Sunday Morning Book Thread - 06-02-2024 ["Perfessor" Squirrel]

Welcome to the prestigious, internationally acclaimed, stately, and illustrious Sunday Morning Book Thread! The place where all readers are welcome, regardless of whatever guilty pleasure we feel like reading. Here is where we can discuss, argue, bicker, quibble, consider, debate, confabulate, converse, and jaw about our latest fancy in reading material. As always, pants are required, unless you are wearing these pants...(for a limited time only, now with extra syrup!)

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

PIC NOTE

I attended a demo of a product we may be considering switching to in the near future. This picture was attached to a question on a quiz during the demo. I liked the picture, so I simply swiped it. It's clear the vendor was just using a stock photo from the interwebs. They were demonstrating how media content can be attached to questions/assessments in their product.

SUMMER BOOK STUDY

Although classes may be out for summer, that doesn't mean all academic activity has to stop. I work at a university and from time the department I work will host a summer book study for the folks in our department and for the general faculty who are interested. This year's selection is Teaching with AI: A Practical Guide to a New Era of Human Learning by José Antonio Bowen and C. Edward Watson. Yes, many AI tools are kind of worthless, even if they create interesting outputs. However, the reality is that AI is here to stay. Students WILL use it in their schoolwork, regardless of what professors want them to do. Many professors are freaking out because they KNOW students will use it for cheating. And yes, that's true, but I've seen one research study that suggests the actual cheating usage will remain within normal parameters (about 10-15% of students)--only the tools they are using will change. Most students want to learn if you give them a chance. Students will also be delegating tasks to AI systems in their professional careers after they graduate. In the course I teach (freshman composition), I intend to give my students some tips and tricks on how they can harness AI to improve their writing and communication skills. Some professors are embracing AI by having it create learning outcomes, developing assessments, and assembling rubrics for their courses. My boss teaches a class and she said it only took her about half an hour to get a usable rubric from AI for one of the projects in her course. Normally, it takes a lot longer to create a rubric for complex projects.

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The other book study I will be doing this summer will be with my church men's group. We are going to do a six-week program studying Ten Men of the Bible: How God Used Imperfect People to Change the World by Max Lucado. I've flipped through it a bit and it's going to be a tough book! It's a workbook where Lucado asks some very difficult questions we are expected to reflect on as we read his commentary on the ten men and the relevant Biblical chapters. Our first subject is going to be Job, though he's actually the second man listed in this book. On the surface, the story of Job is fairly simple. He is a righteous man who seems to be afflicted by God and loses everything. However, he remains steadfast in his faith and regains everything he lost and then some, though he goes through numerous struggles to get there. However, he seems to be guilty of hubris, as he starts to expound on who he believes God to be to his friends. Then God decides to step in...

Anyway, it is going to be an excellent spiritual experience with my men's group. We always have a good time and enjoy our fellowship together. I always walk away with deep thoughts...

And yes, there is an equivalent Ten Women of the Bible for the 'Ettes. The women's group in my church studied this book this past spring. It seems only fair that the men catch up to them.

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SUPERNATURAL HORROR V. COSMIC HORROR

Cosmic horror, for the uninitiated, refers to a genre of horror fiction popularized by H.P. Lovecraft and several of his contemporaries, such as Robert E. Howard, Frank Belknap Long, August Derleth, and Clark Ashton Smith. It's characterized by a complete lack of hope in a universe that cares not a whit for humanity as a whole and certainly has no concern for any individual human being. We are ants to be stepped on if the greater powers that walk among the stars deign to notice us at all--and we usually pray they do not! Attempting to gain knowledge of the true state of being drives one to madness because there are things man was not meant to know. Even gazing upon certain entities can render one irrevocably insane--or dead. Most of the stories are quite cynical about our status in the greater scheme of things. The protagonists may become pawns in a cosmic game, the rules of which are completely inscrutable and unknowable. If the protagonist survives the encounter, most likely he's forever altered by the experience and can never interact with "normal" humans in any meaningful way. And no one is going to step in and rescue the protagonist at the last moment.

Supernatural horror, by contrast, can be quite personal, recognizing the individual has a key role to play in the story instead of being a simple bystander or tool of cosmic entities. Like cosmic horror, supernatural horror stories tend to involve otherwise ordinary people who are caught up in events that are beyond their understanding. However, as the protagonist goes through the story, he or she will start to comprehend the rules of the story as it progresses, which usually doesn't happen in cosmic horror. The mystery behind the supernatural events will be revealed in time as the heroes gather more information about the entity (or entities) against which they struggle, thus giving them clues about how to defeat it. One element that supernatural horror has that cosmic horror does not is that there are forces of supernatural GOOD that may be working on behalf of the heroes. This is characteristic of all of the Dean Koontz novels I've read so far--all of them clearly had supernatural heavenly agents working behind the scenes to help the main protagonist, though they may not reveal themselves until the final conflict. It does result in a sort of "deus ex machina" solution to the story, but if it's done right, the reader won't care because we WANT to see a divine intervention at that point. As with cosmic horror, the protagonist is changed by the experience, but often for the better as they now know that the spiritual realm is REAL and that they matter in the grand scheme of things.

There are lots of other horror flavors out there, of course (e.g., psychological horror, body horror, etc.), but these two were on my mind recently because I've been reading Dean Koontz and we've talked about William Hope Hodgson's The Night Land.

MORON RECOMMENDATIONS

Picked up the new Stephen King collection, YOU LIKE IT DARKER. Uneven, imho, like most of his collections but there's some pretty good stuff in it and since he's working at short length here there's no room for him to go off into multi-page political rants. I think by now he's incapable of leaving them out completely, but they're kept to a minimum here. If you like King's shorter work, it's worth a look.
Ebook edition recommended -- the one-star Amazon reviews are almost all due to pages falling out, so somebody seems to have screwed up in the print edition binding.
Posted by: Just Some Guy at May 26, 2024 09:18 AM (q3u5l)

Comment: I have a theory that some authors are better at one form of writing than others. Some authors are great at writing short stories, but aren't so great at longer novels. Others excel at writing novels, but don't always write short stories very well. Stephen King may be able to do both equally well, though I've not read much of his longer fiction. I have enjoyed some of his short stories, though. As for pages falling out, I have noticed that this is a problem with books that are "published on demand" sometimes. Pages will simply fall out because of the inferior binding process that was used to produce the book. Not all books on demand are like that, but I have bought enough of them to note a distinct pattern.

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I read The Indoctrinated Brain: How to Successfully Fend Off the Global Attack on Your Mental Freedom by Michael Nehls. Nehls is a German M. D. and a molecular geneticist specializing in immunology. This wasn't an easy book to read for this non-scientist, 78-year old who isn't as sharp as he once was; but I found this book to be fascinating.
Nehls describes in detail how adult human beings can be robbed of their individuality and conditioned by reprogramming their autobiographical memory center located in the hippocampus in each hemisphere of the brain. During deep sleep our brains transfer significant thought and personal experiences collected from these to the neocortex. The hippocampi also generate thousands of new neurons each day. A healthy hippocampus needs proper nutrition, sleep, social life and exercise.
Nehls is careful throughout the book to label his opinions from scientific facts. In his opinion, most of the governmental actions during the Covid-19 pandemic were put in place to do harm to the hippocampi and to reduce its volume. He lays out a chain of circumstantial evidence that these negative influences were a deliberate attack on our individuality.
Posted by: Zoltan at May 26, 2024 09:24 AM (gyCYJ)

Comment: As we've seen in recent years, there are large numbers of people that seem to be easily swayed to accept a collective mindset. We've even adopted a term for these people: NPCs (which stands for "Non-Player Characters"). This refers to a term from role-playing games where characters under the control of the Game Master can only do what the Game Master commands while the player characters have their own individuality. The NPC meme has gained a pretty strong following because of how easy it is to spot them once you know what to look for. These people will spout any government propaganda they are told to say, even if they are ordered to contradict themselves the next day.

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I'm not sure if this is a recommendation or an anti-recommendation, but last week's thread featured the following exchange:

This year it is a copy of People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks. Two different people gave me copies of this book think___ I would enjoy it and after putting it off for quite a while decided to try it.
It is the story of The Haggadah "One of the earliest Jewish volumes ever to be illuminated with images".
It starts out in current time but as the books history is revealed, flashes back to the beginning of WWII in Bosnia. It is said to be based on a true story.
Only a third of the way in and I am fascinated although some of it seems unbelievable. It posits a warm relationship between Jews, Arabs and Christina's in Sarajevo living side by side without strife. Curious enough to research to see if this is truth or fiction. It is important to the story though.
Will report more as I get more,into it.
Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at May 26, 2024 10:21 AM (t/2Uw)

That book is false and the author is politely put full of shit.
I own a facsimile of The Sarajevo Haggadah. It's a Kabbalist tome, steeped in alchemy. It's quite beautiful, don't get me wrong. I've owned multiple copies and given most away, my current is a sleeved edition from Jugo 1966?
Other Jews have been after that thing for generations and I know/knew one of the guys in on the museum heist that left the original on the floor.
It's not at all the first illustrated Haggadah, but any others extant are held in secure archives in the Kremlin.
Posted by: LenNeal at May 26, 2024 10:37 AM (vF0BS)

Wow LenNeal, way to give away the ending. I was already suspicious of the Arabs hiding Jews from the Nazis but was interested in how the War comes to affect daily life, first slowly and then all at once. As a Jew, trying to understand how they allowed themselves to be herded like sheep onto those trains was difficult. Until I started reading books that opened my eyes to how cruel and evil humans can be.
And seeing what is going on today...
From that perspective the book is interesting so far.
But I will read it as fiction, not fact.
Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at May 26, 2024 10:52 AM (t/2Uw)

Comment: I looked up this book on Amazon and checked out the 1-star reviews, as I often find them very revealing, especially when it comes to books that may be controversial in some way. The very first 1-star review gives an excellent breakdown of the problems within this book, including the forced diversity perspective found in postmodernism applied to 15th-century characters.

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

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WHAT I'VE BEEN READING THIS PAST WEEK:

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

Dragonlance - Defenders of Magic Vol. 2 - The Medusa Plague by Mary Kirchoff

Several years have passed since the last book. Guerrand has been assigned as the High Defender of Bastion, the keep that was created to prevent mages from accessing the Lost Citadel. Unfortunately, he now has a mortal enemy who was once his dear friend. Lyim, whose arm was magically deformed in the previous book, has been seeking a cure for his malady and his only hope is to find a way into Bastion, where he might be able to replicate the circumstances that caused his deformity and thereby gain a cure. Guerrand, in his role as High Defender, absolutely refuses to grant access. So Lyim concocts a particularly brutal means of luring Guerrand out from his fortress. In some ways this is a book that shows just how petty evil can be and the lengths people will go to in order to achieve their selfish goals.

Star Wars - The Bounty Hunter Wars Book 2 - Slave Ship by K. W. Jeter

Honestly, I am not quite sure what the plot is in this series of books. It mostly seems to be a character study of Boba Fett, demonstrating just how badass he is in the Star Wars universe. He goes from one tough situation to another and shows how crazy prepared he is, no matter the circumstances. He toys with his fellow bounty hunters, though he doesn't see it that way, of course. It seems kind of ridiculous that bounty hunters really play that much of a role in the Empire, so I have a hard time buying into the underlying premises. It's not badly written, though, so I am able to gain some entertainment out of the series.

Star Trek: The Original Series #15 - Corona by Greg Bear

This is a very short Star Trek novel, clocking in at only 192 pages. That's barely enough time to set up the main plot, which involves sentient protostars taking over a remote Vulcan scientific research colony. Naturally, the Enterprise is sent in to investigate. By the way, did you know Captain Kirk has an implant that allows him to receive coded Starfleet messages directly into his brain when he's sitting in his captain's chair on the bridge? I didn't either until this novel! Part of the plot involves the potential creation of a new universe--at the expense of our own, of course. Which is interesting because that was also the plot of Star Trek #13 - The Wounded Sky and Star Trek #43 - The Three Minute Universe. I suspect there are more Star Trek novels (in all sub-franchises) that also have a similar plot...

Forever Odd by Dean Koontz

This is the second book in Koontz' Odd Thomas series. Odd must track down the man who presumably kidnapped Odd's childhood friend. Because this is Odd Thomas, you can bet something unholy and supernatural is really the culprit. He must use all of his wits and gifts to defeat an exceptionally cunning enemy.

PREVIOUS SUNDAY MORNING BOOK THREAD - 05-26-24 (NOTE: Do NOT comment on old threads!)

Disclaimer: No Morons were harmed in the making of this Sunday Morning Book Thread. Elvis has NOT left the building--repeat--Elvis has NOT left the building...

Posted by: Open Blogger at 09:00 AM

Comments

(Jump to bottom of comments)

1 I no read this week.

Posted by: rhennigantx at June 02, 2024 08:59 AM (ENQN6)

2 I did no reading this week. Except my own stuff. But, I was editing. Does that count?

Posted by: OrangeEnt at June 02, 2024 09:00 AM (0eaVi)

3 Tolle Lege
Reading, and quite topical for this week
D-Day by Tute, Costello and Hughes

Posted by: Skip at June 02, 2024 09:00 AM (fwDg9)

4 Do I get the prize for the first reader this week?

Posted by: Skip at June 02, 2024 09:01 AM (fwDg9)

5 This book 250 pages, has lots of pictures, maps and diagrams and doing good job explaining the massive red undertaking it took to break into Europe

Posted by: Skip at June 02, 2024 09:03 AM (fwDg9)

6 This week I read James Copley's "Path to Freedom". It's about a retired space navy pilot who's gotten blacklisted on the way out of the service because of a run-in with a vengeful and petty Lt. Commander, and also due to not being able to contain his own anger at said Lt. Commander.

