Sunday Morning Book Thread - 7-13-2025 ["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 (crunchy slaad not included). 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...(are pants a sandwich?)

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

Last week I showed a pic of my cat Allie resting on one of my books while I was trying to read it. Well, she's not the only kitty who serves as a book critic in my household. My cat Penny seen above also likes to rest her weary head on my books from time to time. I don't know if they like the smell or the feel of books, but they seem to enjoy books as much as I do in their own way. I have had a few issues with my cats trying to scratch my books like a scratching post.

THE DEATH OF SHORT FICTION MAGAZINES

(HT: OrangeEnt)

This is a fairly depressing video for any aspiring author seeking to break out into the short fiction market. Although Jon del Arroz focuses on fantasy and science fiction, I can't imagine that any other short fiction genre is doing any better, as fantasy and science fiction have always been among the most popular genres for short fiction. I grew up reading science fiction anthologies. Now they are mostly dead, though you will see anthologies of republished stories from the greats of science fiction such as Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, Harlan Ellison, etc. I probably have a dozen copies of some of those stories buried among my anthologies.

I suspect the publishing market is so oversaturated with content due to the rise of independent publishing that it's very, very difficult for aspiring writers to find a significant following. Far too much competition. Social media has also been as much of a bane as it is a blessing. Although you can reach out to like-minded readers on social media, you are also likely to attract those who would tear you down simply because they disagree with you at some level. This is especially true of authors who write stories with a conservative bent.

And now we have AI thrown into the mix, making it possible for people to request mediocre stories on demand. Stories that will keep the masses entertained, but don't have much in the way of substance to provoke deeper contemplation and reflection about the human condition.

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MORON RECOMMENDATIONS + MILESTONE

Before we get to some Moron Recommendations below, I thought I'd point out that we've reached a milestone of sorts when it comes to Moron Recommendations. When I first took over this scruffy little corner of a smart military blog, I thought I'd start collecting Moron Recommendations and posting them on a Libib website so that Morons can search for Recommendations that may be of interest to them. Much easier than trying to scour past threads. Well, I can officially announce that I've collected enough Moron Recommendations to surpass my own collection of fiction within my Libib website.

1,681 Moron Recommendations compared to 1,678 books in my own fiction section.

You all have read A LOT OF BOOKS over the past 3.5 years or so! Seriously, if you can't find a book that interests you among the Moron Recommendations, you simply are not trying. I've found a few authors new to me thanks to you guys, so it does work!

Now back to our usual Moron Recommendations below....KEEP READING!

Read Permissionless Innovation: The Continuing Case for Comprehensive Technological Freedom this week (again). It is non-fiction. Much of it would be intuitive to the Horde, but good to fully develop the different philosophies on regulation and the corresponding trade-offs.
One key take away is that true innovation that looks forward typically challenges existing regulation that can only look backwards and is primarily concerned about downside risk. Lots of variations on the "better to ask forgiveness than permission" theme, but that line of logic only goes so far.
Good book read through the lens of AI and digital assets/tokenization.
Posted by: TRex at July 06, 2025 09:43 AM (IQ6Gq)

Comment: I know it's been mentioned around here that the EU seems to have completely lost the spark of innovation that made the Enlightenment possible. The Industrial Revolution was born out of constant innovation. The Digital Revolution also required constant innovation to achieve the technology level we enjoy today. I do wonder sometimes if we are reaching the limits of what is possible under our current understanding of physics. What could possibly be the next incredible breakthrough that will allow humanity to progress to the next level? What human-created barriers are standing in the way? Yeah, governments and regulation are in that mix.

+++++

Last week's discussion about books where we did not like the characters recalls to mind Night Over Water by Ken Follett. A Pan Am clipper seaplane departs England in 1939 just as war is declared, headed for the US. Aboard are a fascist and his family, a runaway wife, a brother and sister fighting for control of dad's company, and a flight engineer whose wife has been kidnapped and will be killed if the plane lands on schedule.
The story is tense and engaging, even though you may hope that several of the passengers don't survive. When the plane makes a fuel stop in Ireland, who should join the passenger list but the husband of the cheating wife, to confront her and her American lover. To make matters worse, the plane then has to fly across the Atlantic through storms, while the engineer is fudging the fuel numbers to comply with the kidnappers.
What this motley group doesn't know is that there is also a German scientist aboard that the Nazis want to hold onto, as well as a mob boss. Everyone is hiding something, or running from it, and the odds are decreasing that anyone will survive. This novel shows that a story can be entertaining even if you dislike every character.
Posted by: Thomas Paine at July 06, 2025 09:11 AM (uU/gw)

Comment: That's a neat trick about writing an entertaining story where all of the characters are unlikable in some way. Though it's often used for comedic effect on television shows like Seinfeld or It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. In the story described above, it sounds like everyone involved has secrets within secrets, so the reader wants to see how those are revealed over the course of the adventure even if we don't like the characters. Perhaps knowing the secrets helps us understand how and why the characters developed into the current personas.

MORE MORON RECOMMENDATIONS CAN BE FOUND HERE: AoSHQ - Book Thread Recommendations

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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.

Night's Dawn Trilogy Book 3 - The Naked God by Peter F. Hamilton

I finally finished the third book of Hamilton's epic space opera saga. Humanity is saved! Yay! The possessed who troubled us for so long have been removed from their host bodies and translated into alternate realities or moved beyond the beyond. It was a wild ride while it lasted.

The Once and Future King by T. H. White

Where do I even start with this book? For the uninitiated, it's the retelling of Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur plus a little extra background material about King Arthur's childhood. The edition I have is the omnibus version released in 1958, which compiles four separate books into a single volume: The Sword in the Stone, The Queen of Air and Darkness, The Ill-Made Knight, and The Candle in the Wind.

"The Sword in the Stone" shows us young Arthur ("the Wart") growing up as Sir Kay's foster-brother under the protection of Sir Ector, Kay's father. His primary tutor is Merlyn, the famous wizard. Here, Merlyn is portrayed as a crazy loon, as he's experiencing events backwards in time. Merlyn transforms Arthur into dozens of animals so that Arthur can see the world through their eyes and gain perspective, which helps shape Arthur's approach to leadership when he gains his throne. It's a light-hearted adventure story about growing up in medieval England (or "Gramarye" as White calls the land). Merlyn really is quite mad in this book. If anything the Disney version of the book toned Merlyn's oddities down instead of exaggerating them for comedic effect. He's a bit like the Genie from Aladdin, always spouting anachronisms because of his cosmic power (that's not confined to an itty-bitty bottle). Fun read.

Things get quite a bit darker in the second part, "The Queen of Air and Darkness." Here we see Arthur begin to gather his Knights of the Round Table. His goal is to become the overlord of Gramarye, but he will need to convince the other petty kings of his right to rule, or conquer them outright. He has deep conversations with Merlyn about Might v. Right when it comes to rulership. The purpose of the Knights of the Round Table to is to use Might in service of Right, i.e., turn strength towards the defeat of those who are unjust, cruel, and evil, rather than inflicting cruelties on those who are too weak to defend themselves. Meanwhile, Queen Morgause is conspiring to use her own cruel magics (she's a witch) to cause Arthur to fall in love with her. She basically rapes Arthur through magic, and from their union will spring Mordred, Arthur's eventual bane.

The third part, "The Ill-Made Knight" focuses on the relationship between Sir Lancelot and Queen Guenever. Anyone familiar with the Arthurian legends recalls that Queen Guenever cheated on King Arthur by falling in love with Sir Lancelot. They both loved Arthur in their own way, though, and never wanted to do him harm. But their passion for each other tended to overcome propriety and they cause a great deal of trouble for King Arthur. Much of this story takes place well into Arthur's reign, and a general peace has settled on most of the kingdom, which poses a new problem for Arthur. What should he do with all of these knights who *need* action or they will fall into their old ways? They see battle and war as a sport, rather than as a deadly contest, because their armor offers incredible protection against injury or death. This is where the Quest for the Holy Grail is born, as Arthur sends his knights out to find the holy relic. Lancelot is among them, but due to his own human failings, he is not permitted to reach the Grail. He is given a glimpse of it, however, and it changes his life forever.

Finally, we come to the fourth tale, "The Candle in the Wind." Here we are nearing the end of Arthur's reign. Mordred has grown up a bitter, vindictive man who hates King Arthur with every fiber of his being. Arthur, you see, once tried to kill Mordred when he was a baby, and ended up inadvertently killing many other babies instead. It's one of Arthur's greatest crimes. Mordred schemes with his half-brother Agravaine to undo Arthur's kingdom by using Arthur's own laws against him. Arthur spent his entire adult life attempting to rule through a civilized code of law instead of through Might makes Right. And now the affair between Lancelot and Guenever will be revealed to the king, forcing Arthur to kill his own wife. Adultery is punishable by death. It's quite a tragic tale. Poor Arthur is trapped by his own desire to change the world.

There are a number of commentaries on political theory between Arthur and Merlyn in this story. Arthur doesn't quite go as far as advocating for democracy (he is the King, after all), but he comes pretty close with his Knights of the Round Table, as he wanted a Round Table so that no one knight (or King) would be elevated above any other knight. He also saw the people he ruled as worthy of individual dignity and respect. He tried to instill this attitude among his knights, who were sworn to protect those who couldn't protect themselves. Mordred and Agravaine have an interesting conversation about the merits of communism towards the end of the book. Considering when these books were written (late 1930s and early 1940s), it seems clear that White was trying to work through his own ideas about a benevolent monarchy versus communism.

After reading The Once and Future King, I can now see how much it has affected the fantasy epic landscape. Tad Williams in particular clearly drew heavily from this book for Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, as the backstory of several characters mirrors characters in this book. In Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series, he liberally draws upon names of characters from The Once and Future King to inspire the names of many characters in his own epic series.

Also, this book could be subtitled It Pays to Increase Your Word Power: The Novel as White uses a lot of terms from medieval hawking, hunting, and heraldry to describe characters in the story. You will learn new words whether you want to or not.

Bobby Dollar Trilogy Book 1 - The Dirty Streets of Heaven by Tad Williams

Moving on from T. H. White, I decided to go back to urban fantasy. Tad Williams' The Dirty Streets of Heaven tells the story of Doloriel (a.k.a. "Bobby Dollar"), an angelic advocate whose job is to argue for the souls of the recently dead that they should go to heaven instead of hell. He is assigned to the San Francisco region. During one of his "calls" he discovers that the soul of the deceased is nowhere to be found. It just vanished. Both heaven and hell are freaking out about this because this should *never* happen. Now Bobby Dollar is trapped between agents of hell that want to tear him to pieces because they think he knows more than he does and the forces of heaven that may have their own agenda. It's quite short for a Tad Williams book (only 400 pages).

PREVIOUS SUNDAY MORNING BOOK THREAD - 7-6-2025 (NOTE: Do NOT comment on old threads!)

Tips, suggestions, recommendations, etc., can all be directed to perfessor -dot- squirrel -at- gmail -dot- com.

Sadly, Huggy Squirrel's The Needle in the Nut never found a publisher.

Disclaimer: No Morons were physically harmed in the making of this Sunday Morning Book Thread. Which is a better foundation for government? A young lad drawing a sword from a stone? Or a watery tart lobbing a scimitar at you?

Posted by: Open Blogger at 09:00 AM

Comments

(Jump to bottom of comments)

1
Really?

Posted by: Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars (TM) Point&Laugh! Point&Laugh! Point&Laugh![ at July 13, 2025 08:57 AM (Tv15w)

2 Morning, Perfessor.

Howdy, Horde.

Now for the content.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at July 13, 2025 08:57 AM (q3u5l)

3 Read an old western short story, "The Man Who Rode 'Purgatory,'" by a writer unknown to me, Charles Aiden Seltzer. This came through Raconteur Press again. Honestly, I think this site is a trove of information on old writers, and collections, plus they publish story works themselves - as Wolfus Aurelius can attest.

Seltzer sold hundreds of short stories before doing novels. Consider how many he might have sold if he was writing in the modern day, with almost no outlets for short form writing available, as seen by the JDA vid.

The story is over a hundred years old, but reads as modern as if he wrote it last month. We're conditioned to believe Edwardian and earlier writers wrote in a flowery, dense way. This story isn't. It's accessible to the modern reader. I may search out his novels and see what they're like. I'd recommend anyone who reads westerns to do the same.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at July 13, 2025 08:58 AM (0eaVi)

4 Tolle Lege
Read a lot this week on Rick Atkinson's Day of the Battle, a account of the Italian campaign in WWII
Highly recommend his books

Posted by: Skip at July 13, 2025 08:59 AM (+qU29)

5 Booken morgen horden

Posted by: vmom deport deport deport at July 13, 2025 09:00 AM (sT/8C)

6
What could possibly be the next incredible breakthrough that will allow humanity to progress to the next level? What human-created barriers are standing in the way? Yeah, governments and regulation are in that mix.

One of the Weinsteins (Bret?) has been deriding physics as having become constipated by its obsession with string theory. He speaks of that often when he appears on podcasts.

Posted by: Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars (TM) Point&Laugh! Point&Laugh! Point&Laugh![ at July 13, 2025 09:01 AM (Tv15w)

7 Seeing the PKD book in the opening photo reminds me that I set aside The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch and need to get back and finish it.

Posted by: Additional Blond Agent, STEM Guy at July 13, 2025 09:03 AM (/HDaX)

8 I snagged a 3 month free trial of audible via prime and am finally able to listen to Lost Planet Homicide by Larry Correia which is an audible exclusive novella
So good! The wrting is fun and tge narrator is excellent.
Starting on the sequel now.

Posted by: vmom deport deport deport at July 13, 2025 09:04 AM (sT/8C)

9
Apologies, it is Eric Weinstein.

Here he is on Joe Rogan ...

https://youtu.be/qJUCwmoC7VI?si=UC-ypm4vylu4xrse

Posted by: Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars (TM) Point&Laugh! Point&Laugh! Point&Laugh![ at July 13, 2025 09:04 AM (Tv15w)

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

Posted by: JTB at July 13, 2025 09:05 AM (yTvNw)

11 I'm in my way to church. No; I am not driving.
I aml re- reading because of good memories sake and because they're good books for teen girls or older women -some of the Anne of Green Gables series - Beautiful description on nature , of friendship and interesting character studies. Ones I'm reading now are when Anne goes off to college and the next one is her getting married.

Posted by: FenelonSpoke at July 13, 2025 09:06 AM (8JBl9)

12 Perfesser, top pic should be titled
Feline dreams of android mice

Posted by: vmom deport deport deport at July 13, 2025 09:06 AM (sT/8C)

13 Good morning, Book Horde!

I see Penny the House Panther is a fan of Philip K. Dick.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at July 13, 2025 09:08 AM (kpS4V)

14 Yay book thread! Just started "Our Man in Havana," which is an "entertainment" for Graham Greene, rather than a "novel," like "The Quiet American."

Speaking of the latter, I've resumed watching the Type 56 podcast, and there is quite a bit of discussion about the French phase of the Vietnam conflict, which Greene describes. The podcast confirms what I found when writing Walls of Men that the Chicoms were effectively fighting a proxy war, and the Viet Minh were just along for the ride.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at July 13, 2025 09:08 AM (ZOv7s)

15 Morning, Book folken,

Yes, the old SF magazines are stumbling. F & SF is only every other month now, or maybe it's quarterly. AS for mystery, Ellery Queen's and Alfred Hitchcock's magazines are still going, but they may be bimonthly now too.

It's a shame that anthologies and online magazines are almost the only outlet now for short stories. Writing a complete story in a space of 4000-5000 words is good training for writing longer things, and if you have several tales appearing in magazines (or that used to be true), it was a good indicator to a publishing house editor that you could write.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at July 13, 2025 09:09 AM (omVj0)

16 Penny looks something like my big black Stirling. He's a medium hair cat with plushy silky fur and a slightly plumy tail. Fortunately he has never shown any interest in sitting on or ravaging my books.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at July 13, 2025 09:10 AM (omVj0)

17 Devotional reading is a re-reading of Fr. Jean Pierre de Caussade's Abandonment to Divine Providence" He was a Jesuit who lived in the 1700's.

Posted by: FenelonSpoke at July 13, 2025 09:11 AM (8JBl9)

18 I think Kristine Rusch used the term "discoverability" in talking about the problem of simply making your stuff visible in the flood of material out there. This was a problem for the new writer even before Amazon dropped its magazine subscription program.

