Stay on Target (a.k.a., Fred's Reading Report: November 2009)Thirty-one days have December...how far can we go?
For the year-to-date, though:
Shorts?
581 short works read to date!Longs?
259 long works read to date!Progress marches on. Better living through chemistry. Or something.
Labels: Reading, The Year in Books, The Year in Shorts
Robert HoldstockJust received word that
genre author Robert Holdstock has passed away. Very sad, once again.
Labels: Fantasy
Prepare the Red Matter!So now that it is finally out on DVD, I finally watched the "reboot" of
Star Trek.
So, Fred, you're a trekkie from way back, what'cha think of it?Sorry, but I am not a trekkie or a trekker. I am a science fiction fan who is a big fan of the original
Trek series (but not to the extent that I ever owned a costume or even attended a
Trek convention, or even, past a certain point, continued to follow the series via books, etc.) In fact, I've been pretty much out of the
Trek loop since I gave up around the end of
Next Generation, the middle of
DS9 and the first season or so of
Voyager. I haven't seen most of the past several movies or run out to buy a Blu-Ray player to get the latest iteration of the DVD's...
That having been said, I did want to see the movie (Real Life (TM) intervened) and bought the DVD. I watched it and...
There is much I enjoyed. My head did not explode over the meddling in the "canon" given the reasons for it (branching universes). The actor's pretty much nailed the characters (although the one shot of Chris Pine in the "big chair" had me wondering how they let a ten-year-old on the ship). The story was OK, but pretty "meh" when you boil it down (the villain was ludicrous, sorry). Special effects were very nice (and makes me wish I had seen it on the big screen), most of the sets were nice (although I think the number of ship interiors that take place in obviously redressed chemical factories was...odd).
But. Red matter? Really?
Look folks, the universe is a pretty wonderous place. There's a lot of nifty stuff out there (real or theorized) that would make some pretty fascinating stories. Look at the SF of Gregory Benford, Greg Bear, David Brin. Look at Alastair Reynolds, Greg Egan, Kim Stanley Robinson. Haul down off your shelves any number of anthologies. You mean the best we could come up with was some stuff from a lava lamp that gets injected into a big hypodermic needle and hand-loaded into a spiky-looking torpedo and causes a...black hole?
Another thing that really irked me: the universe is big. Really big. Really, really, really big. So a supernova would threaten a galaxy? And create a wavefront that would destroy a planet? And when you turn one planet into a black hole a guy can stand on another planet (in a different star system because of the name) and be able to see the process (with the view being larger than how we see our Moon) and not be affected? A bunch of ships come out of warp, get whacked and the follow-on ship flies through a debris cloud thick enough to scrape the skin off their ship?
O.K., it is a movie. There is sound in space. Ships the size of skyscrapers are flying like jet planes. Why am I complaining about this stuff? I just keep hoping that we'll finally get a movie that can be both exciting and somewhat accurate, maybe?
(And I didn't even bring up how silly it was to build something as big as a Constitution class starship on a planet's surface!)
Labels: Science Fiction
Another 15 Picoseconds of FameRun your peepers
down the page, sixth entry...
Labels: Reading, Science Fiction
Visiting with Eich-Pee-ElA remark by John Shirley (author of various science fiction and thriller books, plus author of lyrics for bands like
Blue Oyster Cult) has led me back to the the works of Howard Philips Lovecraft.
I first came across Lovecraft as a mention in a story by Ray Bradbury (in which a man finds a world where all horror stories have been erased and tries to reintroduce horror into society), later as a series of reprints by Ballantine Books with wonderfully strange covers (generally a face...distorted...). I worked through them, found more (collections with his stories, "collaborations" with August Derleth) through the local library (I was probably responsible for most of the horror purchases that year!). Overwritten? Sure. Effective? Yes. Still. Lovecraft's prose is "purple" at times, but the guy could write a good tale when he put his mind to it and he used some interesting techniques (writing stories with "facts" such as diary entries, newspaper clippings and the like, see the "amateur" film based on
The Call of Cthulhu for a good look of how this can be translated to the screen). I dip into his
stuff now and again; thanks to the comment by John Shirley (and several follow-up comments on Facebook), I seem to be doing a bit deeper on Lovecraft and
some of his influences.
Howard Philips Lovecraft (edited and annotated by S.T. Joshi);
Annotated Supernatural Horror in Literature (Hippocampus Press; 2000; ISBN 0-9673215-0-6; cover by Vrest Orton).
S.T. Joshi;
Lovecraft's Library: A Catalogue (Hippocampus Press; 2002; ISBN 0-9673215-7-3; cover by Jason C. Eckhardt).
I read these two more or less together and find them somewhat linked, so I'm reviewing them together. Both bear the hand of S.T. Joshi, who has made a one-man industry of critical works on horror literature (countless critical works plus countless antholgies with extensive introductions and/or annotations, both for Lovecraft and others such as Arthur Machen...the man is unstoppable!).
Supernatural Horror in Literature is a non-fiction work by Eich-Pee-El, a survey and analysis of what makes horror...horror. Joshi points out a number of criticisms of the work from when it was first published to recent times, but there is no denying that it was one of the earliest such works in the field, and as such, has not only influenced a lot of subsequent work but remains one that you should examine (however "creaky" it might be). The annotations by Joshi point to references in Lovecraft's (extensive!) correspondence that show how his theories on horror grew. The book has an extensive index of "key works" that will (no doubt) lead me to many book searches.
Lovecraft's Library is a (alas, incomplete) look at the books that Lovecraft owned. I say "alas" because his library was broken up before a complete catalogue could be made (one effort to index it by a family friend was incomplete at best). However, despite gaps (the list mentions no
William Hope Hodgson, for example, but it is clear that Lovecraft read Hodgson) it is a fascinating look at the books Lovecraft owned. Anthologies that are listed are further broken down into the works in the anthologies, which should help in "reconstructing" these (I'm willing to bet the Project Gutenberg and other sites will yield a lot of these titles); Joshi also peppers the list with comments by Lovecrafte mentioning any criticism he had, how he acquired the book (gift of a friend, etc.) and what stories were influenced or even mentioned one of the books.
Something of a strange thing to read end-to-end, this will (I can tell) become a key reference guide to me.
I'll also note the cover art by Jason C. Eckhardt. A nicely subtle pen-and-ink drawing of a library with Eich-Pee-El's beloved Gothic/Colonial architecture, with a figure walking down the aisle reading a book. I would love to get a print of that one.
Howard Philips Lovecraft and S.T. Joshi (editor and annotator);
The Annotated H.P. Lovecraft (Dell; 1997; ISBN 0-440-50660-3; cover by Nicholas).
Joshi continues to deconstruct Lovecraft's work with this first volume of an ongoing series (two volumes so far). The introduction is informative, but I think he is a tad harsh in his opinion of other authors who have contributed to the so-called Cthulhu Mythos. For one thing, many of those authors went on to have distinguished careers beyond their initial (crude) contributions. For another, if it were not for those various efforts, Joshi's career would be that much poorer (!).
Made up of:
Introduction (S.T. Joshi);
The Rats in the Walls; The Colour Out of Space; The Dunwich Horror; At the Mountains of Madness; Lovecraft on Weird Fiction (Joshi); Appendix: Lovecraft in the Media (Joshi).
Counts as 2 entries in the
2009 Year in Shorts.
FTC Disclaimer: Both these books were purchased with real money! My own! Take that!
Labels: Horror, Reading, The Year in Books
An Edge In His VoiceHarlan Ellison;
An Edge In My Voice (E-Reads Ltd.; 2008; cover by Leo and Diane Dillon).
I wasn't expecting much out of this collection of Ellison's essays that originally appeared in the late
Future Life magazine (sister, more serious sister when it started out, to
Starlog) before moving into other venues. After all, I figured that they probably had aged and I would be scratching my head over various references, trying to dredge up memories of what was going on in the science fiction world then.
Wrong, so wrong. In addition to Ellison's usual attempts to beat back at stupidity, there are excellent references to his failed attempt to bring
I, Robot to the screen (but hope still springs that maybe when they decide to remake what we saw the alleged it was based on the works of Isaac Asimov, maybe they will dust off Ellison's excellent screen treatment and get it right, for once!), there is one essay (so far) that makes the whole collection worth it: that would be Ellison's wonderful report on the close encounter with the Voyager probes with Saturn (oddly enough, this generated a science fiction novel...do you know which one?). As Ellison keeps saying in his essay, "I sigh deeply. Ain't we a wonderful species."
(Besides, in another essay he mentions
Root Boy Slim and the Sex Change Band...man, there's a name I haven't heard in a long time!)
