Timing

It is said that timing is everything and while I believe that saying has a great deal of truth to it, I’ve always felt that seizing opportunities is far more important. So its been with a little chagrin that I’ve looked back on the last few weeks. Of late, timing really has been everything.

Little did I know that starting a new daily approach to weight training back in December would be critical for me having enough capacity to help my father deal with cancer in February. While my energy levels are only slightly up, the gain in muscle strength makes simple things such as moving around dramatically easier. In essence, I’m able to do more with less.

This is a traditionally slow time of the year for appliance repair, so there is less demand for my father’s services. Yes, this hurts the bottom line when dealing with all the expenses mounting up. However, it means he’s able to take things slowly without feeling guilty about it.

On a less dramatic note, yesterday had a few pleasant surprises for us. Little things working out and even an unexpected bonus of sublime silliness via the Squid Girl OVA’s bundled with graphic novels in Japan suddenly showing up on Crunchyroll. There is nothing like the healing power of laughter in my opinion, thoracic wounds aside. Watching the two episodes made us wish a third season would be made or at least the second being released on DVD or Blu-ray in North America.

Even with timing working out the way it has, I’m not letting go of my faith in making the most of opportunities. Chemotherapy infusion is a long process taking hours, so my sister Ann Marie and I had time to kill. For her, it meant cramming an online course into her head in preparation of taking the Bar exam. In my case, it was a chance to experiment with video conversion the day before so that I could take notes on a movie.

So as the various chemicals dripped into Dad’s veins, I watched a movie on my Nook HD while wearing headphones. Balancing the tablet on one knee and the notebook on the other, I scribbled away with the occasional interruption. Handbrake’s ability to burn subtitles into the video frames themselves made this possible, so you can safely assume the next review is of a foreign film.Of course that only took up two hours or so. Dad read a book on the Cook County hospital and I made headway into To Kingdom Come, an account of the disastrous 1943 bombing raid on Stuttgart. Both books are guaranteed to make you angry at authority, so maybe they aren’t the best reading during a stressful time.

Still, it was not a brain dead room.

Later that night I hooked the Nook HD up to the motel room TV and streamed episodes of Arrow from Flixster to introduce Ann to the series. Worked great until we were bandwidth throttled into oblivion.

Speaking of timing, I need to finish three weeks of unwashed dishes, get a workout in, and start screen capturing. No doubt, something else will come up to interrupt it all…

Ray Bradbury Died

One of my favorite authors, Ray Bradbury, died last night. While he lived a good and long life of 91 years, I still feel sad that he is no longer in this world. It was The Martian Chronicles that introduced me to his wonderful writing style that evoked moments of time so familiar to me even as a child. But my favorite work of his would have to be Dandelion Wine, which is about a momentous summer for a young boy in a small town in the nineteen twenties. Thanks to my sister, Ann, I have this in a leather bound edition from Easton Press.

While he wrote Fahrenheit 451 as a warning against television wiping out literacy, he was prolific in that industry. The Ray Bradbury Theater series is available on DVD and I recommend that highly, as it was the author’s chance to adapt his own stories after being disappointed with Hollywood’s attempts.

I will end with the opening from Dandelion Wine, for it is one of my favorite openings to any book:

It was a quiet morning, the town covered over with darkness and at ease in bed. Summer gathered in the weather, the wind had the proper touch, the breathing of the world was long and warm and slow. You had only to rise, lean from your window, and know that this indeed was the first real time of freedom and living, this was the first morning of summer.

Hopefully, Bradbury is enjoying his first morning of true summer.

Reading

Over the past couple of years, my book reading has dropped like an ACME balloon launched by Wile E. Coyote over the precipice of a cliff. Since late December, I have taken steps to rectify the situation. Step one actually predates that and was the result of my realizing just how many books I had started without finishing them. So no more reading multiple books at once!

Step two was lining up the started ones and knocking them off, except I ended up inserting  Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom at the top of the order. So much for that part of the plan. It has turned out to be a compelling read that is also dryly technical, oddly enough. If I did not have so very many books to read I would get the rest of his writings.

Next up will be finishing The Confessions of Saint Augustine. It will be more of a chore, since  I find him to be a rather dull writer. While autobiographies are narcissistic by definition, there is a tendency to be pedantic in this book. But I will persevere.

After that I will be inserting a gift from my paternal aunt and uncle, Founders by Ray Raphael. Little did they know it, but accounts by and of forgotten players and everyday people involved in the Revolutionary War are my favorite parts of history from the period. I am looking forward to it a great deal and it will spur me to finish The Confessions.

