Sunday Morning Book Thread - 05-05-2024 ["Perfessor" Squirrel]

Welcome to the prestigious, internationally acclaimed, stately, and illustrious Sunday Morning Book Thread! The place where all readers are welcome, regardless of whatever guilty pleasure we feel like reading (HT: Dash my lace wigs). Here is where we can discuss, argue, bicker, quibble, consider, debate, confabulate, converse, and jaw about our latest fancy in reading material. As always, pants are required, unless you are wearing these pants...(Axeman's "pouncing pants")

So relax, find yourself a warm kitty (or warm puppy--I won't judge) to curl up in your lap, and dive into a new book. What are YOU reading this fine morning?

PIC NOTE

This is another random internet photo. I like the futuristic science fiction aesthetic. It's how my library would look on my intergalactic starship.

WHERE DO STORY IDEAS COME FROM?

In the video above, the YouTuber attempts to provide a structure and framework for story idea generation. "Where do your ideas come from?" seems to be a very common question for popular authors. I'm sure Stephen King, Lee Child, Brandon Sanderson, etc., have heard that question a thousand times. The truth is that ideas for stories are all around us. They can be found just by observing our surroundings. In my own office, we used to joke about the off-the-wall conversations we'd somehow have. Many of them could serve as story fodder if I was so inclined to write them down.

"Ideation" is a concept used in design thinking to describe the process for generating ideas. At one presentation I attended recently, the speaker showed us several images on a slide and then asked us to pick two of them. We were then asked to generate a new idea based on those two images. You can take this same approach to generating story ideas. How could you combine two otherwise unrelated pictures into an awesome story?

Sometimes a story idea will be generated by a random writing sample. Supposedly, J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit was created when he was scribbling one day and the following popped out of his head:

"In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit."

The rest, as they say, is history.

Here at the AoSHQ, we are exposed to countless awesome stories from real life. any of them could easily be the seed of a story idea. Or take one story from the Morning Report, one story from the evening Cafe, and one story from the ONT. Then mix them up and see if you can create a NEW story idea just from those three individual story. Note that story ideas do NOT have to be good! For every decent story idea, you may have to go through 30-40 (or more) just plain awful ideas. However, if you write them all down, you may find a use for them later if something more interesting comes along.

For a challenge, look at last night's ONT picture or Friday's Cafe picture...How could you use one or the other (or both) in a story idea?

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WRITING TIPS FROM ERNEST HEMINGWAY

Ernest Hemingway is one of those authors that will most likely be "cancelled" sometime soon because he's not the "ideal" modern author, though I suppose he could be considered a quintessential American author in many ways. You don't have to like him--either as an author or as a person--but you can't deny he's an interesting character. Like a lot of successful authors, he's doled out tips and tricks for up and coming writers:

Start with a true, simple, declarative sentence. -- Very hard to argue with this. If you pick a book at random off your shelves, you'll find that 9 times out of 10, this will likely be the case. For example, "The star was classified as an A7 on the Morgan-Keenan system, hotter and brighter than the G2-class star humans had evolved under" (A Night Without Stars by Peter F. Hamilton). This one sentence tells us we are not in the Solar System and that this story will most likely be science fiction. Another example: "Higher education institutions all claim to teach some form of critical thinking" (Teaching Change by José Antonio Bowen). Here we have a sentence that indicates the book may be about education and that is is nonfiction. The first sentence can have a real impact on your audience.

Focus on details that create emotion. -- We humans are--at our core--very emotional creatures. Stories can and do touch us deeply on an emotional level. It's why we cry at the end of Old Yeller (movie or book). Stirring emotions through storytelling can change the course of history, raising and toppling empires. A history professor yesterday asked ChatGPT to write what life was like in 1824 America. He gives his students the same prompt. They have to describe--in depth and detail--what an imaginary version of themselves would be doing in America in 1824. AI tools cannot add in an emotional component to their descriptions. They come up with bland, uninteresting prose. However, we humans can describe the physical details--the sights, sounds, smells, taste of 1824 if we have even a remote exposure to outdoor life. The details that stir emotion *matter.*

Write concisely. -- This is probably good advice for newer writers, but I think it also demonstrates Hemingway's biases from his previous occupation in journalism. Isaac Asimov also writes very concisely, probably because he was a *machine* when it came to writing and thus was focused more on output rather than dedicating hours and hours to improving the quality of his writing. Every writer will find their own balance between conciseness and verbosity. As a technical writer myself, I find myself having to really trim down my writing sometimes. I can be a bit verbose when I get carried away. This is also something I teach my students. Write MORE than you have to as it's easier to trim it out than add more.

Build you vocabulary. -- Abso-frickin'-lutely! The best way to increase your vocabulary is to READ AND READ AND READ SOME MORE! Hemingway says if you need a dictionary, you are not a writer. You should instead read a dictionary cover-to-cover three times. Then maybe you can start writing. I think reading and encountering new words, then looking them up works better for me, because then I can see the new words in context so it makes sense.

Stop writing when it's going well. -- I will disagree with Hemingway here. Most authors I think would encourage you continue writing, but maybe switching from writing on your novel to freewriting exercises. Part of the craft of writing is developing the discipline necessary to write an entire book. It takes dedication and practice. Now, if you have written some good stuff over the course of an hour or so, then it's probably time to take a short break, stretch, walk around, etc., so that you can keep your mind fresh when you sit back down to write. Don't try to crank out a novel over a weekend. It won't turn out well at all.

Don't talk about it. -- This is another point on which I disagree with Hemingway. If you are new to the craft of writing stories you NEED feedback from other writers. No one wants to read a 400 page manuscript unless they are getting paid for it. However, friends and family will be happy to read a few pages at a time and provide feedback over the course of your novel. Or join a writers group, like the AoSHQ Writers Group sponsored by Moron OrangeEnt.

MORON RECOMMENDATIONS

I read Let Us Now Be Famous Men by Moron Author Len Nilinsky. The book was mentioned in an AoS comment that provided a download address, so I thought "why not?" This sci fi story is engaging and the main characters limited in number and very well developed. The story takes place on Terra (formerly known as Earth) and is a post-apocalyptic tale where the hero is a Veteran of the Black Ash, a nuclear war that destroyed most of the planet and the plant and animal species living on it. The vivid description of the ruin of present-day Terra is contrasted with museums showing, for example, the weather on pre-war Earth, including a rain shower in a green meadow. This was richly and emotionally described. The Vet is asked by the utopian government to help solve a robot problem on Luna (the moon) because no one else living has the requisite knowledge and experience. Well done and gripping story. (And this was my first e-book.)
Posted by: Legally Sufficient at April 28, 2024 09:17 AM (U3L4U)

Comment: Here is the link to the story in full: Let Us Now Be Famous Men

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Well, I finally did it and it's about time. I read The Screwtape Letters and Screwtape Proposes a Toast cover to cover. I've read bits here and there but never the whole thing. Lewis' writing, no matter the topic, is always a delight. The Screwtape Letters can be difficult at times because it is too prophetic and my blood pressure starts to rise.
I do wonder if Lewis was inspired by Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal" (which is brilliant) when he used the approach he did in Screwtape.
Posted by: JTB at April 28, 2024 09:23 AM (zudum)

Comment: I've heard of The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis, of course, but I had never heard of the follow-up story Screwtape Proposes a Toast (available online for free HERE). If you are not familiar with The Screwtape Letters, it's an epistolary novel in which the devil Screwtape is providing instruction to a younger devil on how to tempt a man. Lewis presents Hell as a vast bureaucracy, with Screwtape being a sort of middle-management. This idea has been borrowed by numerous other authors, such as Roger Zelazny/Robert Sheckley (Bring Me the Head of Prince Charming) and Terry Pratchett/Neil Gaimon (Good Omens).

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I read Slack Tide, by RKF Adams, which is a Moron-written book that I've had in my kindle unlimited selections for about a year and just hadn't read yet.
It's in the Perfessor's Moron Library link.
A retired Marine whose passion is bonsai gets dragged into taking down a child slavery operation.
It was a good adventure, with a mostly satisfying conclusion (you can't save them all, so you save who you can). Needs some more editing for occasional grammar errors and typos, but not too much.
Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at April 28, 2024 09:52 AM (OX9vb)

Comment: I think it's great when Morons and Moronettes review Moron Authors' works. I've usually enjoyed them myself. However, a key point that cannot be stressed enough is the need for *intense* editing for grammatical and spelling mistakes. NOTHING destroys the immersive experience of reading quite like seeing painfully obvious errors in the text. So proofread, proofread, and proofread some more! Hire someone if you can afford it! (If not, then find some friendly experts or join a writers group where much of this can be addressed.)

More Moron-recommended reading material can be found HERE! (1000+ Moron-recommended books!)

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WHAT I'VE BEEN READING THIS PAST WEEK:

After reviewing some of OregonMuse's old Book Threads, I thought I'd try something a bit different. Instead of just listing WHAT I'm reading, I'll include commentary as well. Unless otherwise specified, you can interpret this as an implied recommendation, though as always your mileage may vary.

A Night Without Stars by Peter F. Hamilton

Hamilton's storytelling style is interesting. He often has stories within stories and mixes up genres. The last book, The Abyss Beyond Dreams, involved humans attempting to infiltrate the Void at the center of the galaxy. The local humans IN the Void attempted to stage a Marxist revolution (and succeeded, mostly) because of the corrupt government that was hiding key truths about the alien Fallers that are attacking the humans. In this book, Hamilton gives us more of a police procedural story as the human society on Bienvenidos has progressed from a late-19th century level of technology to mid-to-late 20th century. Now that the planet has escaped the Void, technological progress is possible and humans have a slight edge over the Fallers, even launching rockets and missiles at the Trees in space that are the source of Faller invasion. However, the Fallers have not been idle over the past couple of centuries and have developed new tricks for infiltrating and corrupting human society as they take it over from within.

Neuromancer by William Gibson

This is part of my ongoing quest to read certain books prior to my milestone birthday later this summer. I always find it fascinating to read this kind of book because it seems so cliche at first. But this is one of those books that has spawned a hundred--if not a thousand--imitations over the decades since it was written. I believe Gibson is credited with coining the term "cyberspace" for the virtual, computer-generated world he created. It's also referred to as the "matrix" (sound familiar?). At first, I thought it would be very difficult to understand, but constant reading in the genre has made it fairly easy to understand the tech levels involved as well as the slang, which has been used by other authors as an homage to Gibson.

Verdict: Meh. It was OK, but not great. By the time I got to the end, I really didn't care about the characters or the story.

WHAT I'VE ACQUIRED THIS PAST WEEK:

Aquasilva Trilogy Book 3 - Crusade by Anselm Audley

The Wonderland Gambit Book 1 - The Cybernetic Walrus by Jack L. Chalker

The Wonderland Gambit Book 2 - The March Hare Network by Jack L. Chalker

The Wonderland Gambit Book 3 - The Hot-Wired Dodo by Jack L. Chalker

The Crimson Shadow Book 1 - The Sword of Bedwyr by R. A. Salvatore

The Crimson Shadow Book 2 - Luthien's Gamble by R. A. Salvatore

The Crimson Shadow Book 3 - The Crimson King by R. A. Salvatore

PREVIOUS SUNDAY MORNING BOOK THREAD - 04-28-24 (NOTE: Do NOT comment on old threads!)

Disclaimer: No Morons were harmed in the making of this Sunday Morning Book Thread. Any deviations from the norm can be blamed on Pixy's new hamster farm.

Posted by: Open Blogger at 09:00 AM

Comments

(Jump to bottom of comments)

1 A heads up to anyone who may have been interested to try John Van Stry's new "Wolfhounds" series: The first book ("Stand Alone: Wolfhounds") goes on sale for $0.99 (Kindle format) from May 6th to May 12th.

An empire gets taken over by the forces of darkness in a "headshot coup", and one ship full of the Emperor's elite guard is missed by the bad guys. Their mission? Protect the Emperor and his family, and if that's not possible, then set things right, whatever it takes, no matter the cost.

Looking to see evil get its come-uppance and its arse kicked hard? Get this book. It's intended to be a five book series, two of which have been written and released, and knowing John's track record, he'll be working hard on getting book three out the door.

Posted by: Grumpy and Recalcitrant at May 05, 2024 08:59 AM (O7YUW)

2 My reading for last week was beta reading and offering suggestions for a short story on ALH.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at May 05, 2024 08:59 AM (0eaVi)

3 Hello, my fellow Librotarians!

Posted by: All Hail Eris at May 05, 2024 09:00 AM (FkUwd)

4 No reading for me this week.

Posted by: rhennigantx at May 05, 2024 09:00 AM (ENQN6)

5 Booken morgen horden!

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at May 05, 2024 09:00 AM (n/1xr)

6 Where do ideas come from? I'd say the Creator. I couldn't possibly come up with all my ideas on my own. Doesn't mean I can write them well enough for anyone to want to read them.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at May 05, 2024 09:01 AM (0eaVi)

7 Tolle Lege.

Posted by: I am the Shadout Mapes, the Housekeeper at May 05, 2024 09:03 AM (PiwSw)

8 My library cat Allie decided to emerge from her place guarding my precious tomes and is now perched on my desk.

She says, "Hello!"

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at May 05, 2024 09:04 AM (BpYfr)

9 Racoons in the library: nature may be healing, but I'll bet those guys will make a mess of the books if given half a chance...

Posted by: Castle Guy at May 05, 2024 09:04 AM (Lhaco)

10 The library picture looks like the old TV show, The Time Tunnel.

Posted by: Archimedes at May 05, 2024 09:05 AM (CsUN+)

11 Start with a true, simple, declarative sentence.

Call me Ishmael.

Posted by: dantesed at May 05, 2024 09:05 AM (Oy/m2)

12 Good morning! The writing advice that I always use from Hemingway is simply: "Write drunk, edit sober."

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at May 05, 2024 09:05 AM (llXky)

13 Norwegian murder mystery writer Jo Nesbø takes a stab at a Stephen King-style horror novel (I mean, I guess; I've never actually read a Stephen King novel) in "The Night House", in which snarly outcast teen Richard finds himself the sole witness to two inexplicably bizarre and gruesome deaths.

It's a novel-within-a-novel novel told by an unreliable narrator.

Posted by: All Hail Eris at May 05, 2024 09:06 AM (FkUwd)

14 A history professor yesterday asked ChatGPT to write what life was like in 1824 America. He gives his students the same prompt. They have to describe--in depth and detail--what an imaginary version of themselves would be doing in America in 1824.

Running the place, of course!

Posted by: Today's College Students at May 05, 2024 09:06 AM (0eaVi)

15 Give Allie her scritch-tithe.

Posted by: All Hail Eris at May 05, 2024 09:06 AM (FkUwd)

16 Start with a true, simple, declarative sentence.

Call me Ishmael.

It was a dark and stormy night.

Joe Biden sucks.

Posted by: Archimedes at May 05, 2024 09:07 AM (CsUN+)

17 Speaking of books, I wonder, wonder, wonder who, who wrote the book of love?

Posted by: The Monotones at May 05, 2024 09:07 AM (a3Q+t)

18 You "used to joke" about your zany workplace conversations.

Why did you quit?

Posted by: Weak Geek at May 05, 2024 09:08 AM (p/isN)

19 Hello, my fellow Librotarians!
Posted by: All Hail Eris at May 05, 2024 09:00 AM (FkUwd)

Hiya Eris !

Posted by: JT at May 05, 2024 09:09 AM (T4tVD)

20 Tolle Lege
Finished reading Mark Moyar's Triumph Regained om the Vietnam War 1965-68, a excellent recount.
Have been raving all my usual haunts on web and got a kick a reply
https://dailytimewaster.blogspot.com/reader recommended
https://tinyurl.com/4nh336hc

It covers well the US Government letting the North Vietnam use Laos and Cambodia as a safe haven, the disastrous for the North Vietnamese Tet Offensive but yet how the beginning of the Marxist lap dogs in the press saying it's the end of the US involvement because the North has the advantage. It ends at the end of the Johnson administration.
Can't wait for the planned 3rd volume

Posted by: Skip at May 05, 2024 09:09 AM (fwDg9)

21 A few chapters into Shots Fired In Anger by John B. George.

Posted by: 13times at May 05, 2024 09:09 AM (cI6EH)

22 Hello, my fellow Librotarians! [/iu]

And assorted brohemian members of the broletariat.

Posted by: Archimedes at May 05, 2024 09:09 AM (CsUN+)

23 16 Start with a true, simple, declarative sentence.

Call me Ishmael.

It was a dark and stormy night.

Joe Biden sucks.
Posted by: Archimedes at May 05, 2024 09:07 AM (CsUN+)

The shelves shook as a Vespa passed by and a single wisp of Ewok hair drifted downward toward the dirty floor...