Made up of:
Foreword (Tom Snyder);
Introduction: Ominous Remarks for Late in the Evening;
Installment 1: 25 March 80;
Installment 2: 5 May 80;
Installment 3: 9 June 80;
Installment 4: 20 July 80;
Installment 5: 8 September 80;
Installment 6: 13 November 80;
Installment 7: 1 January 81;
Installment 8: 27 February 81;
Installment 9: 25 April 81;
Installment 10: 5 June 81;
Installment 11: 18 June 81;
Installment 12: 2 July 81;
Installment 13: 2 July 81;
Installment 14: 25 July 82;
Installment 15: 1 February 82;
Installment 16: 5 February 82;
Installment 17: 16 February 82;
Installment 18: 21 February 82;
Installment 19: 1 March 82;
Installment 20: 4 March 82;
Installment 21: 10 March 82;
Installment 22: 19 March 82;
Installment 23: 29 March 82;
Installment 24: 1 April 82;
Installment 25: 19 April 82;
Installment 26: 26 April 82; Installment 27: 1 May 82; Installment 28: 7 May 82; Installment 29: 25 May 82; Installment 30: 7 June 82; Installment 31: 21 June 82; Installment 32: 24 June 82; Installment 33: 2 July 82; Installment 34: 12 July 82;
Installment 35: 19 July 82; Installment 36: 23 July 82; Installment 37: 2 August 82; Installment 38: 8 August 82; Installment 39: 16 August 82; Installment 40: 20 August 82; Installment 41: 30 August 82; Installment 42: 2 September 82; Installment 43: September 82 (no date listed); Installment 44: 20 September 82; Installment 45: 24 September 82; Installment 46: 1 October 82; Installment 47: 18 October 82; Installment 48: 25 October 82; Installment 49: November 82 (no date listed); Installment 50: 7 November 82; Installment 51: 15 November 82; Installment 52: 16 November 82; Installment 53: 29 November 82; Installment 54: 6 December 82; Installment 55: 19 December 82; Installment 56: 22 December 82; Installment 57: 3 Janary 83; Installment 58: 10 January 83; Installment 59: 25 January 83; Installment 60: 23 June 82; Installment 60: 21 August 84 (yes there was more than one Installment 60).
Counts as 28 entries in the
2009 Year in Shorts.
FTC Disclaimer: Yes, I bought the book. So there.
Labels: Reading, The Year in Shorts
Down to the WireWell, we're just about halfway through November, which means a month-and-a-half until the end of the year. How am I doing? Progress!
Shorts:
523 short works!Longs:
252 books!My eyes are melting...
Labels: Reading, The Year in Books, The Year in Shorts
Charlie Don't SurfOh, sorry, your comment failed to be approved on two counts. (1) No anonymous comments. (2) Your comment must have something to do with the actual posting, not a thinly-veiled attempt to promote some no-doubt spyware/malware-loaded software.
Labels: Administrivia
Psychological vs. PhysicalWhile listening to an interview with Kim Newman that appeared in
The Agony Column some years ago (a database crash with iTunes has me listening to stuff I missed the first time around and re-listening to stuff again) I was struck by something: what makes a better horror movie? Gore? Suspense? Psychology? (Newman was talking about various films, as well as his books, and seemed to like those that infer blood more than those that show it.)
"Suspense" is probably a bad term because "gore" can give you a feeling of suspense (as you wait for the next bucket of blood) and psychology can give you a feeling of suspense. So let's just look at those two.
I'm thinking of The Young Lady here. She sat through the
Jurassic Park movies (at a pretty young age). She has seen the various
Walking With... television shows. She has seen
Indiana Jones (but not
Temple of Doom yet) and
Star Wars movies. Probably the
Jurassic Park flicks had the most gore...but they never really scared her.
On the other hand...she left the room when I watched
The Haunting (the original, don't even bother to mention the remake, piece of garbage that it was), a movie without a drop of blood to be seen. The sewer tunnel sequence in
Them! also drove out of the room.
Which is scarier? The original
The Haunting when Eleanor is in bed, hears noises, looks at the plaster and thinks somebody is holding her hand? Or
The Shining, when the elevator doors open and buckets and buckets and buckets of blood flood the corridor?
Me, I think
The Haunting was a much scarier movie.
The Shining had its moments ("Here's Johnny!"), but the scariest moment in that movie, to me, was when Jack Nicolson was in the empty hotel bar, said "I need a drink" and looked up...to find a bartender there. Real? A ghost? Totally in his imagination?
Is
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre really scary or just a bad comedy at this point? Do the
Saw movies scare you or have you gotten bored with them? What stands the test of time...showing a ghost or buckets of blood or hinting at the horrors that lie beyond the camera?
Labels: Horror
Open the Pod Bay Doors, HAL...Earlier in the year I was concentrating on audiobooks during the daily commute and the regular trips out to visit the parental units. Lately I've been downloading podcasts and listening to them. Here's a round-up of what has been making the rotation through the iPod.
The Agony Column: The Mother and Father of All Literary Podcasts. A bit hard to navigate the archives (
big list here,
roughly the last year's worth here,
last several months worth here). The earliest shows, alas, are in RealAudio format only, then there is a switch to both RealAudio and MP3, then a switch again to MP3 only. Dozens upon dozens of interviews ranging from David Weber to Charles Stross to William Gibson to John Shirley to Kim Stanley Robinson to a bunch of people who don't write genre. Which is a good thing and a bad thing...bad because I keep saying, hey, that sounds interesting...maybe I should give it a try (and then the wallet cringes). Rick Kleffel is an amazing guy and an amazing hosts; unlike some podcasters he actually has read the books of the people he interviews and asks some great questions. He also knows when to stay out of the way and let the guest speak. Good stuff here.
Babylon Podcast: A fanboy, a geek girl and a actor-turned-producer get together on a regular basis and talk about one of the best things to hit science fiction televison (still). 178 episodes so far, running from interviews with cast and crew to behind the scenes to deep looks ("deep geeking") about specific episodes and themes in the show. Unless you've watched the show, you probably won't be interested, but there is a lot of good stuff here.
Fringeworthy: A podcast about a pretty obscure roleplaying game (but one of my favorites). Start with the bonus episode if you are not familiar with the game. The podcast goes beyond game mechanics and talks about things that can be applied to any game or even to writing in general.
Writing Excuses: Hosted by Howard Tayler (author and illustrator of the popular
Schlock Mercenary webcomic),
Brandon Sanderson (author of numerous fantasy novels, author of the recently published first volume of the concluding trilogy of Robert Jordan's big massive fantasy epic) and
Dan Wells (horror novelist, starts the podcast run unpublished). Three guys with wildly different writing experiences, both from what they do (Tayler publishes he stuff on the internet, gives it away for free...but manages to support himself; Sanderson writes young adult and adult fantasy, both his own and from the works of others; Wells has worked as a corporate writer and is now an "overnight" success after years of work). "Fifteen minutes long, because you're in a hurry, and we're not that smart" is the theme to the show, fifteen minutes dealing with a particular technique or method, what to do or not to do, examples from movies and other authors and the occasional special guest. I don't know if I'll ever write anything "for real", but this show has given me plenty to think about.
More podcasts to come, as I cycle through the downloads...
Labels: Listening Pleasure
Naruto, Or How I Learned To Stop Worrying and to Accept MangaMasashi Kishimoto;
Naruto Volumes 01-46 (Viz Media, various publication dates, various ISBN's, artwork by Masashi Kishimoto).
Several years ago The Young Lady got hooked on
Pokemon, thanks to the influence of classmates and other kids (mostly boys) at her summer camp. This later evolved into an interest in
Bakugan, and (most recently)
Yu-Gi-Oh. In each of these, you've got a toy line, a game line (sometimes tied together), a show/movie line and a manga line. Anything that encourages reading is pretty much O.K. by me, so we encouraged the interest (to a certain extent!).
About a year or so ago, The Young Lady started getting interest in
manga, again, thanks to classmates. We bought a couple of series (ranging in numbers from a one-off that is never repeated to a small run of three, to runs of thirty or more) and took some out from the library (hard to get a complete run there): the only thing we insisted on is that we would look at it first and make sure it was age appropriate (yes, these things have ratings on the back...but they are all mixed together on the shelves and the more adult ones are not, for example, sealed in plastic or your standard brown wrapper...). So we worked through
Fruits Basket and
Kitchen Princess and moved into fantasy such as
Anima or
Mamotte Shugogetten.
One series that seemed to be read by her classmates was
Naruto. It seemed tailor-made for what she was reading: there were young characters, it was an ongoing series, it mixed fantasy with action/adventure or science fiction, and even had multiple strong female (secondary) characters. So I bought the first four or five issues of the (trade paperback) manga for her to read.