This blacklisting follows him around a lot further than it should, and it affects his ability to use a bank account or hold decent work beyond that of essentially ground-side slave labor. Despite this, he managed to advance and acquire his own ship, and then tries to make a living hauling goods back and forth between ports of trade. Then things go ... unexpectedly.

Enjoyable read, I'll be picking up the second book once it's written and released.

Posted by: Grumpy and Recalcitrant at June 02, 2024 09:04 AM (O7YUW)

7 Because my TBR list is massive, I had vowed to skip the used-book store and online shopping for a month or two.

But when I saw yesterday that our Little Free Library had four of the first six Discworld books, and this group has repeatedly said how good that series is ...

As the nic says, I'm weak.

As for actual reading, I'm coming to the end of the first volume of the collected "Pogo" comic strips collection and am well into Ellery Queen's "The Siamese Twin Mystery," which also has had several recommendations on the Book Thread. Aa of now, I concur.

Posted by: Weak Geek at June 02, 2024 09:05 AM (p/isN)

8 Mornin', early birds. I'm mostly done with "The Attack" by Col. Schlichter. I can't say I recommend it, mostly because there's nothing there that would surprise any of us. It's cotton candy for the brain, which is sorta why I bought it, but like cotton candy you really don't want too much of it. If you're looking for something to throw in your carry-on bag to distract you on a long flight, it might be a good choice because you don't have to worry about forgetting what's going on in the story.

Posted by: PabloD at June 02, 2024 09:05 AM (ZiRUh)

9 Morning Perf! Reading Vinge these days!

Posted by: Oooohm at June 02, 2024 09:05 AM (C7Yya)

10 Good Sunday morning, horde!

I'm alarmed--guilty pleasure cover resembles Mr. Dmlw! Shorter beard, but.

Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at June 02, 2024 09:05 AM (OX9vb)

11 No pants tho.

Posted by: Oooohm at June 02, 2024 09:06 AM (C7Yya)

12 Got my copy of the Oppenheimer book American Prometheus in the mail last week. I imagine it will take me most of the summer to get through it.
But I need to read. I sort of gave it up for a while. Now I see reading as push-ups for my brain.

Posted by: Don Black at June 02, 2024 09:06 AM (/7KEl)

13 But I need to read. I sort of gave it up for a while. Now I see reading as push-ups for my brain.
Posted by: Don Black at June 02, 2024 09:06 AM (/7KEl)
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Yep! That's just basic SCIENCE!

(the real kind...lots of research suggests reading is very, very good for improving one's brain functioning, or at least keeping it going at peak efficiency...)

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at June 02, 2024 09:08 AM (BpYfr)

14 These pants. LOL. If that syrup is dripping from French toast you can bet that CBD would be triggered.

Posted by: Tuna at June 02, 2024 09:08 AM (oaGWv)

15 Thanks for the Book Thread, Perfessor!

Those pants are simply horrid...

Posted by: Legally Sufficient at June 02, 2024 09:09 AM (U3L4U)

16 Ninety years ago last week, one of the most famous manhunts in history ended in a barrage of gunfire. Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker were ambushed on a country road in Louisiana by six lawmen, five from Texas and one from Louisiana. In Go Down Together, Jeff Guinn details the life stories, the brazen criminality, and violent end of Bonnie and Clyde. Clyde was a two bit criminal who wanted more out of life than what a job would afford. He along with his brother Buck worked their way through the criminal justice system one crime at a time. Clyde even cut off a toe to avoid prison labor, and eventually got parole. Then, the gang moved up to bank robbery, and spent two years on a crime and getaway spree that covered hundreds of miles in multiple states, often sleeping in their stolen cars. When they eventually killed a Dallas patrolman in cold blood, Texas Ranger Frank Harmon had had enough. He organized an ambush after getting cooperation from the father of a gang member, and when the pair drove up, hundreds of bullets riddled the car. Bonnie and Clyde are often glamorized as depression era Robin Hoods, but Guinn presents their true story in all of its squalor and heartlessness.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at June 02, 2024 09:10 AM (tATuQ)

17 There was an interesting discussion yesterday on the bane of "intellectuals" and what horrible people so many of them turn out to be. I mentioned the following, because it was so on point.

I read Paul Johnson's 40 year old book, Intellectuals, which is basically a compendium of biographies of many of the most famous "intellectuals", a title I think most of them don't really merit. The list includes Rousseau, Marx, Sartre, and others, almost all lefties. The common theme is that all of them were horrible people, who excused their execrable behavior by citing concern for "people" as opposed to individuals. In fact, they were all utter pigs, full of cruelty, avarice, and narcissism. Foucault fits right in. I recommend this book.

p.s. That comment started discussion of some of Johnson's other books, so I went to Bezos and got used copies of three of his other books.
History of the Jews
A History of the American People
Modern Times: The World from the Twenties to the Eighties
I love the ability to now buy any book anytime for cheap.

Posted by: Archimedes at June 02, 2024 09:10 AM (xCA6C)

18 Do I get the prize for the first reader this week?
Posted by: Skip at June 02, 2024 09:01 AM (fwDg9)

I guess it depends if reading your own writings count.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at June 02, 2024 09:10 AM (0eaVi)

19 OK
tablet running out of gas
y'all have a nice morning

Posted by: Don Black at June 02, 2024 09:11 AM (/7KEl)

20 Got a warm puppy next to me -- needs a walk, though. . .Happy reading, all!

Posted by: Lizzy at June 02, 2024 09:11 AM (cCVOS)

21 It’s a good thing pages are numbered.

Posted by: Eromero at June 02, 2024 09:11 AM (NxC5+)

22 People lump Robert E. Howard in with Lovecraft as a cosmic horror writer, I suspect because they were close friends (who never met in person), wrote for the same magazines, and used names and concepts from each other's work in their stories.

I doubt REH really counts as cosmic horror because most of his attempts at Lovecraftian fiction follow the basic pattern: Guy finds strange goings-on, investigates deeper, encounters eldritch otherworldly horror, beats otherworldly horror to a pulp. It's that last step which kind of bounces him out of Lovecraft territory. An HPL hero would faint or just run away in a mental fugue state or something. Howard heroes take care of business.

Posted by: Trimegistus at June 02, 2024 09:11 AM (78a2H)

23 Hello, my fellow Librosexuals!

Reading "Space 2.0" by Rod Pyle of the National Space Society. He's also the editor of their magazine "Ad Astra", which is like peering into the near future with articles on space law, medicine, asteroid mining and ads for space elevators. Its future-forward optimism is a nice antidote to the crapfest of NowNowNow news cycles.

Posted by: All Hail Eris at June 02, 2024 09:13 AM (FkUwd)

24 On the Kindle, I read Windrush: Cry Havoc: A Historical War Novel by Malcolm Archibald. This is the fourth in the Windrush series, and he and his men of the 113th foot regiment are sent to India. After being sent on a five-day march as punishment, they return to find the Sepoys have rebelled and have massacred their officers and most of the other company of the 113th. Windrush gathers the survivors and marches his men to relieve Cawnpore commanded by General Havelock. Together they go to relieve British strongholds under siege by the mutinous Sepoys. The fighting is fierce and many atrocities are committed by both sides.

On a personal level, Windrush meets his mother, a Eurasian woman, and falls in love with an 18-year old Eurasian girl travelling with her. Coming to terms with the fact that he is one quarter Indian is difficult and changes his perspective.

Posted by: Zoltan at June 02, 2024 09:14 AM (gyCYJ)

25 I doubt REH really counts as cosmic horror because most of his attempts at Lovecraftian fiction follow the basic pattern: Guy finds strange goings-on, investigates deeper, encounters eldritch otherworldly horror, beats otherworldly horror to a pulp. It's that last step which kind of bounces him out of Lovecraft territory. An HPL hero would faint or just run away in a mental fugue state or something. Howard heroes take care of business.
Posted by: Trimegistus at June 02, 2024 09:11 AM (78a2H)
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Their characters approach it differently, but Howard's world is conspicuously free of any kind of positive divine energy. All most all divine interactions are negative and death cults predominate.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at June 02, 2024 09:15 AM (llXky)

26 Yes howard might have had horror elements but it was mostly fantasy

Posted by: Miguel cervantes at June 02, 2024 09:16 AM (PXvVL)

27 Also that world is what the state of nature looks like where life is nasty miserable and short

Posted by: Miguel cervantes at June 02, 2024 09:17 AM (PXvVL)

28 I'm pretty sure the blood stains in the Bonnie and Clyde car are still there. It's roped off so you can't get really close but you can still see some sort of stains.
It's at a Casino on the California Nevada border on Interstate 80.
It's been around here for a long time.
I have no idea how it got to this area.

Posted by: Reforger at June 02, 2024 09:18 AM (xcIvR)

29 Cosmic/Supernatural? The late great Fritz Leiber could do both.

Reading this week? Not a lot -- skipped through a few of S.King's earlier short stories from his pre-TDS days; made the mistake of looking at the photos in Joel J. Miller's piece on Steven Hayward's working library and then looked at samples of titles by Lionel Trilling and Gertrude Himmelfarb that I'd long forgotten I'd intended to read so they're on the plate now.

Never ends, does it?

Posted by: Just Some Guy at June 02, 2024 09:18 AM (q3u5l)

30 My book this week is Out of This World, an account by Lowell Thomas Jr. of the journey he and his papa (_the_ Lowell Thomas) made to Tibet in 1949. They were the seventh and eighth Americans to enter that country, ever.

It's a straight travelogue of how they got to Lhasa (with great difficulty is how) and got back to India (with even greater difficulty). LT Senior broke his leg and so had to be carried out on a litter.

This was all right before the Chinese marched in, so it's kind of the last look at free Tibet.

Posted by: Trimegistus at June 02, 2024 09:18 AM (78a2H)

31 I finished Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. So glad I was not assigned this book to read in school since I appreciated it so much more now. Enjoyed the character development and especially the personal interaction (primarily conducted through dialog rather than action), and the description of the strict caste system and societal norms that existed in southern England during the early 1800s. The interaction between Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy was interesting, entertaining and frustrating. Recommended.

The writing of Austen was more enjoyable than that of Charlotte Bronte. The difference in writing style no doubt was due to Austen's higher level in society and the better education available to her as a result.

Posted by: Legally Sufficient at June 02, 2024 09:18 AM (U3L4U)

32 OK
tablet running out of gas
y'all have a nice morning
Posted by: Don Black at June 02, 2024 09:11 AM (/7KEl)
-

Have you considered getting an electric tablet? It'll help save the planet.

Posted by: Biden's Dog sniffs a whole lotta malarkey, at June 02, 2024 09:19 AM (7bmNe)

33 This week I picked up Japan's Asian Allies, 1941-45 by Philip Jowett. Jowett is a prolific Osprey Books author, and I own many of his books on Chinese military history.

The book is quick read on the various "collaborator" groups that fought on the side of Imperial Japan, almost always out of mixed motives. As much as the current generation is incapable of nuance, the fact is that if you're a colonialized people, a different bunch of people who show up and offer you guns will get a fair hearing.

Of course, the Japanese didn't offer independence, just a different oppressor and most of the groups faded down the stretch. Jowett apparently has a much longer series of books on the topic, and I intend to grab the one on China.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at June 02, 2024 09:22 AM (llXky)

34 "did you know Captain Kirk has an implant that allows him to receive coded Starfleet messages directly into his brain when he's sitting in his captain's chair on the bridge? "

Oh, so that's how he makes entries to the Captains log.

Posted by: fd at June 02, 2024 09:23 AM (vFG9F)

35 Morning, book folken,

I like the distinction the Perfessor draws between cosmic and supernatural horror. Lovecraft et al. on the one hand, and King et al. on the other.

I'm currently in another genre altogether: A.J. Cronin's The Green Years from 1944. It focuses on an eight-year-old Irish boy, the narrator, an orphan from a mixed (Irish & Scots) marriage, who comes to live with his Scots grandparents and their children in about 1903. The second half picks up when he is fifteen, in 1910. Fascinating and readable stuff, as usual, I've found, with Cronin. I's also grabbed his The Citadel, Keys of the Kingdom, The Northern Light, and Beyond This Place. I think I've read the first two, so I'll proceed with the latter two when I'm done with the current tome.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at June 02, 2024 09:23 AM (omVj0)

36 I was very pleased that the TV movie _The Highwaymen_, about the pursuit and killing of Bonnie & Clyde, took admirable effort to avoid romanticizing the murderous duo. We see the results of their crimes, we see the corruption they created.

And we see the idiot pop cult that already adored them even before they died. Bah.

Posted by: Trimegistus at June 02, 2024 09:23 AM (78a2H)

37 I want to thank JTB for mentioning “In the House of Bombadil” by C.R. Wiley. Beautifully written and insightful. I’ve read LOTR a dozen times but like the Bible I still can learn things about it, though I guess in Tolkien’s case there are people here who have me beat by about seven touchdowns.

Posted by: Norrin Radd, sojourner of the spaceways at June 02, 2024 09:24 AM (hsWtj)

38 Just ordered "The Divorce of Israel" by Kenneth L. Gentry, Jr.

Synopsis:

"The Divorce of Israel presents a 'redemptive-historical' approach to Revelation. In it John presents a forensic drama wherein God is divorcing his old covenant wife Israel so that he can take a new wife, the new covenant 'Israel of God' composed of Jew and Gentile alike. Thus, Revelation presents the vitally important redemptive-historical transition from the land-based, ethnically focused, temple-dominated old covenant economy to its worldwide, pan-ethnic, spiritual new covenant fulfillment. And it does so by highlighting God’s judgment upon first-century geo-political Israel."