If you don't advertise or plug your stuff relentlessly on social media, how do you make your way out of the digital slush pile? Beats me.

But weird things happen. At Mrs Some Guy's family reunion a few weeks ago, one of the relatives said he'd bought my novel and short stories from Amazon. He said he'd been scrolling through a list of "you might like this" recommendations on Amazon, and my novel came up. I don't advertise or do the social media number, so how that novel, which hadn't sold a copy in well over a year, came up in that list is beyond me. I didn't do it, so Amazon must have done it. But why and how? Who knows?

Posted by: Just Some Guy at July 13, 2025 09:12 AM (q3u5l)

19 This week I read Adrian Tchaikovsky's standalone novel "Shroud", which is an excellent alien first contact story, that i thoroughly enjoyed.

Now I am reading his "Alien Clay", about a scientist who is banished to a prison/death planet, who investigates alien artifacts on that world while trying desperately to stay alive rather than be worked to death or killed by the various nasty flora and fauna that inhabit the world. So far so good.

Tchaikovsky, who wrote the "Children of Time/Ruin/Memory" trilogy, as well as the "Final Architecture" trilogy (which is stunningly good, IMHO), has become my second favorite British sci fi writer, right after Alastair Reynolds. Which reminds me, time to read more of him, as well.

Good morning, Most Excellent Book Nerds.

Posted by: Sharkman at July 13, 2025 09:13 AM (/RHNq)

20 I suspect the publishing market is so oversaturated with content due to the rise of independent publishing that it's very, very difficult for aspiring writers to find a significant following.

Couldn't have anything to do with the fact that the whole business is dominated by Wokies, could it?

Posted by: Oddbob at July 13, 2025 09:13 AM (/y8xj)

21 Yay book thread! Just started "Our Man in Havana," which is an "entertainment" for Graham Greene, rather than a "novel," like "The Quiet American.". . .

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at July 13, 2025

***
Our Man is sort of a comedy, as if Get Smart were to be done as a black comedy.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at July 13, 2025 09:14 AM (omVj0)

22 I enjoy clever books. Books with ingenious plots, twists, or stories within stories. The latter is precisely how Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz is written. The first half of this book is the original manuscript of Magpie Murders the fictional latest (and last) Atticus Pund mystery by Alan Conway. Editor Susan Ryeland reads through it, and realizes that the final chapter is missing.

The next morning, Conway's body is found at the foot of the tower at his mansion. Suicide? As Susan interrogates Alan's associates searching for the last chapter, she realizes that his novels are more autobiographical than anyone realized. The more she investigates, the less she believes that Alan's death was suicide. The second half of the book follows her as she accumulates clues and develops a suspect list.

Throughout the novel, Horowitz pays homage to all of the classic mystery writers, and in fact, the manuscript of the last Atticus Pund story resembles a Poirot mystery in every way. Horowitz has packed in tricks, puzzles, and enough coincidences to keep the reader guessing all the way through.

For fans of the classic mysteries, this is an entertaining novel.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at July 13, 2025 09:15 AM (Vfq+S)

23 Good Sunday morning, horde!

Currently reading The Last Orphan, in the Orphan X series. Three or four chapters in so far, with all of the expected mayhem.

Listening to Impact, by Douglas Preston. The reader is very animated, and I find myself not watching my speed (listening while driving) in the tense parts.

Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at July 13, 2025 09:15 AM (h7ZuX)

24 This is a fairly depressing video for any aspiring author seeking to break out into the short fiction market.

Yeah, I can attest to that. It's hard to find places to sell short fiction. Although I have a commitment to run a short story of mine by a western themed magazine, they're so far behind in publishing, I expect my story will never see print. I've tried hard boiled stories, but that market seems to be disappearing, too. One magazine I subbed to and was rejected by, hasn't printed anything for at least two years. Their website hasn't updated either, so I assume the mag is dead. Another potential buyer lost to me.

I wouldn't be surprised if self-pub has had an effect. The fact that anyone can self-pub has probably lead to piles and piles of drek being out there, and readers searching for something good have to wade through so much dross that they give up.

Say what you will about trad pub, but at least they know - or used to know, how to publish good writers. Self-pub has allowed anyone with some bit of cash to get their books out there, but so much is junk, it seems it makes it harder for quality to be found.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at July 13, 2025 09:16 AM (0eaVi)

25 The latter is precisely how Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz is written. The first half of this book is the original manuscript of Magpie Murders the fictional latest (and last) Atticus Pund mystery by Alan Conway. Editor Susan Ryeland reads through it, and realizes that the final chapter is missing.

The next morning, Conway's body is found at the foot of the tower at his mansion. Suicide? As Susan interrogates Alan's associates searching for the last chapter, she realizes that his novels are more autobiographical than anyone realized. The more she investigates, the less she believes that Alan's death was suicide. The second half of the book follows her as she accumulates clues and develops a suspect list.

Throughout the novel, Horowitz pays homage to all of the classic mystery writers, and in fact, the manuscript of the last Atticus Pund story resembles a Poirot mystery in every way. Horowitz has packed in tricks, puzzles, and enough coincidences to keep the reader guessing all the way through.

For fans of the classic mysteries, this is an entertaining novel.
Posted by: Thomas Paine at July 13, 2025

***
I'll have to look for that!

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at July 13, 2025 09:16 AM (omVj0)

26 Dingy LA office. Rotgut in desk. Slinky damsel in distress. ...

Cut! Rewrite.

Keep the office and bottle. Make the girl mousy. Now we have "The Little Sister," a Philip Marlowe detective novel by Raymond Chandler.

The woman wants Marlowe to find her brother. He hasn't written home in months.

Marlowe goes to the guy's last address, a crumbling boarding house in a shitcan suburb. Brother moved out days ago. Some other tenants are also cutting out. And now two of them have had unfortunate encounters with an icepick.

People told me years ago that Chandler was a master with metaphors. That he is, but some fly past me because I am not well versed in 1940s lingo.

Posted by: Weak Geek at July 13, 2025 09:17 AM (p/isN)

27 There are two authors that I have read that have tried to research innovation and the elements that made the enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution possible, Carlo M Cipolla, and Stephen Davies.

Cipolla wrote Guns, Sails, and Empires: Technological Innovation and the Early Phases of European Expansion, 1400–1700 which covered the same elements that Jared Diamond covered, but 30 years earlier and based on economic and historical research instead of opinion and Marxism. It discusses the drastic cultural changes that made technology adoption possible.
Davies wrote a sort of meta-study called The Wealth Explosion, The Nature and Origins of Modernity which tries to chart the changes that were necessary to bring about the innovation and adoption of technology to create human flourishing - with European examples held against Song China, and non-flourishing societies in Africa and the Americas. (Private credit and weak governments seem to be essential)

Also a shout to Joel Mokyr, but I find him hard to read.

Posted by: Kindltot at July 13, 2025 09:18 AM (D7oie)

28 Magpie Murders was done by 'Masterpiece' on PBS.

Posted by: dantesed at July 13, 2025 09:19 AM (Oy/m2)

29 Does anyone else here look at the flood of self-pub material available (from the reader's point of view and not the writer's) and think of Yogi Berra's line about how nobody goes there any more because it's too crowded?

Posted by: Just Some Guy at July 13, 2025 09:20 AM (q3u5l)

30 Good morning dear morons and thanks perfessor.

Posted by: San Franpsycho at July 13, 2025 09:20 AM (RIvkX)

31 People told me years ago that Chandler was a master with metaphors. That he is, but some fly past me because I am not well versed in 1940s lingo.
Posted by: Weak Geek at July 13, 2025

***
Chandler's best mystery AS a mystery was The Lady in the Lake. The best all-around novel, I think, was his second, Farewell My Lovely. I know people rave about The Long Goodbye, but it never grabbed me like FML.

His best short story: "Red Wind," with the famous opening paragraph ("There was a wind blowing that night") and a great closing scene as well.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at July 13, 2025 09:20 AM (omVj0)

32 I picked up "Tearing Down the Orange Curtain: How Punk Rock Brought Orange County to the World" by Nate Jackson and Daniel Kohn. It's a loosely written chronicle of the scene: T.S.O.L., the Vandals, the Adolescents, Social Distortion, and ska bands No Doubt and the Offspring.

The surf and skateboard lifestyle of the suburban OC punks distinguished them from the political agitators of the UK, LA, or NYC. These kids mostly just wanted to have fun and break shit. Their deep social commentary was basically F off and let me do my thing.

The club The Cuckoo's Nest was the epicenter. It was right across the parking lot from a cowboy bar, Zubie's, and there was much animosity between the rednecks and the punk rockers; both sides were itching for a fight, and the cops were always there to bust some heads.

Urban Struggle: The Battle of The Cuckoo's Nest:

https://tinyurl.com/2vpkdmve

Clockwork Orange County:

https://tinyurl.com/5chwpep9

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at July 13, 2025 09:21 AM (kpS4V)

33 Tried reading The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights by John Steinbeck.

It was published after his death.

Could not finish it. Did not like the story. He needed an editor. I will donate it to the library.

Posted by: NaCly Dog at July 13, 2025 09:21 AM (u82oZ)

34 I read a real novel this past week, albeit a kids novel. "A Nose for Trouble" by Jim Kjelgaard. Most of Kjelgaard's book are about a boy and his dog, but this one is a bit different: this one is about a MAN and his dog! And his horse, too.

The story is almost a kids version of "Walking Tall." A young man returns to his family home (a cabin in the woods outside a bustling town of 1200) and acquires a horse and a bloodhound. He quickly discovers a low-key war going on in the forest, between a newly-appointed game warden, and a poacher who is harvesting the wildlife on a near-industrial scale. Or hero joins on the side of the warden, and child friendly-action ensues. Surprisingly, there was a twist or two on the road to figuring out who the poacher master-mind was.

Posted by: Castle Guy at July 13, 2025 09:22 AM (Lhaco)

35 Our Man is sort of a comedy, as if Get Smart were to be done as a black comedy.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at July 13, 2025 09:14 AM (omVj0)
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Yes, and I also ordered a DVD of the film.

Greene's humor is less biting than Waugh's, but both do the English thing of piling minor plausible absurdities on top of each other to create an epic farce.

I enjoy it and employ it from time to time.

A few years ago I wrote out a treatment for a novel based on an Airman in Biden's military who was straight, but "identified" as gay because he got special treatment and it spiraled out of control and he was Airman of the Year for being a tranny. Meanwhile, back home everyone knows it's a crock. I LOL'd at times, but I was still in the service and since then the world has changed.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at July 13, 2025 09:23 AM (ZOv7s)

36 Still trudging through James Rollins' "A Dragon of Black Glass". He's an excellent writer but it's like a second job (well, a side hustle; I'm retired).

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at July 13, 2025 09:25 AM (kpS4V)

37 Books with characters I hate? Hotel New Hampshire and The World According to Garp

The characters deserve all the bad things that happen to them especially the movies. Rob Lowe? Awful. Robin Williams? Hateful.

Posted by: San Franpsycho at July 13, 2025 09:25 AM (RIvkX)

38 A little more musing on "A Nose For Trouble;" I may have become overly sensitive to these things, but I caught a whiff of propaganda in the book. Not subversive propaganda, but propaganda nonetheless. The story hit the reader over the head a couple of times with 'Don't poach. Hunt only what is in season. The game warden is there to protect wildlife for future generations.' It did fit into the story, which took place when game wardens were first imposed upon the backwoods hunters....And I think the story was a little bit autobiographical, since I think the author spent time as a forest ranger....

Posted by: Castle Guy at July 13, 2025 09:25 AM (Lhaco)

39 One of the Weinsteins (Bret?) has been deriding physics as having become constipated by its obsession with string theory. He speaks of that often when he appears on podcasts.
Posted by: Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars (TM) Point&Laugh! Point&Laugh! Point&Laugh![ at July 13, 2025 09:01 AM (Tv15w)

A number of academics have complained about this - both problems with reproducible findings and cockeyed theories having more to do with how the world should be and less with what actually is observable. This seems to be a problem not just in physics and mathematics, but also in economics, History, Medicine, and as far as I can tell, everything that has a school in a University, and gets external funding.

Posted by: Kindltot at July 13, 2025 09:26 AM (D7oie)

40 Tried reading The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights by John Steinbeck.

It was published after his death.

Could not finish it. Did not like the story. He needed an editor. I will donate it to the library.
Posted by: NaCly Dog at July 13, 2025

***
I love Steinbeck, but there are few authors who don't need an editor at some point. The story goes that Rex Stout would annually turn in his latest Nero Wolfe and it would need very little or no revision. Don't know how accurate that is. Some of his later books are weaker -- he was not a great puzzle plotter -- but they are all clear and readable, right up to and including the last one, published when he was something like eighty years old.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at July 13, 2025 09:26 AM (omVj0)

41 Of course, I've read Arthur stories as a kid. Strange thing that Arthurian Britain is the first stirrings after the fall of Rome, that individuals have rights, and laws should apply to all. It took root in England, but not as much on the continent. Of course, today's Britain....

Posted by: OrangeEnt at July 13, 2025 09:27 AM (0eaVi)

42 Horowitz has written two sequels to Magpie Murders, both with a book within a book, and featuring Susan Ryland:

Moonflower Murders

Marble Hall Murders

Moonflower has also appeared on PBS. No doubt Marble Hall will, too.

Posted by: Wethal at July 13, 2025 09:28 AM (NufIr)

43 Books with characters I hate? Hotel New Hampshire and The World According to Garp

The characters deserve all the bad things that happen to them especially the movies. Rob Lowe? Awful. Robin Williams? Hateful.
Posted by: San Franpsycho at July 13, 2025

***
I couldn't finish New Hampshire or anything else I've tried by that author. Garp as a book was okay, but kind of bewildering. Though I read it a long long time ago, and might get more out of it now. Never saw the movie.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at July 13, 2025 09:28 AM (omVj0)

44 Books with characters I hate? Hotel New Hampshire and The World According to Garp

The characters deserve all the bad things that happen to them especially the movies. Rob Lowe? Awful. Robin Williams? Hateful.

Posted by: San Franpsycho

Someone suggested that I see the Garp movie when it came out; "it must be funny if Robin Williams is in it." It wasn't. It was just disturbing.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at July 13, 2025 09:29 AM (Vfq+S)

45 I think I read (or at least read part of) "Once and Future King" back when I was a teen. I don't think I appreciated it at the time. Too messy and ugly. I was expecting Authur's story to be kinda glorious and triumphant, and instead it was the first time I encountered his evil girlfriend and evil son. It just...wasn't what I was looking for at the time.

Posted by: Castle Guy at July 13, 2025 09:29 AM (Lhaco)

46 I looked it up: Stout wrote his last Wolfe when he was eighty-eight.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at July 13, 2025 09:30 AM (omVj0)

47 A number of academics have complained about this - both problems with reproducible findings and cockeyed theories having more to do with how the world should be and less with what actually is observable. This seems to be a problem not just in physics and mathematics, but also in economics, History, Medicine, and as far as I can tell, everything that has a school in a University, and gets external funding.
Posted by: Kindltot at July 13, 2025 09:26 AM (D7oie)
---
The solution to this is already being felt. Thanks to soaring tuitiion and a shortage of students, colleges are already starting to close. Siena College just shut its doors, which is the second college in Michigan to do so. Others are on the ropes. One of the easy ways to track this is to follow college football and see how many teams are disbanded as the school shuts down.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at July 13, 2025 09:30 AM (ZOv7s)

48 I finished The Natural by Bernard Malamud and wow! Very ell written novel about baseball and society int he 1920s. Later a hit movie that I knew about but never watched. I get to the end of the novel (spoiler alert) and had to go to the interwebs to see ho the movie was structured because what I knew of the movie and how the book ends do not match at all. And I was right, the movie tacks on a happy ending that is not in the novel. The movie came out in '84 and Malamud was still alive. I wonder what he thought about the change.

Posted by: who knew at July 13, 2025 09:31 AM (+ViXu)

49 Penny is super cute

On our walk yesterday the most vicious looking pittie pretty much flopped over in front of us and demanded belly scritches. Like many pitties she was sweet like sugar. It must be hard to walk a dog that demands scritches from strangers all the time.

