Sunday Morning Book Thread - 01-15-2023 ["Perfessor" Squirrel]

(ht - CBD)

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. Here is where we can discuss, argue, bicker, quibble, consider, debate, confabulate, converse, and jaw about our latest fancy in reading material, even if it's nothing more than Kevin McCarthy's "to do" list. As always, pants are required, especially if you are wearing these pants...

So relax, find yourself a warm kitty (or warm puppy--I won't judge) to curl up in your lap, sprinkle some cinnamon and sugar on your toast, and crack open a new book. What are YOU reading this fine morning?

PIC NOTE

CBD sent me today's pic. I'm pretty sure I've seen it before somewhere on the interwebs. I do like it. It's a rather interesting and unique way to set up a library. Though if the shelves are truly arranged in a circle, how do you know where to start? As I mentioned in a previous thread, I'm pretty OCD when it comes to organizing my books. I suspect this picture is actually fairly old, as the laptop on the desk is pretty ancient. If it were my library, I'd make a few changes. First up, I'd do something about the ladder so that it could be raised or folded up out of the way when I didn't need it. I'd also think about adding a skylight in the ceiling above the shelves (not sure if there is one already there). And I'd add some perches for my kitty cats.

ANTAGONISTS ARE NOT ALWAYS VILLAINS

A story is only as good as its antagonist. It's the antagonist that drives the conflict within a story and ALL stories are about conflict. We read stories to see how the protagonist overcomes the antagonists. Not all antagonists are mustache-twirling Snidely Whiplash types that tie damsels to railroad tracks because they can't pay the rent. Simply put, the antagonist is an obstacle to be faced and defeated in some way. Violence is not always required, though I do enjoy a good bash-'em-up where the hero gets smacked around before finally prevailing by employing some violence of his own.

However, an antagonist doesn't have to be the "villain" of the story, nor do they even have to be human. Consider the classic short story, "The Little Engine that Could," where the challenge for the little engine is summoning his own confidence in driving a train to the top of a steep mountain. There's no "villain" in the story, only a mountain that stands in his way. A classic science fiction story is "The Cold Equations," where the pilot of a spaceship only has enough air for his own life support. Then he discovers a stowaway and has to decide how or if they will both be able to survive if there's only enough oxygen for one of them. The antagonist is the harsh reality of space travel where supplies of essential life support are strictly limited.

Another example of non-villainous antagonists shows up in detective stories, particularly when the detective is at odds with local law enforcement. The detective is attempting to solve a murder using methods that normally are frowned upon by the law (such as breaking and entering or stealing) because the detective is more interested in finding out the truth. By contrast, law enforcement is more interested in following proper procedures and therefore often serves as an obstacle to the detective's goals. Both want to solve a murder, but have different methods or achieving that goal.

At the moment I'm reading a series that has multiple layers of antagonists. Some of them are true "villains" and others are not. For instance, a galactic civil war is a political problem that doesn't have true villains because both sides do have legitimate grievances. Unfortunately, because they are at odds with each other, they are threatening to destabilize the entire galaxy. Meanwhile, this conflict is being driven by an evil woman who is seeking vengeance on the heroes for past grievances. And a young boy is going through adolescence trying to figure out his own role in the galactic conflict because of his relationship with the main characters. He's also being twisted and manipulated by the villains.

What are some of YOUR favorite stories that have a non-villain antagonist?

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IT PAYS TO INCREASE YOUR WORD POWER

teleological - adj. - A philosophical term meaning "exhibiting or relating to purpose or design especially in nature."

Comment: The context for this word seems to be related to understanding or studying the ends or purposes of things. For example, if an act produces a good result or a bad result, then the action that led to the result can be judged as good or bad. Of course, this also leads to the idea that the ends justifies the means, which is not always true.

schmatte - n. - an old ragged garment; tattered article of clothing.

Comment: This word appears to be derived from Yiddish (shmate) and Polish (szmata), both of which refer to a "rag." Doesn't seem to be used often enough...

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BOOKS BY MORON-ADJACENT AUTHORS

I don't know if Larry Correia is a member of the Moron Horde, but I do know he's Moron-adjacent as a co-author with Sarah Hoyt, who is a bona-fide 'ette.

Heads up - there is a giveaway for In Defense of the Second Amendment by ILOH* on goodreads
https://tinyurl.com/mr2dfkv8
Also available for preorder on the usual sites
Would be cool if a Moron won it
all the best,
vmom
*International Lord of Hate as he is fondly called by his fans

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MORON RECOMMENDATIONS

Reading The Myth of Artificial Intelligence by Erik J. Larson. (2021)
Twenty percent into the book. Quite good so far. Nothing too technical which makes it a fine YA book.
Posted by: 13times at January 08, 2023 09:56 AM (JIkWe)

Comment: In my own field of instructional design, a hot topic right now is ChatGPT, an AI program that's supposed to be able to write papers for you. Faculty are *freaking* because they believe students will now just use AI in order to write essays for assignments. Of course, there's only so much that an AI program can do. As with all AI at the moment, the results are somewhat mixed. It can be very good for answering general questions that don't require much reflection. However, it cannot capture the essence of an individual and write a deeply personal essay about one's experiences. In the class I teach, I focus on that element so that students write about themselves and THEIR experiences. They write deeply reflective essays, especially at the end when they examine the writing exercises they did in class. So I'm really not too worried about an AI system.

+++++

Currently reading Slaying the Dragon: A Secret History of Dungeons and Dragons by Ben Riggs. I'm about half way through it. Pretty interesting if you ever played D&D. It's more or less about the rise and fall of TSR, the company founded with the creation of D&D. Some really bad management decisions all the way through back to Gygax.
Posted by: Darth Randall at January 08, 2023 10:11 AM (bPkSk)

Comment: For those of us who grew up playing Dungeons and Dragons, the backstory behind the company is pretty wild stuff. TSR produced some very amazing products. Lots of iconic adventures and scenarios. One key lesson about running any business seems to be to make sure that the people developing the product have *some* idea of how to run a business or at least know how to work with those who do. And those who are running the business should also have a vested interest in developing a quality product. We see that now with the companies that are going woke all over the place. The people running the companies don't seem to give a damn about the actual product they are selling.

*cough*WoTC*cough*

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The midweek book posts reminded me to go back and reread The Man Eaters of Tsavo. This is the true story of Col John Patterson, hired to build a bridge over the Tsavo river in Kenya. His team of natives and Indians were beset by a pair of lions, who killed between 40 and 100 workers (the authorities didn't keep good records of non white workers in those days). The book details his ultimately successful killing of the beasts. Although written by an engineer over a century ago, the story is fascinating. Hollywood made a film about it with Val Kilmer, The Ghost and the Darkness, though they added a part for Michael Douglas that is completely fabricated. Ignoring all of Douglas' scenes, one can see the true story, which is amazing enough.
Posted by: Thomas Paine at January 08, 2023 09:22 AM (A8t5V)

Comment: This is a great example of a story with a non-villain antagonist. Although lions can be made out to be evil, man-eating monsters, in truth they are only acting according to their animal natures. They just happen to be apex predators within their ecology. Thus, the story is about man v. nature, where man has to summon his own courage and skill against millions of years of feline evolution that created near-perfect, amoral killing machines.

+++++

The Guest Room by Chris Bohjalian is a terrific book. And the audio version with the voice actor woman playing all the parts, men and women and the Russian sex slave girl with her accent ("police guys") is the best way to enjoy it.
Posted by: Mr Gaga at January 08, 2023 09:12 AM (KiBMU)

Comment: When I read the blurb for this book, it was a reminder to perform background checks on all of your hired entertainment. Make sure they are not psycho-killer sex slaves. Just an FYI...Also, because of the complex nature of the story, it looks like this could be one where there are different layers of antagonists, depending on the POV of the character. The girls who kill their captors and initiate the story are fully justified in their actions (probably) even though they end up causing a number of problems for the main character who hired them in the first place.

More Moron-recommended reading material can be found HERE! (581 Moron-recommended books so far!)

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WHAT I'VE BEEN READING THIS PAST WEEK:

Still working my way through Star Wars: Legacy of the Force. Although not "great" literature, there's still a lot of interesting points that seem strangely relevant, such as one group of star systems attempting to break away from the Galactic Alliance. And lots of interference from third parties trying to stir up a hornet's nest, causing chaos throughout a galaxy far, far away...

Star Wars: Legacy of the Force 3 - Tempest by Troy Denning

Star Wars: Legacy of the Force 4 - Exile by Aaron Allston

Star Wars: Legacy of the Force 5 - Sacrifice by Karen "I ♥ Boba Fett" Traviss

That's about all I have for this week. Thank you for all of your kind words regarding the Sunday Morning Book Thread. This is a very special place. You are very special people (in all the best ways!). The kindness, generosity, and wisdom of the Moron Horde knows no bounds. Let's keep reading!

If you have any suggestions for improvement, reading recommendations, or writing projects that you'd like to see on the Sunday Morning Book Thread, you can send them to perfessor dot squirrel at-sign gmail dot com. Your feedback is always appreciated! You can also take a virtual tour of OUR library at libib.com/u/perfessorsquirrel. Since I added sections for AoSHQ, I now consider it OUR library, rather than my own personal fiefdom...

PREVIOUS SUNDAY MORNING BOOK THREAD - 01-08-23 (NOTE: Do NOT comment on old threads!)

Posted by: Open Blogger at 09:00 AM

Comments

(Jump to bottom of comments)

1 hiya

Posted by: JT at January 15, 2023 09:00 AM (T4tVD)

2 I read this last week!

Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 15, 2023 09:00 AM (Angsy)

3 Tolle Lege

Posted by: Skip at January 15, 2023 09:00 AM (xhxe8)

4 Not sure that library is practical

Posted by: Skip at January 15, 2023 09:01 AM (xhxe8)

5 I dig the almost subterranean feel of that library.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Sans-Culottes (except for the Book Thread) at January 15, 2023 09:02 AM (Dc2NZ)

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

Posted by: JTB at January 15, 2023 09:03 AM (7EjX1)

7 And Perfessor, any horizontal surface is by law a cat perch.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Sans-Culottes (except for the Book Thread) at January 15, 2023 09:03 AM (Dc2NZ)

8 Read "On the Trail of the Tumbling T," a non Hoppy novel by Clarence Mulford.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 15, 2023 09:04 AM (Angsy)

9 No to a skylight over the shelves. The book covers would fade.

Posted by: Weak Geek at January 15, 2023 09:04 AM (Om/di)

10 The pants: The tiger that mauled Roy Horn.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 15, 2023 09:05 AM (Angsy)

11 Booken morgen horden!

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at January 15, 2023 09:05 AM (BtmcP)

12 The ladder is one of those collapse kinds, been on them occasionally and seem sturdy.

Anyway, finished my first Osprey Campaign history by Alexander Mikaberidze's Battle of the Berezina. Well done and really the most horrific stories in the entire Napoleonic era.

Posted by: Skip at January 15, 2023 09:05 AM (xhxe8)

13 Not sure that library is practical
Posted by: Skip

Why ? Just cause ya gotta levitate to get a book ?

Posted by: JT at January 15, 2023 09:07 AM (T4tVD)

14 Anthony Boucher's locked room mystery "Rocket To The Morgue" (1942) has an amusing chapter in which our inspector visits a group of science fiction authors clearly based on SoCal greats. "Austin Carter" (Heinlein) holding court over simulacrums of L. Ron Hubbard, Jack Williamson, and rocketeer Jack Parsons, and others. Anthony Boucher is dismissed as a hack.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Sans-Culottes (except for the Book Thread) at January 15, 2023 09:07 AM (Dc2NZ)

15 Good morning again dear morons and thanks Perfessor

My mom wore a schmatte around the house and her mother before her

Posted by: San Franpsycho at January 15, 2023 09:08 AM (EZebt)

16 That library is problematic. One's weight on the ladder would cause damage to the books.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at January 15, 2023 09:08 AM (B5lud)

17 I finished John Keay's India: A History. Keay is the same author who wrote an excellent history of China, and like that book, this one is a general work, covering the entirety of the subcontinent's history. It starts with the Harappan culture along the Indus - modern day Pakistan; one of the earliest civilizations along with the Mesopotamians and Egyptians, and ends in 2000, so it doesn't cover the last 20 years.

I find Keay's writing style very easy to read, yet he conveys enormous amounts of information, so if this is a topic of interest, I highly recommend the book.

One minor quibble: he seems to be inordinately impressed by the Islamic contribution to India, and doesn't give their slaughter of Hindus as much attention as it deserves, but for a modern day author, it's fairly understated. Either that, or I've just become hypersensitive to such bias.

Posted by: Archimedes at January 15, 2023 09:10 AM (eOEVl)

18 Good morning fellow readers.
Wasted several hours of my life reading a poorly written and poorly researched historical novel about the Channel Islands under Nazi occupation. Got about half way through and threw it in the trash.
Next up is Rod Dreher's " Live Not by Lies".
Anybody read that? Got it for Christmas.
Also working my way through a book about discipleship and Christian community -- "A Deeper Walk" by Marcus Warner.

Posted by: TecumsehTea-not a resident troll at January 15, 2023 09:10 AM (BjGT6)

19 What's a schmatte a with you?

Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 15, 2023 09:10 AM (Angsy)

20 Mornin' bookies.

Posted by: Debby Doberman Schultz at January 15, 2023 09:11 AM (a4EWo)

21 This "Legacy of the Force" series, with so many writers, seems that it has a strong editor to keep the story from running all over the place.

I heard Robert Asprin say at a convention that fans follow writers but professional writers follow editors.

Posted by: Weak Geek at January 15, 2023 09:13 AM (Om/di)

22 I don't think the pants guy owns a weedwhacker. (if you catch my drift)

Posted by: JT at January 15, 2023 09:13 AM (T4tVD)

23 Morning again, all! Booken Threaden!

I like the coziness of the library pic. I may adopt it for a story.

I'm dipping into short stories in an anthology called Westward: A Fictional History of the American West, "28 original stories celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Western Writers of America." Dale Walker is the editor. The first story involves the first Indian to see a horse brought by the Spaniards (he calls it an "elk-dog"). I'm up to the 1880s. There's a story by Loren D. Estleman that I'm looking forward to.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at January 15, 2023 09:13 AM (omVj0)

24 Good Sunday Morning, horde!

The Man-Eaters of the Tsavo looks interesting, was going to add it to my amazon list, BUT--some editions are .99 on kindle, so I just purchased it instead.

Posted by: April - Dash my lace wigs! at January 15, 2023 09:13 AM (OX9vb)

25 Which one so we can avoid it

Posted by: No 6 at January 15, 2023 09:13 AM (PXvVL)

26 Sent you an e-mail, Perfessor.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 15, 2023 09:15 AM (Angsy)

27 Morning all, Thanks Squirrel!, (nods nonchalantly to book enthusiasts).

Still slogging my way through TE Lawrence's Revolt In The Desert. Clearly this was the inspirational guidebook to the movie, Larry of Arabia. What strikes me is not just the massive amount of "artistic license" taken, but that there were plenty of authentic 'scenes' that COULD have been used, with great dramatic effect, while remaining accurate as well. Alas...

Posted by: goatexchange at January 15, 2023 09:15 AM (APPN8)

28 This week I read Three Miles Down: A Novel of First Contact in the Tumultuous 1970's by Harry Turtledove. This was recommended here several months ago by multiple posters. I think the best thing I can say about a book is that as I read the last line, I was wishing that this was the first in a series, or at least there will be a sequel. Thanks to those who recommended it.

Posted by: Zoltan at January 15, 2023 09:16 AM (tTH8i)

29 The "Star Trek" episode on MeTV last night had a non-villain antagonist -- an interstellar amoeba that drained e ergy. It destroyed a solar system and a starship before the Enterprise crew destroyed it.

That episode was my first exposure to TOS; until then, all I had seen was the animated show. Quite a shock to me that they killed the creature.

Posted by: Weak Geek at January 15, 2023 09:18 AM (Om/di)

30 Finally, on to books.

I received "Mad for Decades" yesterday. At around 800 pages, this should provide enjoyment for years. I wish it were larger than its 8 x 6.5 inches and that it had a table of contents and an index, but then it would have been even thicker.

I also came across a website that has almost ALL of Mad's first run, taken from the Wayback Machine on the Internet Archive and apparently using software from the "Totally Mad" CD-ROM from the late 1990s. I have those discs -- somewhere.

The website is madcoversite -- stick a .com after that. (Keep Pixy happy.)

I got a huge laugh from a 1958 Mad item about a new food craze -- pizza pie. (Yes, "pizza" used to be an adjective!) "Like all fads, Pizza Pie popularity may fade." Good thing they didn't offer investment advice!

"Poker & Pop Culture" shows that the game is a bit player in Las Vegas, even after the World Series of Poker and its ilk came along. It makes up about 1 percent of casino profits. Even the WSOP used borrowed space for several decades.

Posted by: Weak Geek at January 15, 2023 09:19 AM (Om/di)

31 I heard Robert Asprin say at a convention that fans follow writers but professional writers follow editors.
Posted by: Weak Geek at January 15, 2023 09:13 AM (Om/di)
---

I'm reading a collection of Gardner Dozois's short stories, with each story introduced by a writer, and each one tells of how Dozois helped them overcome obstacles, go in a better direction, and tighten up their story. And also his sense of humor. A great editor helps make a community of writers.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Sans-Culottes (except for the Book Thread) at January 15, 2023 09:20 AM (Dc2NZ)

32 I liked the flight attendant i think the hbo series made a hash of it

Posted by: No 6 at January 15, 2023 09:20 AM (PXvVL)

33 SMH should ask the gummint if brandon can keep all them Top Secret docs, why can't she keep her tank ?

Posted by: JT at January 15, 2023 09:21 AM (T4tVD)

34 Tecumseh-Tea (love the nic!)

I found "Live Not by Lies" kind of lightweight, as a Moron.
We've already discussed everything he has to say.

Posted by: sal: tolle adversarium et afflige inimicum at January 15, 2023 09:21 AM (wE246)

35 It was a good week for acquiring used books. From the used book store I brought home the massive hardcover "Gardner's Art Through the Ages" 9th edition along with the Instructor's edition for teaching the course. (Several commenters on the art thread mentioned it was the book they used in college art appreciation and history. Under 4 bucks for each when the new text books cost way over a hundred dollars.

I don't know if science major text books are this heavy but as a literature major I was glad I was young and strong. A lot of the text books weighed a ton. (Thinking of the Riverside Shakespeare as an example.)

Posted by: JTB at January 15, 2023 09:22 AM (7EjX1)

36 Good morning Hordelings and Howdy Perfessor!
I'm trying to be a better reader. I am great at STARTING books. I suck at continuing to read them. Perhaps I need some type of structure. Set aside a certain amount of time regularly? Schedule it like a project? Appreciate any suggestions.

Posted by: Doof at January 15, 2023 09:22 AM (yUjc0)

37 Rereading one of the great Star Trek novels, "How Much For Just The Planet?", which I just now learned has Tuckerizations aplenty, just like "Rocket To The Morgue":

https://tinyurl.com/yb2mchwd

Anyway, if you ever thought Star Trek would make a great Gilbert and Sullivan operetta, this book is for you!

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Sans-Culottes (except for the Book Thread) at January 15, 2023 09:23 AM (Dc2NZ)

38 Doof, do you have a comfortable place to read?

Posted by: Tonypete at January 15, 2023 09:24 AM (qoGsy)

39 I'm rereading The Case Against Sugar by Gary Taubes. I've also started The Girl Who Played With Fire by Stieg Larrson.

Posted by: That Northern skulker at January 15, 2023 09:24 AM (eGTCV)

40 I found "Live Not by Lies" kind of lightweight, as a Moron.
We've already discussed everything he has to say.
Posted by: sal: tolle adversarium

I suspect Rod Dreher lurks here, then trots off to write his books using our material.