Well...what happened next was not what I expected. The Young Lady did not really seem that interested in the series, but I started reading it (we were spending a week "dad sitting", so my entertainment resources were limited). Five volumes were joined by the next five...and the next five...and the next five...and the "Official Fan Book" and a book of artwork and a series of books on the anime and the next five installments and...well, you get the picture when I list 46 books having been read this year.
See the link (to Wikipedia) above for a description, list of characters, etc. After 46 books I'm finding it hard to summarize what has happened, there are so many characters, primary story lines, secondary story lines and the like!
So why did this hook me? The artwork is great. It is reduced for these slightly-larger-than-standard-paperback-size volumes from the original appearances, but still look good, especially when the drawing spreads across two pages. Toss in a number of interesting characters with many quirks running from what we are used to (conflicts among schoolmates) to the pure fantasy (spirits trapped inside children). We've got a strange mix of the primitive (all transport seems to be on on foot, unless you use a animal or animal equivalent) and the advanced (those wonderful electrical poles you find in Japan) the magical (spells and potions) and the mundane (raman noodle shops). Storylines that run across multiple volumes, both major and minor. Characters that care for each other, and base their actions on ethics, beliefs, and things like trust, friendship and love.
And dozens of "action sounds". Some day I'll sit down and make a list.
Good stuff, fun stuff. Recommended.
Labels: Fantasy, Reading, The Year in Books
A Subtle HorrorArthur Machen and S.T. Joshi (editor); The Three Imposters and Other Stories (The Best Weird Tales of Arthur Machen, Volume 1) (Chaosium; 2000; ISBN 1-56882-132-8; cover by Harry Fassl).
I had read many of these stories, but not in years and years. Some I read in college, when I worked nights as a security guard and got creeped out on occasion by horror. I then re-read them when I started running (
as mentioned in the previous post about William Hope Hodgson) Chaosium's
The Call of Cthulhu horror RPG. I pulled these off the shelf when I started re-reading H.P. Lovecraft's extended essay
Supernatural Horror in Literature, which mentions Machen as one of Eich-Pee-El's favorites.
So far, I've only gotten through the introduction and The Great God Pan. The story creeped me out...on several levels. You have the casual experimentation on a young woman merely because the scientist-doctor had somehow "rescued" her (street waif, perhaps?). But creepier and creepier was the slow, plodding, deliberate pace as the events subsequent to the experimentation, events that take place several decades in length. You can see how Lovecraft was influenced by Machen in both adopting a pace of horror of similar length and the use of witness statements, diaries and the like for background.
The pacing was particularly interesting because in several interviews I've listened to at Rick Kleffel's excellent
The Agony Column have mentioned pacing. Several authors seem to feel that the only effective horror is a quick horror: events that take place over a few days or a few hours. Machen's horror is a slow and inexorable one. A disturbing one.
Made up of:
Introduction (S.T. Joshi);
The Great God Pan; The Inmost Light; The Shining Pyramid.
The Three Imposters; Or, The Transmutations: Prologue; Adventure of the Gold Tiberius; The Encounter of the Pavement; Novel of the Dark Valley; Adventure of the Missing Brother; Novel of the Black Seal; Incident of the Private Bar; The Decorative Imagination; Novel of the Iron Maid; The Recluse of Bayswater; Novel of the White Powder; Strange Occurrence in Clerkenwell; History of the Young Man with Spectacles; Adventure of the Deserted Residence.
Counts as 2 entries in the
2009 Year in Shorts.
Arthur Machen and S.T. Joshi (editor): The White People and Other Stories (The Best Weird Tales of Arthur Machen, Volume 2) (Chaosium; 2003; ISBN 1-56882-172-7; cover by Harry Fassl).
Made up of: Introduction (S.T. Joshi); The Red Hand.
Ornaments in Jade: The Rose Garden; The Turanians; The Idealist; Witchcraft; The Ceremony; Psychology; Torture; Midsummer; Nature; The Holy Things. The White People; A Fragment of Life.
The Angels of Mons: Introduction; The Bowmen; The Soldiers' Rest; The Monstrance; The Dazzling Light. The Great Return; Out of the Earth; The Coming of the Terror; The Happy Children
Part of the
2009 Year in Shorts.
Arthur Machen and S.T. Joshi (editor); The Terror and Other Stories (The Best Weird Tales of Arthur Machen, Volume 3) (Chaosium; 2005; ISBN 1-56882-175-1; cover by Harry Fassl).
Made up of: Introduction (S.T. Joshi); The Terror (unabridged); The Lost Club; Munitions of War; The Islington Mystery; Johnny Double; The Cosy Room; Opening the Door; The Children of the Pool; The Bright Boy; Out of the Picture; Change; The Dover Road; Ritual; Appendix: The Literature of Occultism.
Part of the
2009 Year in Shorts.
Labels: Fantasy, Horror, Reading, The Year in Shorts
The Collected FictionWilliam Hope Hodgson; Jeremy Lassen (editor):
The House on the Borderland and Other Mysterious Places (The Collected Fiction of William Hope Hodgson, Volume 2) (Night Shade Books; 2004; ISBN 978-1-892389-40-4; cover by Jason Van Hollander).
I first came across
William Hope Hodgson in the
Ballantine Adult Fantasy series of books that introduced me to so many wonderful authors in the late 1960's and early 1970's. I encountered him again when I was running the horror RPG from Chaosium,
The Call of Cthulhu and was mining the horror and fantasy genres for ideas and settings. I was lucky enough to find (in a New York City specialty shop) the Sphere editions of most of his tales, including a full version of
The House on the Borderland (the BAF version had been abridged).
Of particular interest, both as something to read but also as source material for
The Call of Cthulhu, were the stories of
Carnacki, The Ghost-Finder. Carnacki was a detective, following in the footsteps of Sherlock Holmes, who investigated hauntings. Armed with both science (for example, a pentacle made out of neon light tubes) and knowledge taken from various dusty and musty tomes, Carnacki investigated haunted ships, haunted houses and more.
The framework of the stories were all essentially the same. The narrator (Hodgson, slightly renamed) and several of Caracki's friends would receive an invitation to dinner (think of the dinners held by the nameless Inventor in
The Time Machine by H.G. Wells). No conversation other than the ordinary was allowed during the dinner. After dinner, when the group had sat in their usual places and were smoking their usual pipes, cigars, etc., Carnacki would recount his most recent adventure. Sometimes it was a real haunting, sometimes it was a fake (and the best stories were fakes that had elements of a real haunting thrown in...much to the surprise of those running the fake!). Carnacki would pepper his tales with references to his equipment, his research and (tantalizingly to us!) references to many other adventures that were never written down (!).
I started reading this batch on Halloween, after the trick-or-treaters had been driven away by the rain. I read all ten in one night, shivers all around! Best of the batch were
The Whistling Room,
The Horse Invisible, and
The Pig (a very scary tale).
The Night Shade Books editions (five on my shelf so far) are somewhat expensive; I'm not sure if other editions of these stories are currently available. Luckily, there are alternatives; eBook editions of a lot of Hodgson's stories are available at sites such as Project Gutenberg.
Made up of:
Editor's Introduction (Lassen); The House on the Borderland (novel);
Carnacki the Ghost-Finder: The Thing Invisible;
The Gateway of the Monster;
The House Among the Laurels;
The Whistling Room;
The Searcher of the End House;
The Horse of the Invisible;
The Haunted "Jarvee";
The Find;
The Hog;
Other Tales of Mystery and Suspense: The Goddess of Death; Terror of the Water-Tank; Bullion; The Mystery of the Water-Logged Ship; The Ghosts of the "Glen Doon"; Mr. Jack Danplank; The Mystery of Captain Chappel; The Home-Coming of Captain Dan; Merciful Plunder; The Haunting of the "Lady Shannon"; The Heathen's Revenge; A Note on the Texts (Lassen).
Counts as 10 entries in the
2009 Year in Shorts.
Labels: Fantasy, Horror, Mysteries, Science Fiction, The Year in Shorts
Annotating the CanonSir Arthur Conan Doyle; Leslie S. Klinger (editor and annotator);
The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes, Volume 1 (W.W. Norton & Co.; 2005; ISBN 978-0-393-05914-4; cover by Sidney Paget).
I've gone back to Holmes every couple of years, sometimes reading the entire set again, sometimes just dipping into favorites (my first encounter was in a anthology supposedly edited by Alfred Hitchcock for children and was "The Red-Headed League"). My interest in The Canon has risen and fallen, probably it reached its height when the excellent Jeremy Brett series was running on PBS; I even had a Sherlock Holmes birthday party then, making multiple dishes from a Sherlock Holmes cookbook (took about 8 hours to do the whole meal, no wonder they had so many servants then!).