Posted by: San Franpsycho at July 13, 2025 09:33 AM (RIvkX)

50 The story is almost a kids version of "Walking Tall." A young man returns to his family home (a cabin in the woods outside a bustling town of 1200) and acquires a horse and a bloodhound. He quickly discovers a low-key war going on in the forest, between a newly-appointed game warden, and a poacher who is harvesting the wildlife on a near-industrial scale. Or hero joins on the side of the warden, and child friendly-action ensues. Surprisingly, there was a twist or two on the road to figuring out who the poacher master-mind was.
Posted by: Castle Guy at July 13, 2025 09:22 AM (Lhaco)

I'll read it if the poacher is caught, tied down in the forest and the animals rend him asunder.

Posted by: Dr. Pork Chops & Bacons at July 13, 2025 09:33 AM (g8Ew8)

51 Perfessor,
Thanks for mentioning that omnibus edition of The Once and Future King. I just ordered that 1958 hardcover version. I've become increasingly interested in the King Arthur stories but hadn't read the Once and Future King. The caution about the unusual wording ( many of the reviews talk about the same thing) actually attracts me. Guess I'm a word nerd. No surprise.

Posted by: JTB at July 13, 2025 09:36 AM (yTvNw)

52 Never saw the movie.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at July 13, 2025 09:28 AM (omVj0)
====
Please save yourself. Don't let me sacrifice my eyes in vain!

Posted by: San Franpsycho at July 13, 2025 09:36 AM (RIvkX)

53 Haven't gotten around to Malamud's The Natural yet -- it's doing hard time with a zillion others in The Amazing Colossal To-Be-Read Pile -- but The Assistant is awfully good, as are a lot of the short stories I've read by him. His novel The Fixer is supposed to be terrific, but that's still in the stack too; that one was filmed by John Frankenheimer with Alan Bates in the lead, but I don't think that movie's available these days.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at July 13, 2025 09:36 AM (q3u5l)

54 I finished the first read of The Intelligent Gardener by Steve Solomon. Steve is a long time gardener who started the Oregon business, Territorial Seeds.

He discusses one of the biggest problems gardeners face, which is depleted and worn out soils. Soils lose minerals that are taken up by the plants, and removed when they are harvested. His argument is that it is important to understand how soils become depleted, and to have good numbers from soil analysis to aid in remineralizing. He agrees that compost is very nice, but it rarely has enough of what the soil nees, and suggests adding in phosphorous, sulfur, boron and calcium (among other nutrients) at need.

I do think it works since my plants are doing well, and the invasive brown snails now have quite thick and healthy shells, but even better, the plants aren't being ravaged as badly as they had been in the past.
I have yet to get my soil analyzed as suggested, but I need to do mine and my niece's to figure out what will work best.

Posted by: Kindltot at July 13, 2025 09:37 AM (D7oie)

55 Someone suggested that I see the Garp movie when it came out; "it must be funny if Robin Williams is in it." It wasn't. It was just disturbing.
Posted by: Thomas Paine at July 13, 2025 09:29 AM (Vfq+S)

Williams played an excellent villain in Kill Smoochie. It's a fun movie.

Posted by: Dr. Pork Chops & Bacons at July 13, 2025 09:37 AM (g8Ew8)

56 Hey, I have an idea. I'll make a character wear a bear costume. Why? No idea. To fvck with audience, I guess.
-John Irving

Posted by: San Franpsycho at July 13, 2025 09:37 AM (RIvkX)

57 The movie came out in '84 and Malamud was still alive. I wonder what he thought about the change.
Posted by: who knew at July 13, 2025 09:31 AM (+ViXu)
---
I think I own it on DVD. It was one of those situations where I wanted one movie, and buying the compilation was cheaper. I've never seen it. Should I?

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at July 13, 2025 09:38 AM (ZOv7s)

58 Parke Godwin wrote The Firelord series, an Arthurian series, both Arthur's interactions with Guinevere, and Guinevere's struggles to maintain the kingdom after Arthur's death

Posted by: Kindltot at July 13, 2025 09:40 AM (D7oie)

59 I really liked the Matthew Hughes book Baldemar, set in an era of Dying Earth where magic is the underlying basis for reality.

The book is linked short stories following Baldemar's life from his streetwise beginnings through the rest of his time as a wizard's henchman. Well written, with well drawn characters, it was fun to read.

Matthew Hughes gets his wizard character models, those with overwhelming pride and self-regard, usually undone by lack of competence, from his days as a speechwriter for Canadien leaders in government and corporations.

I plan to buy other books by Hughes set in that far future.

Posted by: NaCly Dog at July 13, 2025 09:41 AM (u82oZ)

60 Irving had a thing about bears, if memory serves (his first novel was called Setting Free the Bears). Been a long time since I read him. Liked Garp well enough when it came out, fell off him within the next few novels, and haven't read any since A Prayer for Owen Meany; I can barely remember much about the ones I've read.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at July 13, 2025 09:41 AM (q3u5l)

61 Garp as a book was okay, but kind of bewildering. Though I read it a long long time ago, and might get more out of it now. Never saw the movie.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at July 13, 2025 09:28 AM (omVj0)

My 20-year-old self was pretty interested in John Irving books. My current self, not even a little bit. I know too much about the world now, and the perversions in his book are just too sickening.

Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at July 13, 2025 09:41 AM (h7ZuX)

62 I gave up on the science fiction magazines a very long time ago. How long? The term "woke" wasn't used yet, but I was picturing editorial meetings consisting of nothing but depressed white women wearing black turtlenecks.

Posted by: Idaho Spudboy at July 13, 2025 09:41 AM (kuWOS)

63 Hey, I have an idea. I'll make a character wear a bear costume. Why? No idea. To fvck with audience, I guess.
-John Irving
Posted by: San Franpsycho at July 13, 2025 09:37 AM (RIvkX)
---
There is a clear line separating the eccentric from the absurd.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at July 13, 2025 09:41 AM (ZOv7s)

64 I made decent progress on "Don Quixote" this week. I think of it as a 17th century version of a Looney Tunes cartoon: make a parody of a classic genre and insert characters who get the ever-living hell knocked out of them every 30 seconds, to great comedic effect. I keep waiting for Sancho Panza to be hit by a falling anvil.

Posted by: PabloD at July 13, 2025 09:42 AM (o2Win)

65 I finished Butler by Selena Zito. I love her work, have since the first report I saw on flyover country. This is about the attempted assassination of course and also the campaign. She talks a lot about those with a sense of place and the placeless. There are some stories that show how rooted these people can be in an area and it's a good reminder for us. We tend to think folks should just pack up and leave if an area goes bad. It's a quick read and interesting.

Posted by: Notsothoreau at July 13, 2025 09:42 AM (AcTAo)

66 People told me years ago that Chandler was a master with metaphors. That he is, but some fly past me because I am not well versed in 1940s lingo.
Posted by: Weak Geek at July 13, 2025 09:17 AM (p/isN)

Finger a crib sheet to get hip with the lingo. Don't snap your cap because You don't have the dope. It takes moxie to be on the beam. I'm not gonna bust your chops because you're out of the loop. It doesn't take lettuce to get what you're looking for.

Put your peepers on this:

https://tinyurl.com/4tpfkcyb

Posted by: OrangeEnt at July 13, 2025 09:42 AM (0eaVi)

67 Morning, all. I tried to be here at 9, but overslept and then had to make tea and toast.

Someone suggested that I see the Garp movie when it came out; "it must be funny if Robin Williams is in it." It wasn't. It was just disturbing.
Posted by: Thomas Paine at July 13, 2025 09:29 AM (Vfq+S)

Unless you were an Irving fan, I think the only reason anyone went to see that piece of junk was for the blowjob-castration scene.

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing (aka Eloquent Depression) at July 13, 2025 09:42 AM (Dg2sF)

68 This week was 'Finished Books Recommended By Morons' week!
Just closed the book Rogue Protocol, book #2 of the fantastic Murderbot series by Martha Wells. Also just discovered that I'm finished with book #3, Memories of Ice, A Tale of the Mazalan Book of the Fallen by Steven Erikson that I downloaded for free from Archive.org.

Posted by: p0indexterous at July 13, 2025 09:44 AM (PbHjC)

69 Things get quite a bit darker in the second part, "The Queen of Air and Darkness." Here we see Arthur begin to gather his Knights of the Round Table.
-

"No round table! Only when he ate with his family it was a round table. And when guests came - knights came - they would open it up and put in the leaves. No, it's King Arthur of the Oval Table!" - 2000 Year Old Man

Posted by: Biden's Dog sniffs a whole lotta malarkey, at July 13, 2025 09:44 AM (Kjgs1)

70 Interesting in the tcm review of anothet christopher reeve film the one with jane seymour they noted how he was up for john lithgows role

But i was already allergic to john irvings quirks a priori which cider house rules confirmed

My paisan humberto fontova points out how the Companys dealing with the Castto brothers could have been a comedy

They asked the barnard educated daughter of a bacardi exec to vouch for the brothers one of whom was alleged to be 'light in the loafers' she said totes they arent communists (punchline she married him) and the Company didnt catch on till the nationalizations of property

Posted by: Miguel cervantes at July 13, 2025 09:45 AM (bXbFr)

71 to add to the physics discussion, a couple of months ago I read "Escape From Shadow Physics: by Adam Kay.. A moron recommendation that I will second.

Posted by: who knew at July 13, 2025 09:45 AM (+ViXu)

72 I wasn't in the mood for deep, contemplative reading this week. That still leaves a lot to choose from. I read hobby books on drawing and painting as well as flintlock rifles. Just pleasant stuff.

Then I got out my copy of Kipling's "Just So Stories". They are a delight. They really should be read out loud as if you were telling children a bedtime story with all those vocal nuances and different voices for characters, including the narrator. The words on the page are fun but reading them aloud is even better.

Posted by: JTB at July 13, 2025 09:45 AM (yTvNw)

73 Davies wrote a sort of meta-study called The Wealth Explosion, The Nature and Origins of Modernity which tries to chart the changes that were necessary to bring about the innovation and adoption of technology to create human flourishing - with European examples held against Song China, and non-flourishing societies in Africa and the Americas. (Private credit and weak governments seem to be essential)

Posted by: Kindltot at July 13, 2025 09:18 AM (D7oie)

Would you say The Black Plague and clover as animal feed had something to do with it?

Posted by: OrangeEnt at July 13, 2025 09:46 AM (0eaVi)

74 Bernard Cornwell's re-imagining of the Arthur legends were very entertaining. The Winter King, Enemy of God and Excalibur are told from the point of view of a warrior turned Christian monk who is sworn to Arthur.

Posted by: huerfano at July 13, 2025 09:47 AM (n2swS)

75 It might have been a comedy except for the results

Posted by: Miguel cervantes at July 13, 2025 09:47 AM (bXbFr)

76 On the comic-reading front, I read a French comic called "Castle in the Stars" Book 1. It's a little bit steampunky, taking place in 1869, but with a bit more hot-air-balloon technology, and the prospect of discovering some made-up physics. It stars a French kid, whose mother dies in a hot-air-balloon experiment. (The book was written this century, so of course it is the mom who is the super-driven scientist...) The mother's journal is discovered in Bavaria, where the kid and his father are invited to continue the mother's work. There they get caught up in some political machinations between Bavaria and Prussia...

Artistically, the book is pretty unique, at least compared to the other comics on my shelf. The character designs are generally realistic, with a bit of a 'Studio Ghibli' flare, with the exception of one kid who has cartoon face. (I could do without that character) The linework is light and unobtrusive, and the coloring appears to be watercolor, giving the book a washed-out or pastel feel. It's a nice way to depict the 19th Century German setting. And the setting is the most interesting part of the comic, at least to me. I expect to continue the series.

Posted by: Castle Guy at July 13, 2025 09:47 AM (Lhaco)

77 As I sit here drinking a glass of Radner on a warm Munich afternoon,

I wonder, whatever happened to the reputation of Saul Bellow.

It's like he's been erased from literature.

"Humboldt's Gift" is one of the few novels I've read that actually seems both wise and great.

Others may disagree, but they are wrong.

Posted by: naturalfake at July 13, 2025 09:47 AM (ZO/35)

78 Finished A.H Lloyd's A Man of Destiny. Liked it and intend to get the rest soon. If I hadn't known it was a retelling of Star Wars I may have missed the parallels, so it definitely stands on its own merit. Only critique is that it could use another pass by an editor. Missing, or doubled, or just plain wrong, words aren't common but they show up enough to effect immersion.

Posted by: Polliwog the 'Ette at July 13, 2025 09:47 AM (lFFaq)

79 I blame Dungeons & Dragons for a lot of a current moral decay. No, not the demonic panic from the 70s, but the idea that ones "alignment" aka religion is merely a personal choice. Lawful Good and Lawful Evil are both equally valid.

Indeed, the choice of alignment is secondary to how well you follow it. Thus: a Chaotic Evil person will be judged not on their actions per se, but on whether they were sufficiently Chaotic and Evil. A lot of people seem to adhere to this idea. Recall Obama saying that "sin" was something out of alignment with his values.

Call it moral relativism if you want, but this noting that there is no one, universal standard of goodness and evil is what gives legitimacy to a lot of weird stuff, and it has become increasingly pervasive in the popular culture.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at July 13, 2025 09:49 AM (ZOv7s)

80 Nothing to recommend this week. I read a couple of books but they aren't even worth a negative review. One was about ancient Egypt, and did not contain one single solitary thing I hadn't already known. Which means either I've become an expert on ancient Egypt or the book is very superficial. My money's on the latter. The other was a fantasy novel my wife recommended, which I bounced off but may tackle again.

Posted by: Trimegistus at July 13, 2025 09:50 AM (78a2H)

81 I recently came across a book that might be of interest to some of the Papists in the Horde. The Liturgical Rosary 2nd ed, was published in 2024 by Arouca Press. This little book has meditations for the Rosary organized by hour of the day, liturgical year, and feast days of the saints. Each set consists of 15 meditations (for 15 decades); so, about an hour if you were to pray a complete set.

The meditations were compiled by a little group of semi-schismatic religious sisters (they acknowledge the primacy of the Pope, but will only celebrate the Tridentine Latin Mass), the Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. This group was specifically identified as a "potentially dangerous radical traditional Catholic" organization in the, now infamous, FBI document targeting tradition Catholics from a few years ago. If you want to make the Commies in the Southern Poverty Law Center and the FBI cry, this might be a book of interest to you.

Posted by: Retired Buckeye Cop is now an engineer at July 13, 2025 09:50 AM (pJWtt)

82 Does anyone else here look at the flood of self-pub material available (from the reader's point of view and not the writer's) and think of Yogi Berra's line about how nobody goes there any more because it's too crowded?
Posted by: Just Some Guy at July 13, 2025 09:20 AM (q3u5l)

And I think a lot of it just isn't good. Why? Maybe because people write a book, then just plop it out. No beta readers, no proof readers, no editing. Once you pay for a story that's full of errors from an unknown author, you'll be more wary of putting out hard earned money to risk it again.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at July 13, 2025 09:50 AM (0eaVi)

83 What's a magazine?

Posted by: People under 20 at July 13, 2025 09:50 AM (XQo4F)

84 I kind of figured that the short story magazines had been dead since the 90's, with maybe a few genres getting revived thanks to e-zines and whatnot. I read a "Savage Realms" e-zine for sword and sorcery stories, which only launched a few years ago.

Yeah, following any sort of publishing industry is pretty bleak, and has been for a while.

Posted by: Castle Guy at July 13, 2025 09:51 AM (Lhaco)

85 Finished A.H Lloyd's A Man of Destiny. Liked it and intend to get the rest soon. If I hadn't known it was a retelling of Star Wars I may have missed the parallels, so it definitely stands on its own merit. Only critique is that it could use another pass by an editor. Missing, or doubled, or just plain wrong, words aren't common but they show up enough to effect immersion.
Posted by: Polliwog the 'Ette at July 13, 2025 09:47 AM (lFFaq)
---
Glad you liked it! Yes, the edits are done and I'm planning on a revised edition with new cover art as well. Chateau Lloyd is in a state of chaos at the moment and I don't see that changing until school starts and the lovable scamps get out of the house for a few hours a day and have to go to bed on time.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at July 13, 2025 09:51 AM (ZOv7s)

86 @82 argggg ... if only we had a preview option. At least I have close-tags in my nic, so the entire blog didn't go Italican!