Posted by: I am the Shadout Mapes, the Housekeeper at May 05, 2024 09:10 AM (PiwSw)

24 Start with a true, simple, declarative sentence.
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"There once was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it."

Posted by: All Hail Eris at May 05, 2024 09:10 AM (FkUwd)

25 Haven't started anything else new, did pull out one of my very old Vietnam books but didn't start it

Posted by: Skip at May 05, 2024 09:10 AM (fwDg9)

26 As a futurist, Roger Zelazny hit the mark again with "Home Is the Hangman," the third and final story in "My Name Is Legion." In the mid-'70s, he addressed artificial intelligence. (I'm sure a lot of other SF writers did so before him, but I didn't read their books.)

The Hangman was an entity developed for indepedent space exploration. Four programmers "taught" it everything it knew. It went off into space but eventually began refusing orders. Goodbye.

But ...

The Hangman's spacecraft -- empty -- is found on Earth, close to where one of the former programmers has been beaten to desth. Did the Hangman conceive of killing?

Another of the four panics and hires the detective agency that employs our nameless investigator to find and stop the Hangman.

Zelazny went deep in this one. I don't think I understood everything he tried to say. Still, a good tale, which makes the book three-for-three. I recommend it.

(As far as real AI, I don't see the need for it. I decry the invention of spellcheck. And I'll stop before I begin ranting about autocorrect.)

Posted by: Weak Geek at May 05, 2024 09:10 AM (p/isN)

27 You "used to joke" about your zany workplace conversations.

Why did you quit?
Posted by: Weak Geek at May 05, 2024 09:08 AM (p/isN)

They became normal.

Posted by: JT at May 05, 2024 09:11 AM (T4tVD)

28 I'm still working my way through A Family Guide to Spiritual Warfare by Kathleen Beckman. Its a pretty comprehensive work, including case studies and deliverance prayers should one need them.

Since 2020, I've become much more attuned to spiritual things, and while it gives me greater clarity on what is going on in the world, explaining it can be difficult, particularly to people who have shut themselves off from the very possibility of there being anything other than a secular, materialist world.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at May 05, 2024 09:11 AM (llXky)

29 the disastrous for the North Vietnamese Tet Offensive

There are those who argue it was a deliberate ploy by the North Vietnamese, who wanted an end to the indigenous Viet Cong, because they were an alternate power center and might get ideas. The NV were not particularly upset when they were annihilated.

If there's one thing commies can't stand, it's alternate power centers.

Posted by: Archimedes at May 05, 2024 09:12 AM (CsUN+)

30 However, a key point that cannot be stressed enough is the need for *intense* editing for grammatical and spelling mistakes. NOTHING destroys the immersive experience of reading quite like seeing painfully obvious errors in the text.

I definitely agree with that. I've read a couple of Moron or Moron adjacent authors who self-published, and found things in both. One had a font change in the middle of a chapter, and I've found spots with missing words, or mis-spelled words. It's jarring.

Posted by: Today's College Students at May 05, 2024 09:12 AM (0eaVi)

31 I'm gonna go out on a limb here and guess that The Pants Guy doesn't own a weedwhacker.

Posted by: JT at May 05, 2024 09:13 AM (T4tVD)

32 I definitely agree with that. I've read a couple of Moron or Moron adjacent authors who self-published, and found things in both. One had a font change in the middle of a chapter, and I've found spots with missing words, or mis-spelled words. It's jarring.
Posted by: Today's College Students at May 05, 2024 09:12 AM (0eaVi)

William Alan Webb, if you're lurking...

Posted by: I am the Shadout Mapes, the Housekeeper at May 05, 2024 09:14 AM (PiwSw)

33 Thanks for The Book Thread Perfessor !

Posted by: JT at May 05, 2024 09:14 AM (T4tVD)

34 Oh, my! I just picked up "Neuromancer" at the thrift store.
Now I really want to read it.

In sad news, I am done with J.D. Robb. Just finished her next to last Dallas book, in which there were 5 (count 'em- five) gay couples. In one murder investigation which had nothing to do with LGBT, etc.
And one trannie victim.

Posted by: sal: tolle adversarium et afflige inimicum at May 05, 2024 09:15 AM (IZjwR)

35 (As far as real AI, I don't see the need for it. I decry the invention of spellcheck. And I'll stop before I begin ranting about autocorrect.)
Posted by: Weak Geek at May 05, 2024 09:10 AM

Would you like some assistance with counseling?

Posted by: Clippy at May 05, 2024 09:15 AM (a3Q+t)

36 There are those who argue it was a deliberate ploy by the North Vietnamese, who wanted an end to the indigenous Viet Cong, because they were an alternate power center and might get ideas. The NV were not particularly upset when they were annihilated.

If there's one thing commies can't stand, it's alternate power centers.
Posted by: Archimedes at May 05, 2024 09:12 AM (CsUN+)
---
Communists often set up win-win scenarios where they throw politically unreliable troops at an objective. If it is taken, yay, a victory! If not, well, you got rid of people you didn't like, so a victory.

See also the use of former Nationalist troops as "volunteers" in Korea. Shame that they took such heavy losses...

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at May 05, 2024 09:17 AM (llXky)

37 Mark Moyar covers the peace talks, how the North Vietnamese wants a Viet Cong as a 4th party in negotiations, other 2 being South Vietnam and US, but both new it was a total power ploy as the Viet Cong were totally controlled by the North. Both books detail how the Viet Cong were basically the weak gorilla operations and how even very early the North was invading, which the press didn't want to know or let out.

Posted by: Skip at May 05, 2024 09:17 AM (fwDg9)

38 "There once was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it."
Posted by: All Hail Eris at May 05, 2024 09:10 AM (FkUwd)

Oh, ouch. Poor Eustace. Makes one wonder how much one's name shapes his personality.

Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at May 05, 2024 09:17 AM (OX9vb)

39 I've not quite understood the construction "pants are required, unless you are wearing these pants...." Does that mean if you're wearing those pants, then pants are not required? Or...? [scratches head]

Well, wouldn't want to have to modify the opening template and mess with tradition just 'cause I don't quite grok it.

G'morn, bookies.

Posted by: mindful webworker - rainy day at May 05, 2024 09:17 AM (OOnTd)

40 And I'll stop before I begin ranting about autocorrect.)
Posted by: Weak Geek at May 05, 2024 09:10 AM

What about bicyclecorrect ?

Posted by: JT at May 05, 2024 09:18 AM (T4tVD)

41 Slightly longer declarative sentence:
"Scarlett O'Hara was not beautiful, but men seldom realized it when caught by her charm, as the Tarleton twins were."

Posted by: sal: tolle adversarium et afflige inimicum at May 05, 2024 09:18 AM (IZjwR)

42 Good morning fellow Book Threadists. I hope everyone had a great week of reading.

Posted by: JTB at May 05, 2024 09:18 AM (zudum)

43 Oh, my! I just picked up "Neuromancer" at the thrift store.
Now I really want to read it.

Posted by: sal: tolle adversarium et afflige inimicum at May 05, 2024 09:15 AM (IZjwR)
---
Neuromancer is worth reading if only because you can see all of the influences it has had on popular culture. Both the Cyberpunk and Shadowrun RPGS were directly influenced by Neuromancer, as was The Matrix.

However, later authors took what Gibson created and refined it into much, much better stories, IMHO.

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at May 05, 2024 09:18 AM (BpYfr)

44 This week I continued my Raconteur Press Anthology catch-up, going back and reading #13 ("Or All Will Burn" - stories about what ends parents will go to in order to protect their kids) which somehow I'd skipped over (oops). I didn't find the stories dark, but I'm a father of two girls (now adults) so the stories resonated with me.

I'm working on reading #18, the third in the "Spurgle" series about the ever incompetent and self-inflated Andrew Spurgle, "He Was Dead When I Got There".

Next up for me is #19 "Or All Will Burn: Fierce Love" (the second in that series.)

Most recently published anthologies by Raconteur Press are: #26 (Wyrd West) and #27 (Space Cowboys 5: Cattle Drive).

I'll get caught up eventually, no, really, I will! (Stop giving me "that look".) Okay, maybe it's just that I can be grateful that I'll always have something else to read. :-)

If your life leans more to brief times for relaxation and entertainment, these anthologies are a perfect fit.

Posted by: Grumpy and Recalcitrant at May 05, 2024 09:19 AM (O7YUW)

45 Start with a true, simple, declarative sentence.

I just started 1984 two days ago.

“It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.”

This is the first time I’ve read it knowing that most of the government-controlled rationing actually was still going on in 1948 when he wrote it. There really was a chocolate ration in Britain in 1948! (Confectionary rationing is a major reason that most if not all of the iconic Brit candy brands are owned by international conglomerates; most of that happened while the candy companies were forced to kneecap themselves.)

Posted by: Stephen Price Blair at May 05, 2024 09:19 AM (EXyHK)

46 Just finished "Shogun," by James Clavell. What a magnificent book this is. The recent Hulu series was beautiful, well-written and perfectly-acted, but you really must read the book to understand the depth and wonder of the entire story.

It amazes me that Clavell was able to write what is easily the best book in English about Japan, after having suffered for 3 years in a Japanese POW camp in WW2. Talk about a therapeutic exercise in writing.

Now I shall continue with Clavell's "Asian Saga," which includes "Tai-Pan" (about the Founding of Hong Kong), "Gai-Jin" (adventures of HK's fictitious founder's Kids in Japan), "King Rat," a semi-autobiographical telling of Clavell's stay in Changi POW camp), "Noble House" (business intrigue in 1963 Hong Kong), and "Whirlwind" 1979 Iran action.

Clavell is such a great writer. Amazing.

Posted by: Sharkman at May 05, 2024 09:19 AM (/RHNq)

47 Few can top Donald Hamilton for opening sentences and paragraphs that keep you reading.

"I always feel guilty about smuggling a gun through Mexican customs."

I know I've mentioned this many times. I should go through the Matt Helm books for fresh examples. I also have other Hamilton books, yet unread. I'd bet their opening sentences are grabbers, too.

Posted by: Weak Geek at May 05, 2024 09:19 AM (p/isN)

48 When my kids were little, I used I make up stories about
"when I worked in a *blank* factory".
The story would go off the rails and usually end up being fired.

Example:

That reminds me about when I used to work at the macaroni factory. I had a idea to make "Mega Macaroni". Huge macaroni the size of sewer pipes.

The story would go on from there and get more and more wacky until I was inevitably sacked.

Posted by: Guy who heard wrong at May 05, 2024 09:19 AM (CM7e9)

49 Hemingway's Writing Pro-Tips:

"Blow your head off AFTER you finish your masterpiece"

Posted by: Sharkman at May 05, 2024 09:20 AM (/RHNq)

50 Mark Moyar covers the peace talks, how the North Vietnamese wants a Viet Cong as a 4th party in negotiations, other 2 being South Vietnam and US, but both new it was a total power ploy as the Viet Cong were totally controlled by the North. Both books detail how the Viet Cong were basically the weak gorilla operations and how even very early the North was invading, which the press didn't want to know or let out.
Posted by: Skip at May 05, 2024 09:17 AM (fwDg9)
---
Does he get into the PRC's extensive support for the North? Until I started researching Walls of Men I had no idea that so many PLA troops were in Vietnam.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at May 05, 2024 09:20 AM (llXky)

51 I made some decisions this past week. Decisions I'm not necessarily proud of, which were based entirely on the question: "This comic is on sale for how much?"

The first decision: the "Luke Cage Omnibus" from Marvel. My luck with 70s comics has been spotty at best, and I'm not overly drawn to blacksploitation fiction, but the available on-line preview made the book look good, and I'm pretty sure it'll be different than the usual fare. But mostly someone on ebay was clearancing the book, as even with taxes and shipping I got a new copy for less than half of msrp.

The second decision was about "Berserk," the first deluxe edition. I'm not a huge manga guy, but everyone seems to praise this one as a masterpiece. Albeit a bleak, gory, grim-dark masterpiece, which will probably be glacially paced. But I saw this at Walmart. A leather-bound manga was on the shelf of the most mainstream of mainstream stores. And, again, it was on clearance at about 40% off. I had to encourage that kind of behavior.

Of course, I really should finish at least one of the other comic collections I'm currently reading before starting either of these....

Posted by: Castle Guy at May 05, 2024 09:21 AM (Lhaco)

52 Off wrong sock

Posted by: fd at May 05, 2024 09:21 AM (CM7e9)

53 I thought I'd read all of Jack L. Chalker's books, but the series Perfesser got this week is unfamiliar to me.

Posted by: Polliwog the 'Ette at May 05, 2024 09:21 AM (XjtdB)

54 Reading this week?

Irwin Shaw's last book, Acceptable Losses. Which ain't a bad read at all. Found a tidbit in it that the horde might appreciate. Lead character's a literary agent, and the retiring senior member of his firm gives him a manuscript to read, telling him it's the only one he ever wrote and that in his youth he'd tried to be a writer. He says: "I had read too much to believe what I put down was of any worth." I'd bet this explains why a lot of books never get written.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at May 05, 2024 09:22 AM (q3u5l)

55 I have a copy of 'Mere Christianity' around here somewhere but I haven't read it.

Perfessor, should I start with 'The Screwtape Letters'?

Posted by: dantesed at May 05, 2024 09:22 AM (Oy/m2)

56 Both books detail how the Viet Cong were basically the weak gorilla operations and how even very early the North was invading, which the press didn't want to know or let out.
Posted by: Skip at May

Everyone knows they were the orangutang operators.

Posted by: JT at May 05, 2024 09:23 AM (T4tVD)

57 Currently reading in rotation:

Elon Musk by Walter Isaacson
The Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson
A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K Le Guin
The Sword of the Lictor by Gene Wolfe

I had swapped out Warhammer novels with other gothic sci-fi by Gene Wolfe here, but Book of the New Sun series is more of a fantasy than sci-fi flavor. It is episodic, and the scope and scale of it seems a lot smaller.

Posted by: BourbonChicken at May 05, 2024 09:23 AM (lhenN)

58 Verb

Middle English reden "to counsel, order, decide, guide, govern, realize, grasp the meaning of

Germanic *rēdan- (whence also Old Frisian rēda "to advise, protect, help, plan, decide

Old High German rātan "to advise, deliberate, assist,

Posted by: rhennigantx at May 05, 2024 09:23 AM (ENQN6)

59 This 2 book so far series definitely upsets a lot of common perception of the war. North Vietnam played well between China and Russia to get what they needed. Playing one against the other.

Really can't recommend these enough

Posted by: Skip at May 05, 2024 09:23 AM (fwDg9)

60 This is the first time I’ve read it knowing that most of the government-controlled rationing actually was still going on in 1948 when he wrote it. There really was a chocolate ration in Britain in 1948! (Confectionary rationing is a major reason that most if not all of the iconic Brit candy brands are owned by international conglomerates; most of that happened while the candy companies were forced to kneecap themselves.)
Posted by: Stephen Price Blair at May 05, 2024 09:19 AM (EXyHK)
---
The Labour government believed it could bring Britain properity based on abundant coal and fisheries and ended up with shortage of both.

Most people knew Churchill was driven from office in 1945, but he actually was returned after Labour screwed everything up.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at May 05, 2024 09:24 AM (llXky)

61 I've not quite understood the construction "pants are required, unless you are wearing these pants...." Does that mean if you're wearing those pants, then pants are not required? Or...? [scratches head]
Posted by: mindful webworker - rainy day at May 05, 2024 09:17 AM

You might consider going over and sitting next to All Hail Eris, who is often pantsless in blatant defiance of this very stricture.

Posted by: Duncanthrax at May 05, 2024 09:24 AM (a3Q+t)

62 I have a copy of 'Mere Christianity' around here somewhere but I haven't read it.

Perfessor, should I start with 'The Screwtape Letters'?
Posted by: dantesed at May 05, 2024 09:22 AM (Oy/m2)
---
That's entirely up to you. There's no "wrong" reading order. Mere Christianity is nonfiction, while The Screwtape Letters is fiction, in case that makes a difference.

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at May 05, 2024 09:24 AM (BpYfr)

63 Well because there was a vietcong agent who was their press stringer thats who halberstam relied upon

Posted by: Miguel cervantes at May 05, 2024 09:25 AM (PXvVL)

64 Start with a true, simple, declarative sentence.

It was a dark and stormy night and it wasn't warm out thar irregardless of what the weatherman said.

Posted by: JT at May 05, 2024 09:25 AM (T4tVD)

65 China though the 2nd book actually sent troops to North Vietnam to release Vietnam troops to go south. Pilots, defense forces, advisors all came from China.