Posted by: April - Dash my lace wigs! at January 15, 2023 09:25 AM (OX9vb)

41 I am currently reading 'Rosebud'. This is the little-known story of the battle of Rosebud Creek in June 1876. It is actually one of the largest battles of the Indian wars, despite its lack of notoriety. General Crook and his men encountered a large band of Sioux, barely escaped annihilation, and had to retreat. The outcome of this battle is why Crook and his men were not on hand at the Little Bighorn as planned to assist George Armstrong Custer, and resulted in the famous last stand just a few days later.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at January 15, 2023 09:26 AM (sSF0X)

42 Non-villian antagonist? Scarlett O'Hara and the Civil War, plus Reconstruction.

Scarlett, like Kristin Lavransdatter, is a good example of the "Oh, Honey- No" heroine.

But I'm guessing the antagonist has to be outside yourself, right?

Posted by: sal: tolle adversarium et afflige inimicum at January 15, 2023 09:26 AM (wE246)

43 Yeah, that's a cool design.

Function? Nah, we forgot to build that in.

Posted by: naturalfake at January 15, 2023 09:26 AM (KLPy8)

44 That episode was my first exposure to TOS; until then, all I had seen was the animated show. Quite a shock to me that they killed the creature.

Posted by: Weak Geek at January 15, 2023 09:18 AM (Om/di)

Should have done a rip off episode of that for TNG and had Picard let the creature destroy the Enterprise instead because of human privilege or something. Or at least sacrificed Wesley to it....

Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 15, 2023 09:28 AM (Angsy)

45 Special Duty: A History of the Japanese Intelligence Community by Richard J Samuels.

https://tinyurl.com/Special-Duty

Samuels chronicles the ups and downs of post-Meiji restoration Japanese intelligence work. It is dry as non-fiction works on espionage tend to be, but not overly so. The Japanese efficacy on data gathering has waxed and waned with highs,such as their having the mine layout at the Port Arthur attack, to lows more recently, such as an inability to penetrate North Korean actions in the wake of the kidnapping scandals.

Perversely, a bigger fear and reverence shown by the Japanese Intelligence apparatus towards their own constitution than our domestic ones have for ours. I'd say that the at-gunpoint-enforced civic education the occupying authorities delivered to the Japanese and German populace is far more effective than our own apathetic and negligent one.

Happy reading.

Posted by: sven at January 15, 2023 09:29 AM (Lzpvj)

46 Doof, do you have a comfortable place to read?
Posted by: Tonypete at January 15, 2023 09:24 AM (qoGsy)

I do. I think my issue is finding a way to limit my mind from wandering. Or minimizing distractions.

Posted by: Doof at January 15, 2023 09:30 AM (yUjc0)

47 34 sal: tolle adversarium

Thanks, sal
Book is a gift from someone who heard about it but hadn't read it. I think it was discussed here, or somewhere, because it was on my list of tbr.
Of course, that list is long and gets longer every Sunday, thanks to all the people here.

Posted by: TecumsehTea-not a resident troll at January 15, 2023 09:30 AM (BjGT6)

48 Rereading one of the great Star Trek novels, "How Much For Just The Planet?", which I just now learned has Tuckerizations aplenty, just like "Rocket To The Morgue":

https://tinyurl.com/yb2mchwd

Anyway, if you ever thought Star Trek would make a great Gilbert and Sullivan operetta, this book is for you!
Posted by: All Hail Eris, Sans-Culottes (except for the Book Thread) at January 15, 2023

***
I've never read it, but I met the author, John M. Ford, at an SF con in about '83. In person he didn't seem to have much of a sense of humor, but maybe I didn't hang around him long enough. He was busy eyeballing the then-Mrs. Wolfus No. 2, of course.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at January 15, 2023 09:30 AM (omVj0)

49 I remember it was hotly debated back in the day as to whether the books were part of the official Trek canon, like there ought to be a Council of Nicaea to determine true adherence to Roddenberrian doctrine.

For myself, I love the idea that the wackiness of "How Much For Just The Planet?" actually happened.

Oh -- I just learned that there is a thing called "fanon", in which ideas get widely circulated and accepted among fan culture about a particular property and become unofficially canonical (if such a thing can...be).

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Sans-Culottes (except for the Book Thread) at January 15, 2023 09:31 AM (Dc2NZ)

50 Doof, books are meant to be entertainment. Treat them as a duty, and you spoil the fun.

It took me several tries -- over years -- to finish "The Dogs of War." Glad I did.

I intersperse my main book with others. In addition to the poker book, I'm reading a collection of Dr. Strange stories. And now I have the Mad book.

Now that I'm older than 29, I know I'm racing the calendar, but I won't let that drive me.

Posted by: Weak Geek at January 15, 2023 09:31 AM (Om/di)

51 44 Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 15, 2023 09:28 AM (Angsy)

The Crystaline entity...

There is Jean Lucky the Brit Frog asshole preening at the Captain's table saying of a creature that has annihalated multiple solar systems...

"who are we to judge?"

Yeah Jean listen fuck you who are you to fly around in a ship at Federation member expense and not fucking protect Federation citizens from harm?

It was at that point I decided fuck TNG and never looked back.

Posted by: sven at January 15, 2023 09:31 AM (Lzpvj)

52 I am about halfway through An Instance of the Fingerpost by Iain Pears. It is set in the 17th century, and four characters each tell their version of a murder and the events leading to and following it.

It is funny to reflect on the combination of great advances in medicine and science, paired with a lingering belief in astrology and witchcraft. Nicely done.

I chose this one for the family book club; I hope my children aren't too upset with me. Many triggers in this book for a millennial.

Posted by: April - Dash my lace wigs! at January 15, 2023 09:32 AM (OX9vb)

53 sra blaster just learned about Chat GPT or maybe GBT there seems to be flavors). One of her employees has asked it to write a Python script for him. She is amazed. Mentions it at home and youngest child (junior in high school) is all you are just finding out about that? Lots of kids use it to write essays.

I recall in the 80s my mother was teaching middle school social studies and she showed me the country report one kid had done for a project. Look at all this - wow. I said he just went to PC Globe and hit print. I showed her PC Globe and she was much less impressed with the kid.

Posted by: blaster at January 15, 2023 09:32 AM (pwExq)

54 More used books arrived this week. First was a copy of "Westward into Kentucky: The Narrative of Daniel Trabue" about the early settlement of Kentucky after the Revolutionary War. It's an era and location that interests me and ties in with my muzzleloading hobby.

Then there is a 1944 edition of "The Pickwick Papers", leather bound hardcover in excellent condition. Pickwick Papers has been a surprising delight; by far my favorite Dickens. This luxurious edition really adds to my enjoyment.

Well made hardcover books (more on this later) are more appealing these days when I can find affordable copies. This ties in with becoming more selective about the books I acquire.

Posted by: JTB at January 15, 2023 09:33 AM (7EjX1)

55 Re-skimming "The Autobiography of Henry VIII" by Margaret George, which I have read several times.
If not familiar, she writes long, dense, very well-written historical fiction.
Didn't finish her Cleopatra, but her Helen of Tray was good. Her recreation of time and place is outstanding.

Posted by: sal: tolle adversarium et afflige inimicum at January 15, 2023 09:33 AM (wE246)

56 "Me happily reading my new favorite book..."

Ah, yes. I remember my first time reading George Martin.

Posted by: squid at January 15, 2023 09:33 AM (S/NWs)

57 But I'm guessing the antagonist has to be outside yourself, right?

Posted by: sal: tolle adversarium et afflige inimicum at January 15, 2023 09:26 AM (wE246)

No, the protagonist can be fighting against his worst natural impulses, I'd think.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 15, 2023 09:33 AM (Angsy)

58 Picked up a promising book from Goodwill for two bucks a couple of weeks ago, "When Time Stopped" by Ariana Neumann. Anybody read this? Memoir of a daughter of a survivor of Auschwitz, the cover says. Started the prologue but didn't have time to go further. Need to read the gift book first, the giver is waiting for a book report.

Posted by: TecumsehTea-not a resident troll at January 15, 2023 09:33 AM (BjGT6)

59 49 Posted by: All Hail Eris, Sans-Culottes (except for the Book Thread) at January 15, 2023 09:31 AM (Dc2NZ)

You can see everything that occured in the Sad Puppies saga and sci-fi as a whole as the hippies took over the Star Trek fandom from 75-90.

Essentially outside the IP events enraged the leftoids in fandom and they exerted ever increasing pressure that finally had Gene Gene the snorting machine get his TNG idiocy on.

Also recall the term "Mary-Sue" was born out of that fight within the ST fandom.

Posted by: sven at January 15, 2023 09:34 AM (Lzpvj)

60 I remember it was hotly debated back in the day as to whether the books were part of the official Trek canon, like there ought to be a Council of Nicaea to determine true adherence to Roddenberrian doctrine.

Star Trek could also be a description of the Three Magi.

Posted by: Archimedes at January 15, 2023 09:35 AM (eOEVl)

61 My zoom book club is reading Contact by Carl Sagan. I like reading but I hate Sagan and he is imprinted heavily in the book.

I am conflicted.

Posted by: blaster at January 15, 2023 09:35 AM (pwExq)

62 Finished one of the Firefly novels, "Firefly: What Makes us Mighty" by M.K. England. I know these are are light pulp fiction, but I am one who loves the series. All the characters a true to form, and stays in their swim-lanes. However a better title would have been "Lesbo's Battle for the Planet of Misogyny". The underling theme, but only 2 or 3 inches is: Testicles Bad, Vaginas Good. Once I got into it, and it didn't take long. I was surprised that the Evil Duke was not named Arch Duke Trump.

Posted by: Paladin at January 15, 2023 09:35 AM (AAaaq)

63 "Non-villain" antagonists: This is a part of my idea that the difference between drama and melodrama is that in the former, the characters -- including the antagonists -- are just doing the best that they can according to their goals. These would be the non-villain types. In the latter, they often set out to be evil and unpleasant just because they can; or are aware they are doing evil as they pursue their goals, and either don't care or actively come to enjoy it. See soap operas.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at January 15, 2023 09:35 AM (omVj0)

64 Re-skimming "The Autobiography of Henry VIII" by Margaret George, which I have read several times.
If not familiar, she writes long, dense, very well-written historical fiction.
Didn't finish her Cleopatra, but her Helen of Tray was good. Her recreation of time and place is outstanding.
Posted by: sal: tolle adversarium et afflige inimicum

Until she lost her head ?

Posted by: JT at January 15, 2023 09:36 AM (T4tVD)

65 63 Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at January 15, 2023 09:35 AM (omVj0)

Well-written (as Gene Coon and DC Fontana were capable of) it leads to the two sides of the coin developing a wary respect for one another.

Posted by: sven at January 15, 2023 09:37 AM (Lzpvj)

66 Doof, books are meant to be entertainment. Treat them as a duty, and you spoil the fun.

It took me several tries -- over years -- to finish "The Dogs of War." Glad I did.

I intersperse my main book with others. In addition to the poker book, I'm reading a collection of Dr. Strange stories. And now I have the Mad book.

Now that I'm older than 29, I know I'm racing the calendar, but I won't let that drive me.
Posted by: Weak Geek at January 15, 2023 09:31 AM (Om/di)

Appreciate your thoughts, WG

Posted by: Doof at January 15, 2023 09:37 AM (yUjc0)

67 That ladder would be in the way all the time. Better to have the chair lift you up to the books. Or maybe some Fizzy Lifting drinks.

Posted by: fd at January 15, 2023 09:37 AM (iayUP)

68 Noticed something in my 6yo grandson this week that has me all warm inside. He will just pick up books and start reading. He gets that from me. I caught him starting into a French history book from the 1920's I am reading. I just stood there like... Okay. "This book is like a hundred years old isn't it, Papa?". I explained how it covered 2000 years, had knights and all that good stuff. Told him he can read any book he wants to any time he wants to.
I so hope he stays with his developing love of reading.

Posted by: Reforger at January 15, 2023 09:38 AM (ZdOyb)

69 Not sure that library is practical
Posted by: Skip at January 15, 2023 09:01 AM (xhxe

There is something disturbingly interior-decoratorish about it.

Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at January 15, 2023 09:38 AM (tkR6S)

70 14 Anthony Boucher's locked room mystery "Rocket To The Morgue" (1942) has an amusing chapter in which our inspector visits a group of science fiction authors clearly based on SoCal greats. "Austin Carter" (Heinlein) holding court over simulacrums of L. Ron Hubbard, Jack Williamson, and rocketeer Jack Parsons, and others. Anthony Boucher is dismissed as a hack.
Posted by: All Hail Eris, Sans-Culottes (except for the Book Thread)
****
Rocket to the Morgue is a must-read! -- particularly if, like me, you can't quite shake an interest in the life and career of that anomaly among anomalies, Jack Parsons, the occultist rocketeer. Of course I was never going to pay for a TV network subscription just to watch Strange Angel, so you can imagine my glee upon learning that my local public library had a copy of Season 1 on DVD. Maybe I'll post a review.

Posted by: werewife, princess of Delray Beach at January 15, 2023 09:38 AM (SPNTN)

71 Reading the Expanse series. Saw it on Amazon and it was the typical boiler plate diversity and millenial chaos and bickering, but the core story was incredible. James Corey does not disappoint. Best Sci-Fi fantasy I've read since Wheel of Time.

Posted by: squid at January 15, 2023 09:38 AM (S/NWs)

72 My zoom book club is reading Contact by Carl Sagan. I like reading but I hate Sagan and he is imprinted heavily in the book.

I am conflicted.

My wife is in a couple of book clubs, and one of them is currently reading a book she highly dislikes. She said she felt obligated to read it because they've read a couple of books she recommended. I suppose that's fair, but I'd really hate to waste time reading a book I disliked. OTOH, I'm a good skim reader, so could minimize the pain by trying to get just the highlights. I doubt there is a Cliff Notes version.

Posted by: Archimedes at January 15, 2023 09:39 AM (eOEVl)

73 the protagonist can be fighting against his worst natural impulses

For instance, the Wolf Man.

Or any addict.

Posted by: Weak Geek at January 15, 2023 09:39 AM (Om/di)

74 It was at that point I decided fuck TNG and never looked back.

Posted by: sven at January 15, 2023 09:31 AM (Lzpvj)

It seemed to get worse as the series moved on. Only Riker seemed to get better. Data was ok, but the main reason to watch it was the Sirtis Factors - the left and right ones.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 15, 2023 09:39 AM (Angsy)

75 62 Posted by: Paladin at January 15, 2023 09:35 AM (AAaaq)

The entertainment class has been sniffing their own farts for so long they stay high on their own supply.

Firefly/Serenity in particular is an example of one part of the creators not understanding what they have really written. It was a nod to post-reconstruction angst by ex-confederates in the west. Within a decade the producer had convinced himself that the genocidal totalitarian system the protagonist and his crew resisted were the good guys.

There should be a study of accidental art.

Posted by: sven at January 15, 2023 09:39 AM (Lzpvj)

76 Didn't finish her Cleopatra, but her Helen of Tray was good. Her recreation of time and place is outstanding.

Helen of Tray was the greatest of waitresses and beautiful too.

Posted by: That Northern skulker at January 15, 2023 09:41 AM (eGTCV)

77 Oh -- I just learned that there is a thing called "fanon", in which ideas get widely circulated and accepted among fan culture about a particular property and become unofficially canonical (if such a thing can...be).
Posted by: All Hail Eris, Sans-Culottes (except for the Book Thread) at January 15, 2023

***
In The Man From U.N.C.L.E. pro tie-in novel The Dagger Affair. David McDaniel posited that the name of the organization Thrush (founded by survivors of Dr. Moriarty's criminal enterprises) was actually "The Technological Hierarchy for the Removal of Undesirables and the Subjugation of Humanity." Very Victorian-sounding. This was never given on the show; Norman Felton, Sam Rolfe, and the writers never gave it a meaning. But fans suggested it to Felton after the show had ended. He liked it, and it became semi-official.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at January 15, 2023 09:41 AM (omVj0)

78 74 Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 15, 2023 09:39 AM (Angsy)

There is a non nonsensical argument you can make that the NCC-1701 D crew are a coterie of intergalactic villains and maniacs who sociopathically undermine Federation policy for half a decade.

Posted by: sven at January 15, 2023 09:41 AM (Lzpvj)

79 The word I learned from Pliny this week is "bandoline". It's a glutinous pomatum for the hair. So apparently the Greeks had pomade. Who knew?

Posted by: fd at January 15, 2023 09:42 AM (iayUP)

80

Vic?

Posted by: Earnest Tippler at January 15, 2023 09:42 AM (Qhny/)

81 What I thought was diversification in the Expanse series for acting/Hollywood was actually well developed characters and flowed well. They were well balanced and I like them. The chaos was all the director/Amazon, though. The characters in the story flow like a well oiled machine, with complimentary strengths and weaknesses as you would expct with a small and close crew.

Posted by: squid at January 15, 2023 09:42 AM (S/NWs)

82 I gave up looking for a complete Pliny the Elder "Natural History" physical book. The Delphi Kindle edition of his writings uses the mid-1800s translation that seems to be standard. Got through the dedication and first three books and it has been both fun and surprising. The surprise is how 'modern' some of his observations are, at least so far. (I understand some of the laughable sections come later.) The funny part was in the dedication. Pliny was discussing the superstitious stupidity of many temples. What made me laugh out loud was when he complained that these temples were built AT PUBLIC EXPENSE. Clearly, Pliny was a proto-Moron.

Posted by: JTB at January 15, 2023 09:43 AM (7EjX1)

83 am about halfway through An Instance of the Fingerpost by Iain Pears. It is set in the 17th century, and four characters each tell their version of a murder and the events leading to and following it.

Posted by: April

I really enjoy Iain Pears books. His main novels are all written with multiple viewpoints, or in multiple timelines, which makes the reader think. Stone's Fall and The Dream of Scipio use accounts from multiple characters at different time periods, while Instance of the Fingerpost stays in the same time period for the most part. I have not read any of his shorter mysteries yet, which involve an art historian.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at January 15, 2023 09:43 AM (1D65V)

84 Breakfast- bbl

Posted by: sal: tolle adversarium et afflige inimicum at January 15, 2023 09:43 AM (wE246)

85
Well-written (as Gene Coon and DC Fontana were capable of) it leads to the two sides of the coin developing a wary respect for one another.
Posted by: sven at January 15, 2023

***
We see this also on TV in Have Gun -- Will Travel, esp. in episodes written by Harry Julian Fink, the co-creator of Dirty Harry.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at January 15, 2023 09:44 AM (omVj0)

86 Good morning Hordelings and Howdy Perfessor!
I'm trying to be a better reader. I am great at STARTING books. I suck at continuing to read them. Perhaps I need some type of structure. Set aside a certain amount of time regularly? Schedule it like a project? Appreciate any suggestions.
Posted by: Doof at January 15, 2023 09:22 AM (yUjc0)
----
Setting manageable goals and STICKING to them is a large part of becoming a better reader. If your mind wanders after 15 minutes or 10 pages or so, then make that your consistent goal and STICK to it. Just like daily exercise, you gradually increase your goals over time.

Or read a chapter at a time then set down the book so you can reflect on what you've read.

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at January 15, 2023 09:45 AM (BpYfr)

87 What made me laugh out loud was when he complained that these temples were built AT PUBLIC EXPENSE. Clearly, Pliny was a proto-Moron.
Posted by: JTB at January 15, 2023 09:43 AM (7EjX1)

Haha, some things are eternal.

Posted by: April - Dash my lace wigs! at January 15, 2023 09:45 AM (OX9vb)

88 Thomas Paine at 41. Read Powder River by the same author. It’s the prequel, if you will, to Rosebud.
I started Rosebud when a friend clued me in to Powder River. I love American west history.
Also good morning to all you bookish morons. I absolutely love this site. Thanks perfessor.

Posted by: RetSgtRn at January 15, 2023 09:46 AM (RqUF/)

89 I mentioned this little book in an earlier thread this week: " When others make your life difficult" by Daniel E. Miller published by TGS International
tgsinternstional.com which is some kind of publishing company connected with Mennonites. It is only about 79 pages and the description says "Building on Biblical truths about God and humanity, this book offers inspiring examples and practical strategies to help us reflect Christ's love to others , even when they make our lives difficult. I think it's a very helpful book and contains this story about George Washington:

https://tinyurl.com/3bhsfkh7

Posted by: FenelonSpoke at January 15, 2023 09:46 AM (YV2CM)

90 This "Legacy of the Force" series, with so many writers, seems that it has a strong editor to keep the story from running all over the place.