Posted by: Retired Buckeye Cop is now an engineer at July 13, 2025 09:51 AM (pJWtt)

87 I second the recommendation of Once and Future King. I've always had an interest in Arthurian literature as well as the history of Britain at the time of the 'real' Arthur.

White actually wrote a fifth book, The Book of Merlyn, which, so far as I know, her never been included with the other four, but published as a stand-alone. It concerns Arthur, on the eve of his last battle, not wanting to fight, not wanting to live and believing his entire life has been wasted. It's pretty cynical an dark (White wrote it either at the dawn of, or during, WW2; I can't remember).

Another book of his is a translation of a mediaeval bestiary, called The Book of Beasts. It's really not for everyone, but has translation is funny and easygoing and his love of animals and the outdoors shines through.

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing (aka Eloquent Depression) at July 13, 2025 09:53 AM (Dg2sF)

88 Posted by: Just Some Guy at July 13, 2025 09:12 AM (q3u5l)

And that novel is? I don't remember you getting it plugged in a book thread, though I may have forgotten, so please tell us about it.

Posted by: Polliwog the 'Ette at July 13, 2025 09:53 AM (lFFaq)

89 Gary Buechler (aka Nerdrotic)'s autobiography, Waiting for Nerdrotic: From Prison to Youtube went up for presale yesterday during the Friday Night Tights podcast. 1000 books sold during the course of the podcast where the gang discussed James Gunn's Superman. So one way for unknown authors to sell their book is to have 1.2 million Youtube subscribers.

https://tinyurl.com/yoeu444x

Posted by: The Dixie Flatline (long time lurker) at July 13, 2025 09:53 AM (RNK1K)

90 Which book about ancient egypt so we can ignore it, there have been enough discoveries to updare our font of knowledge

Posted by: Miguel cervantes at July 13, 2025 09:54 AM (bXbFr)

91 This week I've started another Jack Reacher novel, Bad Luck and Trouble, from 2006 or so. This one is told in the third person -- I guess Child jumps around from first to third in different books. Reacher so far has been a lot of fun to read about.

Earlier this week I tried a collection of short stories by Alice Munro, The Moons of Jupiter. She writes well and all that, but her stories are very literary, not compelling to me. Maybe I'm just not bright enough to get the point of them. Some are true New Yorker stories . . . meaning they seem to begin at some point, wander a while, and then end when the author gets tired.

I have two early Elvis Cole mysteries by Robert Crais on the TBR pile as well.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at July 13, 2025 09:55 AM (omVj0)

92 The story goes that Rex Stout would annually turn in his latest Nero Wolfe and it would need very little or no revision.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at July 13, 2025 09:26 AM (omVj0)

I've never thought of this before, but Rex Stout (real name?) wrote a character, Nero Wolf, who's portrayed as very large and sedentary. Was Rex, stout?

Posted by: OrangeEnt at July 13, 2025 09:55 AM (0eaVi)

93 6 One of the Weinsteins (Bret?) has been deriding physics as having become constipated by its obsession with string theory. He speaks of that often when he appears on podcasts.

Posted by: Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars (TM) Point&Laugh! Point&Laugh! Point&Laugh![ at July 13, 2025 09:01 AM (Tv15w)

So many research dollars (from taxes of course) wasted on an untestable and almost useless theory over multiple decades. I say almost since some useful math has come from at least one of the string theories. People seem to think that because the math works, then it works in reality, or in other words math=physics. Which is not the case.

Posted by: Farquad at July 13, 2025 09:56 AM (yqgaV)

94 The meditations were compiled by a little group of semi-schismatic religious sisters (they acknowledge the primacy of the Pope, but will only celebrate the Tridentine Latin Mass), the Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. This group was specifically identified as a "potentially dangerous radical traditional Catholic" organization in the, now infamous, FBI document targeting tradition Catholics from a few years ago.

Now, that's funny - about an hour from my house, that order has a convent and school. I've been to Mass there several times and it's worth the drive.

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing (aka Eloquent Depression) at July 13, 2025 09:57 AM (Dg2sF)

95 And I think a lot of it just isn't good. Why? Maybe because people write a book, then just plop it out. No beta readers, no proof readers, no editing. Once you pay for a story that's full of errors from an unknown author, you'll be more wary of putting out hard earned money to risk it again.
Posted by: OrangeEnt at July 13, 2025

***
Which is what I tell authors who think they don't need an editor: "Somebody may buy your first book. But if it isn't professional-looking (even aside from telling a good story), they'll be turned off. They won't buy your second -- and they'll tell others who won't buy your first."

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at July 13, 2025 09:57 AM (omVj0)

96 Bellow seemed to be a tad more conservative in his later years if memory serves. Maybe that has something to do with the erasure.

Of course, he's not exactly erased -- I think Library of America has done most of his stuff, and most of it is still easily available on Kindle and in paperback. But he's been dead 20 years now and these days anything before last Tuesday is old news and who cares. Not sure if there's some standard gap in time between death and rediscovery by the reading public, if that happens at all.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at July 13, 2025 09:57 AM (q3u5l)

97 78 Finished A.H Lloyd's A Man of Destiny. Liked it and intend to get the rest soon. If I hadn't known it was a retelling of Star Wars I may have missed the parallels, so it definitely stands on its own merit. Only critique is that it could use another pass by an editor. Missing, or doubled, or just plain wrong, words aren't common but they show up enough to effect immersion.
Posted by: Polliwog the 'Ette at July 13, 2025 09:47 AM (lFFaq)

——-

I read Lloyd’s Long Live Death about the Spanish Civil War. Seems to be a very good historical summary of the period but similarly could use another few rounds of editing.

Posted by: MAGA_Ken at July 13, 2025 09:57 AM (YxG/6)

98 No real new reading for me this week. I've been flipping through a few books, but nothing worth talking about. I am moving slowly along with my own book, and can almost see my way through to the end of the first draft. I'd like to have it out for Christmas, but I don't think that will happen.

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing (aka Eloquent Depression) at July 13, 2025 09:59 AM (Dg2sF)

99 Nice to hear "The Assistant" is a good read because read because I read The Natural in the Library of America volume that also includes The Assistant and a bunch of short stories. I've just gotten started on The Assistant. The Fixer is a great read. When I bought it I thought it was going to be about a bookie or some such. It's not.

Posted by: who knew at July 13, 2025 09:59 AM (+ViXu)

100 Would you say The Black Plague and clover as animal feed had something to do with it?
Posted by: OrangeEnt at July 13, 2025 09:46 AM (0eaVi)

No. The ability to move wealth in the form of credit and money had more to do with it, and the fact that there was both limited government in both geographical and social reach, as well as competing laws and courts.

Remember, the growth of Lydia, Babylon and Hattusha as super powers had more to do with credit and banking than with the change from Millet to Wheat, and the near industrial revolution in the 1100s Song Dynasty had more to do with acceptance for exchange in trade and clearing in the secondary market in warehouse receipts than the technical innovations themselves.
The true flowering in the 12th century Europe came with the renewal of banking and trade routes. Oddly, Cipolla discusses banking in other books, as does Joel Mokyr.

Posted by: Kindltot at July 13, 2025 10:00 AM (D7oie)

101 Thanks for the book thread, Perfessor! Glad to see your library is well guarded by the kittehs.

Posted by: Legally Sufficient at July 13, 2025 10:02 AM (kB9dk)

102 I got an unwelcome surprise this week. The current issue of Backwoodsman magazine is the last. I've enjoyed it for many years. Apparently the cost of materials, postage and the declining market for periodicals generally got to be too much. They may continue with a digital only version, a trend I've been noticing for other magazines.

My magazine subscription are all for niche subjects: woodcarving and whittling, black powder firearms and history, and fly tying. I hope they can survive. I keep the back issues and peruse them all the time. I can't be the only aging curmudgeon who doesn't like relying on ever changing technology that will quickly render digital media out of date and unsupported.

Posted by: JTB at July 13, 2025 10:04 AM (yTvNw)

103 Which is what I tell authors who think they don't need an editor: "Somebody may buy your first book. But if it isn't professional-looking (even aside from telling a good story), they'll be turned off. They won't buy your second -- and they'll tell others who won't buy your first."
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at July 13, 2025 09:57 AM (omVj0)
---
I have test readers, do a hard-copy edit and of late I read the author's proof aloud to my wife. Having it in actual book format makes the mistakes pop more than a manuscript.

Long Live Death has been revised twice since initial publication, and all the military and political technical stuff plus Spanish makes it a real challenge. It needs a real publisher to break through, but I'm noticing even Osprey books have typos in them these days.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at July 13, 2025 10:05 AM (ZOv7s)

104 Good morning Book People and thank you, Perfessor, for yet another wonderful Book Thread.

I'm currently reading Padre Pio and You by Mary O'Regan. Although my father had a devotion to Padre Pio, I knew next to nothing about him. It's an interesting and easy read.

As for books in with unlikeable characters, a long while back I read Ian McEwan's Saturday and could not stand a single character. Naturally, I didn't like the bad guys who were threatening the main character's family, but I also didn't like the main character or his family. Maybe the whole thing was too deep for me.

Posted by: KatieFloyd at July 13, 2025 10:05 AM (ZXhoe)

105 The true flowering in the 12th century Europe came with the renewal of banking and trade routes. Oddly, Cipolla discusses banking in other books, as does Joel Mokyr.

Posted by: Kindltot

You just reminded me to go back to Fernand Braudel's three volume series on civilization and capitalism. It has been on my TBR pile for ages.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at July 13, 2025 10:05 AM (Vfq+S)

106 Saturday was mostly valuable for its prophetic elements but yes those characters were distasteful

Posted by: Miguel cervantes at July 13, 2025 10:06 AM (bXbFr)

107 @92 --

Rex Stout was his true name.

He seemed to have been chunky, judging from the photos of him that I have seen.

His standout feature was his beard. Look for his photos and see for yourself.

Posted by: Weak Geek at July 13, 2025 10:06 AM (o/fn0)

108 The death of (legacy) short fiction started with the bookstores. When they stopped stocking the magazines, the magazines couldn't survive on subscriptions alone and a lot of them folded. The survivors, alas, tended to the woke side of things. Magazines are expensive to produce because of paper and shipping. The good news is with electronic versions things like length are less of an issue, and there are several electronic short story markets that have been doing well. Not enough to replace the pulp magazines yet. The other innovation is publishers like Raconteur Press, which produce themed anthologies of short stories (full disclosure, they published one of my short stories in Alien Family Values) The great thing about the anthologies is you get a bunch of stories on the same theme, instead of (with the pulps) one story you actually wanted and fifteen that bore you. Oh, and RacPress is definitely NOT woke. They just care about good stories.

Posted by: Sabrina Chase at July 13, 2025 10:07 AM (Sk/Ut)

109 The meditations were compiled by a little group of semi-schismatic religious sisters (they acknowledge the primacy of the Pope, but will only celebrate the Tridentine Latin Mass), the Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. This group was specifically identified as a "potentially dangerous radical traditional Catholic" organization in the, now infamous, FBI document targeting tradition Catholics from a few years ago.
Posted by: Retired Buckeye Cop is now an engineer at July 13, 2025 09:50 AM (pJWtt)
---
Now, that's funny - about an hour from my house, that order has a convent and school. I've been to Mass there several times and it's worth the drive.
Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing (aka Eloquent Depression) at July 13, 2025 09:57 AM (Dg2sF)

I suspect that the sisters might have quite the library. Loreto Publications specifically acknowledges getting the original Douay-Rheims Bible with ALL of Rev. Haydock's commentary from them when Loreto Publications did their reprint. (I highly recommend that Bible, by the way.)

Posted by: Retired Buckeye Cop is now an engineer at July 13, 2025 10:07 AM (pJWtt)

110 Call it moral relativism if you want, but this noting that there is no one, universal standard of goodness and evil is what gives legitimacy to a lot of weird stuff, and it has become increasingly pervasive in the popular culture.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at July 13, 2025 09:49 AM (ZOv7s)

———-

Nah, it’s mainly the result of a hyper individuality that has developed along the path of the Protestant reformation. Which itself was mainly a societal response to the invention of the printing press.

Posted by: MAGA_Ken at July 13, 2025 10:07 AM (YxG/6)

111 Still reading Peter Straub's Mr. X -- enjoying it, but for some reason I don't find myself wanting to sit down with it for hours and hours to get to the end, so it's a couple of chapters at the end of the day, and it's a long book.

Gave a quick read to George Pelecanos' novella "Owning Up" yesterday. Not bad.

If anyone's interested, the novel I put up umpteen years ago is called Doorways, and you'll find it at
www.amazon.com/Doorways-Tony-Rabig-ebook/dp/B01BA0EFHC
Don't forget the bicarbonate. If you like it, peachy keen and thanks. If you don't like it, please keep that news to yourself -- I have such a delicate ego...

Posted by: Just Some Guy at July 13, 2025 10:09 AM (q3u5l)

112 I blame Dungeons & Dragons for a lot of a current moral decay. No, not the demonic panic from the 70s, but the idea that ones "alignment" aka religion is merely a personal choice. Lawful Good and Lawful Evil are both equally valid.

Indeed, the choice of alignment is secondary to how well you follow it. Thus: a Chaotic Evil person will be judged not on their actions per se, but on whether they were sufficiently Chaotic and Evil. A lot of people seem to adhere to this idea. Recall Obama saying that "sin" was something out of alignment with his values.

Call it moral relativism if you want, but this noting that there is no one, universal standard of goodness and evil is what gives legitimacy to a lot of weird stuff, and it has become increasingly pervasive in the popular culture.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at July 13, 2025 09:49 AM (ZOv7s)

This philosophy is as old as mankind itself. D&D is just small dot in a world that has been practicing it to this day.

Posted by: Dr. Pork Chops & Bacons at July 13, 2025 10:09 AM (g8Ew8)

113 I shall have to try this Cipolla dude. Years ago I bought Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel, and still have it. It was fascinating to me at the time, and parts of it still are (info about large animals, for instance), but my worldview has grown beyond his.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at July 13, 2025 10:09 AM (omVj0)

114 My magazine subscription are all for niche subjects: woodcarving and whittling, black powder firearms and history, and fly tying. I hope they can survive. I keep the back issues and peruse them all the time. I can't be the only aging curmudgeon who doesn't like relying on ever changing technology that will quickly render digital media out of date and unsupported.

Posted by: JTB

Two of mine have ended in the past couple of years as well, specialized magazines with quality paper and pictures. One was due to the death of the pubisher/editor, the other due to not being able to make money printing a magazine.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at July 13, 2025 10:09 AM (Vfq+S)

115 Witness by Sandra Brown is a thrilling tale of mystery, lies, intrigue, and a secret conspiracy too horrible to contemplate. The story begins with a horrible auto accident in the rain, a series of escapes to avoid not only the evil doers but those on the side of law and order who seek only justice, and one main character's amnesia from the wreck. Great character development and a twisting, tangled plot that unravels slowly and with surprises around each bend. Secrets are kept until the last page and then - ta da! - still not revealed. Brown writes great tales of thrills and suspense that keep you hanging on to the end. Recommended.

Posted by: Legally Sufficient at July 13, 2025 10:10 AM (kB9dk)

116 Picked up a lot of great sounding recs this week- thanks, Perfesser and Horde!

Gave a new to me author another try, to be fair, but have concluded that, for me at least, she is just a poor writer, dull and plodding.
Her topics are as far as I can see, overlooked Girl Bosses of history and women reclaiming their power. This old lady is so over that.

I have a new Zadie Smith that looks good- a historical novel about fraud, called The Fraud, actually.

And speaking of first contact, I am planning a re-read of Michael Flynn's "Eifleheim".

Posted by: sal at July 13, 2025 10:10 AM (f+FmA)

117 What book have you read that you want it to be made into a movie?

I would really like them to make Armor into a movie. I understand that it has a Shamalamadingdong twist but I think some innovative screenwriter can make it work.

Posted by: polynikes at July 13, 2025 10:10 AM (VofaG)

118 Arroz has no clue as to why publishing is failing. Short version is three generations of students never learned/were never taught how to read. And that's by design. People who can't read are far more easily led down the primrose path to communism.

