nudge from a friend on <b><a href="https://gab.ai/" target="_blank">Gab</a></b>, and went to Fox OnDemand to catch Episode 1. I wound up watching four episodes in a row.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Surprise! I don't know who was blowing air up whose skirts, but whether with intention or not, this is no comedy. Oh, it has its light-hearted moments. With McFarlane as its principal writer, of course it has plenty of puerile humor. (The "best helmsman in the Fleet" has been beached for "drawing penises on pretty much everything.") The zany mix of aliens in the Fleet are weirder than otherwise expected, including a mucusoid green blob that keeps propositioning the Doctor, finally settling for an evening alone, "just me and my toothpaste."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">But the stories are classic Star Trek serious. Episode 1 has Captain Ed Mercer (McFarlane again) battling his XO ex-wife (Palicki) publicly on the bridge, and privately sniping back and forth whenever the opportunity arises. Everyone in the ship, it becomes obvious, is in on the issue, casually debating</span>—<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">or betting</span>—<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">on the outcome of their spats. Others have criticized the marital squabbling and the crew's absorption in it; I found it contributed to the realism. What people anywhere, anytime <b><i>don't</i></b> gossip about such things? </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Can you spell Kardashian?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">A screamingly funny bit in fact </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">literally </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">brought in the Kardashians as a solution to a kidnapping. Helmsman Lt. Gordon Malloy (Scott Grimes) defeats an enemy ship by "humping the donkey", then wonders why his CO didn't ask where the egg produced by alien Lt. Commander Bortus (Peter Macon in a Worf-like appliance) came from, complaining, "How is that not the <b><i>first</i></b> thing you ask?"</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">So there's comedy in this "comedy-drama," just a whole lot more drama. And if it's a bit (or even a lot) strained, I'm willing to stick with it a while longer. I'll give McFarlane and the other writers a chance to grow into the drama-writing.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">You see, I remember the initial episodes of Star Trek TOS. </span>Pat Cummingshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05476249942977497820noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4169324764433790280.post-63139714107209252462017-09-28T14:33:00.000-07:002017-09-28T14:33:35.079-07:00Great Book, Appalling Movie<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/71hb4WtXvHL._SL1500_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="562" height="320" src="https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/71hb4WtXvHL._SL1500_.jpg" width="224" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Original DVD Cover Image, 1998</td></tr>
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<h4>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Review: <i><b><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Starship-Troopers-Anniversary-Blu-ray-UltraViolet/dp/B07288ZGX7" target="_blank">Starship Troopers</a></b></i> with Casper van Diem, Michael Ironside <i><u>vs</u>.</i> <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Starship-Troopers-Robert-Heinlein-ebook/dp/B004EYTK2C" target="_blank">Starship Troopers</a></i> by Robert A. Heinlein</span></h4>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Challenged to name a movie that fell disappointingly short of its source, my first reaction is <b><i>Starship Troopers</i></b>, out in a 20th anniversary edition this month.<br /><br />Two decades ago, I was tremendously excited when I learned they would make this book into a movie, even as I doubted they would capture its flavor in full. The problem is internal dialogue. Truly interesting books take us into the inner life of their main characters; in revealing those meditations and self-recriminations, they expose their souls. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Without that insight, fictional characters are as intellectually interesting as rock-em-sock-em robots.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Typically, movies substitute external dialogue and narrative for these inner debates. An example of this done well can be seen in the 1984 version of </span><b style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Dune-Widescreen-Francesca-Annis/dp/0783226063" target="_blank">Dune</a></i></b><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">. Without the narrative voiced by Gurney Halleck (Patrick Stewart) and Princess Irulan (Virginia Madsen) in that film, its story would be impenetrable. With it, and by dint of voicing much of the book’s mental dialogue, it succeeds as an adaptation.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">So I knew it would not be impossible to capture the philosophy- and social-commentary-laden substance of Heinlein’s novel. Then I saw it in the theatrical release, and was sorely disappointed. This is simply not Heinlein’s story.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Oh, the bugs are there. The sneak attack by this alien hive-dwelling race that wipes out Johnny Rico’s home city is in the movie. The Mobile Infantry are there, with their armored suits complete with heads-up displays, pocket nukes and jump jets. What didn’t survive the cut? Only the reason why Johnny joins the service in the first place.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Heinlein’s novel hinges on two social differences in the world of </span><b style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><i>Starship Troopers</i></b><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">. First, only veterans—those who have chosen to place their lives “between their loved home and the war’s desolation”—have the right to vote. Civilians do not have that right, and neither do serving troopers. Heinlein justifies this very succinctly:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Suddenly he pointed his stump at me. “You. What is the moral difference, if any, between the soldier and the civilian?” ”The difference,” I answered carefully, ” lies in the field of civic virtue. A soldier accepts personal responsibility for the safety of the body politic of which he is a member, defending it, if need be, with his life. The civilian does not.”</span></blockquote>