I received this volume last year for Christmas (and purchased the two follow-up volumes with money received as gifts). At first I was skeptical...why an annotated version? Especially since I had a two-volume annotated version (which I was mystified to learn was somehow "controversial"), the massive two-volumes edited and annotated by William S. Baring-Gould (only slightly massive than the one volume version I owned for a short time...too big!). Was there room for more annotations?
So far...an enthusiastic yes! The "controversy" with Baring-Gould seems to be in that he re-ordered the tales, moving from the way they were published or previously anthologized originally, to a chronological order. Now, seeing that this volume contains a chronological listing, I would guess that the controversy was less in developing a timeline for Holmes and Watson than breaking up the crown jewels.
Klinger puts them back into their "proper setting" and sprinkles a series of notes (sometimes several to a single paragraph) and short articles throughout the book. Some notes concern things that we "modern folk" might not be familiar with. Others illuminate weapons, the interior makeup of various poultry, dates, lapses of memory by Holmes or Watson (or their "editor", Doyle), etc.
If you have Baring-Gould, is it worth purchasing this set? Between the notes, the illustrations and the nice production of this trio, I say yes. If you've never encountered Holmes and Watson before (and I suspect there will be people who look at this volume when the dreaded "rebooting" of the series appears in the movies shortly), welcome to The Great Game!
Made up of:
Introduction (John Le Carre);
The World of Sherlock Holmes (Klinger);
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: A Scandal in Bohemia;
The Red-Headed League;
A Case of Identity;
The Boscombe Valley Mystery;
The Five Orange Pips;
The Man with the Twisted Lip;
"A Rose By Any Other Name" (Klinger);
The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle;
"A Winter's Crop" (Klinger);
The Adventure of the Speckled Band;
"It is a Swamp Adder!...The Deadliest Snake in India!" (Klinger);
"The Guns of Sherlock Holmes and John H. Watson, M.D." (Klinger);
The Adventure of the Engineer's Thumb;
The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor;
The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet;
The Adventure of the Cooper Beeches.
The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes: Silver Blaze;
"...And the Calculation is a Simple One..." (Klinger);
"I Stand to Win a Little on This Next Race" (Klinger);
The Cardboard Box;
The Yellow Face;
The Stock-Broker's Clerk;
The "Gloria Scott";
The Musgrave Ritual;
The Ritual of the Musgraves (Klinger);
The Reigate Squires;
The Crooked Man;
The Indian Mutiny (Klinger);
The Resident Patient;
The Text of "The Resident Patient" (Doyle and Klinger);
The Greek Interpreter;
Mycroft Holmes (Klinger);
The Naval Treaty;
The Final Problem;
Revisions of "The Final Problem" (Klinger);
Chronological Table: The Life and Times of Sherlock Holmes (Klinger).
Counts as 40 entries in the
2009 Year in Shorts.
FTC Disclaimer: Book 01 was a gift from a person who bought it. Book 02 and Book 03 were purchased with money.
Labels: Mysteries, Reading, Sherlock Holmes, The Year in Shorts
How Can I Keep From Screaming?Aaaaahhhh!!!! I missed posting the arrival of Ansible 268!!!!!JOHN CLUTE, with David Langford and the co-editorial team, celebrated passing 10,000 entries in the third-edition-in-progress of the _Encyclopedia of SF_. The 1993 volume had 6,571. Owing to differences about the nature of the project, the _EoSF_ has amicably parted company with Orbit/Hachette and acquired enthusiastic new backers from outside the conventional publishing world. Keep watching the skies!
Looking forward to it!
HARLAN ELLISON announced on 22 October that his action against CBS/Paramount (for not paying royalties on spinoffs from _The City on the Edge of Forever_) has been settled: 'The _Star Trek_ lawsuit is over. I am pleased with the outcome. [... T]hree years' litigation is completed. Lordy, I am tired. Smiling at last.' (Harlanellison.com) [DKMK]
Go, Harlan! While we're mentioning Harlan Ellison (R), I recommend
Dreams With Sharp Teeth. Excellent movie.
And of course, many entries from Thog's Masterclass!
THOG'S MASTERCLASS. _Distributed Middle Dept._ 'Jackson could see one of the enemy soldier's _[sic]_ midsection splatter red against the brick behind him and then fall forward dead.' (Travis S. Taylor, _One Day on Mars_, 2007) [MB]
Labels: Science Fiction
Fred's Reading Report (October 2009)Whoops! Behind the curve already! Well into November and I haven't posted October's report (that's OK, I haven't done my link to Ansible yet either!).
Shorts! Shorts! We're moving...may not make 2008's count, but we're moving!
508 short works (more or less, I'm still behind in logging these),
last year was 848 (!). A big bump in the count came thanks to Halloween (where I read a bunch of stories by William Hope Hodgson) and the decision to re-visit "The Canon" of Sherlock Holmes.
Longer works grew to 251. My eyes are bleeding... In a switch, I haven't been listening to audiobooks while driving to and from work or too and from Pennsylvania, mostly podcasts, otherwise the count would have been higher.
The quest continues!
Labels: Fantasy, Horror, Mysteries, Patrick O'Brian, Reading, Science Fiction, Sherlock Holmes, The Year in Books, The Year in Shorts
All Gunn, All the TimeBen Bova;
The Sam Gunn Omnibus (Tor Books; 2007; ISBN 978-0-7654-1620-2; cover by Vincent Di Fate).
Previously read in 2004 (in part) with the separate editions, I picked up this omnibus (it only took me two years to get to it!) when I saw there was new material added to the sequence.
Sam Gunn is one of Bova's three main creations dealing with our "near future". The other two are his
Kinsman tales and his stories from the loose
Grand Tour sequence. Both those are fairly serious in nature (especially the Kinsman stories); with Sam Gunn, Bova gets to look at the more humorous side of space travel.
This omnibus is a cross between a collection and fix-up. There are a number of bridging sequences where Our Intrepid Reporter, Jade, tries to find out about the legendary Sam Gunn. Between the bridges are the longer Sam Gunn "set pieces" (previously published in
Omni,
Fantasy & Science Fiction,
Analog and other magazines). Sam sees an angle, runs a con, tries to get in at the bleeding edge. He steps on toes, makes enemies, gets fired, loses a fortune. Along the way he helps to open up the frontier, and more importantly, makes a large number of lasting friends. Fun stories, even on a re-read.
Made up of:
Preface;
Selene City;
The Sea of Clouds;
The Supervisor's Tale;
The Hospital and the Bar;
The Long Fall;
The Pelican Bar;
The Audition;
Diamond Sam;
Decisions, Decisions;
Statement of Clark Griffith IV;
Tourist Sam;
The Show Must Go On!;
Space Station Alpha;
Isolation Area;
Lagrange Habitat Jefferson;
Vacuum Cleaner;
Selene City;
Armstrong Spaceport; Nursery Sam; Selene City; Statement of Juanita Carlotta Maria y Queveda; Sam's War; Habitat New Chicago; Grandfather Sam; Solar News Offices, Selene City; Bridge Ship "Golden Gate"; Two Years Before the Mast; Bridge Ship "Golden Gate"; Asteroid Ceres; Space University; A Can of Worms; Titan; Einstein; Surprise, Surprise; Reviews; Torch Ship "Hermes"; Acts of God; Torch Ship "Hermes"; Steven Achernar Wright; The Prudent Jurist; Pierre D'Argent; Piker's Peek; Zoilo Hashimoto; The Mark of Zorro; The Maitre D'; The Flying Dutchman; Disappearing Act; Takes Two to Tangle; Solar News Headquarters, Selene; Orchestra(ted) Sam.
Counts as 19 entries in the
2009 Year in Shorts.
Labels: Reading, Science Fiction, Space and Rocketry, The Year in Shorts
Full DisclosureDear Federal Trade Commission. Following your
new rules for full disclosure, I will notify my readers (since you don't specify how I'm supposed to exactly do this yet) when I get a "freebie". Please note that most of the books I review are purchased...or I get a freebie after I purchase...or I get a free electronic edition while I purchase a deadtree...or a third party sends me something to review...or...
Sigh. Just what we need. More rules and regulations.
Addendum: A fascinating interview with the FTC's Richard Cleland. It is very clear he has little knowledge of how reviewers work at newspapers. Does he really think that books received by reviewers (editors, etc.) are the property of the publication? Want to bet the publication ignores them, doesn't want the, tells the reviewer to keep them? I am supposed to return books that are given to me? What about electronic books (files)? ARC's (photocopies)?