Huh.

The Book of Relevation as a Petition for Divorce. Now, that's a book I gotta read!!!

Posted by: Sharkman at June 02, 2024 09:25 AM (/RHNq)

39 Last night I finished Catastrophe Theory by Neale Martin. This was the written-by-Moron book featured on 5/12.

Wow. It's really a great story, and aptly named. The main character is a forensic engineer, and studies how things break and go wrong, selling this expertise to various industries. The catastrophe aspect winds through the story as characters make one consequential decision after another, giving rise to catastrophes of their own making. That part was skillfully done, and the plot goes places that I would not have expected.

I cannot give it five stars, because of the many misspellings and occasional paragraphs in need of editing for clarity and to reduce repetition of phrases.

I don't know if the author is One Of Us Morons, or just wanted to pitch his book to a receptive audience, but I do recommend it.

Also, Neale Martin, if you're in here, email me or something. I'll proofread this thing for free. It needs it.

Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at June 02, 2024 09:26 AM (OX9vb)

40 Good morning fellow Book Threadists. I hope everyone had a great week of reading. My week was a bit different.

Posted by: JTB at June 02, 2024 09:26 AM (zudum)

41 "did you know Captain Kirk has an implant that allows him to receive coded Starfleet messages directly into his brain when he's sitting in his captain's chair on the bridge? "
*
Oh, so that's how he makes entries to the Captains log.
Posted by: fd at June 02, 2024

***
But we often saw him dictating his log verbally. This concept of Bear's isn't canon, but it kind of fits with the advanced tech of Trek.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at June 02, 2024 09:26 AM (omVj0)

42 "Systematic Theology" by Wayne Grudem lays out the doctrines of Evangelical Christianity. A big fat book, but very clearly written and containing ample scriptural cites and footnotes. It's available also in other formats, like a multi-volume series. It's no substitute for reading actual Scripture, but it sure does help a bunch with organization and exegesis. Recommended.

Posted by: Knock gp A Kiss at June 02, 2024 09:26 AM (MvF+J)

43 To be fair, some of the colonized groups were able to tell they'd get a worse deal from the Japanese than from the Dutch or British.

My favorite example of that is in Borneo, where for years the British regime had been struggling to end the practice of head-hunting -- which of course was the primary manhood ritual. This created friction, to put it mildly.

But then in 1942, they could announce "The Great White King Across The Water says it's okay to take heads again, as long as they're Japanese heads. Go at it!"

Posted by: Trimegistus at June 02, 2024 09:26 AM (78a2H)

44 I just started reading "100 Animals That Can F*cking End You" by Mamadou Ndiaye.

Folks, if you have never seen this man's YouTube channel "Casual Geographic" you are missing out. And his humor comes through on the book as well.

Posted by: NR Pax at June 02, 2024 09:27 AM (2oSqa)

45 Those of you who have done your moral and ethical duty and purchased Walls of Men will know that from 1937 to 1945, there was a *three way* civil war in China - Nationalist vs Communist vs Other Nationalist, who collaborated with the Japanese. The Reformed Nationalist Party was run by a political rival of Chiang Kai-shek and in large part consisted of warlord-era armies that defected to the Japanese. There was also a bunch of Qing Dynasty holdouts (some of whom went to Manchukuo).

Now that I've recovered from authorial burnout, I'm digging a little deeper into the Second Sino-Japanese War and I'm open to the possibility of writing a book on the topic. However, I'd really like to do some fiction first.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at June 02, 2024 09:28 AM (llXky)

46 I just started reading "100 Animals That Can F*cking End You" by Mamadou Ndiaye.

I assume Homo Sapiens is tops in the category.

Posted by: Archimedes at June 02, 2024 09:28 AM (xCA6C)

47 However, I'd really like to do some fiction first.

How about "The Legal Foundation of the Trump Trial"?

Posted by: Archimedes at June 02, 2024 09:29 AM (xCA6C)

48 But we often saw him dictating his log verbally. This concept of Bear's isn't canon, but it kind of fits with the advanced tech of Trek.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at June 02, 2024 09:26 AM (omVj0)
---
There's a lot of advanced tech stuff in the Star Trek novels that would never be included in the television show.

The canon in the novels is very loose...Could probably be considered officially sanctioned fan-fiction at best.

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at June 02, 2024 09:29 AM (BpYfr)

49 I got a 1920's book on Greek and Roman myths, "Myths and Enchantment Tales" written and illustrated by Margaret Evan's Price, at a library book sale months ago. It's gracefully written and utterly charming, and I feel no shame reading a children's book when it's this delightful.

Posted by: All Hail Eris at June 02, 2024 09:30 AM (FkUwd)

50 I've mostly been reading about food. Ever hear of bamboo bread? It could be handy in the future.

Posted by: fd at June 02, 2024 09:30 AM (vFG9F)

51 Star Wars, Star Trek and Dean Koontz...

Posted by: runner at June 02, 2024 09:30 AM (9pFgx)

52 I do remember someone commenting that "Stephen King characters live in the worst possible moral universe -- the innocent suffer and the guilty are punished."

Posted by: Trimegistus at June 02, 2024 09:30 AM (78a2H)

53 I still think AI is overrated.

I am thinking of reading the third and final portion of Charles Moore’s bio of Margaret Thatcher. But, given the idiotic decision of their blithering idiot PM to call an election, I imagine that it would simply make me depressed.

Posted by: Catch Thirty-Thr33 at June 02, 2024 09:30 AM (8sMut)

54 "But we often saw him dictating his log verbally."

Did we? I can only remember voiceovers, usually with a exterior shot of the ship or something.

Posted by: fd at June 02, 2024 09:33 AM (vFG9F)

55 A long time ago I heard Lowell Thomas (Sr) speak about his experience in Tibet. He was thrown from a horse, and the leg was 'broke pretty good.' He had to be tied to and carried on a pallet along mountain trails that only well-trained horses could negotiate well. As they carried him, the Buddhist monks chanted, as they will. Thomas, in and out of consciousness, found the chant moving -- so, being the PR hound reporter he truly was, he asked to be taught the meaning of the lyric so he could use it in his book.

Turned out it was, "O Lord Buddha, lighten our load."

Posted by: Way, Way Downriver at June 02, 2024 09:34 AM (zdLoL)

56 I've mostly been reading about food. Ever hear of bamboo bread? It could be handy in the future.
Posted by: fd

I can't comment on the gastronomical benefits of bamboo, but I know that if you plant it, you will have an ever expanding supply of the stuff that you can't kill.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at June 02, 2024 09:34 AM (tATuQ)

57 I'm watching season three of Star Trek and it's obvious that the budget got steeply cut, the plots are not as coherent (come on, Spock's Brain?), but it still has its moments. I've never watched the show season by season, but everyone seems to know the party is over and there seems to be a push to really get the lesser cast members some air time before the hammer falls.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at June 02, 2024 09:34 AM (llXky)

58 46
I assume Homo Sapiens is tops in the category.
Posted by: Archimedes at June 02, 2024 09:28 AM (xCA6C)

Looks at table of contents.

Actually, yes. It's the final entry. But right now, I'm on "American Bison."

Posted by: NR Pax at June 02, 2024 09:35 AM (2oSqa)

59 I am not impressed by AI at all. Both writing and images are just cutting and pasting from other stuff. At best it can produce boilerplate hackwork. If machines put the people who write boilerplate hackwork out of business, I don't mind.

Posted by: Trimegistus at June 02, 2024 09:35 AM (78a2H)

60 Booken morgen horden

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at June 02, 2024 09:36 AM (Ka3bZ)

61 "But we often saw him dictating his log verbally."

Did we? I can only remember voiceovers, usually with a exterior shot of the ship or something.
Posted by: fd at June 02, 2024 09:33 AM (vFG9F)
---
There are instances where he finishes in his chair, and pushes a button. Sometimes he does it in his cabin, but there's always a switch implying he's got a mic in the furniture or something.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at June 02, 2024 09:36 AM (llXky)

62 I'm pretty sure the blood stains in the Bonnie and Clyde car are still there. It's roped off so you can't get really close but you can still see some sort of stains.
It's at a Casino on the California Nevada border on Interstate 80.
It's been around here for a long time.
I have no idea how it got to this area.
Posted by: Reforger at June 02, 2024 09:18 AM (xcIvR)

They probably touch it up now and again. Last time through, I don't remember it being on display. In fact, Whiskey Pete's had really cut down their floor space.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at June 02, 2024 09:36 AM (0eaVi)

63 I've mostly been reading about food. Ever hear of bamboo bread? It could be handy in the future.
Posted by: fd

I can't comment on the gastronomical benefits of bamboo, but I know that if you plant it, you will have an ever expanding supply of the stuff that you can't kill.
Posted by: Thomas Paine at June 02, 2024 09:34 AM (tATuQ
And more pandas than you can shake a fishing cane at.

Posted by: Eromero at June 02, 2024 09:37 AM (NxC5+)

64 52 I do remember someone commenting that "Stephen King characters live in the worst possible moral universe -- the innocent suffer and the guilty are punished."
Posted by: Trimegistus at June 02, 2024 09:30 AM (78a2H)

If only Stephen King had artistic restraint. I loved The Stand, but so much of that could have been cut out.

Posted by: Catch Thirty-Thr33 at June 02, 2024 09:37 AM (8sMut)

65 Yeoman Rand knows all about the Captain's log.

Posted by: dantesed at June 02, 2024 09:37 AM (Oy/m2)

66 Hello Bookists! Thank you, Perf!

I finished John C. McManus's Pacific war trilogy, To The End Of The Earth, his finest yet. Highly recommend all by this prolific author. Perfessor, he lives in your neighborhood, as he is a member of the MST faculty.

Also, Hamer, not Harmon.

Posted by: goatexchange at June 02, 2024 09:37 AM (8b64O)

67 61 Sometimes he does it in his cabin, but there's always a switch implying he's got a mic in the furniture or something.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at June 02, 2024 09:36 AM (llXky)

Probably had some hidden cameras to record private moments with various women on the crew as well.

Posted by: NR Pax at June 02, 2024 09:37 AM (2oSqa)

68 In the course I teach (freshman composition), I intend to give my students some tips and tricks on how they can harness AI to improve their writing and communication skills. Some professors are embracing AI by having it create learning outcomes, developing assessments, and assembling rubrics for their courses.

===

Better approach than trying to ban something that cannot successful be banned. Back in the day people used to go to libraries and peruse manuscripts for research, now they hit the interwebs. Things evolve. I wonder how places like Oxford and Cambridge that I imagine are heavy on classical education - memorization, writing, will treat emergence of AI. I think one way to beat it is to go back to the basics. Call students to blackboard to have them recite and/or solve, find cities on a map and so on.

Posted by: runner at June 02, 2024 09:37 AM (9pFgx)

69 I am not impressed by AI at all. Both writing and images are just cutting and pasting from other stuff. At best it can produce boilerplate hackwork. If machines put the people who write boilerplate hackwork out of business, I don't mind.
Posted by: Trimegistus at June 02, 2024 09:35 AM (78a2H)
---
AI's primary danger is that people will assume it is well-researched when in fact it is the ultimate embodiment of GIGO.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at June 02, 2024 09:37 AM (llXky)

70 Jeff Vandermeer’s Annihilation is the epitome of cosmic horror.

FWIW the tower is a corrupted model of a double helix and the Crawler is a RNA type polymerase factory etching nonsense onto the tower walls.

Posted by: 13times at June 02, 2024 09:37 AM (vukk5)

71 "But we often saw him dictating his log verbally."

Did we? I can only remember voiceovers, usually with a exterior shot of the ship or something.
Posted by: fd at June 02, 2024

***
In the second pilot, we see him dictate commendations for the two dead crew members who had become espers, including his friend Gary Mitchell. And he dictates commendations for his crew and especially Spock when they may die from dealing with the gigantic single-cell entity. But yes, it was usually voice-over -- a great way to fill the audience in on what was going on and what had led up to it.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at June 02, 2024 09:38 AM (omVj0)

72 My favorite example of that is in Borneo, where for years the British regime had been struggling to end the practice of head-hunting -- which of course was the primary manhood ritual.
===

Of course!

Posted by: San Franpsycho at June 02, 2024 09:38 AM (RIvkX)

73 Re-reading Daniel Flynn's superb "A Conservative History of the American Left." Reminded that an American Communism predated Marx in the delusional "phalanx" community projects of the early 19th century. Fascinating how many leading cultural and political figures became swept up in the Utopian lunacy. At the same time the country's immune system seemed stronger than it is today. Will we ever learn?

Posted by: Ordinary American at June 02, 2024 09:38 AM (8YWAH)

74 They probably touch it up now and again. Last time through, I don't remember it being on display. In fact, Whiskey Pete's had really cut down their floor space.
Posted by: OrangeEnt at June 02, 2024 09:36 AM (0eaVi)

Actually, being on I 80 would explain why it's not on I 15 anymore....

Posted by: OrangeEnt at June 02, 2024 09:38 AM (0eaVi)

75 Teachers go lazy with education (not you professor), so AI can sneak in.

Posted by: runner at June 02, 2024 09:38 AM (9pFgx)

76 One of my favorite bits of advanced tech in Trek was in "Spock's World" in which McCoy takes an RNA language course to be able to speak and understand Vulcan. It turns out the "donor" spoke a backwoods hick version of Vulcan.

"Spock's World" wasn't just a great Trek novel, it was a great novel period.