Posted by: 0007 at July 13, 2025 10:11 AM (ZrNSG)

119 I'll read it if the poacher is caught, tied down in the forest and the animals rend him asunder.
Posted by: Dr. Pork Chops & Bacons at July 13, 2025 09:33 AM (g8Ew

Nothing quite so graphic, although the good guys win in the end. Of interest for this website, in the middle of the book there is a judge who lets his own opinions dictate his rulings. This almost causes the game warden to loose his cool, and after that, he tends to issue warnings (with his fists) rather than bring offenders into court for actual citations...

Posted by: Castle Guy at July 13, 2025 10:11 AM (Lhaco)

120 If anyone's interested, the novel I put up umpteen years ago is called Doorways, and you'll find it at
www.amazon.com/Doorways-Tony-Rabig-ebook/dp/B01BA0EFHC
Don't forget the bicarbonate. If you like it, peachy keen and thanks. If you don't like it, please keep that news to yourself -- I have such a delicate ego...
Posted by: Just Some Guy at July 13, 2025

***
It looks fascinating, JSG, and I may get a Kindle one of these days. One question about the Amazon listing: What does "DRM-free" mean?

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at July 13, 2025 10:12 AM (omVj0)

121 I have test readers, do a hard-copy edit and of late I read the author's proof aloud to my wife. Having it in actual book format makes the mistakes pop more than a manuscript.

Long Live Death has been revised twice since initial publication, and all the military and political technical stuff plus Spanish makes it a real challenge. It needs a real publisher to break through, but I'm noticing even Osprey books have typos in them these days.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at July 13, 2025 10:05 AM (ZOv7s)

———-

If you need another set of eyes for proofreading, let me know.

Posted by: MAGA_Ken at July 13, 2025 10:13 AM (YxG/6)

122 Which is what I tell authors who think they don't need an editor: "Somebody may buy your first book. But if it isn't professional-looking (even aside from telling a good story), they'll be turned off. They won't buy your second -- and they'll tell others who won't buy your first."
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at July 13, 2025 09:57 AM (omVj0)

That's one reason I haven't published anything. Of course, part of it is fear my stuff's no good. And, self-pub isn't "free" no matter what anyone tells you. Try doing everything yourself, you'll still need to put out money to buy programs that will help you do the work. You format and typeset it yourself, you create a cover, you buy an ISBN (maybe), release it on Amazon or Ingram Spark... and sell five to ten copies in a year. Yeah, ain't got the money for that.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at July 13, 2025 10:13 AM (0eaVi)

123 Two of mine have ended in the past couple of years as well, specialized magazines with quality paper and pictures. One was due to the death of the pubisher/editor, the other due to not being able to make money printing a magazine.
Posted by: Thomas Paine at July 13, 2025 10:09 AM (Vfq+S)

My long time favorite Taproot, folded due to the latter. They were ad-free, which was lovely but not sustainable.
Still, they lasted for over a decade. I wouldn't trade anything for my collection.

Posted by: sal at July 13, 2025 10:14 AM (f+FmA)

124 I'm a fan of books dealing with the Arthurian legends. TOAFK to me is the cornerstone for them. It is also the one I enjoyed the least. Readable, but not enjoyable.

Posted by: Diogenes at July 13, 2025 10:15 AM (W/lyH)

125 63 Hey, I have an idea. I'll make a character wear a bear costume. Why? No idea. To fvck with audience, I guess.
-John Irving
Posted by: San Franpsycho at July 13, 2025 09:37 AM (RIvkX)

Nick Cage's agent: "Nicky, I just found your next movie!"

Posted by: Castle Guy at July 13, 2025 10:15 AM (Lhaco)

126 What book have you read that you want it to be made into a movie?

I would really like them to make Armor into a movie. I understand that it has a Shamalamadingdong twist but I think some innovative screenwriter can make it work.
Posted by: polynikes at July 13, 2025

***
My list is too long to cite, but Larry Niven's Ringworld is first.

And I think Ellery Queen's Siamese Twin Mystery would be a good bet. It has not only good dying message puzzles, but Ellery and his father are caught in a household atop a mountain -- not by the cliche snowstorm, but by a forest fire that is steadily working its way up the mountain. Built-in suspense.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at July 13, 2025 10:15 AM (omVj0)

127 What book have you read that you want it to be made into a movie?

I would really like them to make Armor into a movie. I understand that it has a Shamalamadingdong twist but I think some innovative screenwriter can make it work.

Posted by: polynikes

Lucky 666 deserves to be made into a movie. The longest aerial dogfight in history, and two medals of honor plus many more medals to the crew, on an incredibly daring solo mission in a cursed aircraft. I cannot believe that someone hasn't made a movie of this. Does no one here know Clint Eastwood's phone number?

Posted by: Thomas Paine at July 13, 2025 10:15 AM (Vfq+S)

128 No real new reading for me this week. I've been flipping through a few books, but nothing worth talking about. I am moving slowly along with my own book, and can almost see my way through to the end of the first draft. I'd like to have it out for Christmas, but I don't think that will happen.
Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing (aka Eloquent Depression) at July 13, 2025 09:59 AM (Dg2sF)

Another Theda Bara, or something different?

Posted by: OrangeEnt at July 13, 2025 10:16 AM (0eaVi)

129 I think I recommended it before but because of the current Middle East unrest and the worldwide drone warfare, Steven Pressfield’s The Profession is better now than when it came out in 2011.

Posted by: polynikes at July 13, 2025 10:16 AM (VofaG)

130 DRM free means I didn't slap digital rights management on it -- so if you want to read it on multiple devices, or suck it into Calibre to convert to some other format, or email a copy of the file to a friend, you should be able to do that and you'll get no complaints from Amazon or me. There's a paperback too, but it costs more.

I think a lot of stuff from Tor Books comes DRM free as well.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at July 13, 2025 10:16 AM (q3u5l)

131 If you need another set of eyes for proofreading, let me know.
Posted by: MAGA_Ken at July 13, 2025 10:13 AM (YxG/6)

How does one become a test reader for Horde authors? That might be something I would be good at and would be a contribution to the reading world.

Posted by: sal at July 13, 2025 10:18 AM (f+FmA)

132 Speaking of the latter, I've resumed watching the Type 56 podcast, and there is quite a bit of discussion about the French phase of the Vietnam conflict, which Greene describes. The podcast confirms what I found when writing Walls of Men that the Chicoms were effectively fighting a proxy war, and the Viet Minh were just along for the ride.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at July 13, 2025 09:08 AM (ZOv7s)

I didn't learn about the French phase of the conflict until I took military history in college. It's amazing what little you get taught in elementary/high school and how ignorant people are of history (or many other subjects) due to that.

Posted by: Farquad at July 13, 2025 10:18 AM (yqgaV)

133 Just Some Guy, just bought Doorways for the Kindle. It will be a while before I get to it because the TBR pile on the kindle is even bigger than the physical pile in my spare room. It sounds really interesting and I love a good time travel story.

Posted by: who knew at July 13, 2025 10:19 AM (+ViXu)

134 The Saul Bellow novel "Herzog" (not Whitey, Royals/Cardinals fans of a certain age) was assigned reading in the Advanced English class I had in my freshman year of college.

Having become hooked on comic books at that time, I didn't read it. Same for most of the other books on that class (I tried to read "Great Expectations" in one weekend to catch up. Hah!)

I should have failed but scraped out with a D.

That was when I realized that I liked fiction and not literature.

Posted by: Weak Geek at July 13, 2025 10:20 AM (p/isN)

135 I was at the dentist this week. She and her husband have three kids, 6 or 7, 5, and 3 years old. I told her about the Brambly Hedge books and they were a huge hit. A few weeks ago I gave her a hardcover copy of :The Lost Words" by Robert Macfarlane with those wonderful Jackie Morris watercolor illustrations. She showed me a photo of them sitting around a small table, big brother reading it to his little sisters, showing them the words and how they are spelled and how the illustrations work with the words. It was kind of her to do that and she was smiling as she described them. I was thrilled that my suggestion worked. I'm still smiling when I think about it.

Posted by: JTB at July 13, 2025 10:20 AM (yTvNw)

136 You just reminded me to go back to Fernand Braudel's three volume series on civilization and capitalism. It has been on my TBR pile for ages.
Posted by: Thomas Paine
________

Was blessed with a conservative college history prof who assigned Capitalism and Material Life, 1400 - 1800, which turned me on to Braudel. Highly recommend.

Posted by: Biff Pocoroba at July 13, 2025 10:21 AM (p16cu)

137 For some light reading, I came across The Road to Damascus by John Ringo and Linda Evans. Published in 2014 by Baen, it is a novel involving a Bolo. For those unfamiliar with the Bolo (a mechanical creation of SF author, Keith Laumer), they are what we would now term AI super-tanks.

The demarcations between the authors seemed to me to be pretty obvious. I suspect that Ringo wrote all the portions of the novel from the perspective of the Bolo, and Evans wrote the portions of the novel mainly involving the wife of the Bolo commander. Nowhere in the novel do we ever get any background on how the wife became a tactical genius fighting a planetary government developing into a bunch of corrupt Commies; the wife character is such an obvious Mary Sue.

The best parts of the novel were the peeks into the Bolo's thoughts. I thought the main female character made a number of stupid decisions based upon emotion rather than logic.

The book is too long: over 600 pages. However, it is a pretty quick read. Rating = 3.0/5.0

Posted by: Retired Buckeye Cop is now an engineer at July 13, 2025 10:21 AM (pJWtt)

138 What book have you read that you want it to be made into a movie?

We've been promised a Neuromancer movie since, what, the late 80s? It's probably a good thing that it didn't happen then because it would have sucked without the technology to do it right. Now that the technology exists, the cyberpunk phase has passed and no one would care.

Posted by: Oddbob at July 13, 2025 10:22 AM (/y8xj)

139 I'm a fan of books dealing with the Arthurian legends. TOAFK to me is the cornerstone for them. It is also the one I enjoyed the least. Readable, but not enjoyable.
Posted by: Diogenes at July 13, 2025 10:15 AM (W/lyH)

It's not great literature by any stretch of the imagination, but Catherine Christian's The Pendragon is pretty entertaining. It's told from the viewpoint of Bedevere, who is a boyhood friend of Arthur and one of his first knioghts. The story tries to set itself in the mid-sixth century and Merlin himself is no wizard, but a high-ranking Druid.

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing (aka Eloquent Depression) at July 13, 2025 10:23 AM (Dg2sF)

140 All of gibson tales were poorly adapted in part because of the screenwriters as well as the technology

You woupd think the material lends itself to being transferred in screen

Posted by: Miguel cervantes at July 13, 2025 10:25 AM (bXbFr)

141 What book have you read that you want it to be made into a movie?

Posted by: polynikes at July 13, 2025 10:10 AM (VofaG)

My own?

Posted by: OrangeEnt at July 13, 2025 10:25 AM (0eaVi)

142 Another Theda Bara, or something different?
Posted by: OrangeEnt at July 13, 2025 10:16 AM (0eaVi)

Theda Bara. It's set in 1922 and she is looking into the murder of the director William Desmond Taylor (a true Hollywood mystery). It's the third in what I had originally envisioned as a trilogy. I'll keep writing, but I have no idea what my next book will be about.

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing (aka Eloquent Depression) at July 13, 2025 10:25 AM (Dg2sF)

143 113 I shall have to try this Cipolla dude. Years ago I bought Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel, and still have it. It was fascinating to me at the time, and parts of it still are (info about large animals, for instance), but my worldview has grown beyond his.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at July 13, 2025 10:09 AM (omVj0)

For about a decade now, I've felt that "Guns, Germs, and Steel" should be read side-by-side with Victor Davis Hanson's "Carnage and Culture." GGS has some neat observations, but it also has some massive blind-spots. (Not to mention a few conclusions that just feel wrong.) C&C helps explain away those blind spots, although it does occasionally feel repetative.

Posted by: Castle Guy at July 13, 2025 10:25 AM (Lhaco)

144 Now that the technology exists, the cyberpunk phase has passed and no one would care.
Posted by: Oddbob at July 13, 2025 10:22 AM (/y8xj)

Don’t tell me you like Mortal Engines?
( only cyberpunk movie I could think of)

Though Alita might be one. I wish they would do a sequel.

Posted by: polynikes at July 13, 2025 10:25 AM (VofaG)

145 The book I want to see filmed is Mote In God's Eye, but . . .

There's a whole category of works that you just _know_ Hollywood would screw up, and Mote is one of them.

Posted by: Trimegistus at July 13, 2025 10:26 AM (78a2H)

146 135 I was at the dentist this week. She and her husband have three kids, 6 or 7, 5, and 3 years old. I told her about the Brambly Hedge books and they were a huge hit. A few weeks ago I gave her a hardcover copy of :The Lost Words" by Robert Macfarlane with those wonderful Jackie Morris watercolor illustrations. She showed me a photo of them sitting around a small table, big brother reading it to his little sisters, showing them the words and how they are spelled and how the illustrations work with the words. It was kind of her to do that and she was smiling as she described them. I was thrilled that my suggestion worked. I'm still smiling when I think about it.

I was thinking about this recently. I do the same thing, recommending and loaning out books a LOT.

we're the new librarians, now that that position is filled with leftist blobs.

Posted by: BlackOrchid at July 13, 2025 10:26 AM (Pv3Rg)

147 Some of it is charles stahelskis bailiwick (the guy behind john wick) with the futuristic noir landscapes

Posted by: Miguel cervantes at July 13, 2025 10:26 AM (bXbFr)

148 What book have you read that you want it to be made into a movie?

This Perfect Day by Ira Levin. I cannot understand why this hasn't been made. The man wrote Rosemary's Baby ffs.

Posted by: San Franpsycho at July 13, 2025 10:27 AM (RIvkX)

149 Angel should make a film (animated) of Traveller by Richard Adams.

I LOVEDDDD that book! I was more into horses but now I love it for the history

Posted by: BlackOrchid at July 13, 2025 10:27 AM (Pv3Rg)

150 What book have you read that you want it to be made into a movie?
______

Darkness at Noon. But no major studio would touch it.

Posted by: Biff Pocoroba at July 13, 2025 10:27 AM (p16cu)

151 Good morning all.
I have been having trouble getting into so,ething after finishing the ,ast Pierce Brown book and awaiting Spenser no. 35 from ABe books($4. Hardcover, free shipping). I got Norah Roberts new book from the library Hidden Nature. I had stopped reading her years ago but likes her fantasy books so thought I'd try it. It starts out kind of depressing with a girl boss detective getting shot, dying at the hospital but being brought back to life. She wakes up determined not to lose any of her girl boss qualities.
Then the villains are introduced and they are white trash cultists(you can guess the denomination) and just hard to take.
Then there is an entire chapter on Thanksgiving dinner, what was to be served, everybody's role, and what all,the guests are bringing for dinner as a set up for a one paragraph event.
I gave up and returned the book.

Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at July 13, 2025 10:28 AM (t/2Uw)

152 Mortal engines was more steam punk probably serving of a limited series to get people into the world building

Posted by: Miguel cervantes at July 13, 2025 10:28 AM (bXbFr)

153 This Perfect Day by Ira Levin. I cannot understand why this hasn't been made. The man wrote Rosemary's Baby ffs.

San Franpsycho YES!!!

and now is the time for this book. it would be incredible and helpful for people to understand

Posted by: BlackOrchid at July 13, 2025 10:28 AM (Pv3Rg)

154 150 What book have you read that you want it to be made into a movie?

Imma keep saying Shardik/Maia

be a great Netflix series and who cares what they do with casting

Posted by: BlackOrchid at July 13, 2025 10:28 AM (Pv3Rg)

155 If anyone's interested, the novel I put up umpteen years ago is called Doorways, and you'll find it at
www.amazon.com/Doorways-Tony-Rabig-ebook/dp/B01BA0EFHC

Posted by: Just Some Guy at July 13, 2025 10:09 AM (q3u5l)

Gulp! I bought a kindle version. No bicarb in the house. I'll read it later. And you're going to get a review.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at July 13, 2025 10:29 AM (0eaVi)

156 many research dollars (from taxes of course) wasted on an untestable and almost useless theory over multiple decades. I say almost since some useful math has come from at least one of the string theories. People seem to think that because the math works, then it works in reality, or in other words math=physics. Which is not the case.
Posted by: Farquad at July 13, 2025 09:56 AM (yqgaV)

Yeh, a lot of speculative physics has become a.playground for mathematicians to get their mental masturbation riffs going. Practical usefulness has been left behind.