Following it I will finish The Histories by Herodotus, which I started years ago. Yes, it is the book that gave the name to accounts of the past and I find Herodotus to be an entertaining author.

On the spiritual side of reading, I am keeping up with at least two pages of scripture a day along with the King James version of The Apocrypha. So far I have not found much of value in the latter, but I have only begun Esdras II. I finished The Old Testament straight read through in January after many years of nibbling at it. It doesn’t get the attention it deserves these days and I think many a Christian would benefit from reading every book contained in it – as would anyone trying to understand Western law.

The more I look at my bookshelves the more I believe a Kindle would not be a good thing for me to get. Maybe when I finish off every book I own, but they will have to come up with a way to extend my lifespan for that to work out!

Science Fiction Matters

Over at Salon, Robert J. Sawyer has a nice little piece up on science fiction and how it helps us prepare for the future. I agree with what he has written and it makes me flash back to some arguments I’ve had with friends. Those arguments were over which had greater value, science fiction or fantasy works.

Fantasy works simply don’t address potential problems that humanity will face and tend to regurgitate old stories in minor variations. While greatly entertaining, that’s all they really are. Occasionally moral lessons will be taught but most are pure entertainment. Essentially, fantasy is backwards looking.

Science fiction is all about possibilities, good and bad. The past is neither ignored or neglected, but referenced often as the authors seek reoccurring patterns in how humanity deals with change. Change is at the heart of all real science fiction.

Given how many people fear change, maybe they should be reading science fiction classics at schools. All I know is that I don’t fear change the way most I know do. It never occurred to me that it was due to my love of that literary genre!

Thank you to Instapundit for putting up the link to the article.

 

P.S. Space opera such as Star Wars is not true science fiction, by the way. It is fantasy with unexplainable technology replacing magic. Sorry, Star Wars fans. Please go read Foundation or Dune!

The World and Thorinn (Book Review)

Damon Knight’s tale of a teenager forced on a journey downward through a well into underground worlds that are both dangerous and exotic makes for an entertaining read. Blending science fiction and fantasy with boy scout level survivalism, it gradually unfolds a story much bigger than Thorinn’s personal adventures.

UPDATE: The World and Thorinn is available again in ebook or paperback on demand from ReAnimus Press!

The Story

The central star of The World and Thorinn is named Thorinn. Or is the world itself the main character? An argument could be made for either so I will settle on them being costars like the title implies.

Thorinn, which means “flea,” is young human living on the surface of his world in a giant basin with a huge cylindrical formation that reaches to the top of the sky. Having been raised by an adoptive father, the lame orphan hops around on his one good leg – hence his name. Life is quiet and pastoral until one day when the well runs dry.

Even sacrificing the best horse in the herd fails to appease the angry god they worship named Snorri. So like Joseph, his brothers want to sacrifice something him and a reluctant father agrees despite being under oath to protect him. So the boy is lowered into the well under false pretenses and sealed there. But not before his father puts a geas, or magical compulsion, to “go down” on a suspicious Thorinn.

The Justice Society of America Lives

 

Growing up on comic books made me a reader as a child.  One of the fictional hero groups I liked the most was the Justice Society of America or JSA, the super heroes of the 1940’s.  All Star Squadron was the title of the comic I infrequently found at grocery stores and I fondly remember the extra large special where they saved President Roosevelt from super Nazi assassins. 

From there they were brought into the modern times of the 1970’s, inhabiting a parallel universe to the one that the Justice League of America took place. Age had actually caught up to the older heroes and they were training their children and other young heroes.  This was different and appealed to my love of history.  In these comics you would see a graying Superman, Flash, Dr. Fate, and Green Lantern fighting alongside Batman & Catwoman’s daughter, the Huntress for instance.

I never thought I’d get to see a live action version of the JSA, so I’m looking forward to Smallville’s special 2 hour movie involving them.  So far we have been informed that Hawkman, Dr. Fate, and Stargirl would appear as part of the disbanded and mysteriously forgotten heroes.  The preview above reveals one more character, the Sandman, in his gas masked glory. Between the glimpse of him and Dr. Fate with the photo released of Michael Shanks in full Hawkman costume, it will be the first time comic book costumes have been translated faithfully in Smallville.

As big a surprise as seeing the Sandman was, the bigger was seeing Alan Scott’s Green Lantern ring.  I doubt we’ll see much of him with a modern Hal Jordan Green Lantern movie in production. 

The best part of this is that the writer of the two hour special is Geoff Johns, the writer who made the latest incarnation of the JSA into a top selling comic book.  He knows and treats the characters reverently so old fans such as me probably won’t be disappointed.  The trade reprints of JSA are highly recommended as examples of comic books done well.