Posted by: Weak Geek at January 15, 2023 09:13 AM (Om/di)
---
This is a topic I do want cover sometime. I have several series that are written among different authors. And yes, a project director/editor is invaluable in ensuring that the project is successful. Lucasfilm was surprisingly good at that, keeping a pretty tight rein on their authors to ensure that the overall story was more or less coherent and consistent in the Star Wars Expanded Universe.

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at January 15, 2023 09:47 AM (BpYfr)

91 Read Stephen King's Fairy Tale. He's good at keeping ypu reading but I had 2 main problems:
1. Main character is a 17 yo in 2013 but he acts more like a teen in the 1950s or 60s. His cultural references and attitudes are off.
2. First half of book, set in real world is great at making you care about the characters, but the second half set in the magical world, has one- note characters.

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at January 15, 2023 09:47 AM (Kd4bG)

92 It Pays To Increase Your Word Power

**********

Definer Things In Life - a limerick

To a Pole, a szmata's a rag. Who knew?
And in Yiddish, shmate? It means rag, too
The language one speaks
Holds the meaning he seeks
So I have to ask, what is the schmatte with you?

Posted by: Muldoon at January 15, 2023 09:47 AM (ykeLU)

93 >>> 87 What made me laugh out loud was when he complained that these temples were built AT PUBLIC EXPENSE. Clearly, Pliny was a proto-Moron.
Posted by: JTB at January 15, 2023 09:43 AM (7EjX1)

Haha, some things are eternal.
Posted by: April - Dash my lace wigs! at January 15, 2023 09:45 AM (OX9vb)

We spent all that money and then the asshoes moved the franchise to Gaul!

Posted by: Pliny at January 15, 2023 09:48 AM (llON8)

94 Rocket to the Morgue is a must-read! -- particularly if, like me, you can't quite shake an interest in the life and career of that anomaly among anomalies, Jack Parsons, the occultist rocketeer. Of course I was never going to pay for a TV network subscription just to watch Strange Angel, so you can imagine my glee upon learning that my local public library had a copy of Season 1 on DVD. Maybe I'll post a review.
Posted by: werewife, princess of Delray Beach at January 15, 2023 09:38 AM (SPNTN)
---

A fascinating critter, he! First read about him in (I think) Richard Metzger's "Book of Lies: The Disinformation Guide to Magick and the Occult". Dancing and singing a hymn to Pan before each launch.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Sans-Culottes (except for the Book Thread) at January 15, 2023 09:48 AM (Dc2NZ)

95 "Main character is a 17 yo in 2013 but he acts more like a teen in the 1950s or 60s. His cultural references and attitudes are off."

I think Rage was one of his most inciteful and enjoyable tales. Gettin' it on.

Posted by: squid at January 15, 2023 09:48 AM (S/NWs)

96 It seemed to get worse as the series moved on. Only Riker seemed to get better. Data was ok, but the main reason to watch it was the Sirtis Factors - the left and right ones.
Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 15, 2023

***
Leave us not forget one of the loveliest redheads ever on TV, Gates McFadden as Beverly.

I still love the best of TNG, as I love the best of M*A*S*H, for the performances and the dialog, and the grand imagination (the Dyson Sphere episode with Scotty, for instance). Let's not forget that the producers and writers of TNG (after GR left) were trying to address some of the failings, as they saw them, of TOS. They didn't always manage that; but when they were on their game, it was great.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at January 15, 2023 09:49 AM (omVj0)

97 On the topic of antagonists, one thing that can keep a fun pulpy story anchored in at least a little psychological (and spiritual) reality is the historical fact that no culture has ever worshiped that which it, itself, considers to be evil. Any time you find "devil worship," it has been labeled as such by some other culture, or is a form of in-group trolling, such as the notorious Hell-Fire Club or the excesses of heavy-metal fandom. Even nations what practiced human sacrifice had clearly defined values systems in which perversion of [our understanding of] obvious natural law was explained to their satisfaction. Here's an e.g.: The Aztec religion recognized only three ways of escaping a barren, lightless, unhappy afterlife: Death in battle, death in childbirth, and ... yup, death on the altar.

Posted by: werewife, princess of Delray Beach at January 15, 2023 09:49 AM (SPNTN)

98 I am great at STARTING books. I suck at continuing to read them. Perhaps I need some type of structure. Set aside a certain amount of time regularly? Schedule it like a project? Appreciate any suggestions.
Posted by: Doof at January 15, 2023 09:22 AM (yUjc0)

Maybe you just need more interesting books

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at January 15, 2023 09:50 AM (Kd4bG)

99 "The funny part was in the dedication. Pliny was discussing the superstitious stupidity of many temples. What made me laugh out loud was when he complained that these temples were built AT PUBLIC EXPENSE. Clearly, Pliny was a proto-Moron.
Posted by: JTB"

Sometimes he will break with the facts he is citing and just make some side commentary about a related subject. It's not just a dry encyclopedia.

The part I am in is about medicinal uses of plants. Some of the claims are ridiculous, but I might give this one a shot next time I get a flareup:

It is alleged that persons who are in the habit of eating barley-bread are never troubled with gout in the feet: they say, too, that if a person takes nine grains of barley, and traces three times round a boil, with each of them in the left hand, and then throws them all into the fire, he will experience an immediate cure.

Posted by: fd at January 15, 2023 09:51 AM (iayUP)

100 The Aztec religion recognized only three ways of escaping a barren, lightless, unhappy afterlife: Death in battle, death in childbirth, and ... yup, death on the altar.

I'll bet they didn't get invited to a lot of parties.

Posted by: Archimedes at January 15, 2023 09:51 AM (eOEVl)

101 55 Re-skimming "The Autobiography of Henry VIII" by Margaret George, which I have read several times.

Posted by: sal: tolle adversarium et afflige inimicum at January 15, 2023 09:33 AM (wE246)

I have that sitting on a pile on the will read soon side of the room.
The whole "historical fiction" thing has always caused me skip over it in favor of Non-fiction. I'm mad enough over the injustices my family faced back then without putting drama into it.

Posted by: Reforger at January 15, 2023 09:51 AM (ZdOyb)

102 That lieberry is too covered in appropriated culchural artifacts! It is an insult to indigeness peoples!

Posted by: Mary Clogginstein speaks out! at January 15, 2023 09:51 AM (Zzbjj)

103 Helen of Tray was the greatest of waitresses and beautiful too.
Posted by: That Northern skulker at January 15, 2023 09:41 AM (eGTCV)
---

She launched a thousand chips.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Sans-Culottes (except for the Book Thread) at January 15, 2023 09:51 AM (Dc2NZ)

104 Forget temples -- look at most of our state Capitols!

Marble and granite all over the place.

If state leaders were to build Capitols now, we'd rip them for squandering money.

Posted by: Weak Geek at January 15, 2023 09:52 AM (Om/di)

105 "I am great at STARTING books. Appreciate any suggestions."

I have this issue. It's mostly due to electronics and streaming. I started reading in the bathroom and before I got to bed at night to wind down.

Posted by: squid at January 15, 2023 09:52 AM (S/NWs)

106 "That lieberry is too covered in appropriated culchural artifacts! It is an insult to indigeness peoples!"

Good thing we don't allow them to learn how to read or they'd probably be upset.

Posted by: squid at January 15, 2023 09:53 AM (S/NWs)

107 >>> 103 Helen of Tray was the greatest of waitresses and beautiful too.
Posted by: That Northern skulker at January 15, 2023 09:41 AM (eGTCV)
---

She launched a thousand chips.
Posted by: All Hail Eris, Sans-Culottes (except for the Book Thread) at January 15, 2023 09:51 AM (Dc2NZ)

She keeps forgetting to bring the salsa.

Posted by: diner patron at January 15, 2023 09:53 AM (llON8)

108 Read Powder River by the same author. It’s the prequel, if you will, to Rosebud.

Posted by: RetSgtRn

Thanks, I'll add it to the list. Despite the infamy of the last stand, it is clear that there was much more to the story than what is generally known.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at January 15, 2023 09:53 AM (APZpC)

109 I'm re-reading "In the House of Tom Bombadil" by C.R. Wiley. This slim volume is one of the best Tolkien-related books I've come across. It takes one of my favorite LOTR characters and intertwines Tolkien's references, theology and philosophy with enjoyable speculation. It's a book that makes you you wish it was a lot longer when you get to the end. And it is a very positive outlook.

As a side note, the cover is a pencil drawing of Bombadil done by the author. It is delightful and about the best image of the character I've seen.

Posted by: JTB at January 15, 2023 09:53 AM (7EjX1)

110 103 Helen of Tray was the greatest of waitresses and beautiful too.
Posted by: That Northern skulker at January 15, 2023 09:41 AM (eGTCV)
---

She launched a thousand chips.
Posted by: All Hail Eris, Sans-Culottes (except for the Book Thread)
****
She's worth a deuce!

Posted by: werewife, princess of Delray Beach at January 15, 2023 09:53 AM (SPNTN)

111 Brought up yesterday I bought the middle of the series of Will and Ariel Durant's epic History of Civilization at Good Will long ago for pennies on the dollar. The whole collection was there but only got 5 or 6 of the books. Yes I blew a opportunity

Posted by: Skip at January 15, 2023 09:53 AM (xhxe8)

112 This "Legacy of the Force" series, with so many writers, seems that it has a strong editor to keep the story from running all over the place.

Posted by: Weak Geek at January 15, 2023

***
True. The U.N.C.L.E. novels from Ace Books, 1965-1970 or so, benefited from having a good editor, Terry Carr, who had published SF stories of his own. There were variations from the TV show; the writers had no "bible" to work from, and the shows were not available to screen as they are now for reference. Some authors caught the tongue-in-cheek flavor well; some highlighted how the Command would operate if it existed; only 1 or 2 of the 23 books got infected with that camp style from the show's 3rd year.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at January 15, 2023 09:55 AM (omVj0)

113 I just realized that the library in today's thread looks like the submarine in "Fantastic Voyage."

Posted by: Weak Geek at January 15, 2023 09:55 AM (Om/di)

114 ChatGPT (or just AI in general) is something we've talked about this week at my community college. I haven't seen it in practice, but I've heard from others that it can do a decent job of cranking out essay answers and comments on online discussion forums. Given that I teach a history class where the questions asked require knowledge of specific facts (easily found online), I am a little disturbed myself.

Posted by: Dr. T at January 15, 2023 09:55 AM (tp+tP)

115 I'd add a stripper pole to the liberry!

Posted by: Weasel at January 15, 2023 09:56 AM (WoIMU)

116 96 Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at January 15, 2023 09:49 AM (omVj0)

"The failings of TOS" like patriotism, coherent storytelling, discernable motives and goals.

Gene Gene the imbibing machine overcame a lot of TOS (which was saved by Fontana and Coon) Star Trek largely without their influence exists after a fashion it is called "Genesis 2, and Planet Earth."

They are not superior to TOS. You can make an argument Fontana was "involved" she wrote a script for each, and coon in nhis twilight "co-wrote" Genesis II but was largely overruled on a lot of matters and was not a show runner.

Gene got what he wanted a more socialist utopian space show that has devolved in recent iterations into a leftist scream therapy session.

Posted by: sven at January 15, 2023 09:56 AM (Lzpvj)

117 The Aztec religion recognized only three ways of escaping a barren, lightless, unhappy afterlife: Death in battle, death in childbirth, and ... yup, death on the altar.

I'll bet they didn't get invited to a lot of parties.
Posted by: Archimedes at January 15, 2023 09:51 AM (eOEVl)

No kidding.

Posted by: Tlaxcala at January 15, 2023 09:58 AM (tp+tP)

118 Charles Stross (Progtard Dickweed Supreme) had a really interesting antagonist set up in his books, "Singularity Sky" and "Iron Sunrise".

The Eschaton is a god-like, AI device in the far-flung future "descended" from humans and seems to like them. So, it's given humans faster than light travel and all kinds of high-tech goodies in the past, as long as humankind obeys it's One Commandment: Do Not Violate Causality in the past that leads to it's existence.

So, hijinks ensue in the novels often wittingly or unwittingly violating this commandment or trying to prevent its violation. Though not always.

But, The Eschaton, and awareness of the Eschaton, is always in the background and on the character's mind.

Very need universe with very cool stories, which Stross apparently abandoned for reasons unknown.

Maybe too hard to write stories for, maybe not enough readership, maybe he was more interested in "The Laundry" stories.

Both of those novels are gathered together in "Timeline Diplomacy" on Amazon in hardback for less than $4.

Check them out.

Posted by: naturalfake at January 15, 2023 09:58 AM (KLPy8)

119 Posted by: Skip at January 15, 2023 09:53 AM (xhxe

I have the first nine volumes still need the last two to complete the set.

Posted by: dantesed at January 15, 2023 09:58 AM (88xKn)

120 Anybody have recommendation for a good historical atlas?

Posted by: Mr. Barky at January 15, 2023 09:58 AM (mfRoj)

121 I'm glad Thomas Paine discussed The Man-Eaters of Tsavo. I'll have to get a copy. It should tie in with my enjoyment of Robert Ruark's African books and Rider Haggard's Allan Quartermain stories.

Posted by: JTB at January 15, 2023 09:59 AM (7EjX1)

122 The obvious answer to the above question is Irene Adler.

In the Aubrey books, French Capt Christy-Palliere (sp?) is favorably portrayed. He captures Aubrey early on, and they hit it off. He gets to be an ally at the end.

Posted by: Eeyore at January 15, 2023 09:59 AM (TgBWG)

123 On the topic of antagonists, one thing that can keep a fun pulpy story anchored in at least a little psychological (and spiritual) reality is the historical fact that no culture has ever worshiped that which it, itself, considers to be evil. Any time you find "devil worship," it has been labeled as such by some other culture, or is a form of in-group trolling, such as the notorious Hell-Fire Club or the excesses of heavy-metal fandom. Even nations what practiced human sacrifice had clearly defined values systems in which perversion of [our understanding of] obvious natural law was explained to their satisfaction. . . .
Posted by: werewife, princess of Delray Beach at January 15, 2023

***
Yes! A religion is supposed to provide some kind of comfort to its adherents; it must *do* something for them that they cannot do for themselves. If a group worships a giant devil serpent, for instance, they must believe it can do something for them -- vanquish their enemies, for instance, when they themselves are helpless against those enemies and will be destroyed or enslaved if they are not aided. And in a high fantasy story, perhaps the serpent can do those things.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at January 15, 2023 10:00 AM (omVj0)

124 OT - the series of novels that were the basis of the LA Confidential script- are they worth reading?

Posted by: 2009Refugee at January 15, 2023 10:00 AM (8AONa)

125 Sorry, but I have a deep hatred of those who yelp about cultural appropriation.

This week I bought some of the Henry Winterfeld books for the grandsons. They might be a bit young for the 9 year old but the 7 year old is so far thrilled with Castaways in Lilliput.

I lucked into some other nice purchases this week from my friend who clears estates.

I've been leafing through a 1900 edition of How to Know the Wild Flowers. If it was just a dry compendium, I wouldn't have spent the time, but it's full of 18th century recollections and incorporates writers like Shakespeare and Emerson.

Posted by: CN at January 15, 2023 10:00 AM (Zzbjj)

126 Check them out.
Posted by: naturalfake at January 15, 2023 09:58 AM (KLPy

---
Heh. Both Iron Sunrise and Singularity Sky are in my TBR pile....

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at January 15, 2023 10:01 AM (BpYfr)

127 So apparently the Greeks had pomade.
Posted by: fd at January 15, 2023 09:42

********

Ulysses Everett McGill - a limerick

The ancient Greeks, a well-groomed clan
Used pomade that came in a can
Aristotle's unruly mop
Responded well to Fop™
While Homer was a Dapper Dan™ man

Posted by: Muldoon at January 15, 2023 10:01 AM (ykeLU)

128 There is a non nonsensical argument you can make that the NCC-1701 D crew are a coterie of intergalactic villains and maniacs who sociopathically undermine Federation policy for half a decade.

Posted by: sven at January 15, 2023 09:41 AM (Lzpvj)

I agree, Sven. I remember a few episodes where JL's solution to some crisis was destroying traditional ways and forcing people to do immoral acts.
One ep had a very imbalanced sex ratio, so JL made the men cucks, another had JL decide to let a planet go nova or something because the beings there weren't at the spacefaring level even though a little girl was able to communicate with Data. Villains, the lot.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 15, 2023 10:01 AM (Angsy)

129 Setting manageable goals and STICKING to them is a large part of becoming a better reader. If your mind wanders after 15 minutes or 10 pages or so, then make that your consistent goal and STICK to it. Just like daily exercise, you gradually increase your goals over time.

Or read a chapter at a time then set down the book so you can reflect on what you've read.
Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at January 15, 2023 09:45 AM (BpYfr)

I have this issue. It's mostly due to electronics and streaming. I started reading in the bathroom and before I got to bed at night to wind down.
Posted by: squid at January 15, 2023 09:52 AM (S/NWs)

Thank you both. I think I need to set aside a small amount of time regularly (daily, every other day, etc) and take small bites. I have a book that I've really been wanting to read. 330 pages, 31 chapters. If I read 1 chapter or approx 10 pages in each sitting, I should be able to avoid distractions or wandering mind, and perhaps I will be hungry to get back to it the next time. And if I did that daily, I'd finish this book in a month.

Posted by: Doof at January 15, 2023 10:01 AM (yUjc0)

130 Speaking of fan fiction, or multiple authors for a series, I would like to recommend two Sherlock Holmes novels not written by Conan Doyle. The Italian Secretary, by Caleb Carr, and The House of Silk, by Anthony Horowitz. These are both full length novels authorized by the estate of Doyle. Both are nearly indistinguishable from the originals as to writing style, and enjoyable reads, especially The Italian Secretary.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at January 15, 2023 10:01 AM (tTYSy)

131 I think an inverse to that library might be cool. Reading area on top, books on the bottom.

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at January 15, 2023 10:01 AM (Kd4bG)

132 In Instance of the Fingerpost, one of the characters mocks the architecture of Christopher Wren, deriding its modernism and bemoaning the demise of great architecture.

I wasn't familiar with Christopher Wren's work, so I looked up some of his buildings. Among them are Saint Paul's Cathedral, Greenwich Hospital, and the Sheldonian Theatre, beautiful buildings in my eyes.

But then I look at Kensington Palace and Marlborough House, and I can see his point. Those must have been the equivalent of Bauhaus in the day.

Posted by: April - Dash my lace wigs! at January 15, 2023 10:02 AM (OX9vb)

133 117 Posted by: Tlaxcala at January 15, 2023 09:58 AM (tp+tP)

You did not invite the Aztecs to your parties, you actively avoided being invited to theirs.

//The Tepanec

Posted by: sven at January 15, 2023 10:02 AM (Lzpvj)

134 Paul Johnson died this week (94 years old, not bad). I've got several of his books; my favorite among them is "Birth of the Modern: World History 1815-1830," where he crams in basically everything you could ever want to know about the world in those fifteen years. "Intellectuals," where he takes a lot of leftist heroes to the woodshed, is pretty good too.

Posted by: Dr. T at January 15, 2023 10:04 AM (tp+tP)

135 need = neat

Posted by: naturalfake at January 15, 2023 10:04 AM (KLPy8)

136 "The failings of TOS" like patriotism, coherent storytelling, discernable motives and goals. . . .

Posted by: sven at January 15, 2023

***
No, I meant illogicalities like having the captain, first officer, and ship's doctor leave the vessel in every episode. The captain of an aircraft carrier doesn't take a plane up himself. The landings should have been done by what TNG called "the Away Team," so that when the captain did leave the ship, it was a critical moment that required his presence and decision.