Posted by: From about That Time at July 13, 2025 10:30 AM (n4GiU)

157 Mortal engines was more steam punk probably serving of a limited series to get people into the world building
Posted by: Miguel cervantes at July 13, 2025 10:28 AM (bXbFr)

Thanks I got my punks commingled . Carry on.

Posted by: polynikes at July 13, 2025 10:31 AM (VofaG)

158 Guns, Germs, and Steel -- and most other works covering the topic of why Europe rose rather quickly to dominate the globe -- suffers from a common problem in that genre. It is trying to posit "a" cause.

The Europeans had different advantages over different groups across the globe. Against the Indians of the New World, they had metal weapons and armor, plus military command structures and government systems vastly more effective. If the leader of your warband is killed in a fight, the warband breaks up and goes home. If the captain of your company is killed, the senior lieutenant assumes command.

Note that this didn't help at all against the societies of East Asia. They knew all about org charts. European domination there had to wait until the tech advantage got extreme enough that relatively small forces could rout bigger armies.

Et cetera.

Posted by: Trimegistus at July 13, 2025 10:31 AM (78a2H)

159 Follett is the master at writing characters I don’t like, plots and story lines I grow to deeply dislike, and that I end up finishing out of spite, but are none the less very popular, and I’m the dummy that still buys them.

Posted by: banana Dream at July 13, 2025 10:31 AM (cduTK)

160 Nothing quite so graphic, although the good guys win in the end. Of interest for this website, in the middle of the book there is a judge who lets his own opinions dictate his rulings. This almost causes the game warden to loose his cool, and after that, he tends to issue warnings (with his fists) rather than bring offenders into court for actual citations...
Posted by: Castle Guy at July 13, 2025 10:11 AM (Lhaco)

Dang! His cases appear before the SC?

Posted by: OrangeEnt at July 13, 2025 10:31 AM (0eaVi)

161 I'll third This Perfect Day.

But,IIRC there's a major potion of the book that doesn't lend itself to movie making.

I suppose they could skip over that part.

Posted by: naturalfake at July 13, 2025 10:31 AM (ZO/35)

162 OrangeEnt, you've probably hit one of the biggest reasons for the flood of awful self-pub. Money. Nobody's got the money to do a ton of advertising, pay artists, pay editors, for a book that they have to know up front won't sell enough any time soon to make expenses.

It is possible to do the whole thing practically free using freely available artwork and doing the formatting yourself, but that takes time. The truly lethal thing there is skipping the editor -- everyone thinks they turn out fairly clean copy, and it's never quite as clean as you think; I don't exclude myself from that. Didn't stop me from doing it on the cheap, because I don't have the bucks either.

And I don't like my own stuff as much as some other people do, which is one reason why I've not done a lot over the last several years.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at July 13, 2025 10:31 AM (q3u5l)

163 How does one become a test reader for Horde authors? That might be something I would be good at and would be a contribution to the reading world.
Posted by: sal at July 13, 2025 10:18 AM (f+FmA)
---
Email the authors and ask to be included. Pretty simple.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at July 13, 2025 10:33 AM (ZOv7s)

164 Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

Love some of the older church and sect names.
One of my local parishes was the Church of His Most Precious Blood.

Posted by: From about That Time at July 13, 2025 10:33 AM (n4GiU)

165 I would love to see Red Rising by Pierce Brown made into a movie and I am not alone. He has a huge fan base that keeps suggesting actors for the roles. Liam Hemsworth seems to be the most popular choice for the lead.

Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at July 13, 2025 10:34 AM (t/2Uw)

166 I’m looking up all these books to movie suggestions. That’s the best review and recommendation I think you can give a book.

Posted by: polynikes at July 13, 2025 10:34 AM (VofaG)

167 What book have you read that you want it to be made into a movie?

Posted by: polynikes at July 13, 2025 10:10 AM (VofaG)
*
My own?
Posted by: OrangeEnt at July 13, 2025

***
My modesty (which generally is the size of a mustard seed) prevented me from suggesting my own stuff. But I do have a strong visual imagination, and I love action scenes, suspense -- not something I've found in a lot of fantasy -- and funny dialog (ditto).

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at July 13, 2025 10:35 AM (omVj0)

168 Per a recommendation from my DiL, started " The Thursday Murder Club" by Richard Osman. About a third of the way in and finding the characters very endearing. I understand the series of novels is quite popular and is getting a movie treatment starring Helen Mirren, Pierce Brosnan and Ben Kingsley.

Posted by: Tuna at July 13, 2025 10:36 AM (lJ0H4)

169 What book have you read that you want it to be made into a movie?

Posted by: polynikes at July 13, 2025 10:10 AM (VofaG)
---
Lord of the Rings.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at July 13, 2025 10:37 AM (ZOv7s)

170 And I think Ellery Queen's Siamese Twin Mystery would be a good bet. It has not only good dying message puzzles, but Ellery and his father are caught in a household atop a mountain -- not by the cliche snowstorm, but by a forest fire that is steadily working its way up the mountain. Built-in suspense.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at July 13, 2025 10:15 AM (omVj0)

Reminds me. I watched Ellery Queen: Don't Look Behind You on YT last week. Peter Lawford as EQ? Ok, maybe as an older one. But he seemed rather preoccupied by a female. Harry Morgan as Inspector Queen? Ok, but they're too close together in age, so they made IQ his uncle, not father. And maybe not even because the characters mention EQ's English accent and they riff off "is he or isn't he related?" Eh, it wasn't bad.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at July 13, 2025 10:37 AM (0eaVi)

171 This past week I tried to get back into Peter Watson's "The Great Divide," a book that looks into the differences between how the new world developed differently than the old world. After reading about the excessive amount of human sacrifice in the late-era new world cultures, the book jumped back to Europe, and talked about why Europe ended up so different. He parroted the explanation offered by Rodney Stark (and others) that Christianity was an essential pre-requisite for modern science. The idea of the clockwork universe, the assumption that God made the universe and wants us to understand it...

Part of that reasoning is that other cultures (Islamic, Chinese, etc.) had such a different set of basic assumptions that taking the western approach would have been impossible. It made me realize I've never really delved into the mindset of those other cultures. The history, yeah, that's fascinating. But truly understanding the mindset...Not really...

Posted by: Castle Guy at July 13, 2025 10:38 AM (Lhaco)

172 How does one become a test reader for Horde authors? That might be something I would be good at and would be a contribution to the reading world.
Posted by: sal at July 13, 2025 10:18 AM (f+FmA)

Easy! Join A Literary Horde!!

maildrop62 at proton dot me

Posted by: OrangeEnt at July 13, 2025 10:39 AM (0eaVi)

173 145 The book I want to see filmed is Mote In God's Eye, but . . .

There's a whole category of works that you just _know_ Hollywood would screw up, and Mote is one of them.
Posted by: Trimegistus at July 13, 2025

***
And Niven & Pournelle's (plus Steven Barnes) The Legacy of Heorot. If ever there was a novel that could jumpstart a new Aliens-like franchise . . . Though they'd have to retitle it. Nobody would know what "Heorot" was. I didn't when I bought the book.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at July 13, 2025 10:39 AM (omVj0)

174 @117

>>What book have you read that you want it to be made into a movie?

Anything by Piers Anthony, The first Thomas Covenant Chronicles, Any number of Gabriel Garcia Marquez books.

The problem is that while the technology exists to make these movies, other than maybe Nolan or Cameron, there are no directors, writers and more importantly actors left that could make them good.

Posted by: Thomas Bender at July 13, 2025 10:39 AM (XV/Pl)

175 Books I'd like to see filmed (if they were done faithfully)?

Jeez, where to start? Silverberg's The Book of Skulls (William Friedkin was supposed to be doing this one, but it never happened, dammit). Zelazny's Isle of the Dead. Don Robertson's Mystical Union (probably unfilmable, though). William Goldman's Boys and Girls Together. Leiber's Our Lady of Darkness. On and on and on.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at July 13, 2025 10:40 AM (q3u5l)

176 That would be interesting casting with the before and after effect like the first avenger

Posted by: Miguel cervantes at July 13, 2025 10:40 AM (bXbFr)

177 Read Permissionless Innovation: The Continuing Case for Comprehensive Technological Freedom this week (again). TRex

Ah! Is that the one where dashing young stable boy Bob Toadvine is initially considered the suspect in the murder of his employer Lord Marmaduke Pendragon, but is ultimately saved through the love and determination of Pendragon's daughter, Fanny, who discovers that the Vicar did it in a rage over Pendragon's use of ketchup on jellied eels?

Or am I thinking of something else?

Posted by: Paco at July 13, 2025 10:40 AM (mADJX)

178 The Europeans had different advantages over different groups across the globe.
Et cetera.
Posted by: Trimegistus at July 13, 2025 10:31 AM (78a2H)
---
The one that few of the historians want to talk about is God. You'll get some grudging acknowledgement of the Black Robes working over Canada and the Great Lakes, Spanish missions, etc., but they want to reduce all cause and effect to impersonal, secular materialist causes.

That's changing a little as Christianity's decline in Europe in bringing society to the brink of collapse, which is why you get books like Dominion.

For the most part, though, they say it's tech and stuff.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at July 13, 2025 10:42 AM (ZOv7s)

179 Just want to say before people leave at the end of the thread, thanks to anyone purchasing Doorways; hope you won't feel like you've wasted the three bucks.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at July 13, 2025 10:42 AM (q3u5l)

180 I just read the synopsis of This Perfect Day.

It does sound like it would make a great movie.

A similar scenario movie except it’s Aliens controlling the earth is Captive State.

Posted by: polynikes at July 13, 2025 10:43 AM (VofaG)

181 A faithful movie adaptation of Neuromancer would be very bizarre. Best watched under the influence of your favorite intoxicant.

It's also, coincidentally, the origin of my nic.

Posted by: The Dixie Flatline (long time lurker) at July 13, 2025 10:44 AM (RNK1K)

182 Theda Bara. It's set in 1922 and she is looking into the murder of the director William Desmond Taylor (a true Hollywood mystery). It's the third in what I had originally envisioned as a trilogy. I'll keep writing, but I have no idea what my next book will be about.
Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing (aka Eloquent Depression) at July 13, 2025 10:25 AM (Dg2sF)

You're writing and publishing, that's what counts. Far ahead of those of us with manuscripts laying around collecting dust.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at July 13, 2025 10:44 AM (0eaVi)

183 Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at July 13, 2025 10:42 AM (ZOv7s)

Black Robe was an excellent movie. One of the best if you like that genre. They didn’t sugar coat anything.

Posted by: polynikes at July 13, 2025 10:44 AM (VofaG)

184 Reminds me. I watched Ellery Queen: Don't Look Behind You on YT last week. Peter Lawford as EQ? Ok, maybe as an older one. But he seemed rather preoccupied by a female. Harry Morgan as Inspector Queen? Ok, but they're too close together in age, so they made IQ his uncle, not father. And maybe not even because the characters mention EQ's English accent and they riff off "is he or isn't he related?" Eh, it wasn't bad.
Posted by: OrangeEnt at July 13, 2025

***
It was the most expensive EQ movie made up to that time, and they chose a good novel as the basis, an early* serial killer story. But the casting was way off. Around 2000 I suggested on some forum that a new, faithful film of it could be done with David Duchovny as Ellery, John Mahoney as the Inspector, and Christopher Plummer as Dr. Cazalis. My concept had the advantage that all of them, then, were alive and were the right ages to play the characters.

* EQ's was not the first such serial killer story, though they did not use that term in 1947. I'd guess maybe The Lodger was the first? And Philip MacDonald's Murder Gone Mad might qualify.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at July 13, 2025 10:45 AM (omVj0)

185 Pendragon's daughter, Fanny, who discovers that the Vicar did it in a rage over Pendragon's use of ketchup on jellied eels?

--------------

Kinky

Posted by: Dr. Pork Chops & Bacons at July 13, 2025 10:45 AM (g8Ew8)

186 Posted by: Thomas Bender at July 13, 2025 10:39 AM (XV/Pl)

And yet Hollywood keeps making the same movie over and over again.

Posted by: polynikes at July 13, 2025 10:46 AM (VofaG)

187 Don’t tell me you like Mortal Engines?
( only cyberpunk movie I could think of)

Though Alita might be one. I wish they would do a sequel.

I have not seen either although I have heard good things about the latter.

Posted by: Oddbob at July 13, 2025 10:46 AM (/y8xj)

188 Part of that reasoning is that other cultures (Islamic, Chinese, etc.) had such a different set of basic assumptions that taking the western approach would have been impossible. It made me realize I've never really delved into the mindset of those other cultures. The history, yeah, that's fascinating. But truly understanding the mindset...Not really...
Posted by: Castle Guy at July 13, 2025 10:38 AM (Lhaco)
---
This view was predominant a century ago. China in particular had the population and resources to dominate Europe, but not the mental tools to do anything other than sit where they were.

Islam provided the impetus for conquest, but it's greatest gains came because the West was weak and divided (and they were using captured tech). When the Europeans banded together (The Crusades, Vienna, Lepanto), Islam recoiled.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at July 13, 2025 10:46 AM (ZOv7s)

189 Well, time to go to Mass. Thanks again, Perfesser!

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at July 13, 2025 10:46 AM (ZOv7s)

190 What book have you read that you want it to be made into a movie?

Posted by: polynikes at July 13, 2025 10:10 AM (VofaG)

The Thicket, by Joe R. Lansdale. Great adventure, great characters.

*Just noticed on amazon that it actually has been made into a movie, exclusive on Tubi. I don't have Tubi. Maybe I will give Tubi a try.

Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at July 13, 2025 10:47 AM (h7ZuX)

191 Posted by: Oddbob at July 13, 2025 10:46 AM (/y8xj)

As someone mentioned above, Mortal Engines was Steam Punk and not very good.

Alita Battle Angel is one of my most watched movies.

Posted by: polynikes at July 13, 2025 10:49 AM (VofaG)

192 Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at July 13, 2025 10:47 AM (h7ZuX)

It’s got the dwarf Peter Dinklage starring. Is a dwarf a character in the book?

Posted by: polynikes at July 13, 2025 10:50 AM (VofaG)

193 179 ...hope you won't feel like you've wasted the three bucks.
Posted by: Just Some Guy at July 13, 2025 10:42 AM (q3u5l)

If I did, it's no big deal. I've wasted three bucks at a time in a myriad of useless ways.

Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at July 13, 2025 10:52 AM (h7ZuX)

194 OK, folks, if I don't step away, I won't get any writing done today and I want to get at least one page under my belt.

Hope you all have a lovely day.

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing (aka Eloquent Depression) at July 13, 2025 10:52 AM (Dg2sF)

195 It would also be nice to see good film adaptations of more of Fredric Brown's suspense novels.

And there's so much good sf/mystery/horror fiction out there that a good anthology series a la Hitchcock Presents or Twilight Zone could go twenty years if they were done right. I don't expect to live to see that happen, but I can dream.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at July 13, 2025 10:52 AM (q3u5l)

196 As a wise man once said, authenticity is the currency of the future.

As I have said, repeatedly, AI isn't.

Posted by: Cow Demon at July 13, 2025 10:53 AM (vm8sq)

197 >>What book have you read that you want it to be made into a movie?

A Conan the Barbarian movie that actually does justice to Robert E Howard's originals. I'd also love a second crack at a Solomon Kane movie.

And maybe a Red Sonja movie that doesn't suck. They released a trailer for the upcoming Red Sonja movie and, well, it doesn't look good. Among other things, I think I saw a big yellow truck in this 'sword and sorcery' film...

Posted by: Castle Guy at July 13, 2025 10:54 AM (Lhaco)

198 . . . David Duchovny as Ellery, John Mahoney as the Inspector . . .

***
Has anyone ever noticed that some of the quiet scenes between Frasier and his father are reminiscent of scenes between Ellery Queen and his father the Inspector? I would never suggest Kelsey Grammer play Ellery, but the similarity is striking.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at July 13, 2025 10:54 AM (omVj0)

199 I'm about to step out to run some errands, folk. Thanks for a fascinating Book Thread, as always, and I'll check back to see what else has been discussed.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at July 13, 2025 10:55 AM (omVj0)

200 As I have said, repeatedly, AI isn't.
Posted by: Cow Demon at July 13, 2025 10:53 AM (vm8sq)

AI is the new Excel.