Addendum: Wired.com on the news.
Labels: Politics
Fred's Reading Report (September 2009)On with the show, this is it!
Books read, year to date?
244! My eyes are melting! My brain is bleeding! Brrrraaaaaaiiiinnnzzzzz.....
Books read in September included...
Glen Cook: The Black Company,
Shadows Linger,
The White Rose. All included in a Tor Books omnibus edition, the first of three (so far). Good stuff. Why Cook isn't on more "good fantasy author" lists, I'll never know.
Freeman Dyson: The Scientist as Rebel.
Richard P. Feynman: "You Must Be Joking, Mr. Feynman" and
"What Do You Care What Other People Think?" Good collections built up from oral history and previously published written works. Funny, sad, serious...an excellent mix all around.
Diana Wynne Jones: Howl's Moving Castle and
Castle in the Air. The first was the basis for a film, and the book was very different from the movie. The second was interesting in that, while a sequel, the characters from the first don't show up for quite a while! Just picked up the third book in the series recently. My daughter has now read the first and is reading the second.
Masashi Kishimoto: Naruto 42. Rationing myself as I only have three more to go. New volumes expected shortly...
Scott McCloud: Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art. Saw this recommended by a webcomic artist. I now understand the importance of the gutter! Actually, a very good book that will give you an overview of the history of the "graphic novel" and a very good understanding of the theory behind the art.
Sir Terry Pratchett: Eric,
Making Money,
Jingo and
The Truth (
combined review here). It's Pratchett. It's the Discworld. 'Nuff said.
John Ringo: Hell's Faire. The last of the initial trilogy in the Posleen tales. The horsies finally get their tails kicked.
Spider Robinson: The Callahan Chronicals (three books). Yup, read them again. It was that kind of month.
Jack Vance: This Is Me, Jack Vance! (Or, More Properly, This Is "I"). The autobiography of a writer that strangely had very little to do with writing.
David Weber: The Honor of the Queen,
The Short Victorious War. More re-reads. Trying to go through the whole series again before the several new books that are coming out this year and next all hit the bookshelves and add themselves to Mount Toberead.
Short works, year-to-date?
387, and that is an undercount (as usual)!
My eyes...my eyes...
What am I complaining about? It sure beats television!
Labels: Fantasy, Reading, Science Fiction, The Year in Books, The Year in Shorts
You Think You Have A Tough Job?Larry Correia;
Monster Hunter International (Baen Books; 2009; ISBN 978-1-4391-3285-2; cover art by Allan Pollack).
Owen Z. Pitt is living the American Dream. He's got a good job, low stress, good pay. Well, until his boss turns out to be a werewolf, Owen has to battle him, and ends up in the hospital (mostly dead) with the FBI there threatening to kill him.
Yes, another dull day in the life of Owen Z. Pitt!
It turns out that Monsters Walk Among Us and they aren't the sexy, goth-dripping, angst-ridden (starved looking) sex objects of the movies or the shelves of various bookstore shelves. Monsters are evil, nasty, icky things that want to rip your arms and legs off, drink your blood and send your soul to hell.
Luckily (for us) the various undead (and others) are not immune to a sufficient application of force. Force as in enough bullets, enough high explosives, enough claymores, enough grenades. After the departure of the FBI, Owen hooks up with Monster Hunter International, a private corporation (most definitely "for profit") dedicated to erasing monsters from the Earth and making a few good bucks (thanks to a government bounty) at the same time.
Guns, God and Guts, as the saying goes, made America and it helps to keep America (and the rest of the world!) free of Gore, Gollums and the God-damned (O.K., I'm stretching for the metaphor here). Monster Hunter International is a fun read and I recommend it highly. Correia might go overboard with his lust of personal weapons, but more than makes up for it with evil vampires, the truth behind Elves and Orcs and more. Did somebody say there was a sequel coming? Is it out yet?
(Click on the
link for a fairly large sample of the book.)
Labels: Horror, Reading, Science Fiction, The Year in Books
It's Turtles All the Way DownTerry Pratchett;
Eric (HarperTorch; 2002; ISBN 978-0-380-82121-1; cover artist not indicated).
Terry Pratchett;
Jingo (HarperTorch; 1998; ISBN 978-0-06-105906-3; cover artist not indicated).
Terry Pratchett;
Moving Pictures (HarperTorch; 2002; ISBN 978-0-06-102063-6; cover artist not indicated).
Terry Pratchett;
The Truth (HarperCollins; 2000; ISBN 0-380-97895-4; cover art by Chip Kidd).
Terry Pratchett;
Making Money (HarperTorch; 2007; ISBN 978-0-06-116164-3; cover art by Scott McKowan).
(NOTE: As of this writing, I am reading, but have not completed
Moving Pictures and
The Truth...just letting you know what is coming!)
Ah, the turtle that strides through space! The elephants! The disc! The humor!
Especially the humor. Things have been getting wacky again on the personal front, so I picked up
The Canon According to Pratchett to Get My Mind Off Things.
Notice, kids, that is "canon" with one "n" not two "nn's" as in "cannon"!
Eric continues the adventures of the ever-bumbling wizard Rincewind after his troubles in
Sourcery. It was a fun little romp, and any appearance by the feared Luggage is worth it, but the Rincewind tales tend to be my least favorite of the stories.
With
Jingo, we see what is up with Sir Samuel Vimes and the City Watch. The drums of war are beating and Ankh-Morpork and the land of Klatch when an island (Leshp) rises between them. Assassination attempts, arson, beatings, attempted murder, armies being raised and the disappearance of Lord Vetinari (after he resigns as Patrician of Our Fair City) all scheme to make life for Sir Sam...complicated. Good stuff.
Making Money was a
re-read, so to speak: I had come across a reduced-price copy of the unabridged audiobook and wanted to give it a try. A further incentive was learning that the next Discworld book,
Unseen Academicals, is soon to be published, so I wanted to refresh my memory on events. The narrator, Stephen Briggs, has performed Discworld stories on the stage, has written or co-written a number of "non-fiction" Discworld books and has narrated several of the books previously. How good a job does he do? Well, in reading
Moving Pictures and
The Truth, I "hear" him as the voices of the narrator and the various characters. I will need to seek out more of his audiobooks!
With
The Truth, we introduce a few new characters and add to the "Industrial Revolution" sequence. Newspapers and journalism come to Ankh-Morpork. Not only journalism, but sensationalist journalism and serious journalism. It is amazing to watch a whole new industry grow in the fertile...soil...of Our Fair City. One of Pratchett's best.
Labels: Fantasy, Humor, Reading, The Year in Books
It. Is. Accomplished.365 short works for the year-to-date. Now I can watch television for the rest of the year. Not.
Labels: Reading, The Year in Books, The Year in Shorts
No Bucks. No Buck Rogers.Executive summary of Augustine Commission.
Reaction. Pretty much what I expected. We'll be stuck in LEO for-freaking-ever.
There are no technological reasons keeping us on this planet. Only a lack of political will.
Labels: Politics, Space and Rocketry
The Space ReviewThree articles of interest (to me, if you want more...) from the current issue of
The Space Review. Can we
expand the use of "COTS" ("Commercial Orbital Transportation Services") beyond what it is now? When
space and art collide (and I'm still annoyed that Sir Arthur C. Clarke was never the first writer in space!).
Dwayne Day soldiers on, watching Defying Gravity. Thanks, Dwayne, for your efforts but I'll still pass!
Labels: Culture, Space and Rocketry
The Daily NewsMichael Yon
makes an appearance in The New York Daily News.
Labels: War and Military
Cargo CarrierIf all goes well, Japan will be
launching its first cargo vehicle to the International Space Station on Thursday.
Labels: Space and Rocketry
The Big EmptyThe New Horizons probe, on its way to an encounter with Pluto (and beyond!)
is now halfway between the orbits of Saturn and Uranus (no jokes, please). Remember...each "gap" between an orbit is significantly bigger than the previous "gap"...we still have a very long way to Pluto!
Labels: Astronomy, Space and Rocketry
The Grand ConspiracyAny day now the bookstores will be flooded with the latest piece of pulp by that Brown fella. I thought his most recent book sounded kind of interesting when I heard an interview on the radio where he was joking about conspiracy and such and how he didn't believe in any of what he wrote. Then a few months later, when it became Hot Property, I heard another interview. This time he believed in all that, the Church was acting against him, blah, blah, blah.
Bollocks.
So, in celebration of this upcoming release, let's read something of quality instead. I nominate
Umberto Eco. Give
The Name of the Rose or
Foucault's Pendulum a try.