Posted by: All Hail Eris at June 02, 2024 09:39 AM (FkUwd)

77 Probably had some hidden cameras to record private moments with various women on the crew as well.
Posted by: NR Pax at June 02, 2024 09:37 AM (2oSqa)
---
Shatner certainly was banging everything in sight back then.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at June 02, 2024 09:39 AM (llXky)

78 Hello Bookists! Thank you, Perf!

I finished John C. McManus's Pacific war trilogy, To The End Of The Earth, his finest yet. Highly recommend all by this prolific author. Perfessor, he lives in your neighborhood, as he is a member of the MST faculty.

Also, Hamer, not Harmon.
Posted by: goatexchange at June 02, 2024 09:37 AM (8b64O)
---
Yep. I don't know him all that well, but I have helped out with instructional technology issues over the years. I know he's considered a "golden boy" of the History department here (and we've had more than one).

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at June 02, 2024 09:39 AM (BpYfr)

79
If only Stephen King had artistic restraint. I loved The Stand, but so much of that could have been cut out.
Posted by: Catch Thirty-Thr33 at June 02, 2024

***
He did, or his editors made him do that. Have you seen the gigantic tome that is the uncut version of that book? I read it, and enjoyed some of the scenes that were cut, but the edited version stands (pun gleefully intended) on its own.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at June 02, 2024 09:40 AM (omVj0)

80 Jeff Vandermeer’s Annihilation is the epitome of cosmic horror.

FWIW the tower is a corrupted model of a double helix and the Crawler is a RNA type polymerase factory etching nonsense onto the tower walls.
Posted by: 13times at June 02, 2024 09:37 AM (vukk5)
---
I remember reading the chapter where the protagonist rounds a corner and sees the Crawler for the first time. You really get a sense the protagonist's brain just fried into madness at that point. It was exceptionally well done, as I, the reader, also resonated with that experience.

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at June 02, 2024 09:41 AM (BpYfr)

81 Now that I've recovered from authorial burnout, I'm digging a little deeper into the Second Sino-Japanese War and I'm open to the possibility of writing a book on the topic. However, I'd really like to do some fiction first.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at June 02, 2024 09:28 AM (llXky)

I find it fascinating that the US got sideways with Japan over the Japs invading China in the 1930's as well as all the support and supplies we sent China during the war only to let them fall to the commies in 1948.

Something's missing.

Posted by: Hairyback Guy at June 02, 2024 09:41 AM (R/m4+)

82 Posted by: Norrin Radd, sojourner of the spaceways at June 02, 2024 09:24 AM (hsWtj)

How is your book coming along?

Posted by: OrangeEnt at June 02, 2024 09:41 AM (0eaVi)

83 I'm watching season three of Star Trek and it's obvious that the budget got steeply cut, the plots are not as coherent (come on, Spock's Brain?), but it still has its moments. I've never watched the show season by season, but everyone seems to know the party is over and there seems to be a push to really get the lesser cast members some air time before the hammer falls.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at June 02, 2024 09:34 AM (llXky)
====
Shatner's greatest acting achievement is in the final episode where he plays an angry career-woman inhabiting his body. It is a Masterpiece.

Posted by: San Franpsycho at June 02, 2024 09:43 AM (RIvkX)

84 I also read Blood of Victory by Alan Furst, the seventh book in the Night Soldiers series. Count Polanyi, the former Hungarian intelligence chief in Paris, is now working for British secret services after the occupation of France by the Nazis. In November, 1940, he recruits a Russian writer, I. A. Serebin. Serebin's task is to disrupt the German oil supply coming up the Danube from Romania by sinking large boilers in a narrow, shallow part of the river. The operation is betrayed, so unsuccessful; but Serebin scrambles to safety. Furst not only writes a thrilling spy story, but really paints a picture of the mood of the times.

Posted by: Zoltan at June 02, 2024 09:43 AM (gyCYJ)

85 Usta love me some Bloom County.

Posted by: Quarter Twenty at June 02, 2024 09:43 AM (dg+HA)

86 Is Star Trek the new Tolkien for the Book Thread?

Posted by: All Hail Eris at June 02, 2024 09:43 AM (FkUwd)

87 I find it fascinating that the US got sideways with Japan over the Japs invading China in the 1930's as well as all the support and supplies we sent China during the war only to let them fall to the commies in 1948.

Something's missing.
Posted by: Hairyback Guy at June 02, 2024

***
FDR was hoping to get us into the oncoming war, and Truman had other concerns? Not saying that's all of it, I don't know the post-war period very well or much about Truman. But Truman had to deal with a freshly nuclear-weaponized Soviet Union. That may have occupied him a little bit.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at June 02, 2024 09:44 AM (omVj0)

88 Also, Hamer, not Harmon.
Posted by: goatexchange

Yeah, spell check has moved on to "correcting" proper nouns now.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at June 02, 2024 09:44 AM (tATuQ)

89 I just looked at the list of Old Show episodes, and it's noteworthy that at least half of the third season are genuinely good episodes. Sure, you've got stinkers like Spock's Brain, The Empath and Savage Curtain . . . but you've also got some really good ones like Wink of an Eye, Last Battlefield, Plato's Stepchildren, Requiem for Methuselah and All Our Yesterdays.

I don't know if it's related, but third season definitely wins in terms of Hawt Babes. Joanne Linville, Kathie Browne, France Nuyen, Yvonne Craig (!!), Mariette Hartley (!!) and Diana Ewing (!!!!). I'd love to spend a five year mission with any one of them.

Posted by: Trimegistus at June 02, 2024 09:44 AM (78a2H)

90 He did, or his editors made him do that. Have you seen the gigantic tome that is the uncut version of that book? I read it, and enjoyed some of the scenes that were cut, but the edited version stands (pun gleefully intended) on its own.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at June 02, 2024 09:40 AM (omVj0

I in fact read The Stand: Complete and Uncut in HS and still have the 1141 page paperback copy on a bookshelf here at home.

Posted by: Catch Thirty-Thr33 at June 02, 2024 09:45 AM (8sMut)

91 Is Star Trek the new Tolkien for the Book Thread?
Posted by: All Hail Eris at June 02, 2024 09:43 AM (FkUwd)
===

Never read Tolkien. No time for nonsense.

Posted by: San Franpsycho at June 02, 2024 09:46 AM (RIvkX)

92 I find it fascinating that the US got sideways with Japan over the Japs invading China in the 1930's as well as all the support and supplies we sent China during the war only to let them fall to the commies in 1948.

Something's missing.
Posted by: Hairyback Guy at June 02, 2024 09:41 AM (R/m4+)
---
Not really. The US position was consistently for the Open Door in China and the US had no concessions or territory. Japan was crowding that out, so threatening US commerce as well as being beastly to the Chinese (Rape of Nanking, bombing the Panay, etc.).

The KMT lost the Chinese Civil War for several reasons, one of which was that we held them back out of the usual brain-dead idea that there could be a power-sharing arrangement. This gave the Commies time to army and prepare. The biggest failure was the way Chiang Kai-shek pursued the early stage of the war, focusing on cities rather than destroying the ChiComs where they were. Had he repeated the "encirclement campaigns" of the 1930s, he might have won.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at June 02, 2024 09:46 AM (llXky)

93 I don't know if it's related, but third season definitely wins in terms of Hawt Babes. Joanne Linville, Kathie Browne, France Nuyen, Yvonne Craig (!!), Mariette Hartley (!!) and Diana Ewing (!!!!). I'd love to spend a five year mission with any one of them.
Posted by: Trimegistus at June 02, 2024 09:44 AM (78a2H)

https://www.scifibabes.co.uk/1960s.html

Posted by: Catch Thirty-Thr33 at June 02, 2024 09:47 AM (8sMut)

94 Never read Stephen King. No time for horror.

Posted by: Quarter Twenty at June 02, 2024 09:47 AM (dg+HA)

95 I've been watching the third season too, and it has some gems buried in the selat poop. "The Thalia Web" is a personal favorite.

Posted by: All Hail Eris at June 02, 2024 09:47 AM (FkUwd)

96 This was an unusual week for reading for me. I got about 20 pages into two books (fortunately library books so they didn't cost me money). I closed them and will return them shortly. It's not that they were badly written but the topics turned me off completely.

The first was Fourteen Days, a series of short stories by various writers, all well known, about a group of New Yorkers during the early Covid time. They gather on the roof of their tenement and tell stories. (Shades of The Decameron.) Well, I despise big cities and these stories were all big city angst, anger and despair. Not my cup of tea. The book was quickly closed.

The second was "I Cheerfully Refuse" about a not too distant future American dystopia. I can deal with a dystopia brought about by natural disasters or even an alien invasion. This was brought about by greed and a lust for power by a self-styled elite. Too damn close to the lefttards we deal with every damn day. I have no stomach for it and prefer not to live in a constant rage. That one got closed quickly as well. If I want conflict in my reading I'll open up "Hamlet" or a Louis L'Amour western.

to be continued ...

Posted by: JTB at June 02, 2024 09:48 AM (zudum)

97 I'm watching season three of Star Trek and it's obvious that the budget got steeply cut, the plots are not as coherent (come on, Spock's Brain?), but it still has its moments. I've never watched the show season by season, but everyone seems to know the party is over and there seems to be a push to really get the lesser cast members some air time before the hammer falls.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at June 02, 2024 09:34 AM (llXky)
====
Shatner's greatest acting achievement is in the final episode where he plays an angry career-woman inhabiting his body. It is a Masterpiece.
Posted by: San Franpsycho at June 02, 2024

+ 100 to both of these comments. Fred Freiberger, the line producer in Season Three, was apparently not a big SF fan; he'd cut his teeth on Westerns as a writer and on medical drama Ben Casey as a producer. He might well have been over his head. "Green blood? What the heck is this stuff?"

Shatner is a master at layering a performance, adding details to his character. See the moment as he, as Lester in Kirk's body, is filing his nails in that last episode, for instance, and using it as a prop to point at McCoy.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at June 02, 2024 09:48 AM (omVj0)

98 Communism started before Marx, he just put together his thoughts on that theory. It has been pointed out utopia experiments that were tried and failed miserably he didn't even read about them.

Posted by: Skip at June 02, 2024 09:48 AM (fwDg9)

99 Never read Stephen King. No time for horror.
Posted by: Quarter Twenty at June 02, 2024 09:47 AM (dg+HA)
====
I spent an entire summer reading that first version of The Stand

Posted by: San Franpsycho at June 02, 2024 09:48 AM (RIvkX)

100 FDR was hoping to get us into the oncoming war, and Truman had other concerns? Not saying that's all of it, I don't know the post-war period very well or much about Truman. But Truman had to deal with a freshly nuclear-weaponized Soviet Union. That may have occupied him a little bit.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at June 02, 2024 09:44 AM (omVj0)

Lengthy, but I recommend David McCullogh’s Truman bio.

Posted by: Catch Thirty-Thr33 at June 02, 2024 09:49 AM (8sMut)

101 Something's missing.
Posted by: Hairyback Guy at June 02, 2024 09:41 AM (R/m4+)
Oh, it was there all right. FDR’s commie crony government meddlers.

Posted by: Eromero at June 02, 2024 09:49 AM (NxC5+)

102 FDR was hoping to get us into the oncoming war, and Truman had other concerns? Not saying that's all of it, I don't know the post-war period very well or much about Truman. But Truman had to deal with a freshly nuclear-weaponized Soviet Union. That may have occupied him a little bit.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at June 02, 2024 09:44 AM (omVj0)

That's just it...we had extensive dealing with and in the Republic Of China. It's like we just ignored their "civil" war, which had been ongoing even before the Japs invaded, only to meekly let the commies win which is still haunting us today.

Somebody or something allowed this to happen. Which would be a good read if I could find a book on it.

Posted by: Hairyback Guy at June 02, 2024 09:49 AM (R/m4+)

103 I've read only one ST:TOS novel ("Spock: Messiah!"), but it had but one bit of tech I would like to have: a shower that sprayed water on you all at once, then blasted warm air at you to dry you. Total time: maybe a minute.

While I'm on Trek, wouldn't the captain have an office where he would dictate logs and not be on the bridge all the time?

Posted by: Weak Geek at June 02, 2024 09:49 AM (p/isN)

104 tablet running out of gas
y'all have a nice morning
Posted by: Don Black

Does it run on farts ?

Posted by: JT at June 02, 2024 09:49 AM (T4tVD)

105 When studying China, Americans have to grasp just how little the Chinese care about us or anything we think is important.

The whole Cold War prism of Communism/Free World is almost entirely irrelevant, but we continue to think everyone else in the world was as focused on it as we are.

Remember that all the Chinese leaders of the 1940s knew each other well. There was a lot of personal animosity between people who at one time were all colleagues. If you don't know that, and jus think that "Oh, we'll arrange a political settlement," you're an idiot.

The US State Dept. is packed with idiots.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at June 02, 2024 09:50 AM (llXky)

106 Shatner is a master at layering a performance, adding details to his character. See the moment as he, as Lester in Kirk's body, is filing his nails in that last episode, for instance, and using it as a prop to point at McCoy.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at June 02, 2024 09:48 AM (omVj0)
====

The Shat!

Posted by: San Franpsycho at June 02, 2024 09:51 AM (RIvkX)

107 Never read Stephen King. No time for horror.
Posted by: Quarter Twenty at June 02, 2024

***
Then try his novelettes "The Body" and "Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption." Not a creepy-crawly in the lot, and both became famous and fine movies, Stand By Me and The Shawshank Redemption. In his first collection of shorts, Night Shift, he has a moving non-horror tale called "The Last Rung on the Ladder," too.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at June 02, 2024 09:51 AM (omVj0)

108 Communism started before Marx, he just put together his thoughts on that theory. It has been pointed out utopia experiments that were tried and failed miserably he didn't even read about them.
Posted by: Skip

I trace it back to Rousseau, whose personal life was as abhorrent as his intellectual one.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at June 02, 2024 09:51 AM (tATuQ)

109 + 100 to both of these comments. Fred Freiberger, the line producer in Season Three, was apparently not a big SF fan; he'd cut his teeth on Westerns as a writer and on medical drama Ben Casey as a producer. He might well have been over his head. "Green blood? What the heck is this stuff?"