Yes, Picard and Riker did leave the ship in some stories and act as spies; but that was by Star Fleet direction, not a decision made only by Picard.

TNG was also brave in having unhappy endings in some of its stories, instead of everything being settled neatly in 50 minutes.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at January 15, 2023 10:06 AM (omVj0)

137 The baby's up!

Posted by: Tonypete at January 15, 2023 10:06 AM (qoGsy)

138 Anybody have recommendation for a good historical atlas?
Posted by: Mr. Barky

The United States in Old Maps and Prints, by Eduard Van Ermen is a good one.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at January 15, 2023 10:06 AM (tTYSy)

139
LIBRI SUNT BONA RES

ETIAM, KILROYNIUS HIC ERAT

Posted by: Gaius Kilroynius at January 15, 2023 10:06 AM (a3Q+t)

140 Perfessor, I like how you note that an antagonist doesn't have to be a villain; it can be a challenge. The book "Hatchet" by Gary Paulson and some of the Louis L'Amour stories use the challenge of surviving harsh conditions as the antagonist.

Posted by: JTB at January 15, 2023 10:07 AM (7EjX1)

141 This week I bought some of the Henry Winterfeld books for the grandsons. They might be a bit young for the 9 year old but the 7 year old is so far thrilled with Castaways in Lilliput.

***

CN, I *just* discovered this writer! Found a copy of The Mystery of the Roman Ransom in the library. What a blast!

Any Moron or ette with looking for good kids books should check him out. The Roman books are about Encyclopedia Brown level, but with surprisingly accurate historical details.
Now I have to find Detectives in Togas.

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at January 15, 2023 10:07 AM (Kd4bG)

142 in truth they are only acting according to their animal natures.

-
Like Hunter Biden. You know, white Hunter, black heart.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter 2023 at January 15, 2023 10:07 AM (FVME7)

143 131 I think an inverse to that library might be cool. Reading area on top, books on the bottom.
Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at January 15, 2023 10:01 AM (Kd4bG)

Either way it seems cumbersome and maybe unsafe to be carrying bulky hardcovers while going up or down a ladder. That could be because I generally dislike ladders unless they're attached to both endpoints. Indoor ladders don't appeal to me, back in the day, the university library had moveable staircases with handrails. Probably a good reason for this.

Posted by: CN at January 15, 2023 10:09 AM (Zzbjj)

144 112 ... The U.N.C.L.E. novels from Ace Books, 1965-1970 or so, benefited from having a good editor, Terry Carr, who had published SF stories of his own. ...
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere
****
Thank you for mentioning Terry Carr, truly an editor's editor. If it weren't for him, and specifically one of his early-'70s "Universe" anthologies, I never would have discovered one of my lifelong literary obsessions. But there was this innocent-looking, slim book promising a bored little girl some intriguing sci-fi stories, and that's where I first read "A Sign in Space" by Italo Calvino. You never know what might change your entire orientation to the world ....

Posted by: werewife, princess of Delray Beach at January 15, 2023 10:09 AM (SPNTN)

145 Perfessor, I like how you note that an antagonist doesn't have to be a villain; it can be a challenge. The book "Hatchet" by Gary Paulson and some of the Louis L'Amour stories use the challenge of surviving harsh conditions as the antagonist.
Posted by: JTB at January 15, 2023 10:07 AM (7EjX1)
---
The "survival" genre is another good example of how the antagonist causes huge problems for the main character but is not sentient or evil in any sense of the word. It's just man's struggle with the natural world, since time immemorial.

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at January 15, 2023 10:09 AM (BpYfr)

146 Gene got what he wanted a more socialist utopian space show that has devolved in recent iterations into a leftist scream therapy session.

Posted by: sven at January 15, 2023 09:56 AM (Lzpvj)

My wife always callled Voyager "PMS in Space".

Posted by: Reforger at January 15, 2023 10:09 AM (ZdOyb)

147 ...hey say, too, that if a person takes nine grains of barley, and traces three times round a boil, with each of them in the left hand, and then throws them all into the fire, he will experience an immediate cure.

******

I guess I'm screwed, then

Posted by: Guy with a boil on his left hand at January 15, 2023 10:09 AM (ykeLU)

148 Perfessor, I like how you note that an antagonist doesn't have to be a villain; it can be a challenge. The book "Hatchet" by Gary Paulson and some of the Louis L'Amour stories use the challenge of surviving harsh conditions as the antagonist.
Posted by: JTB at January 15, 2023 10:07 AM (7EjX1)

Likewise, Robinson Crusoe.

Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at January 15, 2023 10:09 AM (tkR6S)

149 Speaking of historical fiction for kids, I just fell in love with the beautifully illustrated picture book Brother Hugo and the Bear by Kate Beebe (who I think is some kind of history PhD).
Based on a true story, sort of.

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at January 15, 2023 10:10 AM (Kd4bG)

150 Quit fibbing Weasel, you would have a platform for a snipers nest up there

Posted by: Skip at January 15, 2023 10:10 AM (xhxe8)

151 JTB,

Janice Holt Giles has written well researched historical fiction of early Kentucky. I like Hannah Fowler but The Kentuckians is a bit earlier.

Posted by: Notsothoreau at January 15, 2023 10:10 AM (4IUUf)

152 Like Hunter Biden. You know, white Hunter, black heart.
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter 2023 at January 15, 2023 10:07 AM (FVME7)

*golf clap*

Posted by: Dr. T at January 15, 2023 10:11 AM (tp+tP)

153 My favorite instance of the protagonist vs non-villain antagonist is the tv series THE FUGITIVE.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at January 15, 2023 10:11 AM (a/4+U)

154 Leave us not forget one of the loveliest redheads ever on TV, Gates McFadden as Beverly.

I still love the best of TNG, as I love the best of M*A*S*H, for the performances and the dialog, and the grand imagination (the Dyson Sphere episode with Scotty, for instance). Let's not forget that the producers and writers of TNG (after GR left) were trying to address some of the failings, as they saw them, of TOS. They didn't always manage that; but when they were on their game, it was great.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at January 15, 2023 09:49 AM (omVj0)

Yes, she would have been the second choice after Sirtis. I liked some of the stories, but as the series went on, the characters seemed more unlikeable. The secondaries were fine. It seemed to me that as more iterations came online, they were only a vehicle for the producers to get big boobed women in their beds. Seven of Nine and T'Pol....

Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 15, 2023 10:11 AM (Angsy)

155 Perfessor, I like how you note that an antagonist doesn't have to be a villain; it can be a challenge. The book "Hatchet" by Gary Paulson and some of the Louis L'Amour stories use the challenge of surviving harsh conditions as the antagonist.
Posted by: JTB at January 15, 2023

***
We've always been told in books and classes on writing that one of the things a protagonist can be struggling against is Nature.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at January 15, 2023 10:12 AM (omVj0)

156 136 Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at January 15, 2023 10:06 AM (omVj0)

I will defer to your much more pervasive exposure, I watched 75% of Enterprise and tapped out on Voyager, and Discovery quickly so evidently they unlearned those "vitally needed lessons" of the Captain not being on shore parties or something.

Strange New Worlds looks like the first attempt to move towards anything recognizable as Star Trek in a long time.

"Not afraid to have unhappy endings", yeah I know that TOS never had Kirk looking shell-shocked at the end of an episode like say having a lover killed, or being unable to overcome a cultural flaw in an observed population.

You like TNG it is okay, I prefer to have my entertainment 1) entertaining, and 2) coherent and discernable while sober.

Posted by: sven at January 15, 2023 10:12 AM (Lzpvj)

157 Now I have to find Detectives in Togas.
Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at January 15, 2023 10:07 AM (Kd4bG)

I have vague recollections of reading that one as a kid, and finding the use of Mopsa, instead of Mopsy, for a cat's name to be very cute. Maybe that book is why I named one of the doggos Sparcus Aurelius?

Posted by: CN at January 15, 2023 10:13 AM (Zzbjj)

158 ...hey say, too, that if a person takes nine grains of barley, and traces three times round a boil, with each of them in the left hand, and then throws them all into the fire, he will experience an immediate cure.

******

I guess I'm screwed, then
Posted by: Guy with a boil on his left hand at January 15, 2023 10:09 AM

Might I recommend Elizabeth Arden 8-Hour Cream?

(Although, to be fair, it's more of an ointment than a cream.)

Posted by: Henry Charles Albert David at January 15, 2023 10:13 AM (a3Q+t)

159 154 Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 15, 2023 10:11 AM (Angsy)

T'Pol's actress like Cavil and the Witcher was one of the few cases of an artist having a deep love of the IP.

She was quite frustrated at times where the writers went with their idiotic Vulcan-Human relations crap in Enterprise.

Posted by: sven at January 15, 2023 10:14 AM (Lzpvj)

160 I think an inverse to that library might be cool. Reading area on top, books on the bottom.
Posted by: vmom

*****

One files this under Historical Fiction or one gets the hose again!

Posted by: Jamie Gumb at January 15, 2023 10:15 AM (ykeLU)

161 But I'm guessing the antagonist has to be outside yourself, right?

-
Not for that guy in Alien.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter 2023 at January 15, 2023 10:15 AM (FVME7)

162 It should tie in with my enjoyment of Robert Ruark's African books and Rider Haggard's Allan Quartermain stories.
Posted by: JTB

Check out Peter Capstick. Not only did he lead safaris and write about them, he also reprinted many turn of the century African hunting books by the original hunter/authors.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at January 15, 2023 10:15 AM (tTYSy)

163 I have vague recollections of reading that one as a kid, and finding the use of Mopsa, instead of Mopsy, for a cat's name to be very cute. Maybe that book is why I named one of the doggos Sparcus Aurelius?
Posted by: CN at January 15, 2023 10:13 AM (Zzbjj)

Maybe the 9year old will like it?

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at January 15, 2023 10:15 AM (Kd4bG)

164 Posted by: Henry Charles Albert David at January 15, 2023 10:13 AM (a3Q+t)

But only from the best Arden spa in Kabul!

Posted by: CN at January 15, 2023 10:16 AM (Zzbjj)

165 About halfway through Dunkirchen 1940 by Robert Kershaw. It covers the Dunkirk battles through the eyes of the Germans. Very well written. Some of the older German soldiers talk about fighting in the same areas in WW1 and they have a feeling that they had best be careful. The younger soldiers, for the most part, have that Nazi mentality that they cannot be defeated as this is how they were trained. I myself kept thinking that the older soldiers knew what was coming. All in all, a good read so far.

Posted by: RetSgtRn at January 15, 2023 10:16 AM (RqUF/)

166 146 Posted by: Reforger at January 15, 2023 10:09 AM (ZdOyb)

They can't resist, and it is funny. Voyager is the touching tale of Kathy Janeyways' multitude of warcrimes and command judgement errors. She is now "the living icon" of the IP in Star Trek Online, it is atragedy really because I am certain if they pledged to make the metaplot incoherent and Trump hating Picard would do the voice work for free.

Posted by: sven at January 15, 2023 10:16 AM (Lzpvj)

167 We've always been told in books and classes on writing that one of the things a protagonist can be struggling against is Nature.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius

iirc - Man vs. Man
Man vs. Nature
Man vs. Himself

Posted by: Tonypete at January 15, 2023 10:16 AM (qoGsy)

168 We've always been told in books and classes on writing that one of the things a protagonist can be struggling against is Nature.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere

****
The immortal lyrics of Was (Not Was):

"In my life there's just three things:
Man versus nature,
Man versus woman
And man versus The Empire Brain Building."

Come to think of it, that last covers a lot of science-fiction classics ....

Posted by: werewife, princess of Delray Beach at January 15, 2023 10:16 AM (SPNTN)

169 Wolfus, I think our noted explorers were both the captains of their ships and the leaders of the ground teams.

I agree that the ship's chief surgeon should not have been the only medic to accompany a team. The XO also should have not left the ship.

What I want to know is: What did the science staff do when called to battle stations?

Posted by: Weak Geek at January 15, 2023 10:17 AM (Om/di)

170 My favorite instance of the protagonist vs non-villain antagonist is the tv series THE FUGITIVE.
Posted by: Just Some Guy at January 15, 2023

***
Yes. Kimble is struggling against the legal system which has convicted him, in error, of murder and plans to execute him. Its agent, Lt. Gerard, is not a villain.
He is doing his job as he sees it (and if Kimble *were* guilty, Gerard would be a hero). We're told that Gerard on his own time ran down all the leads he could to find the one-armed man Kimble told them about. Gerard was not a man you'd like easily -- but his wife and his young son loved him and he them.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at January 15, 2023 10:17 AM (omVj0)

171 Maybe the 9year old will like it?
Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at January 15, 2023 10:15 AM (Kd4bG)

Definitely worth a try, but lately he's been reading books on birds and is fascinated with falcons.

Posted by: CN at January 15, 2023 10:18 AM (Zzbjj)

172 I'd add a stripper pole to the liberry!
Posted by: Weasel at January 15, 2023 09:56 AM

===

Quit fibbing Weasel, you would have a platform for a snipers nest up there
Posted by: Skip at January 15, 2023 10:10 AM

Is there any better place in the AoSHQverse than here to embrace the *magic* of and?

Posted by: Duncanthrax at January 15, 2023 10:18 AM (a3Q+t)

173 I hope this isn't too political for here. If so, I apologize.

I have just finished Rene Guenon's Theosophy: History of a Psuedo-Religion.

Guenon is a little coy about his conclusions regarding who/what was behind Theosophy. But as he says, it should be obvious to anyone with half a brain: Intelligence (UK(City of London)).

The most fascinating part was the use of front groups. Their technique is what we see now everwhere. NGOs and subversion etc.

The Fabians were intimately involved w/ Theosophy. Besant was a founder.

My conclusion: everything "occult" or "esoteric" is an Intelligence Op.

Blavatsky, Crowley, Hubbard. All of them.

The book is very detailed and is parts tediously so, but glad I read it.

Posted by: Thesokorus at January 15, 2023 10:18 AM (1ais2)

174 Man versus nature is a valid conflict, as is man versus his own nature internally.

Darth Vader's death scene in the literary Return of the Jedi was a well-written self-contained inner conflict of the character regretting his life choices and accepting the survival of his son as a redemption.

Lucas was outwritten repeatedly by the people hired to convert his screenplays to literature.

Posted by: sven at January 15, 2023 10:19 AM (Lzpvj)

175 What did the science staff do when called to battle stations?
Posted by: Weak Geek at January 15, 2023 10:17 AM

Ahem. We've been at battle stations for 2+ years.

Posted by: Anthony "Big Tony" Fauchi at January 15, 2023 10:19 AM (a3Q+t)

176 Wolfus, I think our noted explorers were both the captains of their ships and the leaders of the ground teams. . . .

Posted by: Weak Geek at January 15, 2023

***
Like Shackleton during the infamous Antarctic expedition around 1914? True enough. Kirk's time was a period that needed an Alexander the Great who was right there in the action with his men. Picard's required more diplomacy, perhaps.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at January 15, 2023 10:20 AM (omVj0)

177 My conclusion: everything "occult" or "esoteric" is an Intelligence Op.

Yeah, amazing how gov't interest in UFOs being "real" pops up when Dims are in the White House.

See: Oblabla and Senile Joe.

not quite sure what the endgame on this one is though.

Posted by: naturalfake at January 15, 2023 10:22 AM (KLPy8)

178 I have a book that I've really been wanting to read. 330 pages, 31 chapters. If I read 1 chapter or approx 10 pages in each sitting, I should be able to avoid distractions or wandering mind, and perhaps I will be hungry to get back to it the next time. And if I did that daily, I'd finish this book in a month.

Posted by: Doof at January 15, 2023 10:01 AM (yUjc0)

That's about a day's reading, but I don't have anything else to do.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 15, 2023 10:22 AM (Angsy)

179 Lucas was outwritten repeatedly by the people hired to convert his screenplays to literature.
Posted by: sven at January 15, 2023 10:19 AM (Lzpvj)
---
Probably because those people were already skilled authors and understood the writing process much better than Lucas...

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at January 15, 2023 10:22 AM (BpYfr)

180 IDIC, people! IDIC!

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Sans-Culottes (except for the Book Thread) at January 15, 2023 10:22 AM (Dc2NZ)

181 "Lucas was outwritten repeatedly by the people hired to convert his screenplays to literature."

Even his screenplays. Like Lawrence Kasdan ghost re-wrting IV, and writing V and VI.

Kasdan also invented Indiana Jones

Posted by: Ignoramus at January 15, 2023 10:23 AM (SJsWC)

182 Ack. Forgot why I read the book by Guenon. I like Guenon a lot. But I am not a completist w him.

I had read some things about the Lucis Trust and WEF. Lucis is Theosophy.

And yes, WEF is a descendant of whatever was going on with Theosophy.

Posted by: Thesokorus at January 15, 2023 10:23 AM (1ais2)

183 Between sleeping in and then reading the thread, I'm a bit late today, but always happy to be here.

Interesting discussion on Star Trek. I'm a TOS fan, watched (and hated TNG), and that was the end of my interest. The thing that bothered me the most was how often they simply rewrote the rules of physics to solve the problem. Shields block transporters, but in *this episode* there's a nanosecond when the shield has a gap, etc.

The first rule of sci-fi (or space opera) is that the rules are The Rules, and once you change them to get yourself out of a blind alley, you've wrecked the thing.

It's sort of like death. Once you resurrect a character, death is no longer all that serious because hey, that other game came back...

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 15, 2023 10:24 AM (llXky)

184 not quite sure what the endgame on this one is though.
Posted by: naturalfake at January 15, 2023 10:22 AM (KLPy

---

They tear off their outer husk on live television to reveal the Space Lizard beneath.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Sans-Culottes (except for the Book Thread) at January 15, 2023 10:24 AM (Dc2NZ)

185 I should be able to avoid distractions or wandering mind
Posted by: Doof at January 15, 2023 10:01 AM

I'm here for you.

Posted by: Daily Daddario at January 15, 2023 10:24 AM (a3Q+t)

186
I will defer to your much more pervasive exposure, I watched 75% of Enterprise and tapped out on Voyager, and Discovery quickly so evidently they unlearned those "vitally needed lessons" of the Captain not being on shore parties or something.

Strange New Worlds looks like the first attempt to move towards anything recognizable as Star Trek in a long time.

"Not afraid to have unhappy endings", yeah I know that TOS never had Kirk looking shell-shocked at the end of an episode like say having a lover killed, or being unable to overcome a cultural flaw in an observed population. . . .

Posted by: sven at January 15, 2023

***
True, I have not watched the later series; they may well have the problems you mention in more obvious and less entertaining form.

Oh, Kirk did lose Edith Keeler -- let her die to save the future from being destroyed -- and that ending is powerful to this day.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at January 15, 2023 10:24 AM (omVj0)

187 Finished Poster Girl by Veronica Roth this week. Highly recommended. Roth is also the author of the Divergent Series.

This is a really fantastic novel, with great characters, good character development, a solid plot with some interesting twists, and most importantly a look at life in a society that has voluntarily adopted ubiquitous surveillance and a social credit system, for the same reasons we are heading down that path.

Convenience, and perceived empowerment.

Of course once you voluntarily head down that path, the government eventually takes over the reins, and the voluntary part goes away. Then essentially all your choices go away.

In general I avoid women authors with women protagonists, as IMO the female domination of the entire publishing industry has ruined science fiction, but I digress. I loved this book and can't recommend it enough.

Posted by: Candidus at January 15, 2023 10:25 AM (eM0wU)

188 Trump hating Picard would do the voice work for free.
Posted by: sven at January 15, 2023 10:16 AM (Lzpvj)

Anybody with an english accent bitching about America should go back.
Make it so.

Truthfully I only know Star Trek because a roomate we had for a few years never missed an episode.

Posted by: Reforger at January 15, 2023 10:25 AM (ZdOyb)

189 It was a good week for acquiring used books. From the used book store I brought home the massive hardcover "Gardner's Art Through the Ages" 9th edition along with the Instructor's edition for teaching the course. (Several commenters on the art thread mentioned it was the book they used in college art appreciation and history. Under 4 bucks for each when the new text books cost way over a hundred dollars.