Posted by: Skip at May 05, 2024 09:26 AM (fwDg9)

66 Yes there wasnt a real different between east asia and eurasia

Posted by: Miguel cervantes at May 05, 2024 09:26 AM (PXvVL)

67 inspiration (n.)
c. 1300, "immediate influence of God or a god," especially that under which the holy books were written, from Old French inspiracion "inhaling, breathing in; inspiration" (13c.), from Late Latin inspirationem (nominative inspiratio), noun of action from past-participle stem of Latin inspirare "blow into, breathe upon," figuratively "inspire, excite, inflame," from in- "in" (from PIE root *en "in") + spirare "to breathe" (see spirit (n.)). ,

And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. [Genesis ii.7]
The sense evolution seems to be from "breathe into" to "infuse animation or influence," thus "affect, rouse, guide or control," especially by divine influence. Inspire (v.) in Middle English also was used to mean "breath or put life or spirit into the human body; impart reason to a human soul." Literal sense "act of inhaling" attested in English from 1560s. Meaning "one who inspires others" is attested by 1867.

Posted by: Aetius451AD at May 05, 2024 09:27 AM (di6C2)

68 Reading one of my birthday books, Confessions of a Prairie Bitch, by Alison Arngrim, about her time playing Nellie Oleson on Little House on Prairie. Wow, everyone sure hated Melissa Sue Anderson.

Posted by: Victor Tango Kilo at May 05, 2024 09:28 AM (xQhxU)

69 Or, to borrow from Audrey Hepburn in Always:

'Inspiration- the Divine Breath'

Posted by: Aetius451AD at May 05, 2024 09:28 AM (di6C2)

70 I tore through Brandon Sanderson's Rhythms of War. There was a major plot twist in the last third. The room kept getting dusty in the last third as well.

Read Dawnshard, a novella in the same series, as well. Sanderson is spending more time explicitly dealing with things like PTSD and living with a disability, but he makes the characters interesting enough that it is only noticeable not obnoxious.

Posted by: Polliwog the 'Ette at May 05, 2024 09:28 AM (XjtdB)

71 This 2 book so far series definitely upsets a lot of common perception of the war. North Vietnam played well between China and Russia to get what they needed. Playing one against the other.

Really can't recommend these enough
Posted by: Skip at May 05, 2024 09:23 AM (fwDg9)
---
I find most American analysis of Asia (or anywhere else, honestly) completely lacking in context, culture and history. Korea and Vietnam were tributary states of China going back for a thousand years. There was no way China was going to permit foreign domination of either.

Communism was a big deal for the US, but Mao was Chinese first, Communist second.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at May 05, 2024 09:28 AM (llXky)

72 When my kids were little, I used I make up stories about
"when I worked in a *blank* factory".
The story would go off the rails and usually end up being fired.

Example:

That reminds me about when I used to work at the macaroni factory. I had a idea to make "Mega Macaroni". Huge macaroni the size of sewer pipes.

The story would go on from there and get more and more wacky until I was inevitably sacked.

And I'll bet your kids remember those stories very fondly. My dad used to tell us a story about a giant monster named Hermione (apparently an opera singer, not the HP girl). He was sort of like Godzilla, and would get killed at the end of each story. This may explain a lot about me.

Posted by: Archimedes at May 05, 2024 09:29 AM (CsUN+)

73 Ideation: I think the author of this week's read must have used the two incongruent ideas to come up with Down Don't Bother Me (author is Jason Miller).

Coal mine + private investigator made for a fun change of scenery for me. Slim, a coal miner and son of a notorious coal miner, gets dragged into an unofficial investigation of a murder that occurs deep in the mine.

Naturally, nothing is as it seems, and even as he tries to extract himself from the investigation, he gets pulled in deeper, surviving gnarly fights and murder attempts until he gets to the bottom of the matter.

Great language skills on this guy--he describes things vividly, and with clever humor. I'd have to flip back through for some of the best ones, but I do remember "he had a face like a carnival prize." Made me laugh.

Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at May 05, 2024 09:29 AM (OX9vb)

74 The first decision: the "Luke Cage Omnibus" from Marvel.

Sweet Christmas! I always enjoyed Luke Cage, although I don’t think the stories hold up as an adult. Part of it I think was the art. I didn’t pay attention to artists and writers at the time (not until Steve Gerber’s Howard the Duck deadline issue) but looking back I really enjoy George Tuska’s style.

Posted by: Stephen Price Blair at May 05, 2024 09:30 AM (EXyHK)

75 Since earlier in the week I bought a book just because I saw it on a store shelf, I'll pose a question to the horde: What is the best off-the-shelf purchase you made? A book that you weren't planning on buying, or didn't even know existed, until you saw it physically on the shelf at a bookshop?

The first one that comes to mind for me was "The Savage Tales of Solomon Kane" produced by Balentine Books/Del Rey. This would have been my very first foray into Robert E Howards written works. (I had seen the Conan the Barbarian movie, but hadn't yet connected that to the author) I saw this on the shelf at Barnes and Noble, and bought it solely on the strength of its cover: a painting of a puritan holding a longsword and a wooden stave. It was an awesome image, and the stories within were just as awesome. And it lead me down a path I no devote....well over 6 linear feat of shelf space to assorted Robert E Howard works and adaptations...

Posted by: Castle Guy at May 05, 2024 09:30 AM (Lhaco)

76 One of the more unusual murder weapons in employed for the task in Death Watch by John Dickson Carr. An undercover policeman is tracking down a dangerous criminal at the house of a watchmaker, and is found stabbed in the throat with an eight inch minute hand from a stable clock. Gideon Fell and Inspector Hadley must deal with an avalanche of clues and misdirections from everyone in the household. Four boarders and the household staff of watchmaker Johannes Carver are all presenting their statements and accusations, and many of them contradict each other. Is one of them a thief, or a murderer, or both? Carr leads the reader in one direction, then another, and then changes course as the clues are discarded and replaced by new ones. When the mystery is solved, it surprises everyone except the brilliant Gideon Fell. This is an entertaining story that challenges the reader to recall every clue.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at May 05, 2024 09:30 AM (lTGtQ)

77 Gorilla warfare.
Everyone knows they were the orangutang operators.
Didn't I just explain the Duct Apes last night? Jim Pansies.

Posted by: Way, Way Downriver at May 05, 2024 09:31 AM (zdLoL)

78 Start with a true, simple, declarative sentence.

"The moon blew up without warning and for no apparent reason."

Posted by: Sharkman at May 05, 2024 09:31 AM (/RHNq)

79 78 Start with a true, simple, declarative sentence.

"The moon blew up without warning and for no apparent reason."
Posted by: Sharkman at May 05, 2024 09:31 AM (/RHNq)

Second sentence suggestion: 'Wackiness ensued.'

Posted by: Aetius451AD at May 05, 2024 09:32 AM (di6C2)

80 Books read or reading:

A short history of the worldby Geoffrey Blainey. He wrote the highly influential The Causes of War. Good summary, hitting the key points.

The Silk Roads : a new history of the world by Peter Frankopan.
Sorta good, with a new look on Far East culture. Went off the rails discussing slavery, and became extreme Leftist cant afterwards.

(part 1)

Posted by: NaCly Dog at May 05, 2024 09:33 AM (u82oZ)

81 "The moon blew up without warning and for no apparent reason."
Posted by: Sharkman at May 05, 2024 09:31 AM (/RHNq)
---
Seveneves by Neal Stephenson, I believe...

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at May 05, 2024 09:33 AM (BpYfr)

82 Start with a true, simple, declarative sentence.

"I'm pretty sure I used to have a penis", Sid mused.

Posted by: Archimedes at May 05, 2024 09:34 AM (CsUN+)

83 China though the 2nd book actually sent troops to North Vietnam to release Vietnam troops to go south. Pilots, defense forces, advisors all came from China.
Posted by: Skip at May 05, 2024 09:26 AM (fwDg9)
---
The sources I read said 350,000 Chinese were in Vietnam. Kind of a big deal.

When not reading about spiritual warfare, I've been scouring the internet for information about Chinese-made Kar98k Mausers, and how they reached the US. A bunch were sold during the 1980s when they were removed from the militia inventory, but there are ones with no import mark, and I can't figure out how they came here. Many of them have the militia property mark on the stock, which was added after Korea. Were they captured in Vietnam? Bought on the black market? I've consulted with some experts about marks, translations and whenever I bring up how they got here, the conversation ends.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at May 05, 2024 09:34 AM (llXky)

84 Loving the "dad stories" recollections. Mine would tell us stories about a ghost fire truck, or a ghost airplane ("the stewardess appeared at the top of the stairs...and she was a skeleton!")

Posted by: skywch at May 05, 2024 09:34 AM (uqhmb)

85 Berserk is one the best 90s shows ever. The first 2/3s has authentic-feeling rise of a warlord. 1400s Europe was made up of mostly small states not unlike medieval Japan.

The ?2010? show was pretty good as well.

Posted by: BourbonChicken at May 05, 2024 09:34 AM (lhenN)

86 The Silk Roads : a new history of the world by Peter Frankopan.
Sorta good, with a new look on Far East culture. Went off the rails discussing slavery, and became extreme Leftist cant afterwards.

Agree. It's a pity, because the book started strong.

Posted by: Archimedes at May 05, 2024 09:34 AM (CsUN+)

87 "The moon blew up without warning ~~and for no apparent reason~~."

Posted by: BourbonChicken at May 05, 2024 09:35 AM (lhenN)

88 It's a novel-within-a-novel novel told by an unreliable narrator.
Posted by: All Hail Eris

I like both themes. Sounds like Iain Pears.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at May 05, 2024 09:35 AM (lTGtQ)

89 Communism was a big deal for the US, but Mao was Chinese first, Communist second.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at May 05, 2024 09:28 AM

Even more so for Uncle Ho, who first approached the U.S. for assistance in getting rid of the French, turning to the Commies after being rebuffed.

Posted by: Duncanthrax at May 05, 2024 09:35 AM (a3Q+t)

90 "The moon blew up without warning and for no apparent reason."
Posted by: Sharkman at May 05, 2024 09:31 AM (/RHNq)
---
Is this a novelization of Space: 1999?

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at May 05, 2024 09:36 AM (llXky)

91 Communism was a big deal for the US, but Mao was ~~Chinese~~ a genocidal monster first, Communist second.

Posted by: Archimedes at May 05, 2024 09:37 AM (CsUN+)

92 Build you vocabulary.

She unbuttoned her blouse, exposing he left Hoobadabba.

Posted by: JT at May 05, 2024 09:38 AM (T4tVD)

93 Neuromancer by William Gibson

This is part of my ongoing quest to read certain books prior to my milestone birthday later this summer. I always find it fascinating to read this kind of book because it seems so cliche at first.

See? That's why you should have read it 40 years ago. In general, speculative fiction doesn't age well. Either it becomes ridiculous or it becomes reality.

Posted by: Oddbob at May 05, 2024 09:39 AM (/y8xj)

94 Even more so for Uncle Ho, who first approached the U.S. for assistance in getting rid of the French, turning to the Commies after being rebuffed.
Posted by: Duncanthrax at May 05, 2024 09:35 AM (a3Q+t)
---
In Alms for Oblivion, Peter Kemp writes about his experience in Indochina immediately after the Japanese surrender. US officials and advisors were falling over themselves trying to undermine the French and prevent re-establishment of their colonial government. The Brits were not pleased.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at May 05, 2024 09:39 AM (llXky)

95 I've heard that Charles M. Schultz, creator of Peanuts, would flip through catalogues looking for ideas.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, I've Been Through the Desert On a Horse With No Shame at May 05, 2024 09:39 AM (L/fGl)

96 Is this a novelization of Space: 1999?
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at May 05, 2024 09:36 AM (llXky)

'The moon left and went on adventures for no apparent reason.'

'Also, Barbara Bain.'

https://tinyurl.com/2s4zrx3u

Posted by: Aetius451AD at May 05, 2024 09:39 AM (di6C2)

97 "The first duty of a Highborn lady is obedience."

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at May 05, 2024 09:40 AM (BpYfr)

98 Yes they were in indonesia in korea and other placss

Posted by: Miguel cervantes at May 05, 2024 09:40 AM (PXvVL)

99 Communism was a big deal for the US, but Mao was Chinese a genocidal monster first, Communist second.
Posted by: Archimedes at May 05, 2024 09:37 AM (CsUN+)
---
Mao's Great Leap Forward actually accomplished something unique in China's lengthy history: famine on a national scale. All of China's previous famines were localized, and the mark of a "good" dynasty was whether it used the extensive canal network to move grain to where it was needed or just let people starve.

Mao managed to make *everyone* starve. Quite the achievement.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at May 05, 2024 09:42 AM (llXky)

100 Also, in the context of first sentences, the first sentence of Neuromancer has changed completely in meaning. At the time he wrote it "The sky above the port was the color of television tuned to a dead channel" set a stage that was hazy, gray, and grainy. Now it would mean clear blue.

Posted by: Oddbob at May 05, 2024 09:42 AM (/y8xj)

101 91 Communism was a big deal for the US, but Mao was Chinese a genocidal monster first, Communist second.
Posted by: Archimedes at May 05, 2024 09:37 AM (CsUN+)

One thing I came across yesterday that I had never heard: The protesters who got their asses shot at Kent State were protesting in favor of the Khmer Rouge.

Need to follow up on that one. If true, I cannot imagine why it is never mentioned.

Posted by: Aetius451AD at May 05, 2024 09:42 AM (di6C2)

102 @75 --

"The Dogs of War."

I picked it up at my favorite used-book store, where it was sitting on an outside table under the eave. The store was closed. I went there only to kill time while my car was getting new tires at a shop across the street.

The back cover text interested me, and the first chapter had me hooked.

I don't recall how I paid for the book if the store was closed, but it was the best 25 cents I spent.

Posted by: Weak Geek at May 05, 2024 09:42 AM (p/isN)

103 Seveneves by Neal Stephenson, I believe...

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel

Yessir. Need to read it again.

Posted by: Sharkman at May 05, 2024 09:42 AM (/RHNq)

104 A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K Le Guin ...

Posted by: BourbonChicken at May 05, 2024 09:23 AM (lhenN)
====
I've got a signed copy.

Posted by: San Franpsycho at May 05, 2024 09:42 AM (RIvkX)

105 Thanks for another dandy Book Thread, Perfessor!

I find myself reading far more this year than in years past, and I have the book thread to thank for that. The advice of Horde members on authors and books worth enjoying is invaluable.

Posted by: Legally Sufficient at May 05, 2024 09:44 AM (U3L4U)

106 Well not exactly the khmer was maos direct proxie the decolonists

Posted by: Miguel cervantes at May 05, 2024 09:44 AM (PXvVL)

107 One thing I came across yesterday that I had never heard: The protesters who got their asses shot at Kent State were protesting in favor of the Khmer Rouge.

Need to follow up on that one. If true, I cannot imagine why it is never mentioned.
Posted by: Aetius451AD at May 05, 2024 09:42 AM (di6C2)
---
Didn't it come out a few years ago that the gunshot the National Guard heard came from an FBI informant? The FBI covered it up and lied about it for decades because that's what they do.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at May 05, 2024 09:44 AM (llXky)

108 One thing I came across yesterday that I had never heard: The protesters who got their asses shot at Kent State were protesting in favor of the Khmer Rouge.

I saw that and was also a bit surprised. I'll need more evidence.

Posted by: Archimedes at May 05, 2024 09:45 AM (CsUN+)

109 48 When my kids were little, I used I make up stories about
"when I worked in a *blank* factory".
The story would go off the rails and usually end up being fired.

That's hilarious. I'll bet the kids loved your stories.

Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at May 05, 2024 09:45 AM (OX9vb)

110 like both themes. Sounds like Iain Pears.

Posted by: Thomas Paine

Another author I really need to re-read everything he's ever written, and right quick.

Posted by: Sharkman at May 05, 2024 09:45 AM (/RHNq)

111 Part 2

Empire : a new history of the world by Paul Strathern. Pedestrian treatment of human development, focusing on large empires.
Seems to leave a lot out, and Global Warming is the convenient villain.

Numbers don't lie : 71 stories to help us understand the modern world by Vaclav Smil. A cover blurb touts this author as one who influences Bill Gates a lot.

He has seemingly solid analysis of many issues. He tries to get good numbers, but mostly from known compromised governmental bodies like the UN.

But the areas I know the best, like chemistry, raising beef, and innovation, show how his analysis is shallow. He makes a good case for chickens, but ignores Dutch advances in raising beef and using greenhouses to act as carbon dioxide sinks. American ranchers use a lot marginal land to raise beef. His water use knowledge is poor.
He is best in engineering analysis, but not on political malfeasance or how a sound society really works.