<br /><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Second, it is anyone’s choice to enlist at any time after their 18th birthday. The services will find <i>something</i> for the enlistee to do, to allow them to earn the franchise. But if they then go AWOL, resign, or are drummed out for any reason, they never have the opportunity to try again. Politicians from dogcatcher to President must, under this system, be veterans, and there are no “reserves”.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The movie barely mentions either of these two critical concepts. Worse, the main source informing Rico’s choices, his high school “History and Moral Philosophy” teacher, Col. DuBois (who pointed his stump at Johnny in the quote from the novel), is barely there in the first scenes, and not mentioned again. These ideas are presented in hit-and-miss fashion, as if they are part of the recruit training after enlistment, instead of why recruits choose to enlist in the first place.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Moving the important motivation to enlist into the recruit training has another consequence—we do not get a real sense of the conflict between Rico and his father. As a result, his reaction when his home city is attacked is shallow. He’s now an orphan, okay, move on. This robs the viewer of one of the most poignant scenes Heinlein has written, when as an officer, Rico is relying on his master sergeant.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Lieutenant Rasczak (Michael Ironside) is given most of the lines that Col. DuBois has in the novel. So we get a tepid, PC-diluted “Violence has resolved more conflicts than anything else. The contrary opinion that violence doesn’t solve anything is merely wishful thinking at its worst,” instead of</span><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Anyone who clings to the historically untrue—and thoroughly immoral—doctrine that “violence never settles anything” I would advise to conjure the ghosts of Napoleon Bonaparte and the Duke of Wellington and let them debate it. The ghost of Hitler could referee, and the jury might well be the Dodo, the Great Auk and the Passenger Pigeon. Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than has any other factor, and the contrary opinion is wishful thinking at its worst. Breeds that forget this basic truth have always paid for it with their lives and freedom.</span></blockquote>
<br /><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">If this was the only shortcut, I would not complain. It is not. Sergeant Zim is another crucial character whose best lines from the book are given to Lt. Rasczak, or simply omitted. Rico’s relationship with training sergeant Zim is formative for him. Again, the movie simply ignores this part of the story.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">In addition, the movie completely omits Juan Rico’s choice to go to officer training, and how this perspective changes his assessment of his life and responsibilities. I can see leaving this out to save time (and provide grist for a sequel). I suspect, however, that the movie’s creators were simply in a hurry to confront Rico with the alien bugs.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The other changes are minor, and do not, in my opinion, ruin the story. In Heinlein’s novel, women do not serve in the Mobile Infantry; Heinlein was a product of his time and served as a Naval officer in the 40s. He does give women a unique role that men cannot, for the most part, perform as well. In addition, Johnny’s best friend Carl does not end up as a commanding colonel in the novel—</span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">to describe where he does would be a spoiler. But these are minor changes, and I can roll with them. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">What I miss are the thoughts about why defensive war is necessary, and how best to conduct a war once one is begun. Once again, the words are those of Col. DuBois:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">If you wanted to teach a baby a lesson, would you cut its head off?… Of course not. You’d paddle it. There can be circumstances when it would be just as foolish to hit an enemy city with an H-bomb as it would be to spank a baby with an axe. War is not violence and killing, pure and simple; war is controlled violence, for a purpose. The purpose of war is to support your government’s decisions by force.</span></blockquote>