I don't know if science major text books are this heavy but as a literature major I was glad I was young and strong. A lot of the text books weighed a ton. (Thinking of the Riverside Shakespeare as an example.)
Posted by: JTB at January 15, 2023 09:22 AM (7EjX1)

I own both books. The Riverside Shakespeare is a prized book, and the Gardner is superb. And, yes, I profanely invoked the Name of my Lord and Savior when I paid for them.

Posted by: mrp at January 15, 2023 10:25 AM (rj6Yv)

190 173 Posted by: Thesokorus at January 15, 2023 10:18 AM (1ais2)

There is a directly traceable line of corrupting influencers traceable to the "comrades" movement in Tsarist Russia.

You can trace it showing its shark's fin periodically if you peruse and pursue the truth behind Sidney Reilly, and several other British secret service matters in the period of 1890-1940. It was baseline doctrine for the Okhrana and the Soviets continued it under Dzershnisky. Russia still cultivates the ability to this day.

https://tinyurl.com/Soviet-Pentration-of-India

I think the reason it does not get a treatment by the entertainment class is they are very guilty and the Russo fingerprints are all over their works going back to the 30s.

I think the current anti-Russian hysteria by these same people is the Fabians (who largely populate the WEF/NGO world still) have accepted finally that Russia is not ever going to be their friend in the modern eopch.

Posted by: sven at January 15, 2023 10:25 AM (Lzpvj)

191 Last weekend I forced myself to finish reading the comic book omnibus "The Question" by Denny O'neil. The book started out as engaging, if not enjoyable (too bleak) to being just plain bad. Over time, characters just stopped feeling like real people, just farcical/mean-spirited stereotypes. And while the over-arching plotline of the last half of the book was supposed to about an election in a corrupt city, the only believable character was the incumbent mayor, who was too drunk to even function....

Oh well, I finished it, and can now move on to better books.

Posted by: Castle Guy at January 15, 2023 10:26 AM (Lhaco)

192 Lucas was outwritten repeatedly by the people hired to convert his screenplays to literature.
Posted by: sven at January 15, 2023 10:19 AM (Lzpvj)
---
Probably because those people were already skilled authors and understood the writing process much better than Lucas...
Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at January 15, 2023

***
Best example: Leigh Brackett, SF and mystery author in print and screenplay writer for movies, gave Empire the flavor it needed.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at January 15, 2023 10:26 AM (omVj0)

193 IDIC, people! IDIC!
Posted by: All Hail Eris, Sans-Culottes (except for the Book Thread) at January 15, 2023 10:22 AM

I didn't particularly care for that, you know.

Posted by: zombie Leonard Nimoy at January 15, 2023 10:27 AM (a3Q+t)

194 'bout halfway through Larry Correia's Hard Magic trilogy ... and enjoying it thoroughly!

Posted by: sock_rat_eez - we are being gaslighted 24/365 at January 15, 2023 10:27 AM (XzIdt)

195 Ironic how Dungeons and Dragons came up as a topic last week and this week, right as its parent company is actively burning the franchise to the ground with some draconian new limitation to fan-created content...

Posted by: Castle Guy at January 15, 2023 10:27 AM (Lhaco)

196 162 ... "Check out Peter Capstick."

I knew I was forgetting one author. I have a couple of Capstick's books but didn't read them yet. I should add them to the TBR pile, which is looking like the Alps these days.

Posted by: JTB at January 15, 2023 10:27 AM (7EjX1)

197 177 My conclusion: everything "occult" or "esoteric" is an Intelligence Op.

Yeah, amazing how gov't interest in UFOs being "real" pops up when Dims are in the White House.

See: Oblabla and Senile Joe.

not quite sure what the endgame on this one is though.
Posted by: naturalfake at January 15, 2023 10:22 AM (KLPy

Yeah. We know Intelligence is behind the "occult" but we don't know what is behind Intelligence Services.

Posted by: Thesokorus at January 15, 2023 10:29 AM (1ais2)

198 A Macguffin could be a surrogate antagonist. For example, in To Save Us All From Ruin, by me, the boys' singular objective is to get the infamous railroad gun Anzio Annie (my version of 'sink the Bismarck'). The rail gun itself is not a villain, but stands in symbolically in the big picture for the Nazis within the smaller frame of the story.

Posted by: Muldoon at January 15, 2023 10:29 AM (ykeLU)

199 The Science of Star Trek by Mark Brake for Kindle is on sale today at Amazon for $1.99.

Posted by: Duncanthrax at January 15, 2023 10:31 AM (a3Q+t)

200 About halfway through Dunkirchen 1940 by Robert Kershaw. It covers the Dunkirk battles through the eyes of the Germans. Very well written. Some of the older German soldiers talk about fighting in the same areas in WW1 and they have a feeling that they had best be careful. The younger soldiers, for the most part, have that Nazi mentality that they cannot be defeated as this is how they were trained. I myself kept thinking that the older soldiers knew what was coming. All in all, a good read so far.

Posted by: RetSgtRn at January 15, 2023 10:16 AM (RqUF/)
---
Walter Lord's book on the topic mentioned that Hitler's "halt order" was strongly influenced by his own experience fighting in Flanders. The assumption was that the Allied troops in the pocket would not be able to escape and the big fear was a French counterthrust that could pocket most of the German armor.

I hated the Dunkirk movie because of the way it made a hash of what actually happened. I have the same white-hot fury against it that I do for "Saving Private Ryan."

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 15, 2023 10:31 AM (llXky)

201 A library is dangerous place with a laddrr like that.

Posted by: Eromero at January 15, 2023 10:31 AM (DXbAa)

202 Oh, Kirk did lose Edith Keeler -- let her die to save the future from being destroyed -- and that ending is powerful to this day.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at January 15, 2023 10:24 AM (omVj0)

I loved TOS as a kid and watched the series as it aired. I was quite upset when it was cancelled. I do, however, think it was too influential in some respects. Knowing that Gates is a big fan unnerves me as I think he's willing to let many people go to "save the future" and is, along with his WEF buddies, a bit too enamored of the villain, Kodos.

I recall receiving answers to mail and signed pictures from the crew. My brother took possession of these and his son has them. We had all kinds of insignia and photos as a result of these letters. Fun days.

Posted by: CN at January 15, 2023 10:32 AM (Zzbjj)

203 Definitely worth a try, but lately he's been reading books on birds and is fascinated with falcons.

Posted by: CN at January 15, 2023 10:18 AM (Zzbjj)

Just make sure he doesn't get stuck with a dumb, mechanical dog sidekick!

Posted by: The Blue Falcon at January 15, 2023 10:32 AM (Angsy)

204 I loved this book and can't recommend it enough.
Posted by: Candidus at January 15, 2023 10:25 AM (eM0wU)

I just put it on hold at the library based on your rec, thanks!

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at January 15, 2023 10:32 AM (Kd4bG)

205
April/Thomas Paine

Decades ago I read Pear's first art historian Jonathan Argyll book, The Raphael Affair. I remember it as an engaging read with dark humor and vivid descriptions of modern Rome and the cynical atmosphere attendant in the institutions of a former great empire. Last week someone on this thread mentioned Pear and I reacquainted myself with what he's written. Seems there are now seven books in the Argyll series. I'm reading the first of Harris's Roman Republic novels and after the next two I'll dive into Pear's series.

Posted by: Leon Sphinx at January 15, 2023 10:32 AM (UIngH)

206 The Aztec religion recognized only three ways of escaping a barren, lightless, unhappy afterlife: Death in battle, death in childbirth, and ... yup, death on the altar.

I'll bet they didn't get invited to a lot of parties.
Posted by: Archimedes at January 15, 2023 09:51 AM

A person who was hit by lightning or suffered a water-related death was taken by the god of spring and fertility Tlaloc to Tlalocan where flowers always bloomed and the first harvests of the spring were always available.

Posted by: NaughtyPine at January 15, 2023 10:33 AM (/+bwe)

207 Until she lost her head ?
Posted by: JT at January 15, 2023 09:36 AM (T4tVD)

Good one, JT!
I have a new feather-touch wireless keyboard.
All I do now is correct mistakes

Posted by: sal: tolle adversarium et afflige inimicum at January 15, 2023 10:33 AM (wE246)

208 That's about a day's reading, but I don't have anything else to do.
Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 15, 2023 10:22 AM (Angsy)

I so wish I could do that

Posted by: Doof at January 15, 2023 10:33 AM (yUjc0)

209 OT - the series of novels that were the basis of the LA Confidential script- are they worth reading?

Posted by: 2009Refugee

Personally, I like James Ellroy but he's not for everyone. His novel are long, bleak, and hard boiled as a bowling ball. Caveat lector, the book LA Confidential is considerably different [SPOILER ALERT] the number one bad guy, Dudley Smith, survives.

You might want to try White Jazz. It's about an LA detective who moonlights as a hitman for the mob. Rumor has it, Ellroy turned in a monster manuscript and his editor told him to shorten it meaning to eliminate several subplots. Instead, Ellroy eliminated almost all modifiers making a lean and mean book.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter 2023 at January 15, 2023 10:34 AM (FVME7)

210 197 Posted by: Thesokorus at January 15, 2023 10:29 AM (1ais2)

The intelligence world historically was where high society sent its socially awkward but loyal hoi polloi to monitor and corral the skullduggers into doing things beneficial for your national goal matrix. You would often draw the leadership from connected families whose point of view was out of immediate favor but not directly anathema to the powers that be. A good example is Sir Francis Walsingham being Queen Elizabeth's pet puritan.

It was always understood you had to keep the agencies on a tight leash domestically the cold war had the Republican party grow far too complacent in one telling of this tale regarding the loyalty of the kept freaks, and in the other telling of the same tale indifferent to the democrats demanding their ideologues make it through while allowing the donks to disqualify republicans that were "too extreme."

At any rate, the UFO hysteria provably is a government op and the people who executed the information/disinformation operations on behalf of the USAF in particular are quite open about it.

Posted by: sven at January 15, 2023 10:34 AM (Lzpvj)

211 Just make sure he doesn't get stuck with a dumb, mechanical dog sidekick!
Posted by: The Blue Falcon at January 15, 2023 10:32 AM (Angsy)

He only has a fluffy Keeshond.

Posted by: CN at January 15, 2023 10:34 AM (Zzbjj)

212 One book that should be on everyone's bookshelf: "The Americans: A Social History of the United States 1587-1914" by J C Furnas, G P Putnam's Sons, 1969. A big book, grand and encompassing. Furnas has the old-style newspaperman's eye for detail and a style with a bit of bite and wit. Plenty of used copies to be found in the usual places.

Posted by: mrp at January 15, 2023 10:34 AM (rj6Yv)

213 not quite sure what the endgame on this one is though.

Posted by: naturalfake at January 15, 2023 10:22 AM (KLPy

Give up our liberty so the "aliens" won't destroy us?

Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 15, 2023 10:35 AM (Angsy)

214 I started my first Jack Reacher novel this week. Worth Dying For by Lee Child. I'm really enjoying it. Elmore Leonard is one of my favorite writers and, man, I miss him. But Child seems to be pretty good with the same type of quirky, seedy characters. Reacher is a quirky hero as well, in a good way.

Posted by: Biergood at January 15, 2023 10:35 AM (FQWHA)

215 I should be able to avoid distractions or wandering mind
Posted by: Doof at January 15, 2023 10:01 AM

I'm here for you.
Posted by: Daily Daddario at January 15, 2023 10:24 AM (a3Q+t)

*slams book down*

Posted by: Doof at January 15, 2023 10:35 AM (yUjc0)

216 189 "I own both books. The Riverside Shakespeare is a prized book, and the Gardner is superb. And, yes, I profanely invoked the Name of my Lord and Savior when I paid for them."

I don't recall what the Riverside Shakespeare cost when I bought it new about 50 years ago, but suspect some major league wincing was involved. I competed in shot put in high school and continued to lift weights in college so at least I could carry the book and others like it.

Posted by: JTB at January 15, 2023 10:35 AM (7EjX1)

217 Posted by: Leon Sphinx at January 15, 2023 10:32 AM (UIngH)

Never heard of Argyll. Borrowing from the library, thanks

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at January 15, 2023 10:36 AM (Kd4bG)

218 >>> 206 The Aztec religion recognized only three ways of escaping a barren, lightless, unhappy afterlife: Death in battle, death in childbirth, and ... yup, death on the altar.

I'll bet they didn't get invited to a lot of parties.
Posted by: Archimedes at January 15, 2023 09:51 AM

A person who was hit by lightning or suffered a water-related death was taken by the god of spring and fertility Tlaloc to Tlalocan where flowers always bloomed and the first harvests of the spring were always available.
Posted by: NaughtyPine at January 15, 2023 10:33 AM (/+bwe)

Heh. Daniel Humphreys uses Tlaloc as an antagonist (not the only one!) in his Paxton Locke series. Tlaloc is a big liar...

Posted by: Helena Handbasket at January 15, 2023 10:36 AM (llON8)

219 Speaking of Ulysses, I see Paramount+ is planning a miniseries of James Joyce's works,

...titled "Finnegan's Woke"

Posted by: Muldoon at January 15, 2023 10:36 AM (ykeLU)

220 Ironic how Dungeons and Dragons came up as a topic last week and this week, right as its parent company is actively burning the franchise to the ground with some draconian new limitation to fan-created content...
Posted by: Castle Guy at January 15, 2023 10:27 AM (Lhaco)
----
There's usually more than one way to destroy a company. TSR fell due to poor management decisions and some incompetence. WoTC is falling for many of the same reasons, plus wokeness isn't exactly helping...

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at January 15, 2023 10:37 AM (BpYfr)

221 Until she lost her head ?
Posted by: JT at January 15, 2023 09:36 AM (T4tVD)

Good one, JT!
I have a new feather-touch wireless keyboard.
All I do now is correct mistakes
Posted by: sal: tolle adversarium et afflige inimicum

Posted by: JT at January 15, 2023 10:37 AM (T4tVD)

222 I think the current anti-Russian hysteria by these same people is the Fabians (who largely populate the WEF/NGO world still) have accepted finally that Russia is not ever going to be their friend in the modern eopch.
Posted by: sven at January 15, 2023 10:25 AM (Lzpvj)

Blavatsky was Russian (mid level nobility) and clearly became an asset of "British" Intelligence.

Besant (her successor) was a founder of Fabians. And most other Intel fronts of the time.

Both were directed at India as part of The Great Game on behalf of England.

Note: A man with the preposterous name Leadbeater was second to both. A sadistic homosexual who used sex to indoctrinate young boys. Everyone knew this and yet he was always there.

Posted by: Thesokorus at January 15, 2023 10:37 AM (1ais2)

223 My copy of Dr. Taylor Marshall's "Antichrist and Apocalypse: The 21 Prophesies of Revelation Unveiled and Described" just arrived yesterday.

That should keep me busy for the next few days.

Posted by: Chatterbox Mouse at January 15, 2023 10:38 AM (TXFi7)

224 At any rate, the UFO hysteria provably is a government op and the people who executed the information/disinformation operations on behalf of the USAF in particular are quite open about it.

Posted by: sven at January 15, 2023 10:34 AM (Lzpvj)
---
A lot of the UFO stuff was generated by the Soviets in order to convince Americans to spy on themselves. "Leaked" Soviet UFOs and claims that spaceships were at US bases made a people take lots and lots of photographs of top-secret stuff and try to publish it.

It was a pretty cool idea, really - you get otherwise normal non-Communists to obsessively photograph American test ranges for free.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 15, 2023 10:38 AM (llXky)

225 I believe that bitcoin is a Deep State op. Do you really belive the whole thing was cooked up by some anonymous Japanese nerd?

Posted by: Ignoramus at January 15, 2023 10:38 AM (SJsWC)

226 I started my first Jack Reacher novel this week. Worth Dying For by Lee Child. I'm really enjoying it. Elmore Leonard is one of my favorite writers and, man, I miss him. But Child seems to be pretty good with the same type of quirky, seedy characters. Reacher is a quirky hero as well, in a good way.
Posted by: Biergood

I'm a HUGE fan of the Reacher novels.

Until his wife and kid and dog started writing them !

Posted by: JT at January 15, 2023 10:39 AM (T4tVD)

227 Speaking of Ulysses, I see Paramount+ is planning a miniseries of James Joyce's works,

...titled "Finnegan's Woke"

Posted by: Muldoon at January 15, 2023 10:36 AM (ykeLU)

It will be equally incomprehensible.

Posted by: Napoleon XIV at January 15, 2023 10:39 AM (AiZBA)

228 .titled "Finnegan's Woke"

Posted by: Muldoon at January 15, 2023 10:36

Lol

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at January 15, 2023 10:40 AM (Kd4bG)

229 I so wish I could do that
Posted by: Doof

I have rarely had a problem devoting time for reading (unless the book was truly bad), but on occasion, I have had to force it. I would find a quiet place with a comfortable chair, and devote a set time to either read or do nothing. Each day, you have that time to do one or the other. Eventually, the book will be finished, and on to the next one.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at January 15, 2023 10:40 AM (3ekeB)

230 195 Ironic how Dungeons and Dragons came up as a topic last week and this week, right as its parent company is actively burning the franchise to the ground with some draconian new limitation to fan-created content...
Posted by: Castle Guy at January 15, 2023 10:27 AM (Lhaco)

I've always meant to replace my "borrowed" AD&D books. Ten years ago I could have done it for about $50.00. After last weeks book thread I went looking and am now looking at selling what little I have left. A DM guide first edition is going for $150.00. I have two moduals in great condition I saw for over $90.00 on Ebay. Somewhere around here I have an original Chain Mail rules guide. Couldn't even find that.

Posted by: Reforger at January 15, 2023 10:40 AM (ZdOyb)

231 222 Posted by: Thesokorus at January 15, 2023 10:37 AM (1ais2)

The mid nobility interaction with the Anglo powers was always "interesting." Essentially I think the Russian deference to money and power indulging the worst debaucheries has always cultivated a weird "loyalty" from the powers that be. You can damn near get anything you can imagine in Russia, and the rich and powerful resent the impact Christianity has had historically on morality in the Anglosphere.

I think now that the Anglosphere is blowing its brains out and has rejected God that chasing of indulgence has shifted to the IO/NGO set and its excesses.

Posted by: sven at January 15, 2023 10:41 AM (Lzpvj)

232 There's usually more than one way to destroy a company. TSR fell due to poor management decisions and some incompetence. WoTC is falling for many of the same reasons, plus wokeness isn't exactly helping...

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at January 15, 2023 10:37 AM (BpYfr)
---
I think Pathfinder now outsells D&D.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 15, 2023 10:41 AM (llXky)

233 IDIC, people! IDIC!
Posted by: All Hail Eris, Sans-Culottes (except for the Book Thread) at January 15, 2023 10:22 AM

I didn't particularly care for that, you know.

Posted by: zombie Leonard Nimoy at January 15, 2023 10:27 AM (a3Q+t)

They wanted me to wear it first, but I had the star power to say no, so you got it.

Posted by: Billy The Shat at January 15, 2023 10:41 AM (Angsy)

234 225 I believe that bitcoin is a Deep State op. Do you really belive the whole thing was cooked up by some anonymous Japanese nerd?
Posted by: Ignoramus at January 15, 2023 10:38 AM (SJsWC)

Could not agree more. It is facially preposterous.

It was brilliant though. Get the nerds to crowdsource a new technology.

Posted by: Thesokorus at January 15, 2023 10:42 AM (1ais2)

235 I don't recall what the Riverside Shakespeare cost when I bought it new about 50 years ago, but suspect some major league wincing was involved. I competed in shot put in high school and continued to lift weights in college so at least I could carry the book and others like it.
Posted by: JTB at January 15, 2023 10:35 AM (7EjX1)

I bought both books for course work in the mid-70s, so about 50 years ago for me, too. Both were price well north of $50 and I think the Gardner was more than the Riverside.