Posted by: NaCly Dog at May 05, 2024 09:45 AM (u82oZ)

112 100 Also, in the context of first sentences, the first sentence of Neuromancer has changed completely in meaning. At the time he wrote it "The sky above the port was the color of television tuned to a dead channel" set a stage that was hazy, gray, and grainy. Now it would mean clear blue.
Posted by: Oddbob at May 05, 2024 09:42 AM (/y8xj)

I think you could argue that all writing kind of needs a common cultural touchstones between the writer and reader for you to get the full meaning and what the writer is trying to say.

When modern historians try to intuit ancient writing, I think they are probably missing tons of context and information because they have no relation to the idiom of the time.

Posted by: Aetius451AD at May 05, 2024 09:45 AM (di6C2)

113 Well not exactly the khmer was maos direct proxie the decolonists
Posted by: Miguel cervantes at May 05, 2024 09:44 AM (PXvVL)
---
China invaded Vietnam in 1979 to make them leave Cambodia. It didn't work, and China instead got some border adjustments so they could save face because the Vietnamese were kicking their ass.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at May 05, 2024 09:46 AM (llXky)

114 The winter was stormy. We had constant brown-outs, the battery backup didn't backup, so the computer was unavailable.

I had a new shirt-pocket sized blank booklet. And an idea.

Several years before, I had a ~~comic book~~ graphic novel in mind, did some sketches and some plot notes, but couldn't get it to gel. Buried the sketches and notes in a file drawer.

Small blank book in hand, I started sketching the beginnings of the story, from a different angle. I got several pages done when I realized the story was forming in my head faster than I could draw. I took up a legal pad and began hand-writing.

It was as if the tale had been slowly simmering on a back burner all those years. The words flowed out, onto a second legal pad, and a third.

I do believe this inspired flow was because I was hand-writing rather than keyboarding. I was as much following the story as it unfolded as I was writing it, meeting characters and situations I'd not had in mind when I started. ...

1/2

Posted by: mindful webworker - Invulnerable at May 05, 2024 09:46 AM (OOnTd)

115 Good morning!

Let's smile & be happy & strike fear in the hearts of killjoy leftists everywhere.

Posted by: NaCly Dog at May 05, 2024 09:47 AM (u82oZ)

116 2/2

The story complete, save for the last bit which I added later, and the power back on steady, I began converting it to webwork. I scanned and lightly cleaned up the early comic sketches, for the introduction of the story, and then transitioned to just text, with a few spot illustrations. I still had in mind the idea of it as a graphic novel, but realized my cartooning skills weren't up to the level the story needed. It's mixed media webwork.

I didn't change much for the semi-final draft that's on-line. Every year I re-read it, and find a few typos, but otherwise it's just what I first wrote. For what it's worth, I'm mostly satisfied with it. Have had little feedback on it.

I have other stories in mind, but they don't seem to be as forthcoming. I've been too busy to pick up a new legal pad and try hand-writing again.

Posted by: mindful webworker - Invulnerable at May 05, 2024 09:47 AM (OOnTd)

117 I saw that and was also a bit surprised. I'll need more evidence.
Posted by: Archimedes at May 05, 2024 09:45 AM (CsUN+)

My thought as well. Delicious if true, but I am skeptical of anything that confirms a bias one way or another- even my own.

Posted by: Aetius451AD at May 05, 2024 09:47 AM (di6C2)

118 >A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K Le Guin ...

It feels like a an ancient story, not a story written in 1968. Similar to Tolkien in that respect.

Posted by: BourbonChicken at May 05, 2024 09:47 AM (lhenN)

119 That line sounds great but it doesnt make any sense

Posted by: Miguel cervantes at May 05, 2024 09:48 AM (PXvVL)

120 Most of my "wasn't looking for it or didn't know it existed" purchases happened 7th grade through high school. Heinlein, Jack Williamson, Bradbury, Fritz Leiber, Matheson... all easily found on the mass market racks that abounded back then. Later? One that comes immediately to mind is Joseph Epstein's early essay collection Plausible Prejudices, which made me a fan.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at May 05, 2024 09:48 AM (q3u5l)

121 China though the 2nd book actually sent troops to North Vietnam to release Vietnam troops to go south. Pilots, defense forces, advisors all came from China.
Posted by: Skip at May 05, 2024 09:26 AM (fwDg9)

I recently gave some of my students an assignment on the Vietnam War, and it's eye-opening how many of them had been convinced there was no connection between China and North Vietnam. Then again, most of them also believed the loss of Vietnam had no effects on the rest of Southeast Asia.

Posted by: Dr. T at May 05, 2024 09:49 AM (g0Y4p)

122 "The moon blew up without warning and for no apparent reason."
Posted by: Sharkman at May 05, 2024 09:31 AM (/RHNq)

Overmined IIRC

Posted by: rhennigantx at May 05, 2024 09:49 AM (ENQN6)

123 Start with a true, simple, declarative sentence.

-
I enjoyed The Map of Time by Felix J. Palma, a time travel syfy novel that was chock full of idea and moods. One of the episodes concerned the first sentences of great books.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, I've Been Through the Desert On a Horse With No Shame at May 05, 2024 09:49 AM (L/fGl)

124 I have been waiting all week to write about this. Based on all the discussion in previous weeks about Zelazny, I decided to reread the Amber series. I was quite taken with these books back in the day, even named my first dog Corwin.
I am now on book IV. I have no idea why I liked the books. There are many characters with hardly any back story so you have no idea why they do what they do.The action wanders around aimlessly. The battles are just noise. How things turn out is always Deus Ex Machina.I no longer care if Corwin wins out.
I do not understand why he is considered "one of the greatest".
There. I said it.

Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at May 05, 2024 09:49 AM (t/2Uw)

125 I forgot to say that, having lost a good part of a week to the Words of Radiance series, I plan on buying the set on Kindle in the near future so I can have it read to me instead of having to sit there. Also, I thought I'd read the third book, but if so it didn't stick.

Posted by: Polliwog the 'Ette at May 05, 2024 09:50 AM (XjtdB)

126 Because Communists just can't murder when they can, during Tet in Hue murdered as many government officials they could get their hands on. Including the janitor of a government building family.

Posted by: Skip at May 05, 2024 09:50 AM (fwDg9)

127 The Quinoa salad glistened bravely despite Trump's best efforts to escape justice.

Posted by: Fireplug McTaters, nom de plume of mystery at May 05, 2024 09:51 AM (Vf0uo)

128 If this was so why did it take three years to invade

Posted by: Miguel cervantes at May 05, 2024 09:51 AM (PXvVL)

129 If anyone is interested there are a bunch of ebook deals on humblebundle.com

Jonathan Maberry, Dune books by Frank's son Brian, some litrpg, some graphic novels and fiction for witcher, battletech, & cyberpunk 2077, and assorted other bundles.

Posted by: banana Dream at May 05, 2024 09:51 AM (Y6IkP)

130 It's quite possible that rabies has returned to the library also.
Wild raccoons are NOT domestic pets

Posted by: The Doctor at May 05, 2024 09:52 AM (qNzP3)

131 119 That line sounds great but it doesnt make any sense
Posted by: Miguel cervantes at May 05, 2024 09:48 AM (PXvVL)

“The truth may be stretched thin, but it never breaks, and it always surfaces above lies, as oil floats on water.”
“Bear in mind, Sancho, that one man is no more than another, unless he does more than another.”
“The fool knows more in his own house than the wise man in someone else’s.”
“He who loses wealth loses much; he who loses a friend loses more, but he that loses his courage loses all.”
“Love is a power too strong to be overcome by anything but flight.”
“Never stand begging for that which you have the power to earn.”

I went looking for a pity retort from Cervantes and realized I need to reread Don Quixote.

Posted by: Aetius451AD at May 05, 2024 09:52 AM (di6C2)

132 China though the 2nd book actually sent troops to North Vietnam to release Vietnam troops to go south. Pilots, defense forces, advisors all came from China.
Posted by: Skip at May 05, 2024 09:26 AM (fwDg9)

Over a cup of coffee, Matt Dillon passed along one interesting piece of information that the radio relay intercept team attached to our headquarters had come up with. Says Dillon: “They had made an intercept of a coded message in Mandarin dialect, like a situation report, from a position somewhere on a line from Plei Me camp directly through a clearing at the base of Chu Pong mountain. The intelligence lieutenant had a map with a line drawn on it. He said that the radio transmitter was somewhere on this line."

Intelligence at Ia Drang.

https://tinyurl.com/4pmd9k8z

Posted by: Hairyback Guy at May 05, 2024 09:52 AM (R/m4+)

133 When modern historians try to intuit ancient writing, I think they are probably missing tons of context and information because they have no relation to the idiom of the time.
Posted by: Aetius451AD at May 05, 2024 09:45 AM (di6C2)
---
Increasingly, modern academics insert their own prejudices and politics into their analysis, creating interpretations completely at variance with the historic circumstances.

Take Barbara Tuchman's A Distant Mirror. It starts well, but her mid-20th Century Feminist mentality starts to manifest with asides about how primitive they were, how everyone now knows that women are just as strong and capable as men, etc.

And like almost all historians, she operates under the assumption that all religion is just a silly superstition, and that was used by hucksters to dupe the rubes.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at May 05, 2024 09:52 AM (llXky)

134 William Alan Webb, if you're lurking...
Posted by: I am the Shadout Mapes, the Housekeeper at May 05, 2024 09:14 AM (PiwSw)

Forgot to change my socks....

Posted by: OrangeEnt at May 05, 2024 09:53 AM (0eaVi)

135 In Alms for Oblivion, Peter Kemp writes about his experience in Indochina immediately after the Japanese surrender. US officials and advisors were falling over themselves trying to undermine the French and prevent re-establishment of their colonial government. The Brits were not pleased.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at May 05, 2024 09:39 AM (llXky)

FDR repeatedly made it clear to Churchill during the war that ending colonialism was nearly as, if not equally, as important to him as defeating Hitler.

Unfortunately for Churchill, he wasn't in a position to tell FDR to piss off.

Posted by: Dr. T at May 05, 2024 09:53 AM (g0Y4p)

136 Good morning all....yet another rainy day here, perfect for curling up with a book. Especially one from the library in the photo, on a battleship none the less!!!!

Posted by: Grateful at May 05, 2024 09:54 AM (JrIax)

137 And decolonization in india cyprus and palestine worked out dandy

Posted by: Miguel cervantes at May 05, 2024 09:55 AM (PXvVL)

138 I need to wire frame a simple web site for home remodeling. Are all the design apps about the same?

Posted by: rhennigantx at May 05, 2024 09:55 AM (ENQN6)

139 Fun fact: Neuromancer was written on a manual typewriter. Gibson apparently never even SAW a personal computer until after the book came out. He was surprised at how noisy they were.

Posted by: Trimegistus at May 05, 2024 09:56 AM (78a2H)

140 "The moon blew up without warning and for no apparent reason."
Posted by: Sharkman

The Hamazi sneaking away just prior was pure coincidence.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, I've Been Through the Desert On a Horse With No Shame at May 05, 2024 09:57 AM (L/fGl)

141 86 The Silk Roads : a new history of the world by Peter Frankopan.
Sorta good, with a new look on Far East culture. Went off the rails discussing slavery, and became extreme Leftist cant afterwards.

Agree. It's a pity, because the book started strong.
Posted by: Archimedes at May 05, 2024 09:34 AM (CsUN+)

That silk road book sounded halfway familiar, but, no, the book I had read somewhat recently was a different tome on the subject, "The Roman Empire and the Silk Routes" by Raul McLaughlin. I enjoyed it. It only covered the early era of the route, and at the end it did stray into some tangents: importing crystal into the Roman Empire, and the historical importance of the Crimean peninsula.

Posted by: Castle Guy at May 05, 2024 09:57 AM (Lhaco)

142 For my money, Zelazny was at his best in short work. The Amber books, while popular and no doubt profitable, pale in comparison to stories like "A Rose for Ecclesiastes," "The Doors of His Face, The Lamps of His Mouth," "The Graveyard Heart," and many others. There's a collection of his early short work called The Magic, which includes some of his best early stories. Well worth a look even if you can't stand the Amber series. For novels, try This Immortal, The Dream Master, Lord of Light, and Isle of the Dead.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at May 05, 2024 09:57 AM (q3u5l)

143 For brain cleansing, I read some very trashy Science Fiction.

From the Family d'Alembert series by Stephen Goldin, featuring agents of Service Of The Empire:

#7 Planet of Treachery
#9 The Omicron Invasion (1984).

Fluff and nonsense.

Interestingly, he rewrote the entire 10 book series 30 years later, featuring agents of the Imperial Special Investigation Service. Have not read them.

Posted by: NaCly Dog at May 05, 2024 09:57 AM (u82oZ)

144 74 The first decision: the "Luke Cage Omnibus" from Marvel.

Sweet Christmas! I always enjoyed Luke Cage, although I don’t think the stories hold up as an adult. Part of it I think was the art. I didn’t pay attention to artists and writers at the time (not until Steve Gerber’s Howard the Duck deadline issue) but looking back I really enjoy George Tuska’s style.
Posted by: Stephen Price Blair at May 05, 2024 09:30 AM (EXyHK)

I read issue 2 as part of the online preview that Amazon has up....that particular issue holds up, and it's what sold me on the title. So, here's hoping the rest is as good!

Posted by: Castle Guy at May 05, 2024 09:58 AM (Lhaco)

145 One thing I came across yesterday that I had never heard: The protesters who got their asses shot at Kent State were protesting in favor of the Khmer Rouge.

Xxxx
This makes no sense. These were anti war protests because college students were being drafted. The politics of the war had nothing to do with it. This was personal. No one wanted to get their asses shot for the Vietnamese.
Xxxx
Now back to your regular programming.

Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at May 05, 2024 09:58 AM (t/2Uw)

146 "I had read too much to believe what I put down was of any worth." I'd bet this explains why a lot of books never get written.
Posted by: Just Some Guy at May 05, 2024 09:22 AM (q3u5l)

Every writer feels that way, I'd wager. I sub to Jerry Jenkins' e-mails and even he says he thinks that all the time before he starts a book. 'course, he could be fibbin' a bit....

Posted by: OrangeEnt at May 05, 2024 10:01 AM (0eaVi)

147 I read Nuclear War: A Scenario by Anne Jacobson. This isn't another dystopian novel. Rather it is a minute by minute account of what would happen if the U. S. came under nuclear attack. In this scenario, North Korea launches a nuclear tipped ICBM targeted at the Pentagon. It is followed by a submarine-fired missile which targets the Diablo Nuclear Power Plant on the central coast of California. As a final shot, Kim Jung Il orders a satellite to be positioned over Omaha which detonates a nuclear bomb 300 miles up and causes an EMP.

The book is soon reading like a thriller, but it is an accurate portrayal of the scenario. Seventy-four minutes after the initial North Korean launch the U. S. and Russia have launched all their nuclear assets, except some on submarines; obeying the "use it or lose it" doctrine. A discussion of the nuclear winter aftermath is also discussed. A very interesting, informative, and chilling book.

Posted by: Zoltan at May 05, 2024 10:01 AM (gyCYJ)

148 That famous photo of the Saigon police chief executing a VC in the street that caused so much outrage was, of course, shown without the backstory.

The dead VC had been caught red-handed having just murdered a general and the general's entire family, including numerous little kids.

So the police chief did what one does and popped the fucker. The photographer later expressed remorse that his photo had caused the police chief such difficulty, once he discovered the true story. Too late, of course.

Posted by: Sharkman at May 05, 2024 10:02 AM (/RHNq)

149 "Beau had died in many ways, and under many circumstances, but this one was turning out to be the worst."

Posted by: Cicero (@cicero43) at May 05, 2024 10:02 AM (TcVeV)

150 In sad news, I am done with J.D. Robb. Just finished her next to last Dallas book, in which there were 5 (count 'em- five) gay couples. In one murder investigation which had nothing to do with LGBT, etc.
And one trannie victim.
Posted by: sal: tolle adversarium et afflige inimicum at May 05, 2024 09:15 AM (IZjwR)
* * * *
That is sad! I'm still in the 30s on her books, but it seems there are gay couples all over the place. The characters are either minor or the gay part of it is not a major part of their part of the story. I ignore that aspect and focus on the rest.

Posted by: Legally Sufficient at May 05, 2024 10:03 AM (U3L4U)

151 Looking back at Vietnam is like an alternate universe. The past is a foreign country, etc.

Still, in 2008 there was (or appeared to be) a peace movement that wanted the US to pull out of Iraq and other places, media noted "grim milestones" and yet now many of the same politicians who stood for peace make speeches about how everyone benefits from America being the world's foremost Merchant of Death.

Strange days.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at May 05, 2024 10:03 AM (llXky)

152 Once again, I must ask: has there ever been a college-based political movement which was simultaneously beneficial, successful, and moral?

The anti-Vietnam War protesters were successful . . . at helping a bloody-handed tyranny control that unfortunate country.