Labels: Reading
A Clean, Well-Lighted PlaceI thought I had a library. No,
**this** is a libary!Labels: Reading
And Now That You've Caught Up...Ansible 266!She's still at it...
MARGARET ATWOOD told her Edinburgh Book Festival audience that she doesn't write 'sci-fi' because her books don't contain (all together now!) 'talking squid'. Rather more cunningly, Marina Lewycka stated that she was not clever or imaginative enough to write 'sci-fi'. [JD]
Aha!
URSULA K. LE GUIN, reviewing Margaret Atwood's
The Year of the Flood, seizes on the key point which makes this novel Definitely Not Science Fiction: 'It is no comfort to find that some of the genetic experiments are humanoids designed to replace humanity. Who wants to be replaced by people who turn blue when they want sex, so that the men's enormous genitals are blue all the time? Who wants to believe that a story in which that happens isn't science fiction?' (
Guardian)
And I heard it earlier, but it bears repeating:
Pete Young reports glad news: 'Miles Tanat Young was born on 4 August 2552 (that's not the distant future, that's the Thai calendar), in Bangkok, weighing 3.75kg. Named after Miles Davis and not Miles Vorkosigan, no matter what Del Cotter thinks.'
Labels: Science Fiction
265...265...265...265...How could I have
overlooked Issue 265 of the ever-wonderful Ansible? Stop that man's grog!
GREG EGAN has been misrepresented: 'Powered only by two self-evident memes—(a) that only one person in 20 million could possibly have a name as exotic as "Greg Egan", and (b) anything found on the web is true and should be copied without question—photographs of an illustrious professor of electrical engineering from Monash University have been popping up on obscure fannish web sites recently, next to articles about my books. I thought this harmless replicator would soon burn itself out, but little did I know: it turns out that as far back as 2006, it had already crossed into a new host and infected the dust jacket of a Spanish translation of Axiomatic. I'm now dreading the day my passport's biometric chip succumbs, and I'm arrested at the airport for identity theft. Several family members have already hinted that they suspect I'm an impostor, since I lack the beard and other distinguishing features of the official, Web 2.0-approved Greg Egan.'
Labels: Science Fiction
Fred's Reading Report (August 2009)Wow! Year's almost over...in some ways. How so?
Books read?
223! The train keeps on a-rolling! August included...
Larry Correia: Monster Hunter International (highly recommended as a very fun read).
William Gibson: Pattern Recognition (better this time through, but that seems to be my usual procedure with Gibson...first time through, so-so, subsequent read, appreciate it more).
Masashi Kishimoto: Naruto, Volumes 29 through 41 (when I hit 45, that will be it until October...what will I do?).
Patrick O'Brian: 21:
The Final Unfinished Voyage of Jack Aubrey (what to read next?).
John Ringo and Travis S. Taylor: Von Neumann's War (how many other books work a mathematician into their title?).
Lewis Thomas: Late Night Thoughts on Listening to Mahler's Ninth Symphony (and several more collections of essays still to go).
Roger Zelazny: The Dream Master (still working this one through).
Short stuff?
326, will I make it to 365? No doubt, as that count is actually lower than reality. Just been lazy, as with reviews, in keeping it up to date.
Labels: Horror, Patrick O'Brian, Reading, Science Fiction, The Year in Books, The Year in Shorts
The Dark Between the StarsI went outside to walk the dogs and to try and do some observing. Alas, the haze and the light pollution is such that the only "star" I could see was Jupiter.
It struck me then, especially after reading (today) Ed Hamilton's
Interstellar Patrol stories as well as (in the recent past) some Poul Anderson, some Jack Williamson, some Olaf Stapledon and a few others...maybe "science fiction is dead" or "hard science fiction is dead" or "space opera" is dead not because we've grown up, or because science has caught up with the fiction (like that will ever happen) or we're getter gray or we're getting distracted by the intertubes or because (fill in the blank).
Maybe "science fiction is dead" because most of us don't see the stars anymore. We don't have a connection with the universe and its immense size. We don't have a connection with the Milky Way, the change of the seasons shown by the change of the constellations, the diamond dust. Even Ed Hamilton at his pulpiest showed more of a connection to the universe than many of today's SF authors, alas.
Well, it's my theory. As legit or silly as anything else pumped out by your typical MFA candidate!
Labels: Astronomy, Culture, Science Fiction
Crashing Suns!Edmond Hamilton;
The Collected Edmond Hamilton, Volume One: The Metal Giants and Others (Haffner Press; 2009; ISBN 978-1-893887-31-2; cover by Joseph Dolin).
Made up of: Introduction (Robert Weinberg); The Monster-God of Mamurth; Across Space; The Metal Giants; The Atomic Conquerors; Evolution Island; The Moon Menace; The Time-Raider; The Comet Doom; The Dimension Terror; The Polar Doom; The Sea Horror; Locked Worlds; The Abysmal Invaders
Part of the
2009 Year in Shorts.
Edmond Hamilton;
The Collected Edmond Hamilton, Volume Two: The Star-Stealers: The Complete Tales of the Interstellar Patrol (Haffner Press; 2009; ISBN 978-1-893887-33-6; cover by Hugh Rankin).
This volume contains all of Hamilton's
Interstellar Patrol tales, plus two others (
The Hidden World and
The Other Side of the Moon) not in the series. As Walter Jon Williams shows in the introduction, and a number of commentators point out in the letters reproduced in the
Appendix, these are pretty formulaic stories: a impending doom is discovered, a desperate mission is sent out to save the universe, the mission is overcome by the evil alien menace and at the last moment...Earth/the Federation/the Galaxy is saved. Until the next story.
O.K., O.K., they are formulaic. They could be punched out with a cookie cutter. The characters are one-dimensional to the point where you forget the names (why bother, they are the same in each story...same character, that is). But...
But...Hamilton's enthusiasm gets to you. You are carried on by the stories. And, on occasion, the prose overcomes the pulp. Whether it is describing the emptiness between the stars (in language that Alastair Reynolds echoes) or his spaceships that could be sailing vessels or steam vessels (echoes of which today can be found in David Weber's
Honor Harrington stories or David Drake's
Leary of the RCN stories), the occasional heroic moment, the occasional flash of a writer working under deadlines, poor rates and the need to write, write, write, or find work in Depression-era America...now and again you find the diamonds in the rough.
The book ends with an extensive
Appendix made up of illustrations from the original magazine appearances or reprints or paperback originals, plus a number of letters about Hamilton's stories (that appeared in those magazines...think flame wars are an invention of the internet...wait until you hear from a young Henry Kuttner, a young Don Wollheim, a young Margaret St. Clair, a young Forrest J. Ackerman...) and finally several letters from the editor accepting various stories (particularly amusing are why the second-in-command in
The Star-Stealers went from male to female and some comments on the competition).
Fun stuff.
Made up of:
Introduction (Walter Jon Williams);
Crashing Suns;
The Star-Stealers;
Within the Nebula; Outside the Universe; The Comet-Drivers; The Sun People; The Cosmic Cloud; Corsairs of the Cosmos; The Hidden World; The Other Side of the Moon; Appendix.
Counts as four entries in the
2009 Year in Shorts.
Edmond Hamilton:
The Collected Captain Future, Volume One: Captain Future, Wizard of Science (Haffner Press; 2009; ISBN 978-1-893887-35-0; cover by George Rozen).
Made up of: Introduction (Richard A. Lupoff); Captain Future and the Space Emperor; Calling Captain Future; Captain Future's Challenge; The Triumph of Captain Future.
Part of the
2009 Year in Shorts.
Labels: Reading, Science Fiction, The Year in Shorts
The Return of Captain FutureMr. Postman was very nice to me today. He brought me three new books from Haffner Press. Haffner has made a name for itself by publishing beautiful editions of the works of
Leigh Brackett,
Jack Williamson and
Ed Hamilton. These three continue the reprinting of Ed Hamilton, after a pretty long gap.
Two of the books are collections of Hamilton's stories,
The Metal Giants and Others and
The Star-Stealers (The Complete Tales of The Interstellar Patrol). The third book is the
first volume of reprints of Hamilton's
best-known series,
Captain Future.
I'm really looking forward to reading these. They are beautiful looking books and the Big Poobah at
Haffner Press is to be commended for turning these out.
Addendum: And so the reading begins!
Labels: Reading, Science Fiction
Hugo-ManiaSo the WorldCon has come and go. Congrats to the winners, especially the Professors Foglio for
Girl Genius.
Some noise has been made over the number of votes for the Hugo. It seems there was a 100% increase in voting numbers! Celebrate, eh?