Posted by: Dr. Pork Chops & Bacons at July 13, 2025 10:56 AM (g8Ew8)

201 (I tried to read "Great Expectations" in one weekend to catch up. Hah!)

Posted by: Weak Geek at July 13, 2025 10:20 AM (p/isN)

I am so sorry. No one should have to read that pile of crap.

Posted by: Cow Demon at July 13, 2025 10:57 AM (vm8sq)

202 It’s got the dwarf Peter Dinklage starring. Is a dwarf a character in the book?
Posted by: polynikes at July 13, 2025 10:50 AM (VofaG)

Yes. A dwarf who is into astronomy. Another character is a former slave (IIRC), who is accompanied everywhere by a wild pig. Pig is independent enough not to be considered a pet, but really is kind of a pet.

And whores, and villains of all kinds, and a feckless young man who needs the previous two characters to help him defeat the latter.

Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at July 13, 2025 10:57 AM (h7ZuX)

203 Saw the new Superman movie last night. Pretty good. I think it's noteworthy that both Doomcock and the reviewer at Tor.com liked it. That's broad support!

Nice use of classic Superman lore, lots and lots of callbacks to the Christopher Reeve movies. Including (be still my heart) the John Williams theme. All good.

You may ask, "is there Woke bullshit?" And the answer is that the director and/or writers tried to shove some in, but ultimately Superman was too strong for them. By which I mean that despite portraying Lex Luthor as a Muskesque tech baron, and some treating the question "is an alien from Krypton a citizen?" as something self-evidently wicked rather than a fascinating legal question, ultimately what allows Superman to come back from his lowest point and prevail is his American traditional family upbringing in flyover country.

Posted by: Trimegistus at July 13, 2025 10:58 AM (78a2H)

204 It’s got the dwarf Peter Dinklage starring. Is a dwarf a character in the book?

He made a good giant in that one Thor flick.

Posted by: Oddbob at July 13, 2025 10:58 AM (/y8xj)

205 On the topic of books with an entirely unlikable cast, Penhollow by Georgette Heyer is one of only two books by her that I hate and the cast of truly horrible people is the main reason. The other one is My Cousin Kate, and that is because the mystery part revolves around a psychopath and I don't like that sort of mystery.

Posted by: Polliwog the 'Ette at July 13, 2025 10:59 AM (lFFaq)

206 203 Saw the new Superman movie last night. Pretty good. I think it's noteworthy that both Doomcock and the reviewer at Tor.com liked it. That's broad support!

I will see it myself eventually. AZ from heelvsbabyface is ripping it as I type. Nerdrotic was not impressed. I don't think TCD was crazy about it either. The regulars on Midnight's Edge dug it.

Just got to deconflict the work schedule but I will see it in theaters.

Posted by: Cow Demon at July 13, 2025 11:00 AM (vm8sq)

207 neverenoughcaffiene-- there has to be an Apple specialty shop in Missoula with all the U of Montana kids there. Not an Apple dtore but a repair/sales shop.

Posted by: free tibet with purchase of equal or greater value tibet at July 13, 2025 11:03 AM (iNp3L)

208 I have a feeling the theater here will be packed for Superman next weekend.
I mean we have a Trump plus American flag, plus the Constitution mural on the side of the beer barn.

I would like to see Jetta Carleton's "The Moonflower Vine" as a movie, except they would make it a travesty.

Posted by: sal at July 13, 2025 11:05 AM (f+FmA)

209 More of Lawrence Block's Matt Scudders on film would be nice too. Ditto more Donald Westlake. I'd also like to see a better adaptation of Heinlein's The Puppet Masters; the one that came out couldn't touch the novel, even though Donald Sutherland was perfectly cast and made the whole thing watchable.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at July 13, 2025 11:06 AM (q3u5l)

210 "they would make it a travesty."
So maybe just read it. It's a re-discovered classic.

Posted by: sal at July 13, 2025 11:07 AM (f+FmA)

211 A number of academics have complained about this - both problems with reproducible findings and cockeyed theories having more to do with how the world should be and less with what actually is observable. This seems to be a problem not just in physics and mathematics, but also in economics, History, Medicine, and as far as I can tell, everything that has a school in a University, and gets external funding.
Posted by: Kindltot at July 13, 2025 09:26 AM (D7oie)

25 years ago as a bright eyed history student I envisioned a world where history departments would seriously branch out here in the United States and have sections dedicated not just to U.S history but histories in all areas of the world in a renewed emphasis to study the hell out of not just Europe, but Asia, India, Africa, South America...

Boy was I wrong. The emphasis is on BS like "gender studies", "Gay and Lesbian studies" and the like. Don't get me started on "labor history". That is the abode of people who hate Stalin for not being hard left enough.

Posted by: Cow Demon at July 13, 2025 11:07 AM (vm8sq)

212 There had been talk of making The Hyperion Cantos into a movie, but I kind of hope they don't, unless they make it into a longer-format mini-series. 2.5 hours isn't enough time to tell that story.

Posted by: I am the Shadout Mapes, the Housekeeper at July 13, 2025 11:08 AM (PiwSw)

213 MP4,

Please let us know when the next Theda Bara book comes out, whenever that is. I enjoyed the first two immensely and have them in hardcover.

Posted by: JTB at July 13, 2025 11:11 AM (yTvNw)

214 Gender studies, ethnic studies, etc.

How much damage has been done by the admonition to students to get out there and make a difference?

Kinda like journalism heading downhill once enough people bought into the idea that the journalist was supposed to afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted.

What would have been wrong with simply reporting the who, what, when, etc? What would be wrong with telling students they're in a terrific country, so forget the fundamental transformations and maintain what you've got?

Posted by: Just Some Guy at July 13, 2025 11:12 AM (q3u5l)

215 Posted by: Just Some Guy at July 13, 2025 10:09 AM (q3u5l)

Got it. You neglected to mention you also had a number of short stories.

Posted by: Polliwog the 'Ette at July 13, 2025 11:14 AM (lFFaq)

216 I would go with Lloyd's choice

Posted by: Skip at July 13, 2025 11:15 AM (+qU29)

217 Polliwog,

Most of the stories are in the collection -- save some bucks where you can.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at July 13, 2025 11:16 AM (q3u5l)

218 Good morning, Bookfolk!

Remember Summer Reading Challenges at the local public library? My county library system has an adult category and this week I completed the challenge of 2000 minutes! I've been listening to All The Light We Cannot See while I work out and I finished it this week. Excellent book; highly recommend. Set in WWII, the main characters are a blind French girl and a German boy gifted electrical engineer. But what I really want to discuss is the the writing style and format. 1/2

Posted by: March Hare at July 13, 2025 11:20 AM (O/GSq)

219 118 Arroz has no clue as to why publishing is failing. Short version is three generations of students never learned/were never taught how to read. And that's by design. People who can't read are far more easily led down the primrose path to communism.
Posted by: 0007 at July 13, 2025 10:11 AM (ZrNSG)

I wish I could agree.

See, I have noticed in schools that there are the kids that read on their own, in about the same proportion to when I was in school. It still happens. (And it doesn't take stupid people to go to communism. Note that some of the biggest names in the commie rogues gallery were very intelligent, well read people.)

Posted by: Cow Demon at July 13, 2025 11:23 AM (vm8sq)

220 2/2 The author, Anthony Doerr, alternates POV among the various characters, although primarily on the French girl and German boy. He also moves through the timeline, starting in 1944 and the Siege of San Merlo in Brittany, then back to the late 1930's when the primary characters were children. Sounds crazy, especially in audiobook format, but it works. Kudos to the reader, a male, who didn't try for voices or accents and was able to make clear who, when, and where the story was happening. Mr. Doerr also divided his chapters into subchapters, with headings, that also helped retain the focus.

Aspiring Moron authors might want check out this book and see if this technique is something they want to play with.

Posted by: March Hare at July 13, 2025 11:25 AM (O/GSq)

221 Apologies, it is Eric Weinstein.

Here he is on Joe Rogan ...

https://youtu.be/qJUCwmoC7VI?si=UC-ypm4vylu4xrse
Posted by: Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars

Thanks for that. I decided to study physics, just for my own fun, and ran into the conundrum.
This is the way it is... it doesn't work, but we'll just keep adding unknowns until it does...

Posted by: MkY at July 13, 2025 11:26 AM (cPGH3)

222 The students may be taught to read, but publishing's in trouble in part I think because somehow they don't learn that reading long form stuff (or even short stories) can be fun.

As to all the intelligent well-read lefties -- seems to me they all know better than those long-dead dummies who came before them. Just ask them. They know how everything should be run, and too many of them would be perfectly happy to kill you if you don't agree.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at July 13, 2025 11:28 AM (q3u5l)

223 MPPP has noted it, but 'The Book of Merlyn' is White's final work on Arthur. It was not even published in England, but in America by The University of Texas press of all people.

I recently found a copy of this first edition at my local Used Bookshop. Cost all of $3. Go figure...

Movies: I don't want to see any of my favorite books made into movies. So there. Hollywood "writers" are loathsome swine who hate everything, and do their feeble best to subvert and/or ruin the basic elements of the story. So, in the case of 'Ringworld' they would make Louis Wu a tranny freak, Speaker to Animals a vegetarian, and Nessus a Viking Spock. And they would travel to the Ringworld to save it from Global Warming.

Feh.

Posted by: Brewingfrog at July 13, 2025 11:31 AM (ys+zb)

224 Last night, put up on Amazon a new short story which makes the fourth in the last thirty days plus. Been hearing forever that short fiction is dying. Is it? IDK. I'm a zombie writer, so y'know, my opinion on life and death of the market is unclear.

That Peter Hamilton series, I only read part of the first book. I think individually invincible swarms of foes is a bad thing in a book.

Been reading several Craig Falconer 'summer sizzlers' which are novellas. One of the first was this left wing reporter who stole a time machine, and found to his dismay that he was a prophet in the Future.

'The Pilgrims' is a novel. Aliens are coming. Degenerate scum steals money from his Mom to spend the last moments before the aliens blow us up with an OnlyFans girl. Aliens arrive. His mind gets rearranged a lot by the two sides.

Posted by: Eric2 at July 13, 2025 11:31 AM (q7Vou)

225 And of course, a bunch of those lefties are now in publishing, so why should anything that goes against their wisdom be circulated among a population that just isn't as brilliant as they are?

Posted by: Just Some Guy at July 13, 2025 11:32 AM (q3u5l)

226 As to all the intelligent well-read lefties -- seems to me they all know better than those long-dead dummies who came before them. Just ask them. They know how everything should be run, and too many of them would be perfectly happy to kill you if you don't agree.
Posted by: Just Some Guy at July 13, 2025 11:28 AM (q3u5l)

The more things change, the more they stay the same. We're living in a very old story.

Posted by: Dr. Pork Chops & Bacons at July 13, 2025 11:33 AM (g8Ew8)

227 As to all the intelligent well-read lefties -- seems to me they all know better than those long-dead dummies who came before them. Just ask them. They know how everything should be run, and too many of them would be perfectly happy to kill you if you don't agree.
Posted by: Just Some Guy at July 13, 2025 11:28 AM (q3u5l)

JSG, you forgot the "" around "intelligent well-read lefties." As you know, they're really not intelligent and well read at all.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at July 13, 2025 11:33 AM (0eaVi)

228 OrangeEnt -- yep, shoulda had the quotation marks.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at July 13, 2025 11:35 AM (q3u5l)

229 Last night, put up on Amazon a new short story which makes the fourth in the last thirty days plus. Been hearing forever that short fiction is dying. Is it? IDK. I'm a zombie writer, so y'know, my opinion on life and death of the market is unclear.

Posted by: Eric2 at July 13, 2025 11:31 AM (q7Vou)

There are fewer print options out there. I've looked for hard-boiled, light comedy, spy, western, and sci-fi. There's not much out there. As said in the vid, Amazon discontinued their magazine subscription area. If finding short fiction is only available on Amazon and a few other sites, it is shrinking.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at July 13, 2025 11:38 AM (0eaVi)

230 I read "American Assassin" by Vince Flynn. Great thriller.

Posted by: no one of any consequence at July 13, 2025 11:41 AM (3Rpkk)

231 Gotta go. Thanks for the thread, Perfessor.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at July 13, 2025 11:41 AM (0eaVi)

232 Well, gotta do a few annoying household things, pester Mrs Some Guy, all that.

Thanks for the thread, Perfessor.

And thanks again, Horde. Have a good one.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at July 13, 2025 11:44 AM (q3u5l)

233 I read "American Assassin" by Vince Flynn. Great thriller.

Posted by: no one of any consequence at July 13, 2025 11:41 AM (3Rpkk)

All of Flynn's books are good. I would have loved for him to have lived long enough to see how he'd be writing now and what he'd have Mitch Rapp up to.

Posted by: Dr. Pork Chops & Bacons at July 13, 2025 11:45 AM (g8Ew8)

234 "What book have you read that you want it to be made into a movie?"

I read Mary Shelly's "Frankenstein" a little while ago. It's great. None of the films follow the book exclusively. Should be made into a mini-series, if needed.

Posted by: no one of any consequence at July 13, 2025 11:45 AM (3Rpkk)

235 Shadow Physics: by Adam Kay.. A moron recommendation that I will second.
Posted by: who knew at July 13, 2025 09:45 AM (+ViXu)

Super excited to hear this, I love that book. I think it also ties into the discussion of the real next technological breakthrough - we need gravitational equations (and mastery) on a par with Maxwell’s equations.

Posted by: Candidus at July 13, 2025 11:47 AM (6VvdC)

236 Thank you for the Book Thread Perfessor and many thanks to those who posted book recommendations. They are much appreciated.

Posted by: Rufus T. Firefly at July 13, 2025 11:47 AM (qliBS)

237 I am currently reading "The Way of Perfection" by St. Terese of Avila. Great writing. Easy to understand. Very good for Christian meditation as we see a "society of the world" and a "society of the church" coexisting in the same physical space.

Posted by: no one of any consequence at July 13, 2025 11:48 AM (3Rpkk)

238 Super excited to hear this, I love that book. I think it also ties into the discussion of the real next technological breakthrough - we need gravitational equations (and mastery) on a par with Maxwell’s equations.
Posted by: Candidus at July 13, 2025 11:47 AM (6VvdC)

We need safe and efficient flying Cars.

Posted by: Dr. Pork Chops & Bacons at July 13, 2025 11:49 AM (/iKaI)

239 Sharkman at July 13, 2025 09:13 AM (/RHNq)

Going to second this recommendation, Tchaikovsky is great at bio-based sci-fi, a really rich, under-developed area.

Posted by: Candidus at July 13, 2025 11:51 AM (6VvdC)

240 Shadow Physics: by Adam Kay

Same price in hardcover or paper on Amazon and both a few bucks less than Kindle. Go figure.

Posted by: Oddbob at July 13, 2025 11:56 AM (/y8xj)

241 Not steampunk but cyberpunk, I think the adaptation of Gibson's "Peripheral" on Amazon is pretty good (though I don't remember the book and it may be that
Chloë Grace Moretz is just so gorgeous).

Posted by: Candidus at July 13, 2025 11:56 AM (6VvdC)

242 Waste of my time but finished, because down to the final word I just wanted a REASON: A Spool of Blue Thread by Anne Tyler. She killed off the only likeable character and mishandled the only character who was intriguing.

Posted by: Marybel Smiles at July 13, 2025 11:56 AM (ZQb51)

243 Not steampunk but cyberpunk, I think the adaptation of Gibson's "Peripheral" on Amazon is pretty good (though I don't remember the book and it may be that
Chloë Grace Moretz is just so gorgeous).

Good book, good miniseries, but only uh "peripherally" related.

Posted by: Oddbob at July 13, 2025 11:59 AM (/y8xj)

244 As to all the intelligent well-read lefties -- seems to me they all know better than those long-dead dummies who came before them. Just ask them. They know how everything should be run, and too many of them would be perfectly happy to kill you if you don't agree.
Posted by: Just Some Guy

There are various graphic memes out there with
"Leftism, Ideas so good they have to kill people"

Posted by: Itinerant Alley Butcher at July 13, 2025 12:00 PM (/lPRQ)

245 Thanks again, Perf and Horde. I always appreciate recommendations.

Off to interact with Meatspace.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at July 13, 2025 12:00 PM (kpS4V)

246 Chloë Grace Moretz is just so gorgeous).
Posted by: Candidus at July 13, 2025 11:56 AM (6VvdC)

Too bad she is a lesbo.