It will be a long wait until February 5th for this, but in the meantime I can continue to geek out over how well Dr. Fate’s costume translated into reality. That golden helm is just as intimidating as it was on the four color pages I read as a child.

The Witches of Karres

In the midst of all the gloom I've been posting, I decided to take a break from serious matters for a post. Just before the flooding and amidst the county fair, I'd had a strange flashback to a science fiction story I'd once read as a lad that I'd really adored. I couldn't remember the character names, the author, or even the name of the novella I'd read lo so many years ago. Cue the mayhem of my county becoming a federal disaster area and I didn't bother to search for the story. After all, I didn't have anything but the plot to go by, even if it was a rather unique concept -- that of a space fairing cargo ship captain inadvertently rescuing three young sisters who turned out to be witches.

I was perusing Instapundit and noticed a link to an article about the military's new robotic weapons platform called M.U.L.E. and Glenn Reynolds mentioned it looked like the grandaddy of the Bolos. I scratched my head, why did "bolos" sound familiar? I clicked on the link he had for that and realized that a short story I'd really enjoyed when I was even younger was one of the original entries into what has grown into a series of novels. Basically, Bolos are sentient tanks on a gigantic scale, armed with enough nukes to level a country amongst a dizzying array of weapons. Interesting to run into that, I thought and checked the publisher's site out. Baen Books had those stories in print and apparently other series, but I wasn't interested enough to think about buying anything.

As is my normal routine, I was flipping between different browser windows and inadvertently clicked the scroll bar on the right side, missing the window I was aiming for and hitting the one at Baen Books. Annoyed, I started to scroll back and stopped myself abruptly. There was a title there that jarred my memory. A "click" of a different sort happened then and I exclaimed out loud, "No WAY!" There was the title of that story I'd flashed back upon the week before: The Witches of Karres.

Reading the synopsis, the names came back to me: Captain Pausert, Maleen, Goth, and The Leewit. Yes, this was that 1949 novella I'd read, but unbeknown to me it had been expanded into a novel in 1966 by the author James H. Schmitz. Actually, it was a combinations of novella's, but it forms one clear enough narrative and works as a novel. Better yet, there had been a hardcover edition put out and I set out to hunt down the best deal. Eventually after a very long search (of 20 minutes), I had ordered and paid for a copy on eBay.

When the book came in the mail, I didn't mean to start reading it right away. After all, there are all the other books I'm still reading and haven't finished yet. But it is that old story, you make the mistake of opening the book to break the spine in properly, it slips the dust jacket, you inadvertently catch a glimpse of text, and despite good intentions you give in. So did it live up to my fuzzy, warm memories?

Yep. The Witches of Karres is a great book, a total lark that dares to be a mix of fantasy, science fiction, space opera, and outright silliness. It is family friendly, with only one sentence that might prevent it from being appropriate for even the youngest of children and that's only if you are extremely prudish. The character relationships are the heart of the story and I came away with a grin on my face after reading it. Pure fun in a style that has sadly fallen out of favor in contemporary pop culture.

You might notice I'm not giving any details away at all, that's because those of you reading this blog need to get your own copy and read it before a vatch gets you!

 

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Watching the End of an Era

I've never been such a dedicated fan of anything in my adulthood that I went and stood in line for an event. The only time I did that was the last two Lord of the Rings movies and actually didn't spend much time at all even for the midnight showing of Return of the King. In fact, that was the only time I went to a midnight event and it was a low key affair locally, La Crosse being a small city. So it was with amusement that I read the email notification from Barnes & Noble about the Midnight Madness event. While I'd reserved a copy, I had no plans to pick it up until later next week.

As the days went by, I pondered the fact that the Harry Potter series is most likely the last gasp of big event books. Like others, I'd placed a great deal of hope on it bringing more young people to books in general. It would be the thing that got kids going in an increasingly illiterate culture, for if kids would be willing to read 700 page books, they'd have to look for other books, right? Alas, that has not proven to be the case, kids are reading fewer books today than they did ten years ago. Oh yes, they would read Rowling's books, but that's it. To a bibliophile such as myself, this was painful to find out.

With that in mind, I realized that I'd most likely never see such an event again in my lifetime. This was a cultural "happening" that wouldn't be repeated, for there will be no more adventures of Harry Potter in the foreseeable future. So I drafted my dad to drive and off I went to B&N to watch the people there, as people fascinate me. While he went off to Sears to match exterior paint for our long overdue house repainting, I walked over to the book store to see how things were scheduled.