A Certain Political Movement in 1930s Germany had lots of campus support. Again, successful but evil.

I think it's a reasonable position to assume that any college political movement is either evil, harmful, or doomed.

Posted by: Trimegistus at May 05, 2024 10:03 AM (78a2H)

153 You might consider going over and sitting next to All Hail Eris, who is often pantsless in blatant defiance of this very stricture.
Posted by: Duncanthrax at May 05, 2024 09:24 AM (a3Q+t)
----

I'm the Rosa Parks of pantslessness!

Posted by: All Hail Eris at May 05, 2024 10:03 AM (FkUwd)

154 Increasingly, modern academics insert their own prejudices and politics into their analysis, creating interpretations completely at variance with the historic circumstances.

-
Erik Larson's latest book, The Demon of Unrest, about the months leading up to the outbreak of the Civil War, was released a few days ago and I bought it. It contains an opening note thus:

I was well into my research on the saga of Fort Sumter and the advent of the American Civil War when the events of January 6, 2021, took place. As I watched the Capitol assault unfold on camera, I had the eerie feeling that present and past had merged.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, I've Been Through the Desert On a Horse With No Shame at May 05, 2024 10:04 AM (L/fGl)

155 Another author I really need to re-read everything he's ever written, and right quick.
Posted by: Sharkman at May 05, 2024 09:45 AM (/RHNq)

I've only read one book by Iain Pears, and I contend there is no way you can do that right quick.

Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at May 05, 2024 10:05 AM (OX9vb)

156 I don't claim to know whether the Kent State protestors were rallying in support of the Khmer Rouge.

Given that we have a bunch of college kids rallying in support of murderous Hamas thugs, this does not seem implausible.

Posted by: PabloD at May 05, 2024 10:07 AM (f7a6n)

157 The J.D Robb books always surprise me because she seems to come up with a legitimate mystery in every book. Her main characters have taken on a life of their own so I actually can visualize them when they appear in the story. I always wondered why they were never made into a movie.

Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at May 05, 2024 10:07 AM (t/2Uw)

158 "The moon blew up without warning and for no apparent reason."
----

Well now I need to read "Seveneves".

Posted by: All Hail Eris at May 05, 2024 10:07 AM (FkUwd)

159 I was well into my research on the saga of Fort Sumter and the advent of the American Civil War when the events of January 6, 2021, took place. As I watched the Capitol assault unfold on camera, I had the eerie feeling that present and past had merged.
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, I've Been Through the Desert On a Horse With No Shame at May 05, 2024 10:04 AM (L/fGl)
---
Admissions like that completely destroy any trust in the actual work. If you can't use skeptical analysis in the present, how can I trust you to do so in the past?

The last few years have been really interesting in identifying which historians you can trust.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at May 05, 2024 10:08 AM (llXky)

160 Put the brown acid down larson

Posted by: Miguel cervantes at May 05, 2024 10:08 AM (PXvVL)

161 Morning, Book Folken!

The topics here, about generating ideas and Hemingway's writing tips, are both fascinations of mine.

Ideas? One night some years ago, after watching It's a Wonderful Life for the nth time, and picking up a crime novel about pro assassins, two elements bumped together in my mind. "What if George Bailey were secretly a hit man for hire?" And I wrote the story, and it's appeared on a couple of websites.

Another evening, when I took a sleep aid (the diphenhydramine stuff) almost every night, I found I had only one pill left instead of the usual two. My sleep was not as deep as I liked. The next day I pondered the border between sleeping and waking, and what might happen if you spent time in that border zone . . . and produced a short my writing group people said was "magical realism."

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at May 05, 2024 10:08 AM (omVj0)

162 One thing I came across yesterday that I had never heard: The protesters who got their asses shot at Kent State were protesting in favor of the Khmer Rouge.

If I remember right, the hippies were protesting Nixon's decision to invade Cambodia to wipe out the NVA sanctuaries and supply dumps in April 1970.

Hippies Gotta Hippie.

Posted by: Hairyback Guy at May 05, 2024 10:08 AM (R/m4+)

163 Test

Posted by: Thomas Paine at May 05, 2024 10:09 AM (lTGtQ)

164 @143 --

I read the first book of that series. I picked it off the shelf solely because it had "Doc" Smith's name on the cover.

Utter unpleasant crap. I found that I couldn't cheer for the protagonists, even if they were trying to prevent galactic bloodshed.

That's one series that I will cheerfully pass by.

Posted by: Weak Geek at May 05, 2024 10:09 AM (p/isN)

165 A discussion of the nuclear winter aftermath is also discussed.

-
I've got it! A nuclear war with Russia (or China, I'm not picky) would cancel out climate crisis so it's all good!

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, I've Been Through the Desert On a Horse With No Shame at May 05, 2024 10:09 AM (L/fGl)

166 I don't claim to know whether the Kent State protestors were rallying in support of the Khmer Rouge.

Given that we have a bunch of college kids rallying in support of murderous Hamas thugs, this does not seem implausible.
Posted by: PabloD at May 05, 2024 10:07 AM (f7a6n)
---
A Venn diagram of people who wanted the draft ended would have considerable overlap with people who hated the US government and wanted it overthrown. The path to radicalization is well documented.

I'll make a pitch for David Horowitz's Radical Son which documents the various currents of the time.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at May 05, 2024 10:10 AM (llXky)

167 55 ... "Perfessor, should I start with 'The Screwtape Letters'?"

Interesting question. Lewis' writing was so varied a good starting point might depend on what mood you are in or what interests you have. The philosophy/apologia works like "Mere Christianity" or Abolition of Man" and his 'signature' books will make you think about so many things. His academic writings like "Preface to Paradise Lost" or "English Literature in the Sixteenth Century" offer brilliant insights into the topics but are deep and can call for previous knowledge or need a lot of follow-up. (I love them but I don't mind the endless rabbit holes they uncover.) Then there are a lot of short essays about various topics, usually in collections, that demonstrate his attitude about personal and social matters. Then the fiction that combines all the aspects of all his non-fiction writings: perception, attitude about social matters, humor, wit, and understanding of history and literature. His Space trilogy, the Narnia series and his poetry are examples.

I would have loved if Lewis had written the equivalent of his Preface to Paradise Lost about Montaigne's Essays.

Posted by: JTB at May 05, 2024 10:10 AM (zudum)

168 That famous photo of the Saigon police chief executing a VC in the street that caused so much outrage was, of course, shown without the backstory.

I remember an assignment for an English class in college that was to collect some images that "told a story" or "made a strong statement" or something like that. My collection included that image, "napalm girl," and a photo-realistic painting of a perfect ass in a bikini. The prof returned it with a note that he didn't think the last one met the criterion. I think he may have been gay.

Posted by: Oddbob at May 05, 2024 10:10 AM (/y8xj)

169 One thing in my life I thought I knew but am confirming the more I read is Marxist Seminaries has gone on since the 60s. Even then as a young kid figured they were Communists. The First book Triumph Forsaken 56-65 the press were often Communist sympathizers.

Posted by: Skip at May 05, 2024 10:10 AM (fwDg9)

170 As for Hemingway's tips, I don't know about reading a dictionary cover to cover three times. But one suggestion of his I've taken to heart for years. It's that item above, "Stop when things are going well." Specifically, stop in the middle of a sentence.

If you finish a scene and skip two lines and are ready for the next one, don't stop. It will be extra hard to get started tomorrow. Type *part* of a starting sentence in the new scene. Tomorrow, you'll want to finish that sentence, and then you'll be able to continue more easily.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at May 05, 2024 10:11 AM (omVj0)

171 One thing I came across yesterday that I had never heard: The protesters who got their asses shot at Kent State were protesting in favor of the Khmer Rouge.

-
LSD is a helluva drug.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, I've Been Through the Desert On a Horse With No Shame at May 05, 2024 10:11 AM (L/fGl)

172 The book is soon reading like a thriller, but it is an accurate portrayal of the scenario. Seventy-four minutes after the initial North Korean launch the U. S. and Russia have launched all their nuclear assets, except some on submarines; obeying the "use it or lose it" doctrine. A discussion of the nuclear winter aftermath is also discussed. A very interesting, informative, and chilling book.
Posted by: Zoltan at May 05, 2024 10:01 AM (gyCYJ)
---
Does the book explain why all the nukes have to fly? Why would the US nuke Russia for something North Korea did? I mean, China I can see as a target, but that doesn't make sense. Seems like a bit of Dr. Strangelovian "the military guys can't wait to drop The Bomb" prejudice.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at May 05, 2024 10:12 AM (llXky)

173 I'll make a pitch for David Horowitz's Radical Son which documents the various currents of the time.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd

One of my all time favorite books.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, I've Been Through the Desert On a Horse With No Shame at May 05, 2024 10:14 AM (L/fGl)

174 One thing I came across yesterday that I had never heard: The protesters who got their asses shot at Kent State were protesting in favor of the Khmer Rouge.

I saw that and was also a bit surprised. I'll need more evidence.
Posted by: Archimedes at May 05, 2024 09:45 AM (CsUN+)

What more evidence do you need than it was on the internet!?

Damm commies got what they deserved!!! If more protesters got shot, we wouldn't have all these protests!

Posted by: OrangeEnt at May 05, 2024 10:14 AM (0eaVi)

175 One thing I came across yesterday that I had never heard: The protesters who got their asses shot at Kent State were protesting in favor of the Khmer Rouge.

The truest line ever put in a movie:

"What are you rebelling against?"

"Whadda ya got?"

Posted by: Oddbob at May 05, 2024 10:14 AM (/y8xj)

176 College kids in the late sixties in no way resemble the college kids of today.
You are obviously way younger than me so have no idea what it was like. A generation of young men were being coerced into the military to fight a foreign war that we had no stake in. They hadn't attacked us unlike 9/11.
It would be as if you were drafted to go fight in Ukraine. Drafted.

Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at May 05, 2024 10:15 AM (t/2Uw)

177 Well did the sds blow up the rotc building that is left out of the story

Posted by: Miguel cervantes at May 05, 2024 10:15 AM (PXvVL)

178 "What's it like to kill another human being?"

"I don't know. I've only killed Communists."

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at May 05, 2024 10:15 AM (llXky)

179 I always liked ‘…….it was a dark and stormy night…’ as a starter. It sorta gives you a heads-up to park the tractor and put on your pants, and don’t forget your harmonica either.

Posted by: Eromero at May 05, 2024 10:16 AM (DXbAa)

180 When modern historians try to intuit ancient writing, I think they are probably missing tons of context and information because they have no relation to the idiom of the time.
Posted by: Aetius451AD at May 05, 2024 09:45 AM (di6C2)

Yeah. Still not sure what a gasogene is in that Holmes story.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at May 05, 2024 10:17 AM (0eaVi)

181 Since folks are talking about Seveneves - I read it a few years ago, and overall I thought it was good. The idea of humanity being pushed to the very brink of extinction and then rebuilding with different genetic archetypes of people was interesting. I probably wouldn't give it a re-read, but for a vacation / airport novel it was fine.

Posted by: PabloD at May 05, 2024 10:17 AM (f7a6n)

182 You want a simple, declarative sentence to start a story?

"We were about to give up and call it a night when somebody dropped the girl off the bridge."

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at May 05, 2024 10:18 AM (omVj0)

183
Kent State shooting

Wounded: nine males
Dead: two males, two females

Posted by: Divide by Zero at May 05, 2024 10:18 AM (RKVpM)

184 I am getting all kinds of banned IP and security errors here today.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at May 05, 2024 10:18 AM (lTGtQ)

185 Yeah. Still not sure what a gasogene is in that Holmes story.
Posted by: OrangeEnt at May 05, 2024

***
I think it's a soda water dispenser for adding to one's Scotch.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at May 05, 2024 10:18 AM (omVj0)

186 "Stop when things are going well."

When I write, things are never going well.

Posted by: Victor Tango Kilo at May 05, 2024 10:19 AM (9yUzE)

187 "It was a dark and stormy night and it wasn't warm out thar irregardless of what the weatherman said."

Posted by JT

So cold that the birdbath was frozen?

Posted by: Just Wondering at May 05, 2024 10:20 AM (dg+HA)

188 I think it's a soda water dispenser for adding to one's Scotch.

Because the Brits are monsters.

Posted by: Oddbob at May 05, 2024 10:20 AM (/y8xj)

189 My mother loathed Hemingway and she was forced to take a college class where the teacher was a Hemingway fanboy.

She wrote an essay that basically tore the man's work apart. The teacher handed it back with an A and said "I hated having to grade it like this but you backed up everything you said."

Posted by: NR Pax at May 05, 2024 10:20 AM (lXCUP)

190 " One thing I came across yesterday that I had never heard: The protesters who got their asses shot at Kent State were protesting in favor of the Khmer Rouge."

It was the "illegal" bombing of Cambodia. That is what the protesters were screaming about at the time. Lots of other reasons given since then.

Posted by: pawn at May 05, 2024 10:20 AM (QB+5g)

191 College kids in the late sixties in no way resemble the college kids of today.
You are obviously way younger than me so have no idea what it was like. A generation of young men were being coerced into the military to fight a foreign war that we had no stake in. They hadn't attacked us unlike 9/11.
It would be as if you were drafted to go fight in Ukraine. Drafted.
Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at May 05, 2024 10:15 AM (t/2Uw)
---
I thought college kids got deferments. Most of the draftees were working class kids. I've also read that most of the combat troops in Vietnam were volunteers. The whole "nice thoughtful kid is turned into baby kill in 'Nam" was mostly media agitprop, and it was very effective.

It was a polarizing issue, and one of my uncles volunteered (he had a bit of legal trouble and the judge offered to drop the charges if he joined up) but his brothers were leading protest marches. Not a happy time.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at May 05, 2024 10:21 AM (llXky)

192 Why was it illegal they were an unacknowledged pary of the conflict thanks prince sihanouk

Posted by: Miguel cervantes at May 05, 2024 10:22 AM (PXvVL)

193 good morning Perfessor, Horde

159 Man, is that true. Caveat emptor. Or more to the point, assume Moscow Rules when reading just about anything published these days.

Posted by: callsign claymore at May 05, 2024 10:22 AM (JcnCJ)

194 You want a simple, declarative sentence to start a story?

"Mary Jo Kopechne was unavailable for comment."

Posted by: Quarter Twenty at May 05, 2024 10:23 AM (dg+HA)

195 The one truth is the us govt had no strategy and little understanding but thats a day ending in y

Posted by: Miguel cervantes at May 05, 2024 10:23 AM (PXvVL)

196 Yeah. Still not sure what a gasogene is in that Holmes story.
Posted by: OrangeEnt

It was the soda stream of its day.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at May 05, 2024 10:23 AM (S4IOx)

197 189 I too find Hemingway over rated. His short stories are his only genius. His novels are drenched in treacle. His Nick Adams stories are glorious.

Posted by: Puddinhead at May 05, 2024 10:23 AM (/UtnQ)

198 Have a great day, everyone.

May your reading illuminate and entertain.

Posted by: NaCly Dog at May 05, 2024 10:25 AM (u82oZ)

199 Yeah. Still not sure what a gasogene is in that Holmes story.
Posted by: OrangeEnt

It was the soda stream of its day.
Posted by: Thomas Paine

More specifically, it had two glass globes, one with water and one with a bicarbonate mixture, to make carbonated water. They also tended to explode,

Posted by: Thomas Paine at May 05, 2024 10:27 AM (S4IOx)

200 176 College kids in the late sixties in no way resemble the college kids of today.
You are obviously way younger than me so have no idea what it was like. A generation of young men were being coerced into the military to fight a foreign war that we had no stake in. They hadn't attacked us unlike 9/11.
It would be as if you were drafted to go fight in Ukraine. Drafted.
Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at May 05, 2024 10:15 AM (t/2Uw)
I graduated HS 1967 and fully expected to be drafted so I enlisted. Ukraine is different in this way, I know a hell of a lot more now than I did in 1967.

Posted by: Eromero at May 05, 2024 10:27 AM (DXbAa)

201 Another interesting point: we'd had a draft since Korea, but the demographic bulge of the Baby Boom didn't reach early adulthood until 1968 or so, and given their career prospects, it's entirely likely that they would have protested any draft.

I mean, we began drawing down in Vietnam as soon as Nixon came in, but the draft still was repealed because the Boomers didn't like it. "I don't want to spend two years in Germany or South Korea" I think has less moral heft than "I don't want to get killed."

My father was a War Baby, so he evaded the draft by joining the Army Reserve. His younger brother did ROTC, but because he was working for GM as an engineer, was released from his service obligation after being declared "essential for wartime production" by his supervisor.