Posted by: mrp at January 15, 2023 10:43 AM (rj6Yv)

236 Never heard of Argyll. Borrowing from the library, thanks

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion

You're welcome. The Raphael Affair was adult in the good way, good dialogue and action that wasn't cartoonish.

Posted by: Leon Sphinx at January 15, 2023 10:43 AM (UIngH)

237 Thank you, Anonosaurus

Posted by: 2009Refugee at January 15, 2023 10:44 AM (8AONa)

238 Candidus @ 187 - saw that on the "New Books" shelves at the library, it looked interesting-ish, but I didn't take it. I'll look for it next time I'm there, thanks for the review!

Posted by: sock_rat_eez - we are being gaslighted 24/365 at January 15, 2023 10:44 AM (XzIdt)

239 OT: Today is National Bagel Day.

Posted by: Duncanthrax at January 15, 2023 10:44 AM (a3Q+t)

240 I started my first Jack Reacher novel this week. Worth Dying For by Lee Child. I'm really enjoying it. Elmore Leonard is one of my favorite writers and, man, I miss him. But Child seems to be pretty good with the same type of quirky, seedy characters. Reacher is a quirky hero as well, in a good way.
Posted by: Biergood

I'm a HUGE fan of the Reacher novels.

Until his wife and kid and dog started writing them !
Posted by: JT

lol. I take it he started farming them out to ghost writers at some point?

Posted by: Biergood at January 15, 2023 10:45 AM (FQWHA)

241 A person who was hit by lightning or suffered a water-related death was taken by the god of spring and fertility Tlaloc to Tlalocan where flowers always bloomed and the first harvests of the spring were always available.

Posted by: NaughtyPine at January 15, 2023 10:33 AM (/+bwe)
---
I've been listening to the Lord of Spirits podcast for more than a year and one of their points is that the "unseen" is real, and that there are in fact lots of 'gods' - really fallen angels - which is why so much stress is laid in the Old Testament that God is the True God, the Highest and Almighty.

The fallen angels are the Thrones and Dominions, Powers and Principalities who abused their responsibility to care for the nations and that's why you have these oddball cults that nevertheless echo the same moral teachings. It's an interesting way to look at the world.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 15, 2023 10:45 AM (llXky)

242 When I was in HS, we read I Never Saw a Moor...You remember "I never saw a moor, I never saw the sea, a cockle doodle doodle doodle doodle do be do be dea," or something like that and when the techer finished reading it he asked "JT what is a Moor? " and I said "I dunno, I never saw one".

Posted by: JT at January 15, 2023 10:45 AM (T4tVD)

243 I'm a HUGE fan of the Reacher novels.

Until his wife and kid and dog started writing them !
Posted by: JT

lol. I take it he started farming them out to ghost writers at some point?
Posted by: Biergood

Yup !

Posted by: JT at January 15, 2023 10:46 AM (T4tVD)

244 Finnegan's Wake is a rousing Irish-American pub song that worked its way back to Dublin to inspire Joyce.

Tim Finnegan falls from a ladder at work and is presumed dead. At his wake he gets whiskey (water of life) spilled on his face and revives. Resurrection theme, you see.

Posted by: Ignoramus at January 15, 2023 10:46 AM (SJsWC)

245 OT: Today is National Bagel Day.
Posted by: Duncanthrax

What have you done with redridinghood ?

Posted by: JT at January 15, 2023 10:47 AM (T4tVD)

246 Posted by: Leon Sphinx

******

Out of curiosity, did Mike Tyson bite your nose off or was it something else?

Posted by: Muldoon at January 15, 2023 10:47 AM (ykeLU)

247 *The fallen angels are the Thrones and Dominions, Powers and Principalities who abused their responsibility to care for the nations and that's why you have these oddball cults that nevertheless echo the same moral teachings. It's an interesting way to look at the world.*

You don't say.

Posted by: The Book of Daniel at January 15, 2023 10:47 AM (DhOHl)

248 Off to start the claying-waxing process on the car, and pick up a few things at Dollar Twenty-Five Tree. Grand stuff this morning. Later, all!

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at January 15, 2023 10:48 AM (omVj0)

249 That's about a day's reading, but I don't have anything else to do.
Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 15, 2023 10:22 AM (Angsy)

I so wish I could do that

Posted by: Doof at January 15, 2023 10:33 AM (yUjc0)

It's nice to have nothing in particular taking up your day, but the downside is no paycheck....

Posted by: Billy The Shat at January 15, 2023 10:48 AM (Angsy)

250 not quite sure what the endgame on this one is though.
Posted by: naturalfake at January 15, 2023 10:22 AM (KLPy
---

They tear off their outer husk on live television to reveal the Space Lizard beneath.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Sans-Culottes (except for the Book Thread) at January 15, 2023 10:24 AM (Dc2NZ)

Pelosi had long beat them to it.

Posted by: Berserker-Dragonheads Division at January 15, 2023 10:48 AM (VwHCD)

251 Ulysses Everett McGill - a limerick

The ancient Greeks, a well-groomed clan
Used pomade that came in a can
Aristotle's unruly mop
Responded well to Fop™
While Homer was a Dapper Dan™ man
Posted by: Muldoon

Well, ain't Ithica a geographical oddity. Twenty years from everywhere!

Posted by: Ulysses at January 15, 2023 10:49 AM (FVME7)

252 Today is National Bagel Day.
----

Gimme a toasted salt bagel with schmear.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Sans-Culottes (except for the Book Thread) at January 15, 2023 10:49 AM (Dc2NZ)

253 I think now that the Anglosphere is blowing its brains out and has rejected God that chasing of indulgence has shifted to the IO/NGO set and its excesses.
Posted by: sven at January 15, 2023 10:41 AM (Lzpvj)

It seems to me that since at least Bacon, Dee and Walsingham, Intelligence Services have been transnational States. It's as if multiple transnational states are fighting using national states as proxies.

Bacon and Dee being the earliest indication of Intelligence services using the "occult".

Posted by: Thesokorus at January 15, 2023 10:49 AM (1ais2)

254 techer finished reading it he asked "JT what is a Moor? " and I said "I dunno, I never saw one".
Posted by: JT at January 15, 2023 10:45 AM (T4tVD)

Hah!

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at January 15, 2023 10:49 AM (Kd4bG)

255 "What is a Moor?"

No, I'm sorry the correct answer is "Moops."

Posted by: Obligatory Seinfeld reference at January 15, 2023 10:51 AM (DhOHl)

256 I did not know this: Author, agent, collector and Fanboi Extraordinaire Forrest J Ackerman was a pseudonymous writer of lesbian fiction. Per Wiki: "Ackerman's involvement with lesbian fiction led to him becoming the first heterosexual guest of honor at Gaylaxicon. It also caused him to be found in violation of the Comstock laws for sending "obscene materials" to another man through the mail while both of them were pretending to be lesbians."

It's like the internet before the internet!

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Sans-Culottes (except for the Book Thread) at January 15, 2023 10:51 AM (Dc2NZ)

257 Bacon and Dee being the earliest indication of Intelligence services using the "occult".
Posted by: Thesokorus at January 15, 2023 10:49 AM (1ais2)

I am getting some very intriguing story ideas from your thesis

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at January 15, 2023 10:51 AM (Kd4bG)

258 Tim Finnegan falls from a ladder at work and is presumed dead. At his wake he gets whiskey (water of life) spilled on his face and revives.

********

Dear Boss I write this note to you to tell you of my plight
And at the time of writing I am not a pretty sight
My body is all black and blue, my face a deadly grey
So I hope you'll understand why Paddy's not at work today...

Posted by: Muldoon at January 15, 2023 10:51 AM (ykeLU)

259 The fallen angels are the Thrones and Dominions, Powers and Principalities who abused their responsibility to care for the nations and that's why you have these oddball cults that nevertheless echo the same moral teachings. It's an interesting way to look at the world.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 15, 2023 10:45 AM (llXky)

Yes. This is what an Intelligence Service is I think. Fallen Angels behind it. Hence the Occult. Trans-national.

Posted by: Thesokorus at January 15, 2023 10:52 AM (1ais2)

260 Never heard of Argyll. Borrowing from the library, thanks

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at January 15, 2023 10:36 AM (Kd4bG)

You've never heard of Argyll? That sox, vmom.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 15, 2023 10:52 AM (Angsy)

261 You don't say.

Posted by: The Book of Daniel at January 15, 2023 10:47 AM (DhOHl)
---
I think a lot of people (myself included) have become blinded to the spiritual world, and when something remarkable happens, immediately reach for a "logical explanation," which in practice means non-spiritual.

Listening to the podcast has caused me to dig deeper into the spirit world (including Scupoli's The Spiritual Combat), and that in turn has me looking at historical works with a fresh perspective. The Illiad in that light becomes a work of non-fiction, an account of the fallen angels settling scores with each other. Romans and Greeks cutting open entrails and consulting oracles aren't a bunch of superstitious idiots, but people using proven techniques to access the spirits around them.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 15, 2023 10:53 AM (llXky)

262 After finishing of a terrible comic book collection, I was lucky enough to read a good comic book collection! "Tex: In the Land of the Seminoles" by some Italian guys. I was expecting a rousing story of Cowboys and Indians (after a prologue explaining why a Texan was in Florida) but I didn't count on the fact that the story was written in 2020, so naturally it was a story about a Cowboy ditching the US Army and joining the Indians. Of course.

Still, the story wasn't as 'current year' as most things we get here in the US. There was more nuance than that; not all white guys were evil, not all non-white guys were good, and it didn't go into the forced girl-power nonsense at all....Oh, and the translators did not censor the language! You won't find this book in public libraries, I can tell you that! And the art: the art was wonderful....

I enjoyed it, and I will probably get the other Tex books that are still in print.

Posted by: Castle Guy at January 15, 2023 10:53 AM (Lhaco)

263 Bacon and Dee being the earliest indication of Intelligence services using the "occult".
Posted by: Thesokorus at January 15, 2023 10:49 AM (1ais2)

I am getting some very intriguing story ideas from your thesis
-- vmom

That reminds me, "Raiders of the Lost Ark" was the best Indiana Jones film.

Posted by: mrp at January 15, 2023 10:54 AM (rj6Yv)

264
One book that should be on everyone's bookshelf: "The Americans: A Social History of the United States 1587-1914" by J C Furnas, G P Putnam's Sons, 1969.

_________

Furnas wrote the chilling "... And Sudden Death" for Reader's Digest in 1935.

Posted by: Hadrian the Seventh at January 15, 2023 10:54 AM (MoZTd)

265 250 Posted by: Berserker-Dragonheads Division at January 15, 2023 10:48 AM (VwHCD)

and so begins the plot of "Mirage Men", both the documentary and the novel.

https://tinyurl.com/Mirage-Men-Book

https://tinyurl.com/Mirage-Men-documentary

As to the point the Soviets started the UFO hysteria...yeah I could see that I could also see the US government being malignant enough to infiltrate it and twist it to its own ends.

The attack drone program benefitted mightly from the laughter curtain effect the USAF cultivated in the 80s, essentially using the UFO movement to provide chaff and flares to keep the Soviet rocket off their six.

The program should have been dialed down in the wake of the cold war but I think the USG got addicted to fucking with the citizenry.

Posted by: sven at January 15, 2023 10:54 AM (Lzpvj)

266 I only know about TSR b/c it's a recurring answer in the crossword I do daily.

See also: Gregorian Calendar, Postmaster General, October Revolution, Lieutenant Colonel, Transcendentalism. Chattering Classes, Piece de Resistance, etc.

Posted by: sal: tolle adversarium et afflige inimicum at January 15, 2023 10:54 AM (wE246)

267 I am getting some very intriguing story ideas from your thesis
Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at January 15, 2023 10:51 AM (Kd4bG)

John Dee is fascinating. Truly. And scary.

Philip II of Spain is too. He fought England and it's "occult" network.

Not saying Philip II was a "hero".

Posted by: Thesokorus at January 15, 2023 10:55 AM (1ais2)

268 "Anthony Boucher's locked room mystery 'Rocket To The Morgue.'"

Tony Boucher's work is undergoing a bit of a resurgence at the moment due to Otto Penzler and The Mysterious Press. Boucher wrote mysteries and science fiction/fantasy and both are now available in inexpensive ebooks from murder dash mayhem dot com through Amazon.

Murder-Mayhem is worth checking out as it also has inexpensive ($2-$4) mystery ebooks for Fred Brown, Donald Westlake (writing as Westlake), Craig Rice, Richard Stark, S.S. Van Dine, Earl Stanley Gardner, Ellery Queen, Ngaio Marsh, Stuart Kaminsky, Stuart Palmer, John Dickson Carr and many others. SF includes Ron Hubbard, Boucher, John Brunner, Robert Sheckley, etc.

The cheap ebooks are loss leaders to induce readers to continue the various series (Stark's Parker, or Boucher's Fergus O'Breen series) by paying more for the followup books in the series, and the followup books aren't cheap for minimum royalty ebooks-around $8-$10 or so each. Still, it's a good low cost way to check out an author you've heard about but haven't read.

Posted by: Pope John 20th at January 15, 2023 10:55 AM (cYrkj)

269 Behind every pagan god is a demon.

E.g. Pachamama.

Posted by: Chatterbox Mouse at January 15, 2023 10:55 AM (TXFi7)

270 That has to be the most absurd "library" I've ever seen. There's something off about it too... like it's a photoshop or some other rendering and not actually real.

Posted by: Martini Farmer at January 15, 2023 10:56 AM (Q4IgG)

271 Today is National Bagel Day.
----

Gimme a toasted salt bagel with schmear.
Posted by: All Hail Eris, Sans-Culottes (except for the Book Thread)

I'm plum outta bagels !

Posted by: JT at January 15, 2023 10:56 AM (T4tVD)

272 One aspect of "In the House of Tom Bombadil" that I especially liked was the distinction Wiley made between 'dominion' and 'domination'. It ties in with Tolkien's world and how it matters in today's culture. Etymology, history, religion, literature, and culture all encompassed in that dichotomy.

Posted by: JTB at January 15, 2023 10:56 AM (7EjX1)

273 Yes. This is what an Intelligence Service is I think. Fallen Angels behind it. Hence the Occult. Trans-national.

Posted by: Thesokorus at January 15, 2023 10:52 AM (1ais2)
---
That would also explain why they always fight among themselves, because unity of effort among them is impossible. Having rebelled against God's law, they are incapable of adhering to any other.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 15, 2023 10:56 AM (llXky)

274 Behind every pagan god is a demon.

E.g. Pachamama.
Posted by: Chatterbox Mouse

Gesundheidt !

Posted by: JT at January 15, 2023 10:57 AM (T4tVD)

275 Posted by: Leon Sphinx

******

Out of curiosity, did Mike Tyson bite your nose off or was it something else?

Posted by: Muldoon

You're confusing me with Evander Holyfield. I whooped Ali, and that's about it. Tyson did take my brother out. The only good thing about that fight was it was so brief, Michael didn't suffer long

Posted by: Leon Sphinx at January 15, 2023 10:57 AM (UIngH)

276 T'Pol's actress like Cavil and the Witcher was one of the few cases of an artist having a deep love of the IP.

She was quite frustrated at times where the writers went with their idiotic Vulcan-Human relations crap in Enterprise.
Posted by: sven at January 15, 2023 10:14 AM (Lzpvj)

I 'like' Enterprise, but only because I missed out on the first 2 seasons, and have only watched seasons 3 and 4. From what I've heard from video-essayist SFDebris, the first two season were absolute trash. I hope T'Pol appreciated the later seasons...

Posted by: Castle Guy at January 15, 2023 10:58 AM (Lhaco)

277 I think now that the Anglosphere is blowing its brains out and has rejected God that chasing of indulgence has shifted to the IO/NGO set and its excesses.
Posted by: sven at January 15, 2023 10:41 AM (Lzpvj)

It seems to me that since at least Bacon, Dee and Walsingham, Intelligence Services have been transnational States. It's as if multiple transnational states are fighting using national states as proxies.

Bacon and Dee being the earliest indication of Intelligence services using the "occult".
Posted by: Thesokorus at January 15, 2023 10:49 AM (1ais2)

I guess that makes "Rollerball" along with bug-eating the endgame.

Posted by: naturalfake at January 15, 2023 10:58 AM (KLPy8)

278 Greetings, be-pantsed and bookish Horde!

Recently reading a bookbundle that purported to be gaslamp fantasy collection. 13 books. Haven't found one yet that I really like and several I abandoned mid-stream. Yet I live in hope I will find a gem!

More writing occurs. I get Monday off so three days of scribbling!

Posted by: Sabrina Chase at January 15, 2023 10:59 AM (BbSpR)

279 Furnas wrote the chilling "... And Sudden Death" for Reader's Digest in 1935.
Posted by: Hadrian the Seventh at January 15, 2023 10:54 AM (MoZTd)

Which I have in my grandfather's 25th RD anniversary anthology.
Way better than that thing Ann Landers used to run.

Posted by: sal: tolle adversarium et afflige inimicum at January 15, 2023 11:00 AM (wE246)

280 That has to be the most absurd "library" I've ever seen. There's something off about it too... like it's a photoshop or some other rendering and not actually real.

Posted by: Martini Farmer at January 15, 2023 10:56 AM (Q4IgG)
---
Can you imagine being a bit drowsy and wanting to grab a book off the shelf at bed time?

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 15, 2023 11:00 AM (llXky)

281 Slowed down on Hamlin Garland's Main Travelled Roads, mostly because as a collection of short stories, there's always a convenient stopping place. The Gilded Age has slowed a little as well but is still interesting. I've been seriously sucked in to Door Way by Norbert Blei. It's a series of character sketches of folks who lived in Door County in the late 1970s. I'm finding it fascinating even though I haven't run into anyone I know yet (I spent a lot of time up there in the 70's and 80's)

Posted by: who knew at January 15, 2023 11:00 AM (4I7VG)

282 Romans and Greeks cutting open entrails and consulting oracles aren't a bunch of superstitious idiots, but people using proven techniques to access the spirits around them.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 15, 2023 10:53 AM (llXky)

I think the greek roman stuff is better understood as degenerated fellaheen having preserved only the least useful parts of earlier societies. Like the tarot and astrology. We can't know what was going on with whoever started "astrology". All we have is dumb silly dangerous remains of some technology.

The Classical Greeks were degenerates who had completely forgotten what the myths originally meant. No better than the Renaissance.

Posted by: Thesokorus at January 15, 2023 11:01 AM (1ais2)

283 241. Where can I read about these ?

Posted by: CN at January 15, 2023 11:02 AM (jOU2L)

284 Remember when Jean Carroll claimed Trump raped her AND that rape is sexy in a live TV interview?

Trump said, "She actually indicated that she loved it. Okay? She loved it until the commercial break. In fact, I think she said it was sexy, didn't she? She said it was very sexy to be raped."

So guess what the FNM line is? Is it that a crazy woman thinks rape is sexy? No its..."It's your testimony that E. Jean Carroll said that she loved being sexually assaulted by you?"

Posted by: 18-1 at January 15, 2023 11:02 AM (lc5cP)

285 Ok, now that's a nifty home library/study/office. Not convenient in any way, and probably a bit of a pain in the ass in the long run, but nifty anyway. I don't know why, but I do like it.

Posted by: Thorsthimble at January 15, 2023 11:03 AM (Ubrqi)

286 >>> 269 Behind every pagan god is a demon.

E.g. Pachamama.
Posted by: Chatterbox Mouse at January 15, 2023 10:55 AM (TXFi7)

Hey, she's my friend!

Posted by: Pope Frankie Goes to Hollywood at January 15, 2023 11:04 AM (llON8)

287 Pretty late to the party this morning and haven't read the comments yet but after seeing what you are reading Perfessor, you really should take up the Christopher Nuttall books starting with The Empire Corps. They are excellent books and his discussions about societies and how they rise and fall is pretty pertinent.

Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at January 15, 2023 11:04 AM (Y+l9t)

288 Thanks Perfessor for your work each week. I always try to read the Book Thread but have not commented in a long time. Lots of my reading selections I learned about here, with several coming from the “Best Of” lists Perfessor posted a few months back. I tried to write up my book list and comments, but “The AI” said I looked Like spam. Suffice to say thank you to Perfessor and The Horde for your comments and suggestions!