<br /><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b><i>Dune</i></b> has been remade, and the second version has qualities that the first did not. I cling to the hope that <b><i>Starship Troopers</i></b> will be remade by someone with the vision to see past the great special effects opportunity to create a movie worthy of the power of Robert Heinlein’s novel.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">In the meantime, skip the movie. Read the book.</span>Pat Cummingshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05476249942977497820noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4169324764433790280.post-62620975707862502017-09-27T14:09:00.001-07:002017-09-27T14:09:29.989-07:00Strength of Warped Materials<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/91tQf2FoaWL.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="557" height="320" src="https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/91tQf2FoaWL.jpg" width="222" /></span></a></div>
<h4>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Review: <b><i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Stress-Analysis-Strapless-Evening-Gown/dp/0138526087" target="_blank">Stress Analysis of a Strapless Evening Gown</a></i></b>, Compilation edited by Robert A. Baker</span></h4>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />Anyone who’s had to revise ISO9000 documents, review a prosy thesis paper, or wade through jargon in an industry magazine, will welcome this compilation with heart-felt relief. These selections from the notorious 50s underground publication <i><b>The Worm-Runner’s Digest</b></i> are guaranteed to make you smile.<br /><br />Consider, for example, “Postal System Input Buffer Device” by Joe and Gil Robertson Obsborne. A simple action, putting an envelope into a mailbox, right? Not in formal instructionese, which must specify that to operate such an input device requires:<br /></span><blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">a) a passenger in normal working condition mounted upright on the front seat or (b) a driver having at least one arm on the right-hand side which is six feet long and double-jointed at the wrist and elbow. </span></blockquote>
<br /><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Then there’s F.E. Warburton’s “Terns,” which reliably informs us that because terns have webbed feet, they will be found in the same books as albatrosses and other waterfowl; further that terns won’t eat anything but fish, so “it is no use putting out bits of suet and coconut for them in the winter”. Besides,</span><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Baby terns just a few days old are the cutest, fluffiest little things. They will sit on your hand just as friendly as anything, going “chirp, chirp” and looking at you with their big bright eyes and vomiting half-digested fish all over your shirt.</span></blockquote>
<br /><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Two versions of the 23rd Psalm are included. The first, by Alan Simpson and R.A. Baker, commences: “<i>The Lord is my external-internal integrative mechanism, I shall not be deprived of gratification for my viscerogenic hungers or my need dispositions…</i>”. The second, from science fiction writer Lester del Rey starts: “<i>The AEC is my shepherd, I shall not live. It maketh me to lie down in radiant pastures…</i>”.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Hugh Sinclair contributed the brilliant “Hiawatha’s Lipid,” which simply has to be read entire. Sinclair spoofs the classic poem in an effort for which he concedes he “sought inspiration in innumerable manhattans—taken, of course, because they were good for me since the day’s immobility of listening to papers on atheroma and serum cholesterol had no doubt silted up my vessels, and alcohol is one of the few effective solvents.”</span><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">From his briefcase Hiawatha / Took his paper for the meeting… / Started on the introduction, / Giving first a brief description / Of the Proto-Keynesian period / When all fats in equal measure / Raised cholesterol in serum…</span></blockquote>
<br /><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Berkeley engineer Charles Siem’s paper supplies the book’s title. “A Stress Analysis of a Strapless Evening Gown.” This piece includes a wonderfully evocative figure, Force Distribution of Cantilever Beam, complete with rotational and compressional component—in which the beam’s profile is distinctly mammalian. The critical element of the force diagram is identified, with the caveat:</span><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">If the female is naturally blessed with sufficient pectoral development, she can supply this very vital force and maintain the elemental strip at equilibrium. If she is not, the engineer has to supply this force by artificial methods.</span></blockquote>
<br /><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Sometimes the bibliography is more interesting than the paper, as R. Arnold Le Win points out in “Logarithmic and Arythmic Expression of a Physiological Function.” In fact, the only thing in this item is the list of references, which include:</span><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">7. Shadrach, C., Meshach, H., and Abednego, H. and C.. An anaerobic heat resistant monoflagellate ornithine producing sulfur non-purple bacterium isolated from the rectum of a goat. J.Bact., 70: 1-11,1944.</span><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">10. Aschitz, K., and Spitz, G. Urea excretion, growth hormone production, and caudal temperature of the 6-week-old hypophysectomized, adrenalextomized, tonsillectomized castrated albino hamster. Proc.Soc.Exp.Biol.& Med.. 50: 2-4, 1956.</span><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">13. Strickstaw, A. The fats of cats. 27.Glycero-1, 4-alpha-feritol, a new liquid component of the milk of the lion. Felis leo. Biochem.J. 73: 108-113, 1946.</span></blockquote>