Strange days.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at May 05, 2024 10:28 AM (llXky)

202 I've just finished Larry McMurtry's Western Boone's Lick. It appears to be a standalone story, not the beginning of a new saga a la Lonesome Dove. Mary Margaret, a quintessential mother in Missouri, decides to head up to Wyoming to confront her wayward husband -- who is up there among the Sioux and Blackfeet when they are especially resentful of two new forts built on their land. She packs up her five kids (one, 15-year-old Shay, is the narrator), her father, and her brother-in-law into a wagon, and they set out. Adventures ensue.

Wild Bill Hickok makes an appearance, as does one historical incompetent officer, a Col. Fetterman (!).

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at May 05, 2024 10:28 AM (omVj0)

203 “I hate writing, but loved having written.”

Posted by: Often attributed to Dorothy Parker at May 05, 2024 10:29 AM (dg+HA)

204 I had a friend in college who signed a 4 year contract with the Coast Guard to avoid Vietnam. His first duty stationed was on a gunboat on the Mekong. The best laid plans of mice and men.

Posted by: Puddinhead at May 05, 2024 10:31 AM (/UtnQ)

205 With all due respect, Perfesser, why would you waste precious space on your intergalactic starship on a print library?! Oxygen doesn't grow on trees -- well, it does, but you get the point.

I have a promotional T-shirt, from the graphic novel publisher First Second, with the legend "In space, no one can hear you read."

Posted by: werewife, princess of Delray Beach at May 05, 2024 10:31 AM (SPNTN)

206 I too find Hemingway over rated. His short stories are his only genius. His novels are drenched in treacle. His Nick Adams stories are glorious.
Posted by: Puddinhead at May 05, 2024

***
He may be overrated in some departments. His novels are kinda dull, and though For Whom the Bell Tolls is quite exciting in places, esp. the end, it too suffers from a long low stretch in the middle -- like an overloaded hammock. There are "simple, declarative sentence" writers who did what he did, overall, much better.

But everyone who wants to be a writer should read at least some of his work

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at May 05, 2024 10:32 AM (omVj0)

207 If you finish a scene and skip two lines and are ready for the next one, don't stop. It will be extra hard to get started tomorrow. Type *part* of a starting sentence in the new scene. Tomorrow, you'll want to finish that sentence, and then you'll be able to continue more easily.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at May 05, 2024 10:11 AM (omVj0)

Right, because if you stop, you'll come back and say, "what was I doing?"

Posted by: OrangeEnt at May 05, 2024 10:32 AM (0eaVi)

208 More specifically, it had two glass globes, one with water and one with a bicarbonate mixture, to make carbonated water. They also tended to explode,
Posted by: Thomas Paine at May 05, 2024

***
There is a comic short play by GB Shaw called "The Fatal Gasogene."

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at May 05, 2024 10:33 AM (omVj0)

209 @ 75
Recently? That would be "Night Circus".

Posted by: sal: tolle adversarium et afflige inimicum at May 05, 2024 10:33 AM (IZjwR)

210 Last word on this...
There was no internet then. There was no daily new analysis. There wasn't even TV except in some common areas. You are postulating a depth of knowledge that wasn't available at the time. People in colleges were getting draft notices. They had to obtain a deferment. The protests were against the government but not for some exotic disagreement with government policy.
This is relating today's actions to a time in history that was in no way similar. No Internet!

Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at May 05, 2024 10:34 AM (t/2Uw)

211 Good morning Hordemates.

Posted by: Diogenes at May 05, 2024 10:34 AM (W/lyH)

212 On occasion, I've stopped in the middle of a sentence, come back the next day, and still found myself wondering just what the hell I was doing.

Breaks of the game, I guess.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at May 05, 2024 10:34 AM (q3u5l)

213 "I graduated HS 1967 and fully expected to be drafted so I enlisted. Ukraine is different in this way, I know a hell of a lot more now than I did in 1967."

It's not really that different at all.

Just because you didn't know wtf was going on it doesn't mean it wasn't going on. The government's solution at that time was to throw money and young men at it, now they just throw money....for now.

Posted by: pawn at May 05, 2024 10:34 AM (QB+5g)

214 I think it's a soda water dispenser for adding to one's Scotch.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at May 05, 2024 10:18 AM (omVj0)

Could be. I can't remember which story it was in.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at May 05, 2024 10:36 AM (0eaVi)

215
I had a friend in college who signed a 4 year contract with the Coast Guard to avoid Vietnam. His first duty stationed was on a gunboat on the Mekong. The best laid plans of mice and men.

Posted by: Puddinhead at May 05, 2024 10:31 AM

Ha! That was my plan, to join the Coast Guard. But then the war started winding down and I pulled an incredibly high draft number.

Which excited my Dad more then it did me. I don't think I understood his feelings until 'the Wall' came down and I knew my son would be safe.

Posted by: Divide by Zero at May 05, 2024 10:36 AM (RKVpM)

216 What is the best off-the-shelf purchase you made?

-
Two occasions leap to mind both of which concerned a long wait and my choice was to read while waiting or to simply wait. One was Dean Koontz, whom I had never heard of, and his novel False Memory which I loved and which led to me reading much Koontz. The other was Martin Middlebrook's The Nuremburg Raid about a disastrous British night bombing raid. Similarly, I subsequently read much Middlebrook.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, I've Been Through the Desert On a Horse With No Shame at May 05, 2024 10:38 AM (L/fGl)

217 >>> 78 Start with a true, simple, declarative sentence.

"The moon blew up without warning and for no apparent reason."
Posted by: Sharkman at May 05, 2024 09:31 AM (/RHNq)

I see that Seveneves was published in 2015.

Frank J. Fleming wrote *this* in 2002:
https://shorturl.at/kptHW

Posted by: Helena Handbasket at May 05, 2024 10:38 AM (llON8)

218 1968 protests weren't astroturfed like those of today. 1968 was driven by the Vietnam War. Which was our war. After we were lied into it by the Tonkin incident, and then LBJ ramped our participation from 20,000 advisers to over 500, 000 "in country." By 1968 domestic support was lost, which is why LBJ dropped out.

Today's protests are ostensibly about Gaza, but they could have been about whatever else was handy. But bonus points for Gaza because it brings the Jew hate.

Posted by: Ignoramus at May 05, 2024 10:39 AM (Gse2f)

219 I missed that little party in SE Asia; I didn't turn eighteen until the peak had passed and Nixon was drawing everything down. But I sure didn't want to go get shot at (and no doubt, being a kid, I'd have done something stupid and got myself killed). Hell, I didn't even want to do boot camp; I'd seen Jack Webb in The D.I.

If I'd drawn a low number, aka "You're about to be drafted, boyo," I'd have gone for the Navy and tried to get into submarines or something.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at May 05, 2024 10:39 AM (omVj0)

220 Frank J. Fleming wrote *this* in 2002:
https://shorturl.at/kptHW
Posted by: Helena Handbasket at May 05, 2024 10:38 AM (llON

Haha, I had never seen that. Thanks!

Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at May 05, 2024 10:41 AM (OX9vb)

221 "His first duty stationed was on a gunboat on the Mekong. "

First rule: Never get out of the boat.

Posted by: Ignoramus at May 05, 2024 10:41 AM (Gse2f)

222 What is the best off-the-shelf purchase you made?

-

An Instance of the Fingerpost by Iain Pears is one, and The Ice Limit by Preston and Child is another. Led me to 30 plus books.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at May 05, 2024 10:41 AM (lTGtQ)

223 That is sad! I'm still in the 30s on her books, but it seems there are gay couples all over the place. The characters are either minor or the gay part of it is not a major part of their part of the story. I ignore that aspect and focus on the rest.
Posted by: Legally Sufficient at May 05, 2024 10:03 AM (U3L4U)

Think of it as "woke creep". Thirty novels later, it is very "in your face". I liked the police procedural aspect so much, as well as the engaging characters, that I initially overlooked it but now I guess I'm just old and cranky.

Posted by: sal: tolle adversarium et afflige inimicum at May 05, 2024 10:41 AM (IZjwR)

224 I too find Hemingway over rated.

-
There's the right way, the wrong way, and the Hemingway.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, I've Been Through the Desert On a Horse With No Shame at May 05, 2024 10:41 AM (L/fGl)

225 My Dad resented my attitude and resistance to the Vietnam War. After a bunch of arguments I found out it was based on his experience during the Korean War where he got called back because he was in the reserves after serving in WW2.

"The government screwed me and my generation and now it's your turn".

The thing was he volunteered for the Reserves along with a bunch of his frat brothers for beer money while he was in college.

Posted by: pawn at May 05, 2024 10:43 AM (QB+5g)

226 {{{Eromero}}}

Yes!

Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at May 05, 2024 10:43 AM (t/2Uw)

227 You want a simple, declarative sentence to start a story?

"Mary Jo Kopechne was unavailable for comment."
Posted by: Quarter Twenty at May 05, 2024 10:23 AM (dg+HA)

*swwooooooooot*

Foul, Passive voice. 15 yards penalty.

Posted by: Kindltot at May 05, 2024 10:44 AM (D7oie)

228 I missed that little party in SE Asia; I didn't turn eighteen until the peak had passed and Nixon was drawing everything down. But I sure didn't want to go get shot at (and no doubt, being a kid, I'd have done something stupid and got myself killed). Hell, I didn't even want to do boot camp; I'd seen Jack Webb in The D.I.

If I'd drawn a low number, aka "You're about to be drafted, boyo," I'd have gone for the Navy and tried to get into submarines or something.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at May 05, 2024 10:39 AM (omVj0)

Dang! You're a lot older than I thought....

Posted by: OrangeEnt at May 05, 2024 10:44 AM (0eaVi)

229 If I'd drawn a low number, aka "You're about to be drafted, boyo," I'd have gone for the Navy and tried to get into submarines or something.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at May 05, 2024 10:39 AM (omVj0)

A fella I know did exactly that...he enlisted in the Navy and wound up on the USS Forrestal.

Posted by: Hairyback Guy at May 05, 2024 10:45 AM (R/m4+)

230 Two of my best off-the-shelf grabs -- not purchases, but from the public library -- were sheer serendipity. The New York Murders, an omnibus of three Ellery Queen novels, was one, and it led me to the rest of his/their work and a strong background in logical thinking.

The other was Three Famous Murder Novels, an omnibus put together by Bennett Cerf of Random House. The first in it, Before the Fact by Francis Iles, affected the fourteen-year-old me so strongly I couldn't read the other two right away, and brought me to a lifelong fascination with the charming, manipulative sociopath.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at May 05, 2024 10:46 AM (omVj0)

231 First rule: Never get out of the boat.
Posted by: Ignoramus at May 05, 2024 10:41 AM (Gse2f)

*fistbump*

Posted by: Marlin Perkins at May 05, 2024 10:47 AM (PiwSw)

232 If I'd drawn a low number, aka "You're about to be drafted, boyo," I'd have gone for the Navy and tried to get into submarines or something.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at May 05, 2024
*
A fella I know did exactly that...he enlisted in the Navy and wound up on the USS Forrestal.
Posted by: Hairyback Guy at May 05, 2024

***
Was the Forrestal stationed in Vietnam waters then?

In any case I'd have been on a ship, eating regularly and not slogging through mud and jungle and stepping on landmines or pungee sticks.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at May 05, 2024 10:48 AM (omVj0)

233 Dang! You're a lot older than I thought....
Posted by: OrangeEnt at May 05, 2024

***
Dirt was invented during my junior year in high school.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at May 05, 2024 10:49 AM (omVj0)

234 I had a friend in college who signed a 4 year contract with the Coast Guard to avoid Vietnam. His first duty stationed was on a gunboat on the Mekong. The best laid plans of mice and men.

Posted by: Puddinhead

Dude, read the fine print. They never said which coast you'd be guarding.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, I've Been Through the Desert On a Horse With No Shame at May 05, 2024 10:50 AM (L/fGl)

235 "Mary Jo Kopechne was unavailable for comment."
Posted by: Quarter Twenty at May 05, 2024
*
*swwooooooooot*

Foul, Passive voice. 15 yards penalty.
Posted by: Kindltot at May 05, 2024

***
Still, it is a grabber of a sentence, especially a first one!

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at May 05, 2024 10:50 AM (omVj0)

236 112 ... :When modern historians try to intuit ancient writing, I think they are probably missing tons of context and information because they have no relation to the idiom of the time."

Just got a book "King of the Celts: Arthurian Legends and Celtic Tradition" by Jean Markale. I've only read the intro so far but the author makes the point that modern historians try to take a 'scientific' approach to history. The problem being they put their own spin on the hard facts, such as a few relics, and ignore the culture that produced the legends because it isn't something they can touch or hold in their hands. But these modern historians consider their interpretations (i. e., opinions) superior to those who incorporate the folklore that events or people inspired.

I love reading about history but a lot of modern stuff comes across as pronouncements, not interpretations with evidence. The Landmark series is excellent as it uses both approaches. (And includes a shitload of maps and charts, which helps the narrative and I appreciate.)

Posted by: JTB at May 05, 2024 10:51 AM (zudum)

237
I had an employee originally from Ukraine who got drafted. Nice guy but not a rocket scientist. He said his entire tour of duty he did nothing but burn shit. Like excrement, apparently.

Posted by: Divide by Zero at May 05, 2024 10:52 AM (RKVpM)

238 " I had a friend in college who signed a 4 year contract with the Coast Guard to avoid Vietnam. His first duty stationed was on a gunboat on the Mekong. The best laid plans of mice and men.
"

Checking all the Sampans to see if they have enough life preservers.

Posted by: pawn at May 05, 2024 10:55 AM (QB+5g)

239 If I could have been fairly sure, going into the service, that I could have wound up in an office -- in Germany or even in Saigon -- typing reports and filing things like company clerk Radar O'Reilly, I would have been okay with it. No guarantees, though, I knew. (And I didn't know how to type then anyway.)

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at May 05, 2024 10:55 AM (omVj0)

240 I read another Spenser book and liked this one quite a lot. Actually stayed up to finish it. Pale Kings and Princes and still written by Robert B Parker but think I'm getting to the end of books he actually wrote. This one finds Spenser in a small town in rural Ma having been hired by a local newspaper to find out who killed a reporter he sent to research a story. So, an actual whodunnit and he does actual detective work. And Hawk appears which always makes the book better.

Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at May 05, 2024 10:56 AM (t/2Uw)

241 Graduated college in 1971 with a guaranteed-call draft lottery number; had an out and used it, and don't really regret having missed that particular fiasco.

'Course, the way things are going, I'll probably live long enough to see the EMP or CBW attack our Brilliant Leaders seem to be inviting for us...

Posted by: Just Some Guy at May 05, 2024 10:57 AM (q3u5l)

242 _Guten Morgen_, Horde!

This past week I read Jonathan Cahn's _The Harbinger_. I'm nearly finished with Bill Pasmore's _Advanced Consulting_. I have a few texts with bookmarks holding places beyond page 30; the one that's moving fastest is Chris Couch's _Urban Planning_.

_Einen schoenen Tag wuensche ich euch allen_!

Posted by: SPinRH_F-16 at May 05, 2024 10:57 AM (8SABE)

243 The first in it, Before the Fact by Francis Iles, affected the fourteen-year-old me so strongly I couldn't read the other two right away, and brought me to a lifelong fascination with the charming, manipulative sociopath.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at May 05, 2024 10:46 AM (omVj0)

Yes, a Top Ten.
The Production Code ruined the movie, but Cary Grant was perfectly cast.

Posted by: sal: tolle adversarium et afflige inimicum at May 05, 2024 10:59 AM (IZjwR)

244 Does the book explain why all the nukes have to fly? Why would the US nuke Russia for something North Korea did? I mean, China I can see as a target, but that doesn't make sense. Seems like a bit of Dr. Strangelovian "the military guys can't wait to drop The Bomb" prejudice.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at May 05, 2024 10:12 AM (llXky)

As U. S. nukes fly to North Korea, they must fly over Russian territory. Their early-warning system is not as sophisticated as ours and there is a big argument at the highest level whether to unleash or not. However, things move quickly and they only have a minutes to make a decision. The hawks win.

Posted by: Zoltan at May 05, 2024 11:00 AM (gyCYJ)

245 I've heard that the Pentagon wasn't really sorry to see the end of the draft anyway, as they could see the nature of warfare was changing and wanted more long-service professionals. Anybody know more about this?

Posted by: Trimegistus at May 05, 2024 11:00 AM (78a2H)

246 I read another Spenser book and liked this one quite a lot. Actually stayed up to finish it. Pale Kings and Princes and still written by Robert B Parker but think I'm getting to the end of books he actually wrote. This one finds Spenser in a small town in rural Ma having been hired by a local newspaper to find out who killed a reporter he sent to research a story. So, an actual whodunnit and he does actual detective work. And Hawk appears which always makes the book better.
Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at May 05, 2024

***
Sharon, according to lists I've seen, he continued to produce the Spenser novels himself until he died in 2010. Sixkill in 2011 was his last. Then Ace Atkins took over.