Posted by: SuperMayorSuperRonNirenberg-Buffest Political Hack In The Uviverse at January 15, 2023 11:04 AM (/Hc9U)

289 Forget global warming! Guinea pig crisis!

Someone is dumping dozens of guinea pigs in parks around Austin and nobody knows who or why

https://bit.ly/3CRdmrL

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter 2023 at January 15, 2023 11:06 AM (FVME7)

290 Browser test

Posted by: Muldoon at January 15, 2023 11:06 AM (ykeLU)

291 The fallen angels are the Thrones and Dominions, Powers and Principalities who abused their responsibility to care for the nations and that's why you have these oddball cults that nevertheless echo the same moral teachings. It's an interesting way to look at the world.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 15, 2023 10:45 AM (llXky)

They are still in our hierarchy of Angels.
Would have to hear the whole thing to be sure what they mean.

Posted by: sal: tolle adversarium et afflige inimicum at January 15, 2023 11:06 AM (wE246)

292 Hey, she's my friend!

Posted by: Pope Frankie Goes to Hollywood at January 15, 2023 11:04 AM (llON

---
Time to suppress the Jesuits again.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 15, 2023 11:07 AM (llXky)

293 "techer finished reading it he asked "JT what is a Moor? " and I said "I dunno, I never saw one".
Posted by: JT "

It's when the Moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie.

Posted by: fd at January 15, 2023 11:08 AM (iayUP)

294 That would also explain why they always fight among themselves, because unity of effort among them is impossible. Having rebelled against God's law, they are incapable of adhering to any other.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 15, 2023 10:56 AM (llXky)

Yeah. Guenon notes again and again in his writings that this is why they are obsessed with "psychic" powers. They have no access to "higher" things in any way.

Note: Guenon says "psychic" powers are very real but desiring them is dumb and evidence of a profound flaw.

Note note: Guenon was a heretic. But he was brilliant.

Posted by: Thesokorus at January 15, 2023 11:08 AM (1ais2)

295 283 241. Where can I read about these ?

Posted by: CN at January 15, 2023 11:02 AM (jOU2L)
---
The hosts have published some books at ancientfaith.com. The episodes are archived and most have transcripts if you want to scan through them.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 15, 2023 11:08 AM (llXky)

296 I 'like' Enterprise, but only because I missed out on the first 2 seasons, and have only watched seasons 3 and 4. From what I've heard from video-essayist SFDebris, the first two season were absolute trash. I hope T'Pol appreciated the later seasons...

Posted by: Castle Guy at January 15, 2023 10:58 AM (Lhaco)

The first 2 seasons were ok if you liked a dysfunctional crew, a security chief with daddy issues, a linguistics officer who didn't want to be there, a captain beholden to his vulcan minders who weighed every decision with the skill of a bipolar person who couldn't pick the color of their living room paint. All of this occurring on a piece of shit starship that was never quite fast enough to escape danger, and not quite armed enough to defend itself against pretty much anything. And that was sent out by a Ball-less starfleet that would sell out it's best and brightest if it meant being invited to a vulcan cocktail party. Whats not to like? We won't mention the gay ass title music written by what seems to be a gay ass hipster with a cheap acoustic guitar in a coffee shop.

Posted by: Berserker-Dragonheads Division at January 15, 2023 11:09 AM (VwHCD)

297 Is this the moment in the discussion when someone pipes up and mentions John Milton and his poem?

Posted by: mrp at January 15, 2023 11:09 AM (rj6Yv)

298 "techer finished reading it he asked "JT what is a Moor? " and I said "I dunno, I never saw one".
Posted by: JT "

It's when the Moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie.
Posted by: fd

That's a moray !

Posted by: JT at January 15, 2023 11:10 AM (T4tVD)

299 Fuck that bastard!

Hunter Biden Asks Court to Stop Love Child From Taking "Biden" Surname

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter 2023 at January 15, 2023 11:10 AM (FVME7)

300 Sharon (willow*s apprentice), as per your question a while back about William Gibson*s The Peripheral and Amazon*s TV version. I liked the TV series, but was glad I read the book first. Like Amazon*s Man In The High Castle, The Peripheral show takes the core of the story then riffs off of that in ways true to the core. My only complaint with the TV version is, not enough HeftyMart (the book*s very funny take on WalMart).

Posted by: SuperMayorSuperRonNirenberg-Buffest Political Hack In The Uviverse at January 15, 2023 11:11 AM (/Hc9U)

301 I should have socked it as a Canadian. That's a moor, eh?

Posted by: fd at January 15, 2023 11:11 AM (iayUP)

302 The ancient Greeks, a well-groomed clan
Used pomade that came in a can
Aristotle's unruly mop
Responded well to Fop™
While Homer was a Dapper Dan™ man

Posted by: Muldoon

Bravo! One of your best!

Posted by: Taq, Rickrolled by Jesus at January 15, 2023 11:12 AM (YJwUM)

303 Fuck that bastard!

Hunter Biden Asks Court to Stop Love Child From Taking "Biden" Surname
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter 2023 at January 15, 2023 11:10 AM (FVME7)

This request could be construed as an act of mercy by a penitent father. Maybe? Possibly?

Posted by: mrp at January 15, 2023 11:13 AM (rj6Yv)

304 I'm reading The First Kingdom: Britain in the Age of Arthur by Max Adams. It's an archeology and societal history of England in the "Arthurian age" of Post-Roman British history before the Anglo-Saxon domination of the Seventh Century AD. It's spending many pages building a case for/against the "real" Arthur, but I've learned a lot in only 7 chapters so far.

Posted by: exdem13 at January 15, 2023 11:13 AM (W+kMI)

305 I think the greek roman stuff is better understood as degenerated fellaheen having preserved only the least useful parts of earlier societies. Like the tarot and astrology. We can't know what was going on with whoever started "astrology". All we have is dumb silly dangerous remains of some technology.

The Classical Greeks were degenerates who had completely forgotten what the myths originally meant. No better than the Renaissance.

Posted by: Thesokorus at January 15, 2023 11:01 AM (1ais2)
---
That's a very secular view, and one inconsistent with observable reality.

The Greeks and Romans understood cause and effect, they built impressive engineering projects and we aren't even sure how much technology was lost.

There is no reason to believe they were spiritually ignorant. In fact, they were very curious and always adding new 'gods' to the pantheon when they found them. Their pantheons also changed as the powers waxed and waned. One element of the classical world is how gods seemed to be tied to a particular place - again, a Throne, Dominion, Power or Principality set to rule one of the nations.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 15, 2023 11:13 AM (llXky)

306 297 Posted by: mrp at January 15, 2023 11:09 AM (rj6Yv)

Well "yes."

https://youtu.be/0hu8p-NYSkE

"Paradise Lost Audiobook"

Posted by: sven at January 15, 2023 11:14 AM (Lzpvj)

307 "Not saying Philip II was a 'hero.'"

Geoffrey Parker's books on Phillip II provide a much more balanced picture of the King than the stereotypical villain of most popular British histories and literature. A very conscientious and hardworking King (he apparently read almost every report generated in his far-flung Empire, many copies survive with his handwritten notes on them) who did his best according to his own principles. Unfortunately for Spain, and fortunately for the British, any sort of effective government of the multi-continent Spanish Empire was impossible with the organizations and culture of the time.

Posted by: Pope John 20th at January 15, 2023 11:15 AM (cYrkj)

308 Hunter Biden Asks Court to Stop Love Child From Taking "Biden" Surname
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter 2023 at January 15, 2023 11:10 AM (FVME7)

Baby momma was trolling, and Hunter swallowed the hook.

Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at January 15, 2023 11:15 AM (tkR6S)

309 304 Posted by: exdem13 at January 15, 2023 11:13 AM (W+kMI)

Arthur was probably like Robin Hood an amalgamation of several figures into one character.

I think what is hilarious is the Monty Python driven view that Brittania was some hillbilly backwater rather than an important frontier outpost.

Posted by: sven at January 15, 2023 11:16 AM (Lzpvj)

310 Not sure you can copyright a name

Posted by: Skip at January 15, 2023 11:16 AM (xhxe8)

311 Is this the moment in the discussion when someone pipes up and mentions John Milton and his poem?

Posted by: mrp at January 15, 2023 11:09 AM (rj6Yv)
---
The Lord of Spirits guys actually get into that and how much it has distorted Western theology.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 15, 2023 11:18 AM (llXky)

312 Romans and Greeks cutting open entrails and consulting oracles aren't a bunch of superstitious idiots, but people using proven techniques to access the spirits around them.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 15, 2023 10:53 AM (llXky)

Well, since those things apparently worked, why wouldn't they. The Pythian oracle worked until Christianity took over, so something was there demonically until then?

Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 15, 2023 11:18 AM (Angsy)

313 Biergood, you have about 12 or 14 really good books before Child starting writing with his son.
So enjoy.

Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at January 15, 2023 11:20 AM (Y+l9t)

314 Unfortunately for Spain, and fortunately for the British, any sort of effective government of the multi-continent Spanish Empire was impossible with the organizations and culture of the time.
Posted by: Pope John 20th at January 15, 2023 11:15 AM (cYrkj)

It was more English opposition than anything systemic. England defeated Spain but it was an incredibly close run thing.

Ppl talk about "hybrid warfare" being new. Lol. Spain and England fought via every possible modality.

Posted by: Thesokorus at January 15, 2023 11:21 AM (1ais2)

315 Supermayor, I have the book on reserve at the library. Just awaiting my turn.

Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at January 15, 2023 11:22 AM (Y+l9t)

316 William Thomas Walsh was brilliant. And gives the pro-Catholic side of England vs Spain in his histories.

Posted by: Thesokorus at January 15, 2023 11:22 AM (1ais2)

317 Well, since those things apparently worked, why wouldn't they. The Pythian oracle worked until Christianity took over, so something was there demonically until then?

Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 15, 2023 11:18 AM (Angsy)
---
Yes, there and elsewhere. The Christian practice of taking pagan temples and converting/rebuilding them as churches was a direct challenge to the demons. This is also why hallowed dead were buried there.

Much of modern paganism is just affectation, a show of hipsters being rebels. However, there is demonic energy out there, and the way in which abortion - the slaughter of the innocent - is now regarded as The Most Important Thing Ever speaks volumes. There is no logical explanation for it, but there is a spiritual one.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 15, 2023 11:22 AM (llXky)

318 311 Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 15, 2023 11:18 AM (llXky)

Paradise lost, and Paradise Found are both best understood as a Danteesque analysis of the Godhead and its effect on man rather than a treatise on theology.

The battle between Christianity as a philosophical system of morals versus the supernatural psychic mystical cult has been raging since Christ was still walking the planet in human form.

Like most matters there is the very superficial and barely dove in on surface level of knowledge and the complex battle under the hood.

The fall of the Templars can be traced to this type of fight.

Posted by: sven at January 15, 2023 11:22 AM (Lzpvj)

319 In "Swords and Serpents" the oracles that the Roman Emperor relied upon to seeing the outcome of battles became silent as St. George (a hidden Christian) was present.

The demons were silent.

Posted by: Chatterbox Mouse at January 15, 2023 11:23 AM (TXFi7)

320 The pic (while amusing in a demented way) looks like a library for someone who doesn't actually want to read anything. You go in, you think maybe you'd like to snag that copy of whatever and zip through a few chapters, and then you look at the ladder and decide it's just too much trouble. It'll always be too much trouble. And you might fall. Best not to bother.

I expect to see a design like this in school, college, and public libraries any day now.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at January 15, 2023 11:24 AM (a/4+U)

321 It's spending many pages building a case for/against the "real" Arthur, but I've learned a lot in only 7 chapters so far.

In other parts of the late/immediate post Roman Empire you saw various leaders assume power.

I always thought it would be odd if there wasn't an "Arthur" in Britain - likely the kid/descendant of some Roman leader.

But there is a lot of time here. Rome abandoned Britain around 400 and it isn't until many years later we get somewhat reliable history.

Posted by: 18-1 at January 15, 2023 11:24 AM (lc5cP)

322 William Thomas Walsh was brilliant. And gives the pro-Catholic side of England vs Spain in his histories.

Posted by: Thesokorus at January 15, 2023 11:22 AM (1ais2)
---
Is there any real debate at this point that Henry VIII was one of history's greatest monsters?

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 15, 2023 11:26 AM (llXky)

323 I think what is hilarious is the Monty Python driven view that Brittania was some hillbilly backwater rather than an important frontier outpost.
Posted by: sven at January 15, 2023 11:16 AM (Lzpvj)

Yeah. That backwater kept producing Emperors.

Posted by: Thesokorus at January 15, 2023 11:27 AM (1ais2)

324 195 Ironic how Dungeons and Dragons came up as a topic last week and this week, right as its parent company is actively burning the franchise to the ground with some draconian new limitation to fan-created content...
------
I almost sold all my first edition AD&D & BECMI D&D books a few years back when I was short of cash. Now I'm sort of glad I didn't do it. The older games may start to be popular again, maybe? At any rate, WotC is in it deep after caving to boss Hasbro again. But this time unlike the wokeness and Twitter-pandering they finally hit on the one issue that would unite nearly all players. Rewriting the Original Game License to allow WotC to butcher the goose that laid the golden eggs was a bad call, and the naked corporate greed was so open that it alienated the fan-consumer base outright. *sarcastic tennis applause here*

Posted by: exdem13 at January 15, 2023 11:27 AM (W+kMI)

325 Ppl talk about "hybrid warfare" being new. Lol. Spain and England fought via every possible modality.

War in Europe became somewhat ritualized by the 1700s, climaxing more or less in WWI.

Our FNM, on occasion, likes to pretend that sort of war is historically normal. Its not.

Posted by: 18-1 at January 15, 2023 11:28 AM (lc5cP)

326 Someone is dumping dozens of guinea pigs in parks around Austin and nobody knows who or why

https://bit.ly/3CRdmrL

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter 2023 at January 15, 2023 11:06 AM (FVME7)

Maybe they want to see what happens to them?

Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 15, 2023 11:28 AM (Angsy)

327 BTW, a bit of trivia tying together the Aztecs and John Dee. His famous "mirror" was an Aztec obsidian artifact brought back to Europe probably by Cortez.

Posted by: Sabrina Chase at January 15, 2023 11:29 AM (BbSpR)

328 Yeah. That backwater kept producing Emperors.
Posted by: Thesokorus at January 15, 2023 11:27 AM (1ais2)

Constantine was proclaimed Emperor in York (Eboracum).

Posted by: mrp at January 15, 2023 11:30 AM (rj6Yv)

329 For folks who want a detailed look at spiritual warfare, Stephen Rossetti's Diary of an American Exorcist is a quick, informative read.

I brought it to drill to show one of my fellow Catholics and he took it home with him and refused to give it back until he finished reading it.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 15, 2023 11:31 AM (llXky)

330 322 Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 15, 2023 11:26 AM (llXky)

Compared to whom? Not being faceitious, it is a lot like the real Queen Elizabeth (whom I would have happily served mind you given the alternatives) who is nowhere near as noble as surface history remembers. I spent the majority of my first 50 years carrying the opinion that monarchy was on the wane and an innate evil no matter how nobly handled.

Having had that impression undermined by events extant I have been taking a hard look at the waxing and waning of concentrated power as being structural to the human condition and throughout recorded history with very few exceptions concentrated power has been winning.

Looking back at the last two millenia as dispassionately as possible I find myself underwhelmed by 90% of civil leaders and 75% of military ones.

Posted by: sven at January 15, 2023 11:31 AM (Lzpvj)

331 Is there any real debate at this point that Henry VIII was one of history's greatest monsters?
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 15, 2023 11:26 AM (llXky)

Idk. He began wanting to reasonably end his marriage to the barren Queen. Charles kept refusing to allow it. He obv ended up where he ended up. But it seemed like he was driven there by others. Idk. Fascinating question. Fascinating individual.

Posted by: Thesokorus at January 15, 2023 11:31 AM (1ais2)

332 Someone is dumping dozens of guinea pigs in parks around Austin and nobody knows who or why

******

Gov. Abbott is going to load 'em on a bus to Chicago.

Or send them via transporter to a Klingon ship, same difference.

Posted by: Muldoon at January 15, 2023 11:32 AM (ykeLU)

333 323 Posted by: Thesokorus at January 15, 2023 11:27 AM (1ais2)

It was also venerated soil in Catholic mysticism in the early days of the Church and was viewed as a special agent of the faith.

Part of why Spain had a mad on to exert control of the place.

Posted by: sven at January 15, 2023 11:32 AM (Lzpvj)

334 Yeah. That backwater kept producing Emperors.

Posted by: Thesokorus at January 15, 2023 11:27 AM (1ais2)
---
It was a backwater, which is why all the would-be emperors left.

You could govern the Empire from Constantinople, or Rome, or Milan and even Trier, but not Britain.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 15, 2023 11:33 AM (llXky)

335 Constantine was proclaimed Emperor in York (Eboracum).
Posted by: mrp at January 15, 2023 11:30 AM (rj6Yv)

Bad writing on my part. I was trying to agree with sven. Brittania actually did keep producing Emperors. Hard to reconcile with being a backwater.

Posted by: Thesokorus at January 15, 2023 11:33 AM (1ais2)

336 Is there any real debate at this point that Henry VIII was one of history's greatest monsters?
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 15, 2023 11:26 AM (llXky)

Idk. He began wanting to reasonably end his marriage to the barren Queen. Charles kept refusing to allow it. He obv ended up where he ended up. But it seemed like he was driven there by others. Idk. Fascinating question. Fascinating individual.
Posted by: Thesokorus at January 15, 2023 11:31 AM (1ais2)

I've read (and own) Duffy's "The Stripping of the Altars". Yep - tyrant and monster.

Posted by: mrp at January 15, 2023 11:34 AM (rj6Yv)

337 Don't South America countries eat guinea pigs on a stick?

Posted by: Skip at January 15, 2023 11:34 AM (xhxe8)

338 309 304 Posted by: exdem13 at January 15, 2023 11:13 AM (W+kMI)

Arthur was probably like Robin Hood an amalgamation of several figures into one character.

I think what is hilarious is the Monty Python driven view that Brittania was some hillbilly backwater rather than an important frontier outpost.
=======
If you seriously believe that sort of thing, then it's the book for you! Roman Britain was definitely connected to the continental Empire, and was playing its part, right until Honorius told them he really couldn't send help right now (thanks to Alaric) so the Britons would have to shift for themselves. And they more or less did so for another two centuries. As Adams points out, the writings have been lost, but the archeological record has at least provided the stage upon which the men of legend walked.

Posted by: exdem13 at January 15, 2023 11:34 AM (W+kMI)

339 Someone is dumping dozens of guinea pigs in parks around Austin and nobody knows who or why*

Gov. Abbott is going to load 'em on a bus to Chicago.

Or send them via transporter to a Klingon ship, same difference.
Posted by: Muldoon

This reminded me of The Trouble With Tribbles.

Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at January 15, 2023 11:34 AM (Y+l9t)

340 I spent the majority of my first 50 years carrying the opinion that monarchy was on the wane and an innate evil no matter how nobly handled.

One of the real weaknesses of representative government is that a leader can demagogue or just fake getting 50.1% of the vote and then go about claiming to be doing "the will of the people" as they do insane and absurd things.

The American system was designed to stop that but that system is dead.

Posted by: 18-1 at January 15, 2023 11:35 AM (lc5cP)

341 Am I the only one who thinks that's a painting, not a picture, of the circular library.

Posted by: From about that time at January 15, 2023 11:36 AM (4780s)

342 My birdbath is STILL frozen !

Posted by: JT at January 15, 2023 11:38 AM (T4tVD)

343 Compared to whom?

Posted by: sven at January 15, 2023 11:31 AM (Lzpvj)
---
His predecessors are a good start. He didn't just want a divorce, he ended up seizing Church lands and using it to pay his cronies to fund all the wars he wanted to start. As even Churchill admits, the monasteries and abbeys were the social safety net, the last refuge for the poor. Royal propagandists dutifully came up with reasons, but the fact was they provided necessary support for society, including education opportunities unavailable anywhere else.