I never got into Trek so I will leave that to others. As a nine year old I was introduced to Space: 1999 via AFN in Germany. I thought the Eagles were cool but the rest of the show was just plain bizarre. Now I am watching them again on YT and now, as a 29 year old, I Get It and have been into the show for some weeks now.

Except the second season, needlessly wrecked by that assclown Freiberger. Oh, what might have been…

Posted by: Catch Thirty-Thr33 at June 02, 2024 09:52 AM (8sMut)

110 While I'm on Trek, wouldn't the captain have an office where he would dictate logs and not be on the bridge all the time?
Posted by: Weak Geek at June 02, 2024

***
We never saw that; it was either the bridge or his quarters. Which, I suspect, is why they gave Picard his "ready room" just off the bridge proper.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at June 02, 2024 09:52 AM (omVj0)

111 Somebody or something allowed this to happen. Which would be a good read if I could find a book on it.
Posted by: Hairyback Guy at June 02, 2024 09:49 AM (R/m4+)
---
I've got a book. Perhaps you've heard of it.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at June 02, 2024 09:53 AM (llXky)

112 I've read only one ST:TOS novel ("Spock: Messiah!"), but it had but one bit of tech I would like to have: a shower that sprayed water on you all at once, then blasted warm air at you to dry you. Total time: maybe a minute. ...
Posted by: Weak Geek at June 02, 2024 09:49 AM (p/isN)
===
That's the only one I have read as well.

Posted by: San Franpsycho at June 02, 2024 09:53 AM (RIvkX)

113 Something's missing.
Posted by: Hairyback Guy at June 02, 2024 09:41 AM (R/m4+)

Hee hee.

And we'll do it to Vietnam, too!

Posted by: The Democrats at June 02, 2024 09:53 AM (0eaVi)

114 Remember that all the Chinese leaders of the 1940s knew each other well. There was a lot of personal animosity between people who at one time were all colleagues. If you don't know that, and jus think that "Oh, we'll arrange a political settlement," you're an idiot.
The US State Dept. is packed with idiots.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at June 02, 2024 09:50 AM (llXky)

Makes sense. Thanks A.H. Lloyd!

Posted by: Hairyback Guy at June 02, 2024 09:53 AM (R/m4+)

115 While I'm on Trek, wouldn't the captain have an office where he would dictate logs and not be on the bridge all the time?
Posted by: Weak Geek at June 02, 2024 09:49 AM (p/isN)
---
They probably didn't have the budget back then. Recall in The Next Generation that Picard *does* have an office adjacent to the bridge. It was called his "ready room" but was just his office.

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at June 02, 2024 09:54 AM (BpYfr)

116 We never saw that; it was either the bridge or his quarters. Which, I suspect, is why they gave Picard his "ready room" just off the bridge proper.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at June 02, 2024 09:52 AM (omVj0)
====
The rodgering room is ghey and lame and is where Wesley likes to hang out.

Posted by: San Franpsycho at June 02, 2024 09:55 AM (RIvkX)

117 Communism started before Marx, he just put together his thoughts on that theory. It has been pointed out utopia experiments that were tried and failed miserably he didn't even read about them.
Posted by: Skip

I trace it back to Rousseau, whose personal life was as abhorrent as his intellectual one.
Posted by: Thomas Paine at June 02, 2024 09:51 AM (tATuQ)
---
Communism is a heresy and variations of it recur throughout history. It contains elements of Palagianism and Catharism.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at June 02, 2024 09:55 AM (llXky)

118 continued from comment 96 ...

I can no longer tolerate fiction that pisses me off. They might be wonderfully written stories and not even woke. But just as I no longer bother with political books or most current events, if the topic of a novel hits me in the wrong place I won't spend time with it. Saves time for more enjoyable reading and usually saves money. Win-win.

Mini-rant off.

Posted by: JTB at June 02, 2024 09:56 AM (zudum)

119 "This is the second book in Koontz' Odd Thomas series. Odd must track down the man who presumably kidnapped Odd's childhood friend. Because this is Odd Thomas, you can bet something unholy and supernatural is really the culprit. He must use all of his wits and gifts to defeat an exceptionally cunning enemy."

I was not as fond of this book as the first, but the third, Brother Odd, is now my solid favorite. Koontz' worldview is expressed not so subtly in this, which is saying something in the fiction division of the publishing world. One character in particular is a treasure: a former social worker fired for expressing her faith during her work with severely at-risk kids. How does she express it? With a tattoo inside her bottom lip. Koontz' frustration with the powers that prefer "help" that tears a child apart rather than build them up was prescient in 2006.

Posted by: Moki at June 02, 2024 09:56 AM (wLjpr)

120 Speaking of learning, my grandson is having trouble reading so I'm going to read with him this summer. When his aunt, my daughter, was young, I bribed her to read. She wanted an iPad so I agreed that if she read a children's Shakespeare, I would buy her an iPad. To verify that she had actually read it, I prepared a test. One of the questions concerned the play within the play A Midsummer Night's Dream. Oooo, she was mad about that! Not fair! Not fair!

Anyway, I had brunch with her the other day and she reminded me of that which she seemed to recall fondly. That's where the idea of reading with my grandson developed. I read The Tower Treasure, the first of the Hardy Boys Mysteries, and I think it'll do as a book to read together.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, I've Been Through the Desert On a Horse With No Shame at June 02, 2024 09:57 AM (L/fGl)

121 I was visiting family over the holiday weekend, thus away from my usual books. When I needed a break from socializing, I grabbed my tablet and dug into my digital comic collection. I settled on reading "Dragonlance Classics." Now, I haven't read the original Dragonlance novels since high school, but I can confidently report that the comic book adaptation leaves out a lot of material. They just give the story of individual characters: First Riva Silvercrown, then Kalthanan, then Tanis Half-Elven....It actually works pretty well, until our main character meets another 'major' character who's in the middle of their own quest, which the comic-reader knows nothing about. (cough-Raistlin-cough)

Still, the story has been mostly good. The art equally so. The penciler is experienced: great work on figures and facial expressions. But he clearly comes from a superhero background rather than fantasy, so the dragons and other creatures look a little clunkly. And the coloring is peak cell-shading. Everything is a single block of color, letting the linework deal with shadows and such, but they know how to make the characters distinct from the foreground or background. Good Read.

Posted by: Castle Guy at June 02, 2024 09:57 AM (Lhaco)

122 Hiya Moki !

Posted by: JT at June 02, 2024 09:57 AM (T4tVD)

123 Finished "Day of the Triffids and now reading-

"The Midwich Cuckoos" by John Wyndham.

Again, an excellently told story. His writing and plotting are very clean and logical. His people seem real and react to their problems and rising horror as you or I might. It's no wonder that both DotT and TMC are his most famous novels. They deserve to be.

There is very little "hurry" in his novels. Wyndham wants you to believe in and accept the situation every step of the way as real. Instead of a grand solution to the overarching problem, his characters try to survive the daily challenges created by the overarching problem. These seem very much like novels written by a 20th Century Englishman who had suffered through or had a close acquaintance with the Nazi bombing and V-2 blitz of London in WWII.

Try to keep calm and carry on as it were.

Very enjoyable reads. No particularly gory parts or tortuous pain and hysteria. A cosy horror, if you will.
Highly recommended.

Give them a whirl.

Posted by: naturalfake at June 02, 2024 09:58 AM (eDfFs)

124 Oh, it was there all right. FDR’s commie crony government meddlers.
=====

Oh, Eleanor.

Posted by: mustbequantum at June 02, 2024 09:59 AM (MIKMs)

125 They probably didn't have the budget back then. Recall in The Next Generation that Picard *does* have an office adjacent to the bridge. It was called his "ready room" but was just his office.
Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at June 02, 2024

***
Say what you like about TNG (and I still think it was marvelous SF drama at its best, which was often), but they really gave the impression that this was a BIG ship with a lot of people aboard. Instead of the tiny cabins of the first series, the quarters of nearly everybody we saw on TNG were pretty darn roomy, and there were lots of other areas shown too.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at June 02, 2024 09:59 AM (omVj0)

126 Since Starfleet is Navy, of course there would be a ready room.
Eromero, VF84 Jolly Roger

Posted by: Eromero at June 02, 2024 10:00 AM (NxC5+)

127 I remember The Tower Treasure. Got me hooked on The Hardy Boys. Read every one I could get my hands on.

Posted by: Quarter Twenty at June 02, 2024 10:00 AM (dg+HA)

128 Another thing about China - in 1937, Chiang Kai-shek had the Communists at bay. They had finished the Long March but at a terrible cost and the Nationalists were getting ready to finish them off.

And then Japan saved them by invading.

Chiang's initial plan was to finish the Communists and then turn towards the Japanese because he knew they were the greater threat, but his general mutinied, and he was put under house arrest until a Second United Front was proclaimed. (The details of what went down during this conference are unknown, one of the greatest secrets in history.)

As a result, the Communists were spared destruction and - contrary to myth - they did not heroically fight Japan while the KMT waited for the US. The truth is that the Commies hid in holes while the KMT was shredded by the Japanese war machine.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at June 02, 2024 10:00 AM (llXky)

129 The Alcatraz East Museum is looking to sell OJ's Bronco if you've got $1.5m kicking around.

Posted by: Yudhishthira's Dice at June 02, 2024 10:00 AM (0FoWg)

130 I think in 1949 there were two factors at play:

First, we'd just finished the biggest war in history, and there was absolutely ZERO enthusiasm for going through anything like that again. Truman knew that very well.

Second, the Russians had just taken over half of Europe.

Basically, Harry had to pick: get involved in a potentially open-ended continent-scale counterinsurgency in China, or make a show of force in Europe and try to deter the Russians without actually pulling the trigger. He chose the second, and I can't blame him. In 1949 Europe absolutely was more important than China.

Posted by: Trimegistus at June 02, 2024 10:01 AM (78a2H)

131 122 Hiya Moki !
Posted by: JT at June 02, 2024 09:57 AM (T4tVD)

Hiya JT!!! How's the birdbath???

Posted by: Moki at June 02, 2024 10:02 AM (wLjpr)

132 Actually, being on I 80 would explain why it's not on I 15 anymore....
Posted by: OrangeEnt at June 02, 2024 09:38 AM (0eaVi)

Someday I'll dig in and see if I can find the story on how it wound up out here. I remember it being in VC when I was a kid...

Looked it up. It's probably a fake. Looks like nobody knows which car is real. So I should say I remember one being in VC when I was a kid.
One would think that an easy way to prove authenticity would be to do a Luminol test on all of them.

Posted by: Reforger at June 02, 2024 10:02 AM (xcIvR)

133 A story about failed reading: Since I was visiting family last weekend, I got to visit the big-city Barnes and Noble. While there, I saw the new Watership Down graphic novel on the shelf. In glorious hardcover. It looked good, and I figured I would buy it. But first, I had to talk to an associate about a new Nook. And after dealing with that, I left without Watership Down.

No big deal, I could just stop by the next day (on my way back home). But on my second trip....my book was gone. In the course of less than 24 hours, someone else bought my book. I....didn't know how to react to that. I'm not used to other people liking what I'm interested in. Heck, most of the things I like aren't even popular enough to be stocked on physical shelves. I usually have to order on-line....

Oh, well, at least this means the book will be popular enough to keep in stock and in print. There's always next time...

Posted by: Castle Guy at June 02, 2024 10:02 AM (Lhaco)

134 124 Oh, it was there all right. FDR’s commie crony government meddlers.
=====

Oh, Eleanor.
Posted by: mustbequantum at June 02, 2024 09:59 AM (MIKMs)

Tell me about it.

Posted by: ADM Standley, Ambassador to the USSR at June 02, 2024 10:04 AM (8sMut)

135 I think in 1949 there were two factors at play:

Posted by: Trimegistus at June 02, 2024 10:01 AM (78a2H)
---
The Chinese Civil War was decided in 1948, when the best Nationalist armies were forced to surrender in Manchuria. Chiang made a desperate attempt to retrieve the situation in the central plains, but it failed and the Nationalist cause collapsed.

Again, it was not pure ideology, and many Nationalist units were more loyal to their commanders than the cause, and so whole units defected out of self-interest. Ironically, these troops were used as cannon-fodder in Korea, because the Communists didn't trust them.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at June 02, 2024 10:04 AM (llXky)

136 Sure, you've got stinkers like Spock's Brain, The Empath and Savage Curtain . . . but you've also got some really good ones like Wink of an Eye, Last Battlefield, Plato's Stepchildren, Requiem for Methuselah and All Our Yesterdays.

Posted by: Trimegistus at June 02, 2024 09:44 AM (78a2H)

I've stumbled on a couple of YT vids comparing ST seasons. All seem to laugh at Spock's Brain, but quite a few give good marks to The Empath. Wink of An Eye gets trashed by quite a few people elsewhere. This is the first episode I remember watching on the initial run. I wondered why Capt. Kirk was pulling on his boots.

Plato's Stepchildren is darker than you think at first look. Let That Be Your Last Battlefield is heavy handed allegory. A lot of reviewers don't like it. But, you're right. There's both good and bad episodes in season three.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at June 02, 2024 10:05 AM (0eaVi)

137 Enjoying the book thread from Outer Banks on vacation.

44 I just started reading "100 Animals That Can F*cking End You" by Mamadou Ndiaye.

I don't think the cottonmouth would've ended me, but it'd surely
have F*'d up my morning. About a foot from stepping on it, first time meeting a venomous snake in the 'wild'.