Parker's later books after A Catskill Ealeldid not have the force of the earlier ones, and were good fun reads -- but not near-classics of the private eye genre like his first ten or twelve.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at May 05, 2024 11:01 AM (omVj0)

247 "The building was on fire and it wasn't my fault." - Jim Butcher, Blood Rites
"On one otherwise normal Tuesday evening I had the chance to live the American dream. I was able to throw my incompetent jackass of a boss from a fourteenth-story window." - Larry Correia, Monster Hunter International

I love the factory stories and think that would be an *excellent* children's series. You have to be careful telling kids stories. I made up one on the fly for a restless toddler, about a momma bear and her cubs finding food, and then heard the dreaded words at the end ... "Again!" And I struggled to remember how I had started the whole mess ...

Posted by: Sabrina Chase at May 05, 2024 11:02 AM (Sebkt)

248 Could be remembering wrong, but I think Parker did something like 40 or 50 Spensers. If you've just finished Pale Kings & Princes, you've got a little ways to go.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at May 05, 2024 11:03 AM (q3u5l)

249 If you want to see a bunch of REAL college protests, just bring back the Draft.

Posted by: pawn at May 05, 2024 11:04 AM (QB+5g)

250 Yes, a Top Ten.
The Production Code ruined the movie, but Cary Grant was perfectly cast.
Posted by: sal: tolle adversarium et afflige inimicum at May 05, 2024

***
What annoyed me was that, in the Eighties, there was a TV version of it, set in the 1930s I think, with Jane Curtin. They could have restored the original ending then, or come up with a better one. But they used the exact same unbelievable ending.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at May 05, 2024 11:06 AM (omVj0)

251 My off the shelf was a little book by John McPhee called "The Deltoid Pumpkin Seed" that lead me to read a bunch of his stuff. It showed me that almost anything is interesting if you probe into it deeply enough (and write as well as John McPhee).

Posted by: who knew at May 05, 2024 11:06 AM (4I7VG)

252 If you want to see a bunch of REAL college protests, just bring back the Draft.
Posted by: pawn at May 05, 2024 11:04 AM (QB+5g)

Hahaha...yup. But draft only those currently attending kollege, working at a kollege or having recently gradiated in the past 36 months.

Hilarious it would be...

Posted by: Hairyback Guy at May 05, 2024 11:06 AM (R/m4+)

253 My 246: I meant to type A Catskill Eagle.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at May 05, 2024 11:06 AM (omVj0)

254 180 ... "Yeah. Still not sure what a gasogene is in that Holmes story."

It was old style terms like that that I found fascinating as a very young reader of Sherlock Holmes stories and "Treasure Island". Part of the pleasure I took in LOTR when in junior high was learning the many archaic terms Tolkien used: 'mere' for the landscape, 'fell' beast for the winged Nazgul, and so many others. There was a reason I always appreciated good dictionaries. Aside from the definitions, I can get lost in the etymologies.

Posted by: JTB at May 05, 2024 11:08 AM (zudum)

255 Okay, the TV version of Suspicion w/ Jane Curtin aired on American Playhouse in 1987. Anthony Andrews played Johnnie, the wayward charming husband.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at May 05, 2024 11:09 AM (omVj0)

256 "Mary Jo Kopechne was unavailable for comment."
Posted by: Quarter Twenty at May 05, 2024 10:23 AM (dg+HA)

*swwooooooooot*

Foul, Passive voice. 15 yards penalty.

To be fair, it's hard to use the active voice for people who aren't, um, active.

Posted by: Oddbob at May 05, 2024 11:10 AM (/y8xj)

257 "If you want to see a bunch of REAL college protests, just bring back the Draft."

Oh shit, I forgot "and include women!"

Posted by: pawn at May 05, 2024 11:10 AM (QB+5g)

258 Disagree somewhat Wolfus. I think the one I just finished was no 12. Until Hawk becomes a major character, I found them kind of boring. I just couldn't relate to the Susan Silverman character. So Hawk brought a new character that arrived fully fleshed out with a clear set of morals or maybe immorals. No more dancing around psychology and excessive scenery descriptions. Want more detective story and less ruminating.

Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at May 05, 2024 11:10 AM (t/2Uw)

259 One and only book idea:

Mr. S talking about a courthouse (there are lots in TX, we have over 200 counties) mentioned that it was the second. The first had burned down in the '20's from faulty wiring.
My thought: that would be a great way to disguise a murder, if the guy you wanted to murder was a fellow juror.
OR, you're a doctor and he has heart trouble, so you just switch his meds.
Okay, why? Um, he was your wife's former suitor and they had an affair while you were in WWI France.

I had a great murder for the court case, too, but never got any further.

Posted by: sal: tolle adversarium et afflige inimicum at May 05, 2024 11:11 AM (IZjwR)

260 I love the factory stories and think that would be an *excellent* children's series. You have to be careful telling kids stories. I made up one on the fly for a restless toddler, about a momma bear and her cubs finding food, and then heard the dreaded words at the end ... "Again!" And I struggled to remember how I had started the whole mess ...
Posted by: Sabrina Chase at May 05, 2024 11:02 AM (Sebkt)

Betty MacDonald (The Egg and I) and her sister Mary Bard Jensen (the Best Friends series), when they were kids, would make up stories about two orphan girls, Nancy and Plum, to bribe the neighbor kids to do their chores for them.
Mary later wrote the Best Friend series around the idea of the stories, and Betty wrote a children's book based around it.
Apparently Betty would tell it as a serial story and would tell a chapter at a time to get the neighbor kids to come back to do more chores later.

Posted by: Kindltot at May 05, 2024 11:11 AM (D7oie)

261 >>> 258 Disagree somewhat Wolfus. I think the one I just finished was no 12. Until Hawk becomes a major character, I found them kind of boring. I just couldn't relate to the Susan Silverman character. So Hawk brought a new character that arrived fully fleshed out with a clear set of morals or maybe immorals. No more dancing around psychology and excessive scenery descriptions. Want more detective story and less ruminating.
Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at May 05, 2024 11:10 AM (t/2Uw)

Bigot!

Posted by: cows at May 05, 2024 11:12 AM (llON8)

262 As a post-Boomer it fascinates me to see how Vietnam has been transformed in popular culture. If you go by movies and TV, Richard Nixon started the war and had JFK assassinated for trying to prevent it. LBJ simply doesn't exist at all any more.

Posted by: Trimegistus at May 05, 2024 11:12 AM (78a2H)

263 I don't think I've ever found something on a shelf that led me to buy it. I usually knew what I was looking for. If I did, it would be something in the same subject area, not something I'd never thought of.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at May 05, 2024 11:12 AM (0eaVi)

264 According to this site, https://www.tlbranson.com/spenser-books-in-order/ , Parker himself wrote 39 Spenser novels.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at May 05, 2024 11:13 AM (omVj0)

265 I once did a demo of "how to find story ideas" for a high school English class. I asked them to give me three nouns, and they gave me Seattle Seahawks, Spongebob Squarepants, and Paris, thinking it was impossible. And I came up with this convoluted tale involving, at some point, naked football fans and the Cousteau Society and they were amazed

Really, once you get some practice it isn't hard. The *ideas* aren't the hard part, it's sitting down and doing the actual writing. Which is the real point of Hemingway's Rule #6. If you are telling people the story, you aren't WRITING it. And the endorphine rush of figuring out how it goes is gone when you do sit down.

Posted by: Sabrina Chase at May 05, 2024 11:13 AM (Sebkt)

266 I'm a big fan of Zelazny but I never got around to the "I am Legion" series for some reason.

Thank you for mentioning it.

I think I'll start on that later today.

Posted by: pawn at May 05, 2024 11:14 AM (QB+5g)

267 Not pithy or terse but my favorite opening lines are in the Bulwer-Lytton competition each year. Calculated exaggeration can produce some real hilarity. Try writing some yourself as an exercise in amusing creativity.

Posted by: JTB at May 05, 2024 11:14 AM (zudum)

268 My dad could have used his outs (basically blind in his left eye and son of a state judge) but didn't. Did two tours and spent from '96 to '20 slowly dying of Agent Orange poisoning.
He drew a low draft number and figured if he didn't go somebody else would have to. Local congressman called his dad and offered a page position to him in congress and he refused.

Posted by: Reforger at May 05, 2024 11:14 AM (B705c)

269 On LBJ's Secretary of Defense Robert J. McNamara, from the NYT:

“Mr. McNamara must not escape the lasting moral condemnation of his countrymen. Surely he must in every quiet and prosperous moment hear the ceaseless whispers of those poor boys in the infantry, dying in the tall grass, platoon by platoon, for no purpose. What he took from them cannot be repaid by prime-time apology and stale tears, three decades late.”

Posted by: Quarter Twenty at May 05, 2024 11:15 AM (dg+HA)

270 LBJ simply doesn't exist at all any more.
Posted by: Trimegistus at May 05, 2024 11:12 AM (78a2H)

His remains should be dug up and put on trial for war crimes, lying, rape, armed robbery of citizens, state banks and post offices, the theft of sacred objects, arson in a state prison, perjury, bigamy, deserting his wife and children, inciting prostitution, kidnapping, extortion, receiving stolen goods, selling stolen goods, passing counterfeit money, and, contrary to the laws of many states, using marked cards and rape.

Posted by: Hairyback Guy at May 05, 2024 11:15 AM (R/m4+)

271 Mr. S talking about a courthouse (there are lots in TX, we have over 200 counties) mentioned that it was the second. The first had burned down in the '20's from faulty wiring.
My thought: that would be a great way to disguise a murder, if the guy you wanted to murder was a fellow juror.
[ . . . ]
Posted by: sal: tolle adversarium et afflige inimicum at May 05, 2024 11:11 AM (IZjwR)

In 1898 the Polk county Oregon courthouse burned down and it was suspected that it was arson done to destroy all the county property tax records. When it was rebuilt a special metal-lined room was built to store the tax records. It later was used as the staff lunchroom.

Posted by: Kindltot at May 05, 2024 11:15 AM (D7oie)

272 The *ideas* aren't the hard part, it's sitting down and doing the actual writing. Which is the real point of Hemingway's Rule #6. If you are telling people the story, you aren't WRITING it. And the endorphine rush of figuring out how it goes is gone when you do sit down.
Posted by: Sabrina Chase at May 05, 2024

***
Exactly. Don't talk about the work until the work is done -- or you'll have "told" the story, orally, and will feel little need to write it down.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at May 05, 2024 11:16 AM (omVj0)

273 Well, I'm off to start my day. See y'all later, Morons!

Posted by: Trimegistus at May 05, 2024 11:16 AM (78a2H)

274 Want more detective story and less ruminating.
Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at May 05, 2024 11:10 AM (t/2Uw)

Bigot!
Posted by: cows

😂

Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at May 05, 2024 11:16 AM (t/2Uw)

275 LBJ simply doesn't exist at all any more.
Posted by: Trimegistus at May 05, 2024 11:12 AM (78a2H)

His remains should be dug up and put on trial for war crimes, lying, rape, armed robbery of citizens, state banks and post offices, the theft of sacred objects, arson in a state prison, perjury, bigamy, deserting his wife and children, inciting prostitution, kidnapping, extortion, receiving stolen goods, selling stolen goods, passing counterfeit money, and, contrary to the laws of many states, using marked cards and rape.
Posted by: Hairyback Guy at May 05, 2024

***
Oh, come now, I say. Draw it mild. I mean, "arson in a state prison"? Who among us, dare I say, hasn't done a little of that? Eh, what?

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at May 05, 2024 11:17 AM (omVj0)

276 Virtue signalling that he's out of touch with reality.

Robert de Niro Compares Donald Trump to Nazi Party Leader Adolf Hitler: “It’s Almost like He Wants to Do the Most Horrible Things That He Can Think Of”

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, I've Been Through the Desert On a Horse With No Shame at May 05, 2024 11:17 AM (L/fGl)

277 “Mr. McNamara must not escape the lasting moral condemnation of his countrymen. Surely he must in every quiet and prosperous moment hear the ceaseless whispers of those poor boys in the infantry, dying in the tall grass, platoon by platoon, for no purpose. What he took from them cannot be repaid by prime-time apology and stale tears, three decades late.”
Posted by: Quarter Twenty at May 05, 2024 11:15 AM (dg+HA)

In 1968 after the election Barry Goldwater publicly called for McNamara to resign for the benefit of the US Military.

Posted by: Kindltot at May 05, 2024 11:18 AM (D7oie)

278 I did not know McDonald and Jensen were related.
I loved the "Best Friends", but I thought there were only two...
Mine could not get enough "Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle" back in the day. I am not a good storyteller, but I was an indefatigable reader-aloud.

Posted by: sal: tolle adversarium et afflige inimicum at May 05, 2024 11:18 AM (IZjwR)

279 This month's Matt Helm award, where the movie doesn't match the book, goes to the BBC series "Killing Eve" based on the "Villanelle" novels by Luke Jennings.
I binge-watched the series on Netflix and enjoyed it, as it was colorful and cheerfully violent. Then I read the books, which were much darker and more serious, but still very good.
The BBC series retained only the bare outline of the book's plot (mild-mannered British intelligence clerk becomes obsessed with a female assassin) and the character names. I'm very glad I watched the TV show first, as otherwise I would have been outraged by the liberties taken.

Posted by: Idaho Spudboy at May 05, 2024 11:18 AM (Js20g)

280 It showed me that almost anything is interesting if you probe into it deeply enough (and write as well as John McPhee).

Posted by: who knew at May 05, 2024 11:06 AM (4I7VG)

Couple of years ago, I asked the "Book Horde" for a suggestion for US geology and someone suggested McPhee's "Annals of a Former World"....great writer, great book.

Posted by: BignJames at May 05, 2024 11:19 AM (AwYPR)

281 He drew a low draft number and figured if he didn't go somebody else would have to. Local congressman called his dad and offered a page position to him in congress and he refused.

The next scotch I pour (without soda!), I will lift to your dad and mine.

Posted by: Oddbob at May 05, 2024 11:19 AM (/y8xj)

282 Yes, LBJ doesn't come in for the focus and condemnation he should have. At the time, though, and despite being a D, he was as unpopular, both among citizens *and* with the press, as W. Bush. The press covered for his personal peccadilloes, yes, but went after him for Vietnam.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at May 05, 2024 11:19 AM (omVj0)

283 My twin brother went to VietNam, front lines, silver star, bronze star with a V, presidential commendation.

My older brother went to law school--aka deferment.

As they got to the end of their lives, the patterns were very different. My twin brother was a hero all his life. My older brother's life seemed increasingly . . . spindly. And they both acknowledged it.

Life is long.

There's a poem, translated from the Italian, ca turn of the 20th century. The title is roughly The Big No. Not long. That sometimes your generation has a big thing in it, and if you turn your back, even if you're technically in the right, your life will diminish because of it.

Posted by: Wenda at May 05, 2024 11:22 AM (uMV2B)

284 If an 18 year old male wants to vote, he has to first register with the Selective Service. A female, however, simply gets to.

You're welcome.

Posted by: The patriarchy at May 05, 2024 11:23 AM (dg+HA)

285 Google Bans Ad Showing How Life Was Better Under Trump

-
Didn't their slogan used to be Don't Be Evil?

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, I've Been Through the Desert On a Horse With No Shame at May 05, 2024 11:24 AM (L/fGl)

286 Hmmm. Just looked up Parker Spenser books in order. I thought he stopped way earlier. The odd thing is the first one I read was Paper Doll which was like his 20th book and why I started reading them in the first place. I picked it up wandering around the iibrary in the mystery section.
I am going to keep on. The library has a pretty good ecollection. Next up Crimson Joy.

Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at May 05, 2024 11:24 AM (t/2Uw)

287 Well, the days of rain finally flooded the creeks and our county is cut off for the moment. Can't even drive north or south and circle around. Interesting.

There were people in Texas back then who would vote for LBJ solely because of electrification of rural areas.

Posted by: sal: tolle adversarium et afflige inimicum at May 05, 2024 11:24 AM (IZjwR)

288 I did not know McDonald and Jensen were related.
I loved the "Best Friends", but I thought there were only two...
Mine could not get enough "Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle" back in the day. I am not a good storyteller, but I was an indefatigable reader-aloud.
Posted by: sal: tolle adversarium et afflige inimicum at May 05, 2024 11:18 AM (IZjwR)

If you get a chance to read Betty MacDonald's book on looking for work in Seattle during the Depression, Anybody Can Do Anything, you will see Mary Bard in full action getting Betty jobs she felt unable to do.