And for all his serial marriages, he never did secure the succession and religious strife became endemic to England for two centuries.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 15, 2023 11:38 AM (llXky)

344 Am I the only one who thinks that's a painting

*******

Now that you mention it, you could well be right.

Posted by: Muldoon at January 15, 2023 11:39 AM (ykeLU)

345 Don't South America countries eat guinea pigs on a stick?
Posted by: Skip

Ya gotta pay extra for the stick....

Posted by: JT at January 15, 2023 11:39 AM (T4tVD)

346 Guinea pigs or Henry Viii discussion? Which will prevail?

Personally I think the guinea pig story has more legs.

Posted by: Muldoon at January 15, 2023 11:42 AM (ykeLU)

347 336 Is there any real debate at this point that Henry VIII was one of history's greatest monsters?
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 15, 2023 11:26 AM (llXky)
Idk. He began wanting to reasonably end his marriage to the barren Queen. Charles kept refusing to allow it. He obv ended up where he ended up. But it seemed like he was driven there by others. Idk. Fascinating question. Fascinating individual.
Posted by: Thesokorus at January 15, 2023 11:31 AM (1ais2)
The thing is, Henry VIII had a real concern. When he became king there were old people living who could remember the Wars of the Roses. His daughter Mary's marriage would become a political football and ruin the peace his father had worked so hard to make. He had to have a son to keep the realm united. But Cardinal Wolsey lost the chance for a Papal-granted divorce because the Emperor's mutinous army had sacked Rome, so the Pope was out of cash and political influence. AND Carlos V of Spain who was also Emperor Charles V was Queen Catherine's nephew. So the Pope Clement VII told Wolsey that Henry VIII would get no divorce. Henry, like most kings, didn't understand or accept "no" as an answer.

Posted by: exdem13 at January 15, 2023 11:42 AM (W+kMI)

348 The thing is, Henry VIII had a real concern. When he became king there were old people living who could remember the Wars of the Roses.

Posted by: exdem13 at January 15, 2023 11:42 AM (W+kMI)
---
Yes, and his solution was to pick a fight with the most powerful monarch in Europe, introduce wars of religion to English soil and kill his most trusted advisors.

That sure fixed the problem!

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 15, 2023 11:48 AM (llXky)

349 Personally I think the guinea pig story has more legs.
Posted by: Muldoon

Only until the dinner bell rings....

Posted by: JT at January 15, 2023 11:48 AM (T4tVD)

350 They also did not understand genetics at the time. Henry, bless his sweet little heart, kept trying to sire a male heir.

Posted by: Chatterbox Mouse at January 15, 2023 11:48 AM (TXFi7)

351 Henry, like most kings, didn't understand or accept "no" as an answer.
Posted by: exdem13 at January 15, 2023 11:42 AM (W+kMI)

Isn't there also a theory Henry VIII had Syphilis by this time? His wives weren't barren, he was or all his kids died within a couple weeks. Plus it was driving him nuts and easily influenced by Woolsey and the various ilk that came with him.

Posted by: Reforger at January 15, 2023 11:49 AM (Zw6ex)

352 Henry, like most kings, didn't understand or accept "no" as an answer.
Posted by: exdem13 at January 15, 2023 11:42 AM (W+kMI)

And the price for that refusal was to execute 48,000 people, seize the wealth of the Church for state purposes (and the Tudors still lost Calais), and to turn England into the first modern police state.

Posted by: mrp at January 15, 2023 11:49 AM (rj6Yv)

353 343 Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 15, 2023 11:38 AM (llXky)

Eh his predecessors threw a civil war for fun and profit oddly gaining neither thereby. I am also glad Henry invoked the divine right of kings undermining the understood value of the English Constitution and Magna Carta because he indirectly lit the fuse that have birth to the United States and the enlightenement with his perifidy. The island had to choose when the chips were down between protestantism and catholicism, and while I agree there was severe overreach in his actions and the cession of the papal lands in the nation the reality is the Church had accrued power and was interfering in English secular matters to an unseemly degree.

It all worked out in the end and my own bloodline and region provably helped the Tudors ascend to power and then fought against the overreach and then helped give a king a shave when the time came.

Had the Catholics not been so hard on the Lollards I would have more sympathy.

Posted by: sven at January 15, 2023 11:51 AM (Lzpvj)

354 A few things:

Henry didn't want a divorce- he wanted a recognition that his marriage to Katherine was null from the beginning, since she had been his brother's wife.
He eventually (helped along by the Protestants) took his lack of a male heir as a sign that he had violated Leviticus and was being punished by God.
In spite of the fact that Katherine claimed the marriage had not been consummated and that her marriage to Henry was valid.

When he was refused the decree he wanted, he declared himself Head of the Church, and everything else followed from that.

Posted by: sal: tolle adversarium et afflige inimicum at January 15, 2023 11:51 AM (wE246)

355 Was Catherine of Aragon barren? No. Mary was her daughter.

Posted by: Chatterbox Mouse at January 15, 2023 11:52 AM (TXFi7)

356 I read some books this week. Romance novels about werewolves and other were creatures by Mary Jane Davison. Pure fun that kept me up late at night. Actually a bit of a mystery in each one. Read them for free on Hoopla.

Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at January 15, 2023 11:52 AM (Y+l9t)

357 343 Compared to whom?

Posted by: sven at January 15, 2023 11:31 AM (Lzpvj)
---
And for all his serial marriages, he never did secure the succession and religious strife became endemic to England for two centuries.
===
That's not true. Henry VIII's last will and testament that included the right of succession for all his children was passed into law by Parliament. Attempts to replace the succeeding Tudor monarchs were short-lived and suppressed, including the ones made against the very Catholic Mary. It was the numerous interventions into English politics by Philip II and the Jesuits, and the fatwah of the Pope in 1571 put English Catholics between a rock and a hard place, and all but guaranteed persecution by the Crown, which took its ultimate form following the Gunpowder Plot against James I. Now if you want to talk about policy crimes by Henry VIII, my Border Reiver ancestors could have told you plenty about the "Rough Wooing".

Posted by: exdem13 at January 15, 2023 11:52 AM (W+kMI)

358 I see no evidence it can't be built as it is, but then on a tablet picture is only so big

Posted by: Skip at January 15, 2023 11:52 AM (xhxe8)

359 Good morning Hordemates!

Posted by: Diogenes at January 15, 2023 11:53 AM (anj39)

360 Good morning Hordemates!
Posted by: Diogenes

Hiya !

Posted by: JT at January 15, 2023 11:54 AM (T4tVD)

361 It all worked out in the end and my own bloodline and region provably helped the Tudors ascend to power and then fought against the overreach and then helped give a king a shave when the time came.

Had the Catholics not been so hard on the Lollards I would have more sympathy.
Posted by: sven at January 15, 2023 11:51 AM (Lzpvj)

The Tudors were right there, Sven. It was Catholic Henry who received the Pope's title "Defender of the Faith".

Posted by: mrp at January 15, 2023 11:54 AM (rj6Yv)

362 Isn't there also a theory Henry VIII had Syphilis by this time? His wives weren't barren, he was or all his kids died within a couple weeks. Plus it was driving him nuts and easily influenced by Woolsey and the various ilk that came with him.
Posted by: Reforger at January 15, 2023 11:49 AM (Zw6ex)

That is a "fact" popularized for many years. More modern thought is that his increasingly erratic behavior was the result of a brain injury incurred while jousting.

Posted by: sal: tolle adversarium et afflige inimicum at January 15, 2023 11:55 AM (wE246)

363 I am going retro this week in reading and picked up the first of the George.Smiley series by John Le Carre. Its been decades since I last read them. Looking forward to it after a disappointing set of books from last week...a complaint I'll save for First World Problems.

Posted by: Diogenes at January 15, 2023 11:56 AM (anj39)

364 I saw some blog that theorized that Henry VIII had Marfan syndrome. Or maybe I dreamed that.

Or am I thinking of Abe Lincoln?

Posted by: Muldoon at January 15, 2023 11:58 AM (ykeLU)

365 361 Posted by: mrp at January 15, 2023 11:54 AM (rj6Yv)

They were there and it is a mark against them, again I am a believer in devolved power and the notion that people were not allowed to worship as they would in peace is anathema to me.

Lollardism was an attempt to demystify the relationship between man and God and a form of pror-baptist doctrine in some ways.

Not wanting to relitigate the holy wars here, just saying the Catholics, the Anglicans, the Puritans, and the Lutherans all played hardball in the era when need be.

Posted by: sven at January 15, 2023 11:58 AM (Lzpvj)

366 well one is reminded of Tim Power's declare, where the Great Game, is in part about the recovery of certain artefacts in the empty quarter, one of which was a meteorite that was stored in the anchor insurance company, that's where the Lubyanka was buiit on, the meteorite is the source of a djinn that demands souls hence the Soviet states 'devouring'

Posted by: no 6 at January 15, 2023 11:59 AM (PXvVL)

367 I saw some blog that theorized that Henry VIII had Marfan syndrome. Or maybe I dreamed that.

Or am I thinking of Abe Lincoln?
Posted by: Muldoon

A Marlins fan ?

Posted by: JT at January 15, 2023 12:00 PM (T4tVD)

368 That is a "fact" popularized for many years. More modern thought is that his increasingly erratic behavior was the result of a brain injury incurred while jousting.
Posted by: sal: tolle adversarium et afflige inimicum at January 15, 2023 11:55 AM (wE246)

Could have been poisoned or drugged as well.

Idk he seems like a wrathful man pushed to the extreme by Spain and English bad actors.

He really seemed to not want to defy Rome but one or the other kept putting him corner after corner.

Posted by: Thesokorus at January 15, 2023 12:00 PM (1ais2)

369 NOOD

Posted by: Skip at January 15, 2023 12:01 PM (xhxe8)

370 Posted by: Muldoon at January 15, 2023 11:58 AM (ykeLU)

I have read that Lincoln may have had Marfan.

Henry VIII didn't have the classic body type!

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at January 15, 2023 12:01 PM (XIJ/X)

371 The admonition in the Psalms, "place not your trust in princes" is evergreen.

Posted by: mrp at January 15, 2023 12:01 PM (rj6Yv)

372 366 well one is reminded of Tim Power's declare, where the Great Game, is in part about the recovery of certain artefacts in the empty quarter, one of which was a meteorite that was stored in the anchor insurance company, that's where the Lubyanka was buiit on, the meteorite is the source of a djinn that demands souls hence the Soviet states 'devouring'

Posted by: no 6 at January 15, 2023 11:59 AM (PXvVL)

Powers is great. He knew a lot of stuff somehow.

Posted by: Thesokorus at January 15, 2023 12:02 PM (1ais2)

373 I am taking a break from re-organizing my own library. It put into perspective how ridiculous today's featured library is. Climbing a ladder carrying a thick art or history book - sheer madness!

That's not even mentioning the ladder in the middle of the room or the skylight's sun-bleaching effects on paper or leather.

Posted by: NaughtyPine at January 15, 2023 12:02 PM (/+bwe)

374 And the price for that refusal was to execute 48,000 people, seize the wealth of the Church for state purposes (and the Tudors still lost Calais), and to turn England into the first modern police state.
Posted by: mrp at January 15, 2023 11:49 AM (rj6Yv)

Oh. You mean a police state like the Roman Catholic Church?

Posted by: Pork Chops & Bacons at January 15, 2023 12:04 PM (BdMk6)

375 348 The thing is, Henry VIII had a real concern. When he became king there were old people living who could remember the Wars of the Roses.

Posted by: exdem13 at January 15, 2023 11:42 AM (W+kMI)
---
Yes, and his solution was to pick a fight with the most powerful monarch in Europe, introduce wars of religion to English soil and kill his most trusted advisors.

That sure fixed the problem!
=======
From Henry's point of view, it did. He was the closest thing England ever got to "the State, it is I", and he was within the royal rights to confirm his succession with an uncontested male heir. The confiscated and auctioned church lands undoubtedly confirmed support, but enough members of Parliament supported his actions to make it legal, and deadly dangerous to oppose. Which is why we should all be glad to be Americans.

Posted by: exdem13 at January 15, 2023 12:04 PM (W+kMI)

376 Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 15, 2023 11:08 AM (llXky)

Thanks

Posted by: CN at January 15, 2023 12:04 PM (Zzbjj)

377 366 well one is reminded of Tim Power's declare, where the Great Game, is in part about the recovery of certain artefacts in the empty quarter, one of which was a meteorite that was stored in the anchor insurance company, that's where the Lubyanka was buiit on, the meteorite is the source of a djinn that demands souls hence the Soviet states 'devouring'

Posted by: no 6 at January 15, 2023 11:59 AM

Declare is one of my favorite books and a true feat of using real-world events to build a fantasy.

Posted by: NaughtyPine at January 15, 2023 12:04 PM (/+bwe)

378 Don't South America countries eat guinea pigs on a stick?
Posted by: Skip at January 15, 2023 11:34 AM (xhxe

Hell. Come to parts of Queens, NY and they are cooking them on the street on carts like the old dirty water dog vendors.

Posted by: RetSgtRn at January 15, 2023 12:10 PM (RqUF/)

379 362 Isn't there also a theory Henry VIII had Syphilis by this time? His wives weren't barren, he was or all his kids died within a couple weeks. Plus it was driving him nuts and easily influenced by Woolsey and the various ilk that came with him.
Posted by: Reforger at January 15, 2023 11:49 AM (Zw6ex)

That is a "fact" popularized for many years. More modern thought is that his increasingly erratic behavior was the result of a brain injury incurred while jousting.
------
Henry VIII probably contracted syphilis from one of his many mistresses. (He didn't get it from Catherine, no doubt!) His later behavior matches the physical and mental effects of syphilis. The lack of offspring in his later wives and Edward VI's sickly nature are a further testimony. (He also increasingly suffered from gout, which is enough to make anyone irritable.) The jousting injury suffered in a futile attempt to revive the physical prowess of his youth in front of Anne resulted in no permanent harm, except Anne's miscarriage of a male fetus. Oops.

Posted by: exdem13 at January 15, 2023 12:11 PM (W+kMI)

380 Hunter Biden Asks Court to Stop Love Child From Taking "Biden" Surname
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks,

Huh
I wonder what the law says about that
Also, what a deadbeat dad

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at January 15, 2023 12:11 PM (Kd4bG)

381 It was the numerous interventions into English politics by Philip II and the Jesuits, and the fatwah of the Pope in 1571 put English Catholics between a rock and a hard place,

Posted by: exdem13 at January 15, 2023 11:52 AM (W+kMI)
---
Henry literally seized all the Church's lands AND clergy and declared himself King and Pope (of England).

You don't just let something like that go.

Henry never failed to pick a fight, internally or externally.

A more reasonable course would have been to have his daughters declared heirs (which Parliament did) and then not piss off the Church and Spain.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 15, 2023 12:12 PM (llXky)

382 I have read that Lincoln may have had Marfan.

Henry VIII didn't have the classic body type!
Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at January 15, 2023 12:01 PM (XIJ/X)

Lincoln may have. I recall reading about it when the 6'8" center of the US Women's basketball team was said to have had it. She died of heart failure at 56yo, IIRC

Posted by: CN at January 15, 2023 12:13 PM (Zzbjj)

383 378 Don't South America countries eat guinea pigs on a stick?
Posted by: Skip at January 15, 2023 11:34 AM (xhxe

Hell. Come to parts of Queens, NY and they are cooking them on the street on carts like the old dirty water dog vendors.
--------
There's a reason they are called "pigs". The Andean peoples treated them as pigs, namely as an easy to maintain food source. They are still being used in that role today. Plus several of them could furnish enough skins to make a nice cap or footstool cover.

Posted by: exdem13 at January 15, 2023 12:14 PM (W+kMI)

384 I wonder what the law says about that
Also, what a deadbeat dad

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at January 15, 2023 12:11 PM (Kd4bG)
---
Yeah, telling a kid he cannot take the last name of his actual, proven father seems quite a novel take.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 15, 2023 12:14 PM (llXky)

385 ---
Yeah, telling a kid he cannot take the last name of his actual, proven father seems quite a novel take.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 15, 2023 12:14 PM (llXky)

The Biden's are fighting it, anyway

Posted by: CN at January 15, 2023 12:16 PM (Zzbjj)

386 Yeah, telling a kid he cannot take the last name of his actual, proven father seems quite a novel take.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 15, 2023 12:14 PM (llXky)

Maybe he can take the name FitzBiden, like in Robin Hobb's Assassin's Apprentice series.

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at January 15, 2023 12:18 PM (Kd4bG)

387
Maybe he can take the name FitzBiden, like in Robin Hobb's Assassin's Apprentice series.
Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at January 15, 2023 12:18 PM (Kd4bG)

The FitzRoy idea, like the only acknowledged male issue of Henry VIII, Henry FitzRoy. Good idea

Posted by: CN at January 15, 2023 12:24 PM (Zzbjj)

388 Thank you, Perfessor, for another fabulous book thread.

Doof, if you're still reading - I'm rather late today - I find that when reading the first few chapters of an author I've not read before, it takes me at least a few chapters to "settle in" and get comfortable with their style. After that I'm usually addicted and can't put the book down, which causes its own problems. And as a horrible procrastinator, sometimes borrowing a book from the library, knowing I have it for a limited time, its the nudge I need to settle down and read.

And I am still working my way through The End of Procrastination. Admittedly, life has been very busy but there's also, alas, the procrastination. Sigh.

Posted by: KatieFloyd at January 15, 2023 12:45 PM (ob77J)

389 Anthony Boucher's locked room mystery "Rocket To The Morgue" (1942) has an amusing chapter in which our inspector visits a group of science fiction authors clearly based on SoCal greats. ... Anthony Boucher is dismissed as a hack.
Posted by: All Hail Eris, Sans-Culottes (except for the Book Thread) at January 15, 2023 09:07 AM (Dc2NZ)

That is such a fun story. Boucher originally wrote it using the pseudonym "H. H. Holmes." Boucher was a true-crime aficionado, and it is fitting that he used the name of a late 19th Century serial killer.

Posted by: Retired Buckeye Cop is now an engineer at January 15, 2023 02:19 PM (pJWtt)

390 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Survivors_(Godwin_novel)
By Tom Godwin author of the Cold Equations
The antagonist is an entire planet.
I read this as a kid and it has stuck with me ever since, I reread it occasionally.

Posted by: 42 at January 15, 2023 02:27 PM (3nunz)

391 Behind every pagan god is a demon.

E.g. Pachamama.
Posted by: Chatterbox Mouse at January 15, 2023 10:55 AM (TXFi7)

Hey, she's my friend!
Posted by: Pope Frankie Goes to Hollywood at January 15, 2023 11:04 AM (llON

Just because Frankie the Red has defiled the Vatican with pagan rites, that's no reason to label him an "anti-Pope." /s

A.H. Lloyd has had the insight that Pope Francis isn't the Pope faithful Catholics wanted but he is the one they needed to confirm the corruption within the Vatican and hierarchy. The more Pope Francis tries to suppress traditional Catholics, the stronger they get. The zeal is on the side of the traditionalists, and the modernists are lukewarm and uncertain why they should hate the Traditional Latin Mass and other Catholic traditions.

Posted by: Retired Buckeye Cop is now an engineer at January 15, 2023 03:30 PM (pJWtt)

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Posted by: www.Payathome7.com at January 15, 2023 03:31 PM (7dmj6)

393 As with all AI at the moment, the results are somewhat mixed. It can be very good for answering general questions that don't require much reflection.

Like Wikipedia.

Posted by: LCMS Rulz! at January 15, 2023 04:26 PM (K58O6)

394 Reforger: re selling your old D&D stuff. There is a company called Noble Kight Games on the internet that buys them and shows you how to tell what edition and print run you actually have and what they sell them for. will at least give you a clue what your copy of Chainmail is worth.

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395
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Posted by: systemic at January 18, 2023 04:01 AM (1I+c/)

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