At 8:30 pm there were already kids in black robes wandering the store and the staff were in full costume. After inquiring about how the books would be distributed, I had my name checked against the reservation list and had a paper bracelet put around my wrist, an orange one with the number 95 written in green. Those with orange bracelets went first, with green to the mallside registers and red to the front registers. These were the first waves to get the books, I was told and they figured it would be less than an hour to get them all sold.

I left and returned at 9:30 PM after going to another store, the rest of the mall was officially closed with one of the exits open besides the B&N entrance. The parking lot was packed, the store was packed, and more people were arriving. Most were young, of course, with many a parent in tow with a smattering of adult fans present. Spirits were high and the mood was festive, entertainment began around 10 PM with activities for the kids. There had been a broomstick contest I hadn't been aware of, so all the fancy brooms hanging from the ceiling weren't just there for decoration after all. The pretty young lady who won the contest got to be the first buyer, which was a nifty prize. I didn't see the wand making activity, but heard about it, but the fun one looked to be the potions table. Hard to tell, the kids were packed tight around it.

As time went buy, fatigue set in and I began to hurt a great deal, but I was still wandering around, observing the festivities. Eventually, I parked myself in the military history aisle and started reading Machiavelli's Discourses, which I purchased along with Heinlein's Starship Troopers. Oddly enough, I was in a very small minority purchasing other books that night, so much for getting extra sales from the event. After awhile, I had to get up and stretch, circulating once again. It was around 11 PM and the young folks were starting to really tire, especially the under 8's and teenagers. The tweeners had more energy and I could see parents rubbing their faces. Even so, the mood was still good.

A bullhorn was used to announce some things and half the store couldn't hear it. Of course, that was the half I was in, so there was some confusion for awhile. I ended up asking questions at the middle of the store and found out I had to buy my other books right away, which I did. At 11:30, more muddled bullhorn announcements and finally they started lining people up, with the first 50 of each color going first. At 11:40, even more unintelligible bullhorning and I suspected my block was next. I snaked through to the center of the store and found someone in authority (she was standing on a table, so I automatically assumed she was).

Yep, time to get in line and since I was number 95 (I am not a number, I am a free man!), I was asked to anchor the line so people with lower numbers could go before me. Lo and behold, I'd been drafted without even going through the Sorting Hat routine! Ah well. Some of the best conversation on the night was held in the line, because it took forever to get moving once Midnight hit. People were well behaved, even those with astronomically high numbers such as 270.

Once the line did start moving, it got going fast and I was out of there by 12:20 AM. The store was rapidly emptying as was the parking lot, far too many of all ages were up past their bedtimes and wanted to go home.

There was a sweetness to this event that you don't run into very often these days. While it was rough on my health, it was a once in a lifetime opportunity to witness an end of an era. I find myself somewhat saddened by it.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

It is an end of an era that has spanned a decade for the Harry Potter book series has finally been completed with the release of Deathly Hallows. I was a latecomer to the hoopla, only getting into it after buying the first book for my sister in an effort to encourage her to read. Out of curiosity about the craze, I borrowed that paperback edition of the Sorcerer's Stone and was impressed with it. It wasn't great literature (at least it won't be considered that for some time), but it was an old fashioned ripping good yarn of the English variety. The adventures of Harry and his friends, Hermione and Ron, have been a welcome companion over the years, with each book becoming progressively more adult and dark. Yet there was always the intertwined themes of love and hope, which promised a happy ending after all the darkness.

So does the final book deliver on that and provide an entertaining story? I can say that it does in my opinion, but that light at the end of the tunnel only comes after harrowing setbacks and many deaths. This is a very grim book with only occasional touches of humor in it, as it starts off with loss of life and just keeps going, with more lives and innocence lost in the following chapters. Answers to the mysteries surrounding various characters are finally answered, many were telegraphed in the previous books but there are still many surprises to be found.

Some may be confused by the final battle, which is lengthy, but it all holds together in the logic of the Potter universe. The characters I wanted to see together got together, while others are tragically lost. What I liked was that Voldemort was shown to be as weak as he truly was, something I'd picked up on in the earlier books. While I can imagine people will cry foul at the resolution, I felt it to be realistic given the age of our protagonists.

The one spoiler I'll give is a simple one: Neville is the MAN. The boy finally gets his shining moment and after seeing the latest movie, I can't wait to see that young actor play it out on the big screen.