Posted by: InspiredHistoryMike at June 02, 2024 10:05 AM (8EXro)

138 122 Hiya Moki !
Posted by: JT at June 02, 2024 09:57 AM (T4tVD)

Hiya JT!!! How's the birdbath???
Posted by: Moki at June 02, 2024 10:02 AM (wLjpr)

Serving customers !

Posted by: JT at June 02, 2024 10:05 AM (T4tVD)

139 A recent post on Ace had a segment by Charles Murray which caught my attention and I got the book. "A Curmudgeon's Guide" is full of practical advice for young people, mostly under 30, on various aspects of life. I had to smile while reading it because I realized I didn't have to wait for old age to be a curmudgeon. Apparently, I was born that way. Many of the people who worked for me on deadline projects could attest to that.

I'm not comparing The Curmudgeon's Guide to "Meditations" by Marcus Aurelius but it is in that vein.

Posted by: JTB at June 02, 2024 10:05 AM (zudum)

140 The original series Trek was a staple during my college years -- we'd hit the dorm parlor or descend on the room of someone lucky enough to have his own TV and enjoy the hour.

That said... imagine coming off the first two seasons of that show (writers like Matheson, Bloch, Spinrad, Sturgeon along with the shows regular writers), tuning in for the third season premier and getting Spock's Brain.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at June 02, 2024 10:06 AM (q3u5l)

141 The writing of Austen was more enjoyable than that of Charlotte Bronte. The difference in writing style no doubt was due to Austen's higher level in society and the better education available to her as a result.
Posted by: Legally Sufficient at June 02, 2024

***
I've tried multiple times to get through an Austen novel, and keep slamming my head against the denseness of the prose. Why do I try? Because Rex Stout, the creator of Nero Wolfe and one of my favorite authors, loved her work. (The story goes that a reader wrote and accused him of having someone else write the Wolfe stories. Stout wrote back, "The name is Jane Austen. But I haven't the address.")

I read one of the Bronte books, and have forgotten which one and everything about it. Maybe I'm missing something essential, but I don't know.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at June 02, 2024 10:08 AM (omVj0)

142 Jack Beldon and the Battle of the Yellow River.

An eyewitness account.

[…] Any kind of a fight here would cause enough delay to finish off Doihara.

At this critical moment, Chiang Kai-shek, for some unknown reason, ordered a general retreat. This was one of the strangest, if not the worst, decisions in the China War. The effect on Chinese morale of wiping out a Japanese division, and Doihara's above all others, would have been tremendous.

https://archive.org/details/battle-of-the-yellow-river

Posted by: 13times at June 02, 2024 10:08 AM (zVc1/)

143 I would rather run across a rattlesnake than a water mocassin. Mocassins are more aggressive.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at June 02, 2024 10:08 AM (tATuQ)

144 One other point that gets overlooked: the Soviets actually helped build up Nationalist strength during the 1920s, providing instructors at the famous Whampoa Military Academy and significant arms. When the party split, Soviet aid stopped, but it resumed in the mid-1930s as a way of keeping Japan busy. The Soviets actually supplied huge numbers of aircraft and 'volunteer' pilots to Chiang.

This stopped after the border clashes with Japan because now Stalin was worried about his western frontier, so a non-aggression pact was signed with Japan (in which the Soviets agreed to supply them with oil!) and aid to China was cut off.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at June 02, 2024 10:08 AM (llXky)

145 When his aunt, my daughter, was young, I bribed her to read. She wanted an iPad so I agreed that if she read a children's Shakespeare, I would buy her an iPad. To verify that she had actually read it, I prepared a test.
=====

Bribery works. My youngest wanted a Game Boy, but she had to prove that she could read. I got lots of grief from her babysitters (she was 3 1/2), but she read all kinds of stuff so Santa made sure she got it.

Posted by: mustbequantum at June 02, 2024 10:08 AM (MIKMs)

146 Remember that all the Chinese leaders of the 1940s knew each other well. There was a lot of personal animosity between people who at one time were all colleagues. If you don't know that, and jus think that "Oh, we'll arrange a political settlement," you're an idiot.
The US State Dept. is packed with idiots.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at June 02, 2024 09:50 AM (llXky)

Time to re-read Whittaker Chamber's "Witness"?

Posted by: mrp at June 02, 2024 10:09 AM (rj6Yv)

147 While I'm on Trek, wouldn't the captain have an office where he would dictate logs and not be on the bridge all the time?
Posted by: Weak Geek at June 02, 2024 09:49 AM (p/isN)

I thought you saw something like that in City on the Edge of Forever. But, it might have been a part of his quarters.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at June 02, 2024 10:09 AM (0eaVi)

148 they really gave the impression that this was a BIG ship with a lot of people aboard. Instead of the tiny cabins of the first series, the quarters of nearly everybody we saw on TNG were pretty darn roomy, and there were lots of other areas shown too.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere

One of the things that impressed me about the U-boat movie Das Boot was the claustrophobic feel.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, The Outlaw Donald Trump 2024 at June 02, 2024 10:09 AM (L/fGl)

149 Well, reading and re-reading fourth book in my own series, "Will o' Wisp".

Also reading second volume in my friend George Hahn's "Library Ship" series. Very Asimovian, hard-sci-fi about an colony on Tau Ceti II.

Just finished an odd little Van Vogt story about a guy whose past is faked (because he's a Martian?), which dovetails oddly with the aforementioned "Will o' the Wisp".

I think I Bader-Meinhoff myself a lot. I'll write a book and suddenly I'll see things in the culture that reflect it, but it's always AFTER I'm done.

Posted by: moviegique (buy my book!) at June 02, 2024 10:10 AM (3Z0xj)

150 7 Because my TBR list is massive, I had vowed to skip the used-book store and online shopping for a month or two.

But when I saw yesterday that our Little Free Library had four of the first six Discworld books, and this group has repeatedly said how good that series is ...

As the nic says, I'm weak.

Posted by: Weak Geek at June 02, 2024 09:05 AM (p/isN)

You're not the only one who's weak. I bought no less than three comic omnibuses last month. I need to stop....

Posted by: Castle Guy at June 02, 2024 10:11 AM (Lhaco)

151 That said... imagine coming off the first two seasons of that show (writers like Matheson, Bloch, Spinrad, Sturgeon along with the shows regular writers), tuning in for the third season premier and getting Spock's Brain.
Posted by: Just Some Guy at June 02, 2024

***
Which had been written by Gene Coon, the fellow who had written and produced many of the show's classics. He thought this one was so bad he used a pen name.

Season Three of The Man From U.N.C.L.E. suffered by dint of having been turned into an attempt at camp. I still shudder at "The My Friend the Gorilla Affair": Robert Vaughn as Solo does the Watusi with a gorilla. No joke. (It could have been fixed; ask me about that sometime. But it was bad.)

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at June 02, 2024 10:11 AM (omVj0)

152 Good morning Hordemates!

Currently reading Masters of the Air by Donald Miller. It is a very well researched book not only of the bombers war in WW2, but also of the history and tactics used. The first fifty pages has an excellent summary of the theories of Douhet, Mitchell, Harris and Spaatz, plus some Clauswitz thrown in.

Posted by: Diogenes at June 02, 2024 10:11 AM (W/lyH)

153 This stopped after the border clashes with Japan because now Stalin was worried about his western frontier, so a non-aggression pact was signed with Japan (in which the Soviets agreed to supply them with oil!) and aid to China was cut off.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at June 02, 2024 10:08 AM (llXky)

Yep. The Soviets barely did jack for the CPC. I think a planeload of propaganda and some small amount of cash was all they got from the Soviets during Stalin’s time.

Posted by: Catch Thirty-Thr33 at June 02, 2024 10:11 AM (8sMut)

154 Spent much of May in Ireland. Absolutely beautiful! Read quite a bit of Peter Nealan's oeuvre while traveling, as I figured a trashy shoot-em-up would eat a lot of downtime pleasurably, and found his work to be deep enough to enjoy beyond the usual surface enjoyment. Good characters, tight writing, and mostly believable action.

I cannot sign off on a "brain implant" in James Tiberius Kirk. No sirree. Star Trek was concocted when Men were still Men, and Real Men don't have a computer stuck in their noggin!

Posted by: Brewingfrog at June 02, 2024 10:11 AM (iPYwI)

155 Good summation of cosmic horror, Perfessor. It's why, as much as I'm fascinated by Lovecraft's work, I can't say I like it all that much. Taken at face value, it induces one to despair, to simply huddle in a dark corner, unable to take joy from the world because there isn't any to be had.

It's New England Puritanism without a belief in God (a pretty good summation of Lovecraft himself, from what I've learned of him).

Posted by: Dr. T at June 02, 2024 10:11 AM (jGGMD)

156 I think one element of the decline in Star Trek shows since DS9 has been the decline in guest stars. All the recent Trek shows focus more on the ongoing soap opera of the regular cast -- which makes for huge problems when the regular cast aren't that great and their characters are kind of boring.

In the old days, even as late as Voyager, this wasn't as much of an issue because you could bring in a guest star to carry the episode.

Most of the Old Show was essentially an "anthology show" of self-contained stories. In several cases, the Enterprise crew were as much spectators to the story as the TV audience -- Last Battlefield is an example of that. You could leave Shatner and Nimoy out entirely and just watch Frank Gorshin for an hour.

I think that's also what creates the kind of odd out-of-character moments in certain episodes: the Enterprise crew are essentially being drafted as supporting characters in someone else's story, and sometimes the role is a bad fit. Mr. Scott suspected of murder in "Wolf in the Fold" doesn't really work, but they needed a suspect so he got drafted.

Posted by: Trimegistus at June 02, 2024 10:12 AM (78a2H)

157 One of the things that impressed me about the U-boat movie Das Boot was the claustrophobic feel.
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks

The Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago has a complete U boat on site. Even as a child, it felt small and tight for a half hour tour.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at June 02, 2024 10:13 AM (tATuQ)

158 I wondered why Capt. Kirk was pulling on his boots.

A guy in college summarized that story: "Kirk got laid."

Posted by: Weak Geek at June 02, 2024 10:14 AM (p/isN)

159 I cannot sign off on a "brain implant" in James Tiberius Kirk. No sirree. Star Trek was concocted when Men were still Men, and Real Men don't have a computer stuck in their noggin!
Posted by: Brewingfrog at June 02, 2024 10:11 AM (iPYwI)

Not yet.

Posted by: Meshuggah at June 02, 2024 10:16 AM (8sMut)

160 Currently reading Masters of the Air by Donald Miller. It is a very well researched book not only of the bombers war in WW2, but also of the history and tactics used. The first fifty pages has an excellent summary of the theories of Douhet, Mitchell, Harris and Spaatz, plus some Clauswitz thrown in.
Posted by: Diogenes

I liked the book better than the series and I thought the series was good.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, The Outlaw Donald Trump 2024 at June 02, 2024 10:17 AM (L/fGl)

161 Just a heads up for the 'Rons... Lady YD I took our daughter to a "Kids' Party" that Nearby City put together to benefit victims of child abuse. One thing that surprised me was the single moms who showed out. This place was a total meat market. These ladies were displaying the goods. You can definitely understand how they got to be moms in the first place.

If you're on the prowl, and your city has something like this, you should check it out.

Posted by: Yudhishthira's Dice at June 02, 2024 10:17 AM (0FoWg)

162 Drinker explained how versatile trek even going back to deep space nine was

Posted by: Miguel cervantes at June 02, 2024 10:18 AM (PXvVL)

163 While I'm on Trek, wouldn't the captain have an office where he would dictate logs and not be on the bridge all the time?
=====

Alternate Universe Kirk had a personal spy network that Kirk left to Alternate Spock when they all got sorted out.

Posted by: mustbequantum at June 02, 2024 10:18 AM (MIKMs)

164 Nearing the end of both of my current books, I can see why the Iliad has lasted 3000 years. And in the Ian Toll series, the US has taken Okinawa and is planning the invasion of the home Islands while the A-Bomb has been successfully tested. I recommend both of these wholeheartedly

Posted by: who knew at June 02, 2024 10:19 AM (4I7VG)

165 145: I still can’t get over how the two most unimaginative people on earth - my parents (I will die on this hill) - were the biggest forces pushing me to read, which I took to right away.

Posted by: Catch Thirty-Thr33 at June 02, 2024 10:19 AM (8sMut)

166 Most of the Old Show was essentially an "anthology show" of self-contained stories. In several cases, the Enterprise crew were as much spectators to the story as the TV audience -- Last Battlefield is an example of that. You could leave Shatner and Nimoy out entirely and just watch Frank Gorshin for an hour. . . .

Posted by: Trimegistus at June 02, 2024

***
True. The story called "Requiem for Methuselah" (still my nominee for "talkiest and dullest Trek ever) would have been vastly improved if, instead of Kirk falling in love with the young woman later revealed to be an android, it had been a young officer from the ship, perhaps recently widowed, who finds her appealing in his period of loss. It made no sense that Kirk would suddenly fall in love with a girl, even a human one, he just met.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at June 02, 2024 10:19 AM (omVj0)

167 I'm in one of 'those' moods lately. I feel the need to reinforce my understanding of societal basics so I'm putting together a list for my next visit to the used book store. Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, and Coleridge are on the list. I gave my old college copies of Plato and company to my nephew and his wife. (That ends up including our niece and hubby. Apparently, there is a lot of book swapping between the siblings, which makes me happy.) Now I want to get good compendiums of their major works for reference.

Posted by: JTB at June 02, 2024 10:21 AM (zudum)

168 57 I thought “Spectre of the Gun” and “The Paradise Syndrome” bore some of the spark from the 1st two seasons, then “Day of the Dove” and “All our Yesterdays” were flawed but were up there.