Maybe not. Unless the person I was talking to was mistaken, the number of votes was 1,000. Yes, one thousand. Can that be correct? Only one thousand people voted? Which means the previous year was...500 votes.
How many people watch a bad SF show at "SyyyyyFyyyyy"? How many people buy a new manga? How many people buy a new release from Neil Gaiman? How many people subscribe to Baen's Webscriptions each month?
How many people attend ComiCon?
Clearly "SMOF" is not in touch with most of the genre universe...
Labels: Culture, Diversions, Science Fiction
Epic. Fail.You know a search on Google is going nowhere when five of the results you get are...your own blog!
Labels: Science Fiction
A Clean, Well-Lighted SpaceThe workspaces of various genre writers. Great shot of "Chip" Delany! Interesting to see Joe Haldeman's lighting system.
Labels: Science Fiction
Star WolfEvery now and again I search the intertubes for any news about David Gerrold's
Star Wolf series. I've previously posted
this very informative article about the journey from television to book to television to book to television to ???
This most recent search turned up a page of preproduction sketches. I'm guessing this is from the most recent attempt to make a television series. Pretty nifty stuff. Wish somebody would step up to the plate instead of giving up another sequel to "Mansquito"!
Labels: Science Fiction
Site Update (An Occasional Feature)2009: The Year in Books updated (2 more books done). More to come...
Labels: Administrivia
Site Update (An Occasional Feature)Things have been crazy of late, more so than usual. I was hoping that the summer would see a slowing of the pace, but that was not to be. My father's illness (physical end) has gotten worse and now dementia has set in; to be honest, he is pretty much a very cranky two-year-old in many ways. A very big two-year-old. I don't know how my mother can do it! So I help out when I can, going up on weekends and spent all of last week "dad sitting".
This site gets updated, but I realized that a lot of what I update is "invisible". Whenever I finish a book, for example, I update the current
The Year in Books posting. But you don't "see" that unless you hunt for it. I thought that perhaps I'll toss up the occasional blog update, showing what pages have been changed in the recent days/weeks/months.
So...what has been updated?
2009: The Year in Books2009: The Year in Shorts2009: The Year in Current ReadsBertrand R. Brinley: Richard the Deep Breather.
Freeman Dyson: The Scientist as Rebel.
Larry Niven: Tales of Known Space.
Patrick O'Brian: Down to the Sea in Ships.
Two Years Before the Mast.
Lewis Thomas: Late Night Thoughts on Listening to Mahler's Ninth Symphony.
Labels: Administrivia, Reading
Two Years Before the MastFollowing up on
this omnibus review of several books of
The Canon, here are the last few installments of the massive Patrick O'Brian-authored series of sea tales that have occupied so much of my interest for so many years.
Patrick O'Brian;
The Hundred Days (W.W. Norton & Co.; 1999; cover by Geoff Hunt).
Having ended the war with the previous book, Jack and Stephen end up in the thick of things again as Napoleon escapes from his exile/prison. The thing that struck me oddest about this volume was the juxtaposition of two deaths. Stephen loses someone close to him before the start of the action and spends a lot of time thinking on it. Jack loses someone close to him near the end of the action, but as it is in the midst of a battle, hardly bats an eyelash. The first death (Stephen) was gradually accepted, due to the pacing of how it was considered. The second death (Jack) sat not at all well, given the way it was presented (an eyeblink) and considered (hardly at all).
Patrick O'Brian;
Blue at the Mizzen (W.W. Norton & Co.; 2000; cover by Geoff Hunt).
With Napoleon finally (heh) bottled up, Jack and Stephen can proceed on their "hydrographical expedition" (mapping plus revolutionary stirring) to South America. A complex plot of moves and counter-moves, changing alliances and orders complicates things. Making the best of the shifting sands, the action is called back overseas when a letter arrives. Jack has been made an Admiral of the Blue and will next command a fleet.
Patrick O'Brian;
21: The Final Unfinished Voyage of Jack Aubrey (W.W. Norton & Co.; 2004; cover by Geoff Hunt).
A fragment, alas. O'Brian was only a few chapters (drafts at best) into the next volume (which would have taken Jack to his command near South Africa, and presumably would have taken Stephen closer to his fiance) when it all ends...
I titled this posting
Two Years Before the Mast because I read these books, end-to-end, during two years (I could have gone through faster, but there are so many other books!). Amazing books, even having been read (some volumes) eight or more times since I first found them. I'm not sure if these would be my sole choice for a deserted isle, but they very might well be. Fantastic writing, amazing stories, wonderful characters, the food, the music...and...the sea. The eternal sea.
Where now, Columbus? I have several non-fiction books set in and around the era of
The Canon. I have a couple of other O'Brian books, including two sea tales written before this series. Maybe a visit to Neal Stephenson and his
Baroque Cycle, along with the non-fiction books I've collected for that series. Harry Flashman, maybe? We shall see!
Labels: Patrick O'Brian, Reading, The Year in Books, War and Military
Fred's Reading Report (July 2009)A busy month!
204 books, year-to-date! Holy smokes! My eyeballs are going to fall out...
Part of the volume was the start of a reading project to celebrate the 40th anniversary of our first steps on the Moon.
Highlights of the month included several volumes of Patrick O'Brian, as well as David Drake's latest Leary of the RCN series (itself a homage to O'Brian, and a volume in which a certain Commander Kiesche appears!). A new author (to me) was John D. McDonald and his Travis McGee series. I finished several more volumes of Naruto, at least as far as the library or personal purchases had taken me!
On the short work side of things, 316 logged entries (there are probably, as usual, anywhere from several to a dozen not yet counted). Goal is 365 for the year and I'm comfortable that I'll make it.
See you next month!
Labels: History, Patrick O'Brian, Reading, Science Fiction, The Year in Books, The Year in Shorts, War and Military
When We Left Earth (10): Moon Shot (Essential)Alan Shepard, Deke Slayton, Jay Barbree, Howard Benedict and Neil Armstrong (introduction);
Moon Shot: The Inside Story of America's Race to the Moon (TurnerPublishing, Inc.; 1994; ISBN 1-878685-54-6; cover from a NASA photograph).
During the last big anniversary, two key books came out on the Apollo missions and started a new cottage industry (which I've been covering in these posts!). This was one of them, a relatively brief history of the program, written by two of the participants and two of the people who covered the program (with an introduction by a person that had pretty much receded from public view until then).
Whereas these two books emphasized the science of the Apollo missions, this book, written by two intimates, emphasizes the "test pilot" side of the missions. An essential book.
Labels: History, Reading, Space and Rocketry, The Year in Books
When We Left Earth (09): America's Space StationDavid J. Shayler;
Skylab: America's Space Station (Springer-Praxis; 2001; ISBN 1-85233-407-X; cover from a NASA photograph).
While Apollo's lunar missions brought us to the Moon, Apollo also proved that humans could work and live in space for an extended period of time with the Skylab space station (America's "other" space station). Growing out of plans to take a empty booster stage and install living quarters (part of the Apollo Applications Program), Skylab incorporated living quarters (including a shower and private sleeping areas), space to do experiments and tests in the inside, and a telescope to observe the Sun. Shayler looks at the origins of the station and how it evolved, the near disaster and the complete triumph of the launch and first mission, and the wide differences with the way the three missions played out. There is even a look at the Apollo rescue vehicle (in case one crew needed saving), plans for boosting the lab into a higher orbit (where it might have been used again, if money were available) and the station's ultimate demise. Recommended.
Labels: History, Reading, Space and Rocketry, The Year in Books
When We Left Earth (08): The Lost and Forgotten MissionsDavid J. Shayler;
Apollo: The Lost and Forgotten Missions (Springer-Praxis; 2002; ISBN 1-85233-575-0; cover from a NASA photograph).
In this volume Shayler concentrates on two forgotten or overlooked bits of Apollo program history: missions that were flown but are ignored and missions that were planned but later scrapped. For example, he looks at all the test missions for Apollo such as the "boilerplate" tests of the escape system. He examines two "failures", one successful (Apollo 13) and one not (Apollo 1). And he looks at Apollo missions that were canceled, both the wide-ranging "Apollo Applications" missions (the only one that was flown was Skylab) and the missions to the Moon that were cut (anything beyond Apollo 17). Highly recommended.
Labels: History, Reading, Space and Rocketry, The Year in Books
When We Left Earth (08): GeminiDavid J. Shayler;
Gemini: Steps to the Moon (Springer-Praxis; 2001: ISBN 1-85233-405-3; cover from a NASA photograph).