Confessions of a Bibliophile

Currently, I'm trying to read too many books and have been ill enough that it is difficult to read for extend amounts of time. In the Old Testament, I'm just about to start The Second Book of Chronicles and look forward to a little less listing of names. Taking a break from The Confessions of Saint Augustine, I'm reading Nico Machiavelli's The Prince and hope to finish that today or tomorrow. It is very edifying and grim to read, for much of what he wrote are unpleasant truths. I can see that some of his teachings are being used in the political arena (primarily by the left), but interestingly enough other lessons are being completely ignored. The lessons being ignored are fatal ones if old Nico is correct. At some point I'm going to have to get his other writings. For the moment, Machiavelli is my light reading, eventually I'll finish the Robert Heinlein juvenile novel Spaceman Jones as that is proper light reading material. The latest Harry Potter novel looms large in the near future, so I better be clearing some time for it.

The Easton Press made me an offer I couldn't refuse, which is the ability to receive books every two months instead of monthly from the 100 Greatest Books club. I adore the quality of the books and being a reader rather than a collector, I want longevity in my books. Too many of my old paperbacks have fallen apart and cheap book club editions don't hold up much better. The quality of writing is also high for this particular subscription and I've been well pleased with the books. The latest book ended up replacing my over one hundred year old copy of The Scarlet Letter by Hawthorne, so that was a nice bonus. Of course, the one flaw to the every two month plan is it will now take me twenty years to collect them all. Here's to hoping I can find a way to get a little more income and go back to monthly deliveries.

Of course, there are cheaper alternatives out there and one is finding books on eBay. I don't limit my hunting to Easton Press volumes, there are other lesser but still very good publishers out there. The Folio Society has published nice editions at lower prices for decades and I might have joined them but the upfront price is very steep with a requirement of four books purchased within four weeks of joining. That turns into a cost of at least $150 after all costs are totalled and I wasn't going for that. Instead I started hunting on eBay for their books and scored some great bargains. Another defunct publisher like the Folio Society was Heritage Press (or Heritage Club) and my copy of The Prince was printed by them. They went under in 1992 but the books seem to be readily available on eBay.

Thanks to the bargain of used books, I've acquired Folio Society editions of George Orwell's 1984 and Animal Farm, Robert Graves' The Greek Myths and The Siege and Fall of Troy, and J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit and The Silmarillion. All are nicely illustrated and I only compromised on one set that was too cheap to pass up despite minor staining to the cover. While not leather bound or gilt edged, they are far beyond what you normally get in a hard cover.

One nice thing about paying more for books is that it slows down acquisition and makes it more likely I'll someday catch up on my reading. At least that's the theory I'm operating by at the moment. I will admit they make my book shelves look a great deal better!

The Perils of Loving Books

My greatest challenge at the moment outside of poor health is one all too many bibliophiles suffer from -- too many started books lazing about the house. To properly appreciate a book, one must spend quality time with it, doting on it with constant attention. Alas, modern living is about rushing about, multitasking, and dealing with that most infernal of inventions: the telephone. As a consequence, one starts reading a book and is invariably interrupted if not called away entirely. The result is a misplaced book that finds itself abandoned and oft forgotten when another tome captures the reader's fancy. Spurned and bitter, these tomes become depressed and apathetic, sulking and gathering dust. Ah, such a fickle lover of prose I have become! Loving and leaving far too many books as my attention wanders... This is a habit that must be broken.

But enough with the confessional, I come here to praise a book that I am truly smitten with. Around the beginning of the year, I joined Easton Press' 100 Greatest Books Ever Written club. These beautifully leather bound editions are well worth their premium and I encourage book lovers to at least try Moby Dick, though I am of the opinion that the book is not for everyone. It is a dark book about the nature of evil and a fascinating insight into Herman Melville's own bitter soul, with an almost experimental style of writing. I suspect that men will enjoy it more than women, for it is a very masculine book.

But I digress! One of the volumes I've received is The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Other Stories by Washington Irving. Having only been familiar with the kiddified stories of Rip Van Winkle and the title, I wasn't sure what to expect. What I've discovered is that I have a new favorite early American author in Irving. His prose is eloquent with a true love of the flowery language of his era, the book originally published as The Sketch Book by Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. in 1820. As much as I love Mark Twain's works, I've found a kindred spirit in Washington Irving, his gentle satire being mixed with true insight into human nature and behavior. Rip Van Winkle is actually a biting satire on politics and marriage, not a child's tale. The Country Church and The Widow's Son are brilliant vignettes on country living in England with its class structure written with thoughtful warmth. The other stories are well worth reading and I confess I'm only halfway through the book. But I come away with a smile on my face every time I read from it and that is a true rarity, a book that can evoke that kind of sweet sentiment. Highly recommended.