Posted by: Norrin Radd, sojourner of the spaceways at June 02, 2024 10:22 AM (hsWtj)

169 The weird thing about China politics post the fall of the Manchu was how Sun Yat-sen didn’t end up floating headless down the Pearl River.

He must’ve been quite a man. He breezed between factions. It seems no one really hated him. But he was more a dreamer than doer.

Posted by: 13times at June 02, 2024 10:22 AM (brtfM)

170 Wink of An Eye gets trashed by quite a few people elsewhere. This is the first episode I remember watching on the initial run. I wondered why Capt. Kirk was pulling on his boots. . . .

***
I was a young teen, and even I knew what *that* was all about.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at June 02, 2024 10:22 AM (omVj0)

171 Looked it up. It's probably a fake. Looks like nobody knows which car is real. So I should say I remember one being in VC when I was a kid.
One would think that an easy way to prove authenticity would be to do a Luminol test on all of them.
Posted by: Reforger at June 02, 2024 10:02 AM (xcIvR)

All I remember is it used to be in Primm at Whiskey Pete's. Jean no longer has any casinos there. Nevada Landing was demolished a couple of years ago, and Gold Strike is closed. In fact, the whole town is closed. The official population in Jean is 0.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at June 02, 2024 10:24 AM (0eaVi)

172 I thought “Spectre of the Gun” and “The Paradise Syndrome” bore some of the spark from the 1st two seasons, then “Day of the Dove” and “All our Yesterdays” were flawed but were up there.
=====
Tribbles and Piece of the Action are the best. I'm a simple soul.

Posted by: mustbequantum at June 02, 2024 10:24 AM (MIKMs)

173 "Lemony Snicket" author Daniel Handler discusses how he lives "with haunting visions" after mental health experts couldn't cure him

https://shorturl.at/QKKih

He writes some twisted stuff.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, The Outlaw Donald Trump 2024 at June 02, 2024 10:24 AM (L/fGl)

174 I'm hoping that AI can be developed to write more novels based on the worlds like the Culture and Discword but in the style of the original authors.

So many of my favorite authors seem to have died early and this makes me feel cheated somehow. I know it's not rational but the feeling is there.

Imagine training an AI to think that it's reality was actually the inner world of Ian Banks mind.

I could buy into an AI that was essentially programed or taught to be a clone of a master class author.

Imagine a new book or even a small story written by a mind emulating Mark Twain so well that it's enjoyable.

Posted by: pawn at June 02, 2024 10:24 AM (QB+5g)

175 >>> 22
==
I doubt REH really counts as cosmic horror because most of his attempts at Lovecraftian fiction follow the basic pattern: Guy finds strange goings-on, investigates deeper, encounters eldritch otherworldly horror, beats otherworldly horror to a pulp. It's that last step which kind of bounces him out of Lovecraft territory. An HPL hero would faint or just run away in a mental fugue state or something. Howard heroes take care of business.
Posted by: Trimegistus at June 02, 2024 09:11 AM (78a2H)

"Don't turn into a snake. It never helps."

Posted by: Helena Handbasket at June 02, 2024 10:24 AM (llON8)

176 I'm re-reading Stephen Sears' "Gettysburg".

Posted by: mrp at June 02, 2024 10:25 AM (rj6Yv)

177 155 Good summation of cosmic horror, Perfessor. It's why, as much as I'm fascinated by Lovecraft's work, I can't say I like it all that much. Taken at face value, it induces one to despair, to simply huddle in a dark corner, unable to take joy from the world because there isn't any to be had.

It's New England Puritanism without a belief in God (a pretty good summation of Lovecraft himself, from what I've learned of him).
Posted by: Dr. T at June 02, 2024 10:11 AM (jGGMD)

Humanity exists to become Cthulhu’s toe jam.

Posted by: Catch Thirty-Thr33 at June 02, 2024 10:25 AM (8sMut)

178 Yep. The Soviets barely did jack for the CPC. I think a planeload of propaganda and some small amount of cash was all they got from the Soviets during Stalin’s time.
Posted by: Catch Thirty-Thr33 at June 02, 2024 10:11 AM (8sMut)
---
After the Japanese surrender, Stalin did Mao a big solid. Not only did the Soviets give the Chicoms all the Japanese weapons they captured, they also offered up captured German rifles (China's primary infantry weapon was the Mauser Kar98k, believe it or not). This totally transformed the balance of power. Without it Mao would have been curb-stomped.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at June 02, 2024 10:25 AM (llXky)

179 "Don't turn into a snake. It never helps."
Posted by: Helena Handbasket at June 02, 2024 10:24 AM (llON

You sure?

Posted by: Maya at June 02, 2024 10:26 AM (8sMut)

180 I thought “Spectre of the Gun” and “The Paradise Syndrome” bore some of the spark from the 1st two seasons, then “Day of the Dove” and “All our Yesterdays” were flawed but were up there.
Posted by: Norrin Radd, sojourner of the spaceways at June 02, 2024

***
Yes. "Spectre" (a Gene Coon script under a pen name) had a wonderful noir look to it. "Paradise" was pretty ordinary, but the last moments with the girl's death, and Kirk remaining by her side as the credits roll, is affecting. "Dove" has good logic by Spock ("If the Klingons could create this situation, why have they given us any weapons at all?"). And "Yesterdays," though flawed (why did Spock turn into a version of his barbaric ancestors, but McCoy did not?), is imaginative. And you're left wondering how Zarabeth would fare all alone in her ice age world.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at June 02, 2024 10:27 AM (omVj0)

181 I love the groovy hair, makeup, and costumes of Classic Trek. All hail William Ware Theiss!

Per Wiki: "The "Theiss Titillation Theory"—which claims that "the degree to which a costume is considered sexy is directly proportional to how accident-prone it appears to be"—is named after him."

Posted by: All Hail Eris at June 02, 2024 10:27 AM (FkUwd)

182 Thank you, Perfessor, for the Book Thread.

A while back, I bought all three books of C.S. Lewis's Space Trilogy, party because I've enjoyed science fiction in the past, but mostly because I felt like it was something I should read. Out of the Silent Plant was... ok. I started Perelandra last weeks and am finding it a slog. I'm about 1/3 of the way through. There are some descriptions of the planet that I have to read 2 - 3 times to understand. It's pretty much the same with the dialog except that while I understand the words spoken by the woman the main character encounters, I can't really make sense of what she's saying. I'm hoping it all comes together at some point. I'm determined to finish this book and the series, though I may not pick up That Hideous Strength for a while after this one.

Posted by: KatieFloyd at June 02, 2024 10:27 AM (zkZWb)

183 178: There’s nothing to do in Moscow but eat, sleep and shit.

Posted by: Mao at June 02, 2024 10:27 AM (8sMut)

184 OK, Ima gonna say it. I liked "Spock's Brain".

"Brain and Brain! What is Brain?"

Posted by: I am the Shadout Mapes, the Housekeeper at June 02, 2024 10:28 AM (PiwSw)

185 After the Japanese surrender, Stalin did Mao a big solid. Not only did the Soviets give the Chicoms all the Japanese weapons they captured, they also offered up captured German rifles (China's primary infantry weapon was the Mauser Kar98k, believe it or not). This totally transformed the balance of power. Without it Mao would have been curb-stomped.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at June 02, 2024 10:25 AM (llXky)

What about radios, trucks, and artillery?

Posted by: mrp at June 02, 2024 10:28 AM (rj6Yv)

186 That said... imagine coming off the first two seasons of that show (writers like Matheson, Bloch, Spinrad, Sturgeon along with the shows regular writers), tuning in for the third season premier and getting Spock's Brain.
Posted by: Just Some Guy at June 02, 2024 10:06 AM (q3u5l)

Spock's Brain is a Gene Coon story.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at June 02, 2024 10:28 AM (0eaVi)

187 With the frustrating and anger inducing politics this week, I immersed myself in mindless reading purely for fun.
I read Archangels's Lineage by Nalini Singh. This is the 16th book in the series and the author is definitely running out of steam. More non essential filler and using the story line to introduce a new major character which seemed the whole purpose of the book.
I will probably keep reading them as she has several other series with new books due out shortly
which I am excited about including one in her psy-changeling series called Primal Mirror.

Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at June 02, 2024 10:29 AM (t/2Uw)

188 "Don't turn into a snake. It never helps."
Posted by: Helena Handbasket at June 02, 2024

***
Anthony Boucher wrote a short story called "The Compleat Werewolf." He suggests that many of us have a were-component in our genes, and that determines what you'd transform into under the right conditions. However, "Some transformations are pretty useless. You transform into a were-ant, and somebody steps on you, and that's that."

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at June 02, 2024 10:29 AM (omVj0)

189 I went to a Star Trek thread and a book thread broke out.

Posted by: Ducks down out of sight at June 02, 2024 10:30 AM (dg+HA)

190 172: Tribbles annihilated any remaining desire I had to get into Star Trek at the age of 12.

Posted by: Catch Thirty-Thr33 at June 02, 2024 10:31 AM (8sMut)

191 Fell off Next Generation during the first season when a number of the shows were practically rewrites of original series episodes, and never went back to it. Liked Deep Space 9. Never got into Voyager or the one with Scott Bakula (Enterprise, was it?).

The old show being like an anthology show is one of the nice things about it -- it often had a magazine-sf feel to it and the sf magazine had a lot of variety. A lot of good series could be viewed the same way -- the regular casts caught up in someone else's story with each episode self-contained. Route 66, quite a few westerns, a lot of cop and private eye shows, some of The Fugitive, a number of Combat's episodes. The regular characters are there because either the viewing audiences expect them or because the producers think the audiences expect them.

The anthology shows used to be popular. Not sure why that changed.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at June 02, 2024 10:31 AM (q3u5l)

192 I think one element of the decline in Star Trek shows since DS9 has been the decline in guest stars. All the recent Trek shows focus more on the ongoing soap opera of the regular cast -- which makes for huge problems when the regular cast aren't that great and their characters are kind of boring.

Posted by: Trimegistus at June 02, 2024 10:12 AM (78a2H)
---
American prime-time television was originally based on how a relatively static set of characters react to various weekly challenges. Guest stars show up and sometimes get recurring roles to keep things interesting.

In the 1980s, the approach was changed to reflect the story arcs of daytime TV and so shows like "Hill Street Blues" and "St. Elsewhere" became popular and a lot of the old private dectives shows went away.

"Babylon 5" created an actual multi-season story arc, and while it featured guest stars, these were integral to the plot. Since then, Trek has tried to do the same, but I stopped watching midway through DS9.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at June 02, 2024 10:31 AM (llXky)

193 I saw the original Trek costumes at the Smithsonian years ago. Film really lends gravitas to costumes that are IRL cheaply stitched together samples from the Pucci remainders bin.

I still dig the stimulant commander lady's lounging dress.

Posted by: All Hail Eris at June 02, 2024 10:31 AM (FkUwd)

194 There’s nothing to do in Moscow but eat, sleep and shit.

Posted by: Mao at June 02, 2024 10:27 AM (8sMut)

you can drink

Posted by: BignJames at June 02, 2024 10:32 AM (AwYPR)

195 After a fairly lean Spring for new books from some of my favorite authors there are new books not only by Nalini Singh but also Catherine Coulter, Patricia Briggs, Iris Johansen, and even a new Will Trent by Karin Slaughter.
I wish they would space them better but I guess Summer and Christmas seem to be the release dates of choice.

Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at June 02, 2024 10:32 AM (t/2Uw)

196 Anybody think that The Pants Guy owns a weedwhacker ?

Me neither.

Thanks for The Book Thread Perfessor !

Posted by: JT at June 02, 2024 10:32 AM (T4tVD)

197 Tribbles and Piece of the Action are the best. I'm a simple soul.
Posted by: mustbequantum at June 02, 2024

***
The show's format, when well handled, was a wide enough platform to have space adventure, big conflicts, personal tragedies like that of Charlie Evans, and even comedy, and have it all work.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at June 02, 2024 10:32 AM (omVj0)

198 Old and busted: Bonnie and Clyde

New and cool: Bill and Hill

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, The Outlaw Donald Trump 2024 at June 02, 2024 10:33 AM (L/fGl)

199 What about radios, trucks, and artillery?
Posted by: mrp at June 02, 2024 10:28 AM (rj6Yv)
---
Mao got the entire equipment of the Kwangtung Army as well as the Manchukuo puppet forces - a massive windfall in equipment. He also raided the ammunition and supply dumps and virtually overnight the balance of power was completely upended.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at June 02, 2024 10:33 AM (llXky)

200 Tribbles annihilated any remaining desire I had to get into Star Trek at the age of 12.
=====

As I said, I'm a simple soul.

Posted by: mustbequantum at June 02, 2024 10:33 AM (MIKMs)

201 >>> 101 Something's missing.
Posted by: Hairyback Guy at June 02, 2024 09:41 AM (R/m4+)
Oh, it was there all right. FDR's commie crony government meddlers.
Posted by: Eromero at June 02, 2024 09:49 AM (NxC5+)

>>> 102 FDR was hoping to get us into the oncoming war, and Truman had other concerns? Not saying that's all of it, I don't know the post-war period very well or much about Truman. But Truman had to deal with a freshly nuclear-weaponized Soviet Union. That may have occupied him a little bit.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at June 02, 2024 09:44 AM (omVj0)

That's just it...we had extensive dealing with and in the Republic Of China. It's like we just ignored their "civil" war, which had been ongoing even before the Japs invaded, only to meekly let the commies win which is still haunting us today.

Somebody or something allowed this to happen. Which would be a good read if I could find a book on it.
Posted by: Hairyback Guy at June 02, 2024 09:49 AM (R/m4+)

iirc Diana West's American Betrayal is mostly about how much FDR's idiots helped the Soviet Union, but I can see those same super-geniuses "helping" the Chinese commies too.