Project Mercury was pretty much "man in a can" despite some experiments; the craft was too small and the missions were too short to do much beyond the main purpose (prove you can live in space). In order to get to the Moon, we then had to test a whole range of things: can you work in a suit in space, can you rendezvous in space, can you live for two weeks in space, etc. Hence, the intermediate step between Mercury and Apollo: Project Mercury.
Shayler does an excellent job in this book, covering the transition from Mercury to Gemini, and then from Gemini to Apollo, showing the development of the craft and the missions, what missions were and were not flown (such as the lunar version of Gemini and the USAF's Manned Orbiting Laboratory—which, if flown, would have had America's first black in space well before it actually happened—let's hear it for the progressive military!). Highly recommended book!
Labels: History, Reading, Space and Rocketry, The Year in Books
When We Left Earth (07): The Once and Future MoonPaul D. Spudis;
The Once and Future Moon (Smithsonian Institute Press; 1996; ISBN 1-56098-847-9; cover not credited).
If Don Wilhelms wrote the bible for lunar geology, then Paul Spudis inherited the position of pope of lunar geology, or so I have been told. This relatively slim volume is a "popular" level look at the history of lunar exploration, what we know about the Moon, and what we can do with the Moon. It doesn't quite make the "essentials" level, but it is a tad short. I'm hoping that Spudis, who has been involved in pushing NASA back to the Moon for the past several years, comes out with a more technical/detailed book in the near future.
Labels: History, Reading, Space and Rocketry, The Year in Books
When We Left Earth (06): To A Rocky Moon (Essential)Don E. Wilhelms;
To a Rocky Moon: A Geologist's History of Lunar Exploration (The University of Arizona Press; 1993; ISBN 0-8165-1443-7; cover from a NASA photograph).
There are essential books in this listing and there are
absolutely essential books. This is one of them.
Don E. Wilhelms was involved in the science of Apollo and the study of the Moon along with several other key figures of the period (such as Farouk El-baz and . He wrote what has been called the "bible" of lunar geology,
The Geologic History of the Moon (a book that I have sought for over a decade, without luck...you on the other hand, are luckier than I was,
because you can read the whole thing online!).
The Geologic History of the Moon is a highly technical book; what this book does is to not only summarize the various theories about the Moon before Apollo, and talk about the results of Apollo, but give an excellent overview of the personalities that drove the science, how the astronauts became geologists and more. If you've seen the Tom Hanks produced mini-series
From the Earth to the Moon, you saw portrayals of Farouk el-Baz and Lee Silver, two of the people portrayed in this book. You also get good descriptions of the battles to include science (and a scientist) in the missions, the view from the "back room" where support for the missions was provided, the unmanned missions (Ranger, Surveyor and Orbiter), and a good chapter on "what might have been" (missions that were planned and cut, or which might have happened if the program had continued).
Good stuff. Very good stuff. I can't recommend this one enough!
Bonus!
You can read this book online as well, you lucky person, you!
Labels: History, Reading, Space and Rocketry, The Year in Books
When We Left Earth (05): The Man Who Ran the Moon (Essential)Piers Bizony;
The Man Who Ran the Moon: James E. Webb, NASA, and the Secret History of Project Apollo (Thunder's Mouth Press; 2006; ISBN 978-1-56025-751-6; cover from a NASA photograph).
Bizony has produced several good "coffee table" books in the past (including one on space stations and one on the movie
2001: A Space Odyssey), but that is not why I'm keying this volume as "essential". This, as well as couple of others, focuses on the folks behind the missions, people that are usually overlooked in most of the histories, especially any media-produced history. Webb ran Apollo and NASA, and due to his management we see (along with the efforts of some other key personnel) the results. Oftentimes when somebody criticizes NASA for having lost its way, lost it institutional memory, etc., they cite the Apollo program as when NASA had "the right stuff". Maybe NASA needs another Webb!
Labels: History, Reading, Space and Rocketry, The Year in Books
When We Left Earth (04): Stages to SaturnRoger E. Bilstein;
Stages to Saturn: A Technological History of the Apollo/Saturn Launch Vehicles (University Press of Florida; 2003; ISBN 0-8130-2691-1; cover from a NASA photograph).
This one is a reprint of one of several NASA official histories that were produced (and are highly sought after). The book covers the various Saturn launch vehicles and is a absolute goldmine for the general space enthusiast/historian or even for those building models or doing artwork of the vehicles. However, due to the somewhat specialized subject, it barely missed being classified as a "essential", as I was trying to keep things from being too specialized.
Labels: History, Reading, Space and Rocketry, The Year in Books
When We Left Earth (03): Taking Science to the Moon (Essential Book)Donald A. Beattie;
Taking Science to the Moon: Lunar Experiments and the Apollo Program (Johns Hopkins University Press; 2001; ISBN 0-8018-6599-9; cover photographs from NASA).
Apollo is mostly characterized as being a "flag and footsteps" program, we came, we saw, we left. There are several reasons for this: a lack of a clear mission beyond getting to the Moon in ten years, a lack of political will by the President and Congress to fund beyond the initial mission, the general political climate and more.
Somewhat buried in this was a battle between might be termed the engineers, the pilots and the scientists. The pilots wanted to do the mission, get home and fly neat stuff. The engineers wanted to launch their toys. The scientists wanted to do science. This book, and a few others that I'll mention, does a good job of talking about the battle, but also about what science was deployed during Apollo and what we've learned (a bit, but there's a lot more...anybody who thinks we know "everything" about the Moon is deluding themselves). Emphasis here is more on the science than the background and politics, but it is quite a good book, so I'm tagging it an "essential".
Labels: History, Reading, Space and Rocketry, The Year in Books
When We Left Earth (02): Apollo in PerspectiveJonathan Allday;
Apollo In Perspective: Spaceflight Then and Now (Institute of Physics Publishing; 2000; ISBN 0-7503-0645-9; cover, NASA photograph).
This volume could have...should have...been a contender for an essential entry, but was hurt by the rather unfocused approach it took. It's more a series of disjointed entries (not separate essays), rather than a unified book. Some theory on physics is tossed in with facts about Apollo, bits about the Challenger incident, the Orion project, Skylab, computers, Mars exploration...well, you get the idea. Probably enough ideas for sixteen books, all crammed into one.
Labels: History, Space and Rocketry, The Year in Books
When We Left Earth (01): First on the Moon (Essential Book)Neil Armstrong; Michael Collins; Edwin E. Aldrin, Jr.; Arthur C. Clarke (epilogue):
First on the Moon (Little, Brown and Company; 1970; Library of Congress 76-103950; cover artist not indicated).
Pretty much an "instant" book, coming out as it did barely a year after the historic mission. However, it has two strengths: First, it is as close as we're going to get as an autobiography of these three men. Collins has written some autobiographical work, Aldrin has yet to contribute to the bookshelf (that I can find) and Armstrong has an official (and an unofficial) biography out, thus ceding the writing to others.
The second strength is the extensive epilogue by Arthur C. Clarke, a science and science fiction writer that can be cited to have influenced a lot of people to get involved in the field. Remembering the late Walter Cronkite was done a lot this past week; Clarke sat by him during much of the Apollo coverage, providing commentary and bringing his name into many households (who went out and bought, and hopefully read, his books).
Out of print, as far as I know, but worth hunting down.
Labels: History, Space and Rocketry, The Year in Books
When We Left Earth (00): OverviewForty years ago, this month, we first walked on the Moon. A total of twelve humans walked on the surface of another sphere.
And then we stopped, we threw away what brought us there, and we haven't been back...except for some robots.
Knowing that there would be a fair bit of hoopla around the anniversary of Apollo 11 (and seeing that Apollo 1, 7 and 8..let alone 9 and 10 have been pretty much ignored by the press, I'm willing to bet we're going to ignore Apollo 12, 14, 15, 16, 17, the Skylab missions and the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project...Apollo 13 will probably get attention, but not as much as 11), I undertook a bit of a reading project this month. I looked through my collection of space-related and Apollo-related books and hauled down a bunch and read and re-read them. I didn't get through everything I hauled down, but I got through quite a bit.
I'll post individual reviews, rather than One Big Review. And there will be a separate posting of those books I did not get to...but which should be conisdered. The emphasis will be on Apollo, but I'll also talk about some other books which covered unmanned probes, which cover astronomy and the like.
Order of reviews will be vaguely alphabetical. Vaguely.
If I consider the book to be an essential book on the subject, I'll note it. In the title.
Please stand by!
Labels: History, Reading, Space and Rocketry, The Year in Books
From the Moon to the EarthToday's
Astronomy Picture of the Day shows the lunar module ascent stage, Eagle,
rising from man's first steps on the Moon to link-up with the Apollo service module, Columbia for a return to Earth.
Labels: Astronomy, History, Space and Rocketry
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