Posted by: polynikes at July 13, 2025 12:01 PM (VofaG)

247 WE HAZ A NOOD

Posted by: Skip at July 13, 2025 12:01 PM (+qU29)

248 Once and Future King is one of my favorite books!! We read it in 9th grade and the teacher (former Cambridge professor) delved into the political ramifications of the story and how it applied to Western politics. Stuff going on in the world made a little more sense to me after that.

I'm reading The Books of Enoch and Heiser's Commentary on the Books of Enoch now, and for those not brought up with these apocryphal books, whoo doggie! It's a wild ride!!!

Posted by: moki at July 13, 2025 12:04 PM (wLjpr)

249 i suspect the pants are some sort of mixed-language pun. "hot dolgist" -> typo or pun on "dolg", slovene adjective meaning long, therefore "i've got a hot long one"?

Posted by: anachronda at July 13, 2025 12:05 PM (edU/H)

250 248 Once and Future King is one of my favorite books!! We read it in 9th grade and the teacher (former Cambridge professor) delved into the political ramifications of the story and how it applied to Western politics. Stuff going on in the world made a little more sense to me after that.

Posted by: moki at July 13, 2025 12:04 PM (wLjpr)

That teacher didn't gavel his class to order, did he?

Posted by: Cow Demon at July 13, 2025 12:05 PM (vm8sq)

251 244 As to all the intelligent well-read lefties -- seems to me they all know better than those long-dead dummies who came before them. Just ask them. They know how everything should be run, and too many of them would be perfectly happy to kill you if you don't agree.
Posted by: Just Some Guy

There are various graphic memes out there with
"Leftism, Ideas so good they have to kill people"
Posted by: Itinerant Alley Butcher at July 13, 2025 12:00 PM (/lPRQ)

No question. On Mao's deathbed were many classics of Chinese literature. He loved to read, and read constantly. He told his followers back during the Great Leap Forward "A good revolutionary doesn't read too many books." Fucking hypocrite.

Posted by: Cow Demon at July 13, 2025 12:10 PM (vm8sq)

252 My bitch about Jared Diamond and Guns Germs and Steel is that he is an ornithologist who seems to have specialized in Island species, and those are the ones most likely to go extinct under outside competition as the ecology of islands change from invader species.
I feel this is an approach from a "fragility mindset" which is at odds to what seems to be more of an adaptive / maladaptive break approach in describing coping with cultural and technological change, and as a philosophical approach, denies that things like carrying capacity can be changed in an environment, and that human flourishing is possible without explicit externalization of costs to other "outside" cultures.
a steady-state world is very reassuring to the cultural and economic elites, but it causes fragility in the face of technological change.

Posted by: Kindltot at July 13, 2025 12:11 PM (D7oie)

253 Mao was a librarian by training

Posted by: Kindltot at July 13, 2025 12:12 PM (D7oie)

254 Neverenoughcaffeine:
I didn't read what your computer problems are, but my Apple guru works long-distance (though Bozeman to Missoula isn't that far). He does a lot of my stuff from his office. I have a whirligig on my laptop and he signs into it, asking permission each time, and then crawls around its innards until he finds the problem.

Posted by: Wenda at July 13, 2025 12:18 PM (8p/ok)

255 I’m looking up all these books to movie suggestions. That’s the best review and recommendation I think you can give a book.
Posted by: polynikes at July 13, 2025 10:34 AM (VofaG)

Ok, then my proposal is The Unwound Way by Bill Adams and Cecil Brooks. Science Fiction, Secret Agents, alien artifacts, lost races, and a desperate struggles on an alien world that appears to be only a conspiracy to enslave a sector of the galaxy.

Posted by: Kindltot at July 13, 2025 12:19 PM (D7oie)

256 Orange Ent,
Rex Stout was a wisp of a man with a beard that looked as though he had dipped his chin in soapsuds.

I was told that he patterned Nero Wolfe after the actor Sidney Greenstreet.

Posted by: Wenda at July 13, 2025 12:20 PM (8p/ok)

257 Orange Ent,
Rex Stout was a wisp of a man with a beard that looked as though he had dipped his chin in soapsuds.

I was told that he patterned Nero Wolfe after the actor Sidney Greenstreet.
Posted by: Wenda at July 13, 2025 12:20 PM (8p/ok)

Just checking in.

Ha! Why doesn't that surprise me.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at July 13, 2025 12:23 PM (0eaVi)

258 I’m usually late on here but I wonder if the comic book guys have read anything by Chris Ware - he does graphic novels. I’m just curious b/c he’s a childhood friend of mine. Maybe I’ll bring it up later.

Posted by: Norrin Radd, sojourner of the spaceways at July 13, 2025 12:24 PM (JcWw+)

259 Thanks for that. I decided to study physics, just for my own fun, and ran into the conundrum.
This is the way it is... it doesn't work, but we'll just keep adding unknowns until it does...
Posted by: MkY at July 13, 2025 11:26 AM (cPGH3)

it is called "epicycles". It is the newest thing. Essentially it explains how perfect Heavenly bodies which move in perfect circular orbits can have such observed variations from predictions, and it does away with the concept of ether filling space supporting their passage.

Posted by: Kindltot at July 13, 2025 12:26 PM (D7oie)

260 253 Mao was a librarian by training
Posted by: Kindltot at July 13, 2025 12:12 PM (D7oie)

And at one point a teacher.

Posted by: Cow Demon at July 13, 2025 12:26 PM (vm8sq)

261 257 I always think of Rush when I think of Nero Wolfe.

Posted by: Norrin Radd, sojourner of the spaceways at July 13, 2025 12:27 PM (JcWw+)

262 I always think of Rush when I think of Nero Wolfe.
Posted by: Norrin Radd, sojourner of the spaceways at July 13, 2025 12:27 PM (JcWw+)

I think of William Conrad.

Yeah, ask again next week's thread about comics. They guys are early.

Status of your book?

Posted by: OrangeEnt at July 13, 2025 12:28 PM (0eaVi)

263 Re: The Once and Future King. I have that edition in hardback and read it as a young'un, before the Disney movie came out. My dad was a BIG fan of Arthurian legends; Prince Valiant was a staple in the Sunday Comics section of the paper.

I bought a two-volume edition of Sir Thomas Mallory's Le Morte D'Arthur when I was in college which includes several stories that I didn't remember from T.H. White's version. The Mallory edition is written in the English of 1485 and, IIRC, I had to read some of the sentences outloud in order to make sense of them. I can't imagine reading Mallory without knowing the general outlines of the Arthurian legends.

Posted by: March Hare at July 13, 2025 12:40 PM (O/GSq)

264 "...story where everyone is unlikeable..."
Bonfire of the Vanities.

Posted by: Joe Redfield at July 13, 2025 01:11 PM (KOtXO)

265 Orange Ent,
Rex Stout was a wisp of a man with a beard that looked as though he had dipped his chin in soapsuds.

I was told that he patterned Nero Wolfe after the actor Sidney Greenstreet.
Posted by: Wenda at July 13, 2025

***
If so, Wenda, Stout must have seen Greenstreet in a stage performance at some point. The first Wolfe novel appeared in 1934 -- and Greenstreet did his first movie in 1941.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at July 13, 2025 01:25 PM (omVj0)

266 "15
"Yes, the old SF magazines are stumbling. F & SF is only every other month now, or maybe it's quarterly.
"***
"Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at July 13, 2025 09:09 AM"

So it's come full circle. The Magazine of F&SF began in 1949 (Vol. 1, No. 1, Fall 1949) as a maybe quarterly magazine. The next four issues were Winter, Summer, Fall and December 1950, and it then went to publishing every other month in 1951, and in 1952 until November 1952 when it went to monthly publication. It skipped an issue in 1975, and after that I'm not sure of the publication history as my complete collection, and interest in the magazine, ends in 1976.

Galaxy Science Fiction skipped the December 1955 issue, and went to publishing every other month from 1959 through 1968 when it resumed monthly publication in November. Worlds of If also went to a less regular publishing schedule about the same time as Galaxy (they were published by same company and, IIRC, alternated publishing months for awhile).

SF mags cont below...

Posted by: Pope John 20th at July 13, 2025 01:46 PM (yl1YV)

267 SF mags post cont

So even in the golden era (or maybe it was the silver era) of science fiction magazines, the market could be a bit choppy at times.

Still, as you say, the market for hard-copy fiction magazines of all types has weakened tremendously since the 1960s. My own interest in those magazines pretty much much ended by the 1970s with the death or retirement of my favorite authors in the 60s and 70s. Consequently, after about the 1980s issues my magazine collections of the big four (F&SF, Galaxy, Astounding/Analog and Worlds of If) are very hit or miss.

SF mags cont below...

Posted by: Pope John 20th at July 13, 2025 02:02 PM (yl1YV)

268 Theologically, Bobby Dollar doesn't make sense.

We are saved by faith, through grace. Not by works. Or deserving.

That stuff drives me crazy in books.

Posted by: Mark Andrew Edwards, buy ammo, food, water at July 13, 2025 02:04 PM (xcxpd)

269 @258 --

I recognize the name Chris Ware, but I don't think I've read anything he did.

Posted by: Weak Geek at July 13, 2025 02:04 PM (p/isN)

270 SF mags post cont

Maybe "electronic magazines" as pdfs or Kindle-type pubs for modern fiction will expand over time and kill off the last few hard-copy pulp-type magazines left-heck, maybe electronic mags are already widely available and I've just not noticed it yet. Most of the stuff I read nowadays (pdfs and Kindle books of older fiction, and less popular aspects of military history-I'm reading mostly about the Italian wars, 80 years war and the military transformation of early modern Europe at the moment) isn't found in bookstores and so I rarely go into one-I do get some stuff from uni and research libraries, but I mostly get those through interlibrary loan.

Or maybe blogs, substacks, blog comment sections, podcasts, ewwtube videos and the like are or can become a modern substitute for the old genre magazines.

Posted by: Pope John 20th at July 13, 2025 02:41 PM (yl1YV)

271 late, but amazing to see two (3?) references to Escape From Shadow Physics.

re edits: I typically add corrections as notes to my Kindle books. Not sure if or how they'd been seen.

Posted by: yara in Katy at July 13, 2025 02:54 PM (EbWSH)

272 Late again, but enjoyed the post & discussions.

What book have you read that you want it to be made into a movie?

Invulnerable — maybe as an animation
linked in nic

Posted by: mindful webworker - hahaha hahaha at July 13, 2025 03:15 PM (+kBwA)

273 I picked up a few dirt cheap copies of old Ellery Queen pulp magazines at my library's sale bin. It's too bad they went out of style, they were fun. I do wonder if some of those stories will vanish forever, being so out of print, of it someone has taken time to hunt down all the old collections and digitize them.

We are not a society that reads anymore, at least not like in the past. Instead we watch and stream stories. But I do see a revival of the anthology on Amazon and through indie publishing. AI voice readers are getting more expressive and sophisticated, so these digital books can easily become audiobooks now. They will never replace a true voice actor, but they allow for more access. Hopefully it inspires a new crop of readers and writers.

Posted by: LizLem at July 13, 2025 03:20 PM (gWBY1)

274 Black cats are the best cats!

Posted by: IndyBill at July 13, 2025 03:35 PM (+WI3k)

275 me

Paris in the Terror, by Stanley Loomis. Nonfiction, 1964.

Posted by: mnw at July 13, 2025 03:51 PM (kd60y)

276 "I picked up a few dirt cheap copies of old Ellery Queen pulp magazines at my library's sale bin. It's too bad they went out of style, they were fun. I do wonder if some of those stories will vanish forever, being so out of print, of it someone has taken time to hunt down all the old collections and digitize them."

LizLem: Yeah, unfortunately much of our "literary" culture has disappeared through neglect and the ravages of time. For example, because no-one had much incentive to preserve them and preservation was costly and difficult, many silent and sound era films, radio programs and early TV programs have not survived. Much the same has happened with what were then mostly viewed as disposable magazines from long, and not so long, ago. Some attempts have been made to preserve them-Forry Ackerman famously had a collection of science fiction and horror magazines that could be literally measured by the ton, but he lacked funds to properly preserve them and so much rotted away.

Pulp mag availability cont below...

Posted by: Pope John 20th at July 13, 2025 04:17 PM (yl1YV)

277 Orange Ent,
Rex Stout was a wisp of a man with a beard that looked as though he had dipped his chin in soapsuds.

I was told that he patterned Nero Wolfe after the actor Sidney Greenstreet.
Posted by: Wenda at July 13, 2025

***
If so, Wenda, Stout must have seen Greenstreet in a stage performance at some point. The first Wolfe novel appeared in 1934 -- and Greenstreet did his first movie in 1941.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at July 13, 2025 01:25 PM (omVj0)

Nero Wolfe was patterned after Mycroft Holmes. Fat, set in his ways, and solved mysteries without leaving his domicile.

Rex Stout was one of the founding members of the Baker Street Irregulars: started as a drinking club with a passion for the Sherlock Holmes stories written by Arthur Conan Doyle.

Posted by: Retired Buckeye Cop is now an engineer at July 13, 2025 04:24 PM (pJWtt)

278 Pulp mag availability cont...

Although lots of the pulps, particularly the early issues, perished, some survived in the hands of private collectors and others. Although there doesn't seem to be quite the same effort to scan and make the pulps as Faded page, Gutenberg, Internet Archive and the like have done for books and (in the case of the Archive) other media, collectors have scanned quite a few of the pulp mags and made pdfs of them available online for download. A quick check shows that many Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine issues from its first issue through the early 70s are available online. The Internet Archive is always a good place to start for older texts, although the shear quantity of material available there can make searches difficult. Anyway, start there, and if you need further leads just post a request here on the Sunday Book thread with some mention of what you are looking for and I'll try to provide additional suggestions...

Pulp mag availability cont below...

Posted by: Pope John 20th at July 13, 2025 04:31 PM (yl1YV)

279 Pulp mag availability cont...

Oh, and some small commercial publishers are mining the old magazines for stories and reprinting collections of older out-of-print stories by authors who have a following. For example, Haffner Press has been reprinting lots of collections of science fiction and mystery stories from the pulp mags. It has already published the first two of a four volume collection of Fredric Brown's mystery stories, and has books with some of the less well known works by Leigh Brackett, Henry Kuttner, Catherine (CL) Moore and others. Be careful ordering directly from Haffner, however, as its web site has not been updated for quite a while and so I'm not sure it's still in business. Most of the Haffner stuff published so far can be ordered through Amazon which is safer.

Posted by: Pope John 20th at July 13, 2025 04:36 PM (yl1YV)

280 Delve into the world of mindfulness with insights that both engage, offering novice learners and seasoned practitioners alike a fresh viewpoint on cultivating inner peace. Whether blending these practices into your daily schedule or refreshing your approach to stress management, our post promises to ignite your personal growth. Thank you for joining us on this undaunted journey!

Access: https://talkchatgpt.com/
chat gpt русский

Posted by: WilliamHof at July 13, 2025 06:29 PM (tBfmz)

281 Finished my discrete math book this week. It was so much fun I decided to stop putting off reading Life of Fred Calculus and jump right in. Done four chapters so far. Chain rule!

Posted by: pjungwir at July 13, 2025 06:43 PM (q4wrI)

282 The Once and Future King is my all-time favorite. There is so much depth that its survived 20+ readings. But I wouldn't want it made into a movie. As Frank Herbert experienced with Dune, the skillset necessary to translate text into video is unique. You would need someone as great as T. H. White and with today's PCBS they would turn it into Trans propaganda or somesuch.

Posted by: Fenrisulven at July 14, 2025 01:05 AM (ciYHQ)

283 I'm still haunted by these lines (from memory, so apologies if it's off)

The miracle was that he'd been allowed to perform a miracle. And ever, says Mallory, Lancelot wept as if he were a child who had been beaten

Posted by: Fenrisulven at July 14, 2025 01:10 AM (ciYHQ)

284 So much talk about the Once and Future King. Just read Mallory! It is so good. The language is not really a big deal. Sound it out. It's mickle fun.

Posted by: pjungwir at July 14, 2025 01:50 AM (q4wrI)

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