If yoiu read Mary Bard Jensen's book The Doctor Wears Three Faces, about being a newlywed to a young MD in Seattle, you can get an idea of what Mary thought she was doing/

Posted by: Kindltot at May 05, 2024 11:25 AM (D7oie)

289 Didn't their slogan used to be Don't Be Evil?

Yeah, but it isn't any more, is it? And nobody believed it anyway.

Posted by: Oddbob at May 05, 2024 11:25 AM (/y8xj)

290 212 On occasion, I've stopped in the middle of a sentence, come back the next day, and still found myself wondering just what the hell I was doing.

Breaks of the game, I guess.
Posted by: Just Some Guy at May 05, 2024 10:34 AM (q3u5l)

This.
I know exactly ho

Posted by: Diogenes at May 05, 2024 11:25 AM (W/lyH)

291 I had a great murder for the court case, too, but never got any further.
Posted by: sal: tolle adversarium et afflige inimicum at May 05, 2024 11:11 AM (IZjwR)

Well, get to it. I'm waiting!

Posted by: The Blank Page at May 05, 2024 11:28 AM (0eaVi)

292 Thank you, kindltot.

That is the one McDonald I haven't read and will find it.
Her portrait of her sister was always engaging.

Posted by: sal: tolle adversarium et afflige inimicum at May 05, 2024 11:28 AM (IZjwR)

293 There were people in Texas back then who would vote for LBJ solely because of electrification of rural areas.
Posted by: sal: tolle adversarium et afflige inimicum at May 05, 2024

***
The name "Long" carried the same cachet for a long time, thanks to things Huey apparently did that benefited Lousy-ana rural communities.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at May 05, 2024 11:28 AM (omVj0)

294 LBJ simply doesn't exist at all any more.
Posted by: Trimegistus at May 05, 2024 11:12 AM (78a2H)

Thank goodness!

Posted by: The Beagle at May 05, 2024 11:31 AM (0eaVi)

295 One more thing military service, for a guy who was nudged into enlisting, I did pretty good. 22 years.

Posted by: Eromero at May 05, 2024 11:31 AM (DXbAa)

296 I have a party game called Channel A. There are two decks of cards: one with anime genres, and a bigger one with semi-random words. Two cards from the genre deck are laid out, e.g., Slice of Life and Death Reapers, or Idol Girls and Giant Robots. The players have to choose 2 - 4 word cards from their hands to create a title for the given 2-genre anime series and pitch the concept. Most insane story idea generator known to science! NB: The game has been out of print for a long time, but a PDF with all the cards can be found online and printed for free.

Posted by: werewife, princess of Delray Beach at May 05, 2024 11:34 AM (SPNTN)

297 The next scotch I pour (without soda!), I will lift to your dad and mine.
Posted by: Oddbob at May 05, 2024 11:19 AM (/y8xj)

All the posts this week about gasogenes and you're not even going to use one?!

Posted by: OrangeEnt at May 05, 2024 11:36 AM (0eaVi)

298 295 One more thing about military service. I bet the majority of vets would fall into the category "I shoulda stayed in".

Posted by: bill in arkansas, not gonna comply with nuttin, waiting for the 0300 knock on the door at May 05, 2024 11:36 AM (V5eKu)

299 Oh, that's right -- today is Cinco de Mayo. And I didn't even have a burrito as part of my breakfast. Oh, well.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at May 05, 2024 11:39 AM (omVj0)

300 Anyone who hasn't read the Screwtape Letters should. The world makes more sense after you do.

Posted by: Yudhishthira's Dice at May 05, 2024 11:40 AM (0FoWg)

301 Re: going or not going around 1970.

Just for a chuckle, there's the dedication to P.J. O'Rourke's Give War a Chance.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at May 05, 2024 11:40 AM (q3u5l)

302 McNamara comes off as a know it all idiot in Mark Moyar's books. He wasn't a military man running a war with no idea how to fight a war.

Posted by: Skip at May 05, 2024 11:41 AM (fwDg9)

303 Just read The Waltham Murders by Susan Clare Zalkind. It's about the three men killed by Tamerlan Tsarnaev 18 months before the Boston Marathon bombing. The case was originally downplayed as just a case of drug dealers bumping each other off. But after the Marathon attack, Tsarnaev emerged as the key suspect. The book is interesting and based on sound reporting, but the story still has lots of loose ends. Was there a bigger terror network, and was law enforcement covering up for them?

Posted by: Linnet at May 05, 2024 11:42 AM (jiACL)

304 "Don't see the book you want on the shelf? Write it."

~ Beverly Cleary

Posted by: Quarter Twenty at May 05, 2024 11:44 AM (dg+HA)

305 302 McNamara, during his military career, was an actuary.

Posted by: bill in arkansas, not gonna comply with nuttin, waiting for the 0300 knock on the door at May 05, 2024 11:44 AM (V5eKu)

306 McNamara comes off as a know it all idiot in Mark Moyar's books. He wasn't a military man running a war with no idea how to fight a war.

Posted by: Skip at May 05, 2024 11:41 AM (fwDg9)

bean counter

Posted by: BignJames at May 05, 2024 11:44 AM (AwYPR)

307 Since 2020, I've become much more attuned to spiritual things, and while it gives me greater clarity on what is going on in the world, explaining it can be difficult, particularly to people who have shut themselves off from the very possibility of there being anything other than a secular, materialist world.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd

I agree with you on this

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at May 05, 2024 11:45 AM (n/1xr)

308 Well, it's been a gas, but reality beckons.

Thanks for the thread, Perfessor.

Have a good one, gang.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at May 05, 2024 11:46 AM (q3u5l)

309 All the posts this week about gasogenes and you're not even going to use one?!

Perhaps you missed my previous comments about the Brits and scotch. Still, I must admit that the possibility of explosion makes it sound more interesting.

Posted by: Oddbob at May 05, 2024 11:50 AM (/y8xj)

310 302 McNamara, during his military career, was an actuary.
Posted by: bill in arkansas, not gonna comply with nuttin, waiting for the 0300 knock on the door at May 05, 2024 11:44 AM (V5eKu)

I read that as "was an ashtray"

Posted by: JT at May 05, 2024 11:50 AM (T4tVD)

311 300 Anyone who hasn't read the Screwtape Letters should. The world makes more sense after you do.
Posted by: Yudhishthira's Dice at May 05, 2024 11:40 AM (0FoWg)

When "A Severe Mercy" by Sheldon Vanauken was published back in the '70s, a selling point was that it contained a number of unpublished letters by Lewis.
He had been instrumental in the conversion of the author and his wife.
Vanauken's book went on to become a classic in it's own right, and the Lewis connection was dropped. But the letters are still wonderful.

Posted by: sal: tolle adversarium et afflige inimicum at May 05, 2024 11:51 AM (IZjwR)

312 Sam Peckinpah was a bean counter. He fired someone from The Wild Bunch because the number of beans on a plate was different from one day of shooting to another in the same scene.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at May 05, 2024 11:51 AM (0eaVi)

313 307 Since 2020, I've become much more attuned to spiritual things, and while it gives me greater clarity on what is going on in the world, explaining it can be difficult, particularly to people who have shut themselves off from the very possibility of there being anything other than a secular, materialist world.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd

I agree with you on this
Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion

I have been strongly influenced by the writing of John Eldredge starting in 2008 with Wild At Heart and Fathered By God in addition to a number of his others works.

Posted by: Quarter Twenty at May 05, 2024 11:51 AM (dg+HA)

314 I read that as "was an ashtray"

Actuary, ashtray, asshoe, whatever.

Posted by: Oddbob at May 05, 2024 11:52 AM (/y8xj)

315 Perhaps you missed my previous comments about the Brits and scotch. Still, I must admit that the possibility of explosion makes it sound more interesting.
Posted by: Oddbob at May 05, 2024 11:50 AM (/y8xj)

Saw it, but you just have to follow the meme....

Posted by: OrangeEnt at May 05, 2024 11:52 AM (0eaVi)

316 Want more detective story and less ruminating.
Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at May 05, 2024 11:10 AM

Just because one cud, doesn't mean one should be an anti-Ungulateite

Posted by: Duncanthrax at May 05, 2024 11:52 AM (a3Q+t)

317 The first book I remember buying strictly because of the cover was one of the Conan books with the Frazetta cover, maybe mid-60s. That led to a lifelong love of Robert E. Howard's writing and Frazetta's art. Some things are just meant to be.

Posted by: JTB at May 05, 2024 11:58 AM (zudum)

318 Most insane story idea generator known to science! NB: The game has been out of print for a long time, but a PDF with all the cards can be found online and printed for free.
Posted by: werewife, princess of Delray Beach at May 05, 2024 11:34 AM (SPNTN)

worse than a tank-full of manatees?

Posted by: Kindltot at May 05, 2024 12:00 PM (D7oie)

319 "That amiable youth, Jimmy Thesiger, came down the front stairs of Chimneys two at a time." -- Agatha Christie, The Seven Dials Mystery

I would definitely recommend reading at least Mere Christianity (probably also Surprised by Joy, maybe "The Weight of Glory" and "Learning in War-time") before tackling The Screwtape Letters. It helps to know what CSL's actual theology was before looking at the "upside-down thinking" he used to write from Screwtape's POV, which troubled him so much that he refused to write a full-length sequel.

On a related Lewisian note, contrast the opening line of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader that Eris quoted earlier with Eustace's introduction in The Silver Chair: "His name was Eustace Clarence Scrubb, but he didn't really deserve it." It's a subtle way of underscoring just how much Eustace's first trip to Narnia, particularly his undragoning, genuinely changed him. (Mind you, Eustace's parents were the '30s equivalent of hippies, so he had much more going against him than just his name!)

(I seem to be hitting a character limit--continuing shortly...)

Posted by: Elisabeth G. Wolfe at May 05, 2024 12:01 PM (LLJRz)

320 Tolkien makes his first appearanc in th sixth paradraph of the Original Post.

*********

Always beet the "Under"

ALWAYS!

Posted by: Muldoon at May 05, 2024 12:01 PM (l4B/J)

321 Thanks once again to the Perfessor and all of you grand book people for a great Book Thread!

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at May 05, 2024 12:03 PM (omVj0)

322 I'm very glad I watched the TV show first, as otherwise I would have been outraged by the liberties taken.
Posted by: Idaho Spudboy at May 05, 2024 11:18 AM (Js20g)

I enjoyed the series for the most part, except for the ending. Then there is Jodie Comer.

Posted by: javems at May 05, 2024 12:03 PM (8I4hW)

323 What?! The end of the Book Thread again? Thanks, Perfessor. Things to do, places to go, and people to see.

Wait a min. Sounds like a trilogy in the making!

Posted by: OrangeEnt at May 05, 2024 12:04 PM (0eaVi)

324 Posted a first draft on ALH, if anyone's interested.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at May 05, 2024 12:06 PM (0eaVi)

325 We Haz A NOOD

Posted by: Skip at May 05, 2024 12:06 PM (fwDg9)

326 Noodus CBD

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at May 05, 2024 12:06 PM (omVj0)

327 I started reading The Screwtape Letters but didn't finish, they are downloaded on my tablet

Posted by: Skip at May 05, 2024 12:08 PM (fwDg9)

328 Re: Old Yeller (though a bit of a tangent): Fred Gipson was from Mason, Texas, and the Mason Public Library has a statue of Old Yeller and his boy out front. Last month, some wag put eclipse glasses on both of them!

Can't really say I disagree with the comments about A Distant Mirror, but I encountered it as an audiobook (research for the "Crises of the Fourteenth Century" chapter in The Curious Historian 3B) and tuned out a lot of that sort of thing as I was listening. Part of the problem for me was that she spent so much of the book following the travails of one particular French nobleman--I could sort of see why, but at the same time, I really wasn't interested in his story except at the points where it reflected or affected the larger history of the Hundred Years' War. I think I did a lot of fast forwarding.

Okay, now to catch up on the comments again....

Posted by: Elisabeth G. Wolfe at May 05, 2024 12:12 PM (LLJRz)

329 "On the morning of October 2, 2008 seventy-seven year old Reverend Jack Nels Gordon disappeared from the face of the Earth."

Posted by: Muldoon at May 05, 2024 12:12 PM (l4B/J)

330 The mimosa moshpit:
nypost.com/2024/05/04/us-news/ readers-take-denver- likened-to-fyre-festival-of-books/

Posted by: Readers Take Denver at May 05, 2024 12:31 PM (gKWVE)

331 To be fair, it's hard to use the active voice for people who aren't, um, active.

Mary Jo Kopechne drowned in the back seat at the same moment the driver woke up in bed in his Chappaquiddick Island townhouse.

Posted by: Stephen Price Blair at May 05, 2024 01:00 PM (EXyHK)

332 The library would be a great cover for Jasper Fforde's Tuesday Next novel, "The Well of Lost Plots."

Posted by: March Hare at May 05, 2024 01:08 PM (jfX+U)

333 I have several of the "Tuesday Next" books on the shelves somewhere and should reread them. I recall I enjoyed them at the time.

Posted by: JTB at May 05, 2024 01:48 PM (zudum)

334 Few can top Donald Hamilton for opening sentences and paragraphs that keep you reading.
"I always feel guilty about smuggling a gun through Mexican customs."
I know I've mentioned this many times. I should go through the Matt Helm books for fresh examples. I also have other Hamilton books, yet unread. I'd bet their opening sentences are grabbers, too.
Posted by: Weak Geek
--------
He wrote a bunch of Westerns too, but I don't think the opening of _Texas Fever_ meets this criteria.
"This was the summer of the year 1867, the third summer of peace---the third summer in which Texas men, civilians again in a land impoverished by war, had been free to drive their half-wild cattle up the long trail, known as the Shawnee Trail, that led from far below the Brazos all the way to Baxter Springs in Kansas and on up to the railroad at Sedalia, Missouri. "
Declarative, yes. Informative, definitely. But simple? Nope.
It still works, though.

I mentioned last week that I had moved my D.H. books from the box they've resided in since our move to AZ onto the new bookshelves. This last week I rescued all 41 of my collection of R.A.H. paperbacks from similar ignominy and now reside there as wel

Posted by: buddhaha at May 05, 2024 02:15 PM (Lb+Qv)

335 There's a collection of his early short work called The Magic, which includes some of his best early stories. Well worth a look even if you can't stand the Amber series. For novels, try This Immortal, The Dream Master, Lord of Light, and Isle of the Dead.
Posted by: Just Some Guy at May 05, 2024 09:57 AM (q3u5l)
*******************************************

There's a six volume Collected Stories of Roger Zelazny that was something of a labor of love for the three people who edited it. Well worth it for any fans of his work.

Posted by: My Ridiculously Circuitous Plan at May 05, 2024 03:23 PM (NgOaM)

336 335 -- That six volume Zelazny set is lovely indeed. NESFA still has it available in hardcover, and recently issued an ebook edition as well. Grabbed it immediately in both formats.

Thanks.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at May 05, 2024 03:32 PM (q3u5l)

337 "...
This makes no sense. These were anti war protests because college students were being drafted.
Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice
...."
A liitle more complicated than that. Student Deferments (I believe they were "1S") were not discontinued until September of 1971. Kent State shootings occurred in May of '70. Even after September, students with deferments kept them until graduation.
The problem was with the conditions; you had to be a full time student (a minimum number of credit-hours each semester(quarter, trimester) and be on course for graduation (min 2.0 GPA). This eliminated the semester off, the slacker, and especially, the professional student who took a course or so in all sorts of lower level disciplines- who were over represented among the anti-war leadership.
The rest were the followers- the just-for-the-hell-of-its, the belongers, the excitement seekers- the same crew we see today, and the same type we see in NBA Championship riots.

Posted by: buddhaha at May 05, 2024 03:33 PM (X60Ah)

338 College students should have been drafted from the start.

But no, nobody wanted to go. I'm sure nobody wants to die for Ukraine, but should there be a draft, children of military contractors and legislators should all be sent on the first wave.

Posted by: GOP sux at May 05, 2024 03:47 PM (Zzbjj)

339 "Meh. It was OK, but not great. By the time I got to the end, I really didn't care about the characters or the story."

Noted.

Posted by: Wintermute at May 05, 2024 04:38 PM (hKYdW)

340 "An instant before, she had been alive."

-- another opening sentence

Posted by: Weak Geek at May 05, 2024 04:44 PM (p/isN)

341 China invaded Vietnam in 1979 to make them leave Cambodia. It didn't work, and China instead got some border adjustments so they could save face because the Vietnamese were kicking their ass.

The Chinese could not adequately support their invasion.
Water for the troops was a major issue.

During the Vietnam War our helicopters brought in water and ammo right into the battle space...and hauled out the dead and wounded.

Logistics, logistics, logistics.

Posted by: waepnedmann: at May 05, 2024 09:06 PM (7RHDg)

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