<br /><br /><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I can only excerpt a few high points here. To read the rest will take some digging, since <b><i>Stress Analysis</i></b> is, sadly, out of print. A slightly more recent compilation from The Worm-Runner’s Digest titled <b><i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Science-sex-sacred-cows-science/dp/0151795959/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1506544634&sr=1-2&keywords=The+Worm-Runner%E2%80%99s+Digest" target="_blank">Science, Sex and Sacred Cows</a></i></b> (which I reviewed in <i><a href="http://drpatreads.blogspot.com/2016/10/spoofing-science-before-ig-nobel-prize.html" target="_blank">Spoofing Science Before the Ig Nobel Prize</a></i>) is more available, as is <b><i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Worm-Re-Turns-Best-Runners-Digest/dp/B000G8MYAU" target="_blank">The Worm Re-Turns</a></i></b>. None are available on Kindle. Yet.</span>Pat Cummingshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05476249942977497820noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4169324764433790280.post-61110165065165902152017-09-27T13:01:00.000-07:002017-09-27T13:01:06.234-07:00Tough-Guy Tango with Tolerance<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51G2A1QNG1L.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="475" data-original-width="319" height="320" src="https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51G2A1QNG1L.jpg" width="214" /></a></div>
<h4>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Review: <b><i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Flawless-Robert-Niro/dp/6305781095" target="_blank">Flawless</a></i></b> with Robert DeNiro and Philip Seymour Hoffman</span></h4>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />I’ve learned over the years that any Robert DeNiro movie role will have much in common with other characters he’s portrayed in his distinguished career—not to say he is limited, but in every role, we see the real DeNiro shining through from beneath. He shares that quality with other icons. Think John Wayne or Al Pacino.<br /><br />So the first time I watched it, I was a bit tentative about the story in <b><i>Flawless</i></b>, a 1999 film in which he starred opposite the late Philip Seymour Hoffman. I hadn't seen it for a while, but when I caught the film in a cable rerun last night, I was struck again by that ineffable quality.</span><div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">DeNiro plays Walt Koontz, a tough-guy retired fireman who works as a security guard and lives in a seedy walk-up apartment across the airshaft from a room that always seems filled with flamingly-gay drag-queens. The film quickly establishes Koontz as physically-oriented (he dances Argentine Tango with a woman he regards as a girlfriend, but pays as a hooker), and more than slightly homophobic.<br /><br />Thus far, classic DeNiro. Then, in responding to a shooting in the apartment building, Koontz suffers a stroke that paralyzes his right side. This strong, self-sufficient man is reduced in an instant to a dependent cripple. He can’t work, he can’t dance. His speech is slurred to the point of incomprehensibility. He can’t bear to have his friends learn of his disability. Recommended to get singing lessons as an aid to speech therapy, he reluctantly decides to take up an offer for lessons from the gay singer who lives opposite him. DeNiro’s portrayal of the loneliness of stroke-victim Koontz, and his struggle to return to his former ability, is flawless.<br /><br />And for once, the DeNiro beneath the role is harder to discern. He’s still there, but Koontz is more apparent than DeNiro.<br /><br />Hoffman, a standout in a secondary role in 1992’s <b><i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Scent-Woman-Al-Pacino/dp/0783226845" target="_blank">Scent of a Woman</a></i></b>, had already had experience holding his own opposite a screen icon—Al Pacino, who starred in that film. (Interestingly, Pacino <i>also</i> danced Argentine Tango on screen in that film.) Hoffman’s performance as Rusty Kimmerman, a pre-surgery transsexual who leads DeNiro’s crippled cop to understand that attitude and character are more important than superficial perfection, is nuanced, understated—</span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">flawless.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />The two work together, not only to help Koontz recover some of his pre-stroke grace, but also to discover the murderers who shot up the apartment house the night of Koontz’ stroke. Touches of buffoonery and sexual innuendo offset the violence of those killings to provide a flawless balance.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Each time I watch this movie, I see more of value in its story, and in DeNiro’s performance. It’s definitely worth adding <b><i>Flawless</i></b> to your movie library.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Liner Notes:</span></h4>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Philip Seymour Hoffman played an another, far more subtle gay character in <b><i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Talented-Mr-Ripley-Various/dp/B00AEBB8SS" target="_blank">The Talented Mr. Ripley</a></i></b>. Hoffman blackmailer Freddie Miles was a match in petty villainy to the whining schoolboy he played in <b><i>Scent of a Woman</i></b>, but each role was clearly a different <i>persona</i>.</span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"> Contrast that with the gentle, and completely hetero, writer Joseph Turner White in 2000's <a href="https://www.amazon.com/State-Main-Michael-Higgins/dp/B00005BCK9" style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">State and Main</a>, or the all-but-closeted gay writer of <b><i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Capote-Philip-Seymour-Hoffman/dp/B000E33VWW" target="_blank">Capote</a></i></b>.</span></div>
Pat Cummingshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05476249942977497820noreply@blogger.com0