Posted by: Helena Handbasket at June 02, 2024 10:35 AM (llON8)

202 The official population in Jean is 0.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at June 02, 2024 10:24 AM (0eaVi)

We Nevadans love us some ghost towns. Wonder if it's for sale.
I've got pictures of the car on Farcebook. I could log in for the first time in months and check the bullet holes vs the crime scene photos.
Bullet holes are hard to fake. Especially that many.

Posted by: Reforger at June 02, 2024 10:35 AM (xcIvR)

203 Saw a starlink train in the sky last night. Nobody believed me when I said it was Santa on a scouting mission.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at June 02, 2024 10:36 AM (T1ohp)

204 iirc Diana West's American Betrayal is mostly about how much FDR's idiots helped the Soviet Union, but I can see those same super-geniuses "helping" the Chinese commies too.
Posted by: Helena Handbasket at June 02, 2024 10:35 AM (llON

This is about me, isn’t it?

Posted by: BGen Philip Faymonville at June 02, 2024 10:36 AM (8sMut)

205 I can see why the Iliad has lasted 3000 years.

Posted by: who knew at June 02, 2024 10:19 AM (4I7VG)

Whose translation are you reading?

I have read a couple, and they were quite different, which was a real eye-opener!

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at June 02, 2024 10:37 AM (d9fT1)

206 203: looking back, I think that’s what some of us might remember seeing at the 2020 TX MoMe.

Posted by: Catch Thirty-Thr33 at June 02, 2024 10:37 AM (8sMut)

207 Mr. Scott suspected of murder in "Wolf in the Fold" doesn't really work, but they needed a suspect so he got drafted.
Posted by: Trimegistus at June 02, 2024 10:12 AM (78a2H)

But it gave him a story, like The Lights of Zetar did. You see more of the supporting cast in season three, so I don't get the animosity of them after the conventions started. Oh, wait. That's why they started grumbling. The conventions made them think they were the stars of the show instead of supporting characters. (I think Nimoy pretty much says this in the "Mind Meld" dvd with Shatner) Kirk, Spock, and McCoy were the main characters. It stands to reason they would get most of the screen time.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at June 02, 2024 10:38 AM (0eaVi)

208 The anthology shows used to be popular. Not sure why that changed.
Posted by: Just Some Guy at June 02, 2024

***
There used to be this idea in network TV, which arose in NYC with a lot of people who had done legitimate theatre, that anthology shows with individual casts and settings were superior in and of themselves to anything with continuing characters. Possibly because of radio shows with regular characters like "The Lone Ranger" and others, which were considered a step down in prestige.

It became obvious in the late Sixties, and as production moved mostly to Hollywood, that audiences preferred the continuing character shows.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at June 02, 2024 10:38 AM (omVj0)

209 Looking over the shelves during the last few years I've noted that practically all my favorite writers are dead now.

It's almost enough to make a guy feel old.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at June 02, 2024 10:39 AM (q3u5l)

210 Anyone like the Harry Hole series by Jo Nesbo?

It's weird, because Norway is weird. But the characters are interesting, and the crimes and criminals are always twisted and strange.

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at June 02, 2024 10:39 AM (d9fT1)

211 When it comes to Deep Space 9, my favorite episodes are the ones with James Darren as Vic Fontaine. He played a fun character and his singing was great. And the writers were smart enough to use his 'minor' character as a way to flesh out the regular cast. I got the CD of the songs he sang on the show. It's impressive.

Posted by: JTB at June 02, 2024 10:40 AM (zudum)

212 "Looking over the shelves during the last few years I've noted that practically all my favorite writers are dead now.

It's almost enough to make a guy feel old."

I think that might be the very definition of feeling old.

Posted by: pawn at June 02, 2024 10:41 AM (QB+5g)

213 At this critical moment, Chiang Kai-shek, for some unknown reason, ordered a general retreat. This was one of the strangest, if not the worst, decisions in the China War. The effect on Chinese morale of wiping out a Japanese division, and Doihara's above all others, would have been tremendous.

https://archive.org/details/battle-of-the-yellow-river
Posted by: 13times at June 02, 2024 10:08 AM (zVc1/)
---
At several points during Japan's initial push into China the Nationalists gave them bloody noses and even a resounding defeat at Taierchwang in April, 1938. Chiang's overriding goal was to keep his forces intact because he knew that Japan did not have enough logistics to overcome his superior strategic depth.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at June 02, 2024 10:41 AM (llXky)

214 Out of the Silent Plant was... ok.
Posted by: KatieFloyd at June 02, 2024 10:27 AM (zkZWb)

I concur. Sci fi is not my favorite genre, but I like to read some once in a while to expand my horizons. So many have said this is a great book. I didn't finish it. I just found it kind of boring, and my TBR list is long, so I moved on.

Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at June 02, 2024 10:41 AM (OX9vb)

215 Oops, time to go. Thanks again, Perfesser!

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at June 02, 2024 10:42 AM (llXky)

216 Only in The Book Thread can we get parallel conversations about Star Trek: TOS and post-WWII China....

Posted by: Castle Guy at June 02, 2024 10:42 AM (Lhaco)

217 Looking over the shelves during the last few years I've noted that practically all my favorite writers are dead now.

It's almost enough to make a guy feel old.
Posted by: Just Some Guy at June 02, 2024 10:39 AM (q3u5l)

Or ALIVE !

Posted by: JT at June 02, 2024 10:43 AM (T4tVD)

218 I was a young teen, and even I knew what *that* was all about.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at June 02, 2024 10:22 AM (omVj0)

I wasn't quite 7, Wolfus....

Posted by: OrangeEnt at June 02, 2024 10:43 AM (0eaVi)

219 you can drink
Posted by: BignJames at June 02, 2024 10:32 AM (AwYPR)

Go out into the boonies and go fix tractors.

Posted by: Mao at June 02, 2024 10:44 AM (8sMut)

220 Anthology shows are interesting but I think they declined in popularity because they're uneven. You don't know who's going to be in a given show, or if it's going to be a comedy or science fiction (or science fiction comedy) or a drama or horror or what.

When there were three channels to watch, they made more sense: tune in to Playhouse 90 because it might be good, or turn off the set because you don't like what's on the other two networks in that time slot.

Posted by: Trimegistus at June 02, 2024 10:44 AM (78a2H)

221 The new Iliad with Diversity characters will be lit

Posted by: Skip at June 02, 2024 10:44 AM (fwDg9)

222 I went to a Star Trek thread and a book thread broke out.
Posted by: Ducks down out of sight at June 02, 2024

***
Good point! But what we're doing here is discussing, in the main, how the stories worked or did not -- analyzing the storytelling, not just gushing over "how cool" a given episode was.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at June 02, 2024 10:44 AM (omVj0)

223 I'm re-reading Stephen Sears' "Gettysburg".
Posted by: mrp

I quite like Sears' books. An interesting twofer on Chancellorsville is Sears' Chancellorsville (it wasn't all Hooker's fault) and Ernest B. Furgurson's The Souls of the Brave (it was definitely all Hooker's fault). In my opinion, Fergurson has the better of it.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, The Outlaw Donald Trump 2024 at June 02, 2024 10:45 AM (L/fGl)

224 205: ah, The Iliad and The Odyssey…

Posted by: Catch Thirty-Thr33 at June 02, 2024 10:46 AM (8sMut)

225 193 ... Film really lends gravitas to costumes that are IRL cheaply stitched together samples from the Pucci remainders bin.

I still dig the stimulant commander lady's lounging dress.
Posted by: All Hail Eris at June 02, 2024 10:31 AM (FkUwd)

Gold rickrack. Always makes me laugh.

Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at June 02, 2024 10:46 AM (OX9vb)

226
CBD,

Give Alexander Pope's translation of "The Iliad" a whirl for something completely different.

Posted by: naturalfake at June 02, 2024 10:47 AM (eDfFs)

227 I thought “Spectre of the Gun” and “The Paradise Syndrome” bore some of the spark from the 1st two seasons, then “Day of the Dove” and “All our Yesterdays” were flawed but were up there.
Posted by: Norrin Radd, sojourner of the spaceways at June 02, 2024 10:22 AM (hsWtj)

SoTG has usually been considered lousy because of the half set stage, like final season Batman. But it works, because of the unreality of the situation. Nothing works as it should - talking about the knock out gas - that tells Spock what they're experiencing isn't real. The only thing I noticed wrong was that Checkov's character was killed at the shootout, unlike they said in the story. It's better than it seems as first look.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at June 02, 2024 10:48 AM (0eaVi)

228 I love the writing of George MacDonald both for itself (Phantastes, A Dish of Orts) and for the influence he had on CS Lewis and Tolkien. I have most of his works on ebooks but want to have some physical copies on the shelf. To my surprise, there are a lot of recent editions, the last two years or so, of his fiction and biographies. I find the interest in this Victorian era writer to be encouraging.

Posted by: JTB at June 02, 2024 10:48 AM (zudum)

229 221 The new Iliad with Diversity characters will be lit
Posted by: Skip at June 02, 2024 10:44 AM (fwDg9)

----------

Hector in drag > Hector getting dragged

Posted by: Cicero (@cicero43) at June 02, 2024 10:48 AM (+o2mc)

230 When it comes to Deep Space 9, my favorite episodes are the ones with James Darren as Vic Fontaine. He played a fun character and his singing was great. And the writers were smart enough to use his 'minor' character as a way to flesh out the regular cast. I got the CD of the songs he sang on the show. It's impressive.
Posted by: JTB at June 02, 2024

***
Darren had more on the ball than it might have seemed in the Sixties, when he was a teen idol. Like Tab Hunter in his effective turn as the sociopathic scion of a ranching family in 1958's Gunman's Walk, for instance.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at June 02, 2024 10:48 AM (omVj0)

231 221 The new Iliad with Diversity characters will be lit
Posted by: Skip at June 02, 2024 10:44 AM (fwDg9)

Given this obsession with “diversity” and “representation” the current crop of idiot writers have…how could I, for one, gotten into Homer’s epics? I’m not Greek and have never been to that part of the world. Yet I love them and they have lasted for thousands of years. Hell, Sam Houston famously memorized them in his youth and recited them at the campfire to entertain the troops on the march to San Jacinto.

Posted by: Catch Thirty-Thr33 at June 02, 2024 10:49 AM (8sMut)

232 The new Iliad with Diversity characters will be lit
Posted by: Skip at June 02, 2024 10:44 AM (fwDg9)

The Ill iad and Oddities.

Posted by: JT at June 02, 2024 10:51 AM (T4tVD)

233 Per Wiki: "The "Theiss Titillation Theory"—which claims that "the degree to which a costume is considered sexy is directly proportional to how accident-prone it appears to be"—is named after him."
Posted by: All Hail Eris at June 02, 2024 10:27 AM (FkUwd)

Although, if something like that happened to a woman in front of him, he wouldn't have been interested.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at June 02, 2024 10:51 AM (0eaVi)

234 I can see why the Iliad has lasted 3000 years.

Posted by: who knew at June 02, 2024 10:19 AM (4I7VG)

Whose translation are you reading?

I have read a couple, and they were quite different, which was a real eye-opener!
Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo

Probably the most accessible for modern readers is the Robert Fagles translation although my favorite may be Alexander Pope's translation into Elizabethan verse.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, The Outlaw Donald Trump 2024 at June 02, 2024 10:52 AM (L/fGl)

235 I finished the Randall Garrett (third?) collection of Lord Darcy stories, Lord Darcy Investigates. Lord Darcy is the chief investigator of the Duke of Normandy in the Plantagenet empire, in the world where Richard III survived his wound and came home to dispossess his usurping brother John, and ruled wisely, and the rules of Magic were discovered and the talented were encouraged.

Lord Darcy travels with a Master Sorcerer and forensic investigator Seann O Lochlainn and investigates the most serious and mysterious murders in the anglo-french empire, and beyond. This collection has two locked room mysteries, and an "Orient Express" type train murder, with the background of the "great game" struggle but against the Polish empire and their spy service, the Serka,

Garrett supposedly wrote the series in response to John W. Campbell's declaration that it was impossible to write a detective mystery in a fantasy world since it would be pointless with the magical ability to commit crimes, and the ability to scry solutions.
As a Raymond Chandler fan, I find it a bit fussy Darcy always has to correct the first conclusions of officials, though the stories are well crafted.

Posted by: Kindltot at June 02, 2024 10:52 AM (D7oie)

236 SoTG has usually been considered lousy because of the half set stage, like final season Batman. But it works, because of the unreality of the situation. Nothing works as it should - talking about the knock out gas - that tells Spock what they're experiencing isn't real. The only thing I noticed wrong was that Checkov's character was killed at the shootout, unlike they said in the story. It's better than it seems as first look.
Posted by: OrangeEnt at June 02, 2024

***
In college I performed in, and watched, many a one-act play with super-minimal sets like that, and read others in which the playwright specifically describes the set in that fashion. So the "unrealistic" settings in "Spectre" worked beautifully. Sure, they could have used the sets of, say, the Lancer or Bonanza shows -- but it would have come off as hilarious instead of shivery.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at June 02, 2024 10:53 AM (omVj0)

237 Probably the most accessible for modern readers is the Robert Fagles translation although my favorite may be Alexander Pope's translation into Elizabethan verse.
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, The Outlaw Donald Trump 2024 at June 02, 2024 10:52 AM (L/fGl)

The translation available to me in MS and HS was Robert FitzGerald’s. (1961)

Posted by: Catch Thirty-Thr33 at June 02, 2024 10:56 AM (8sMut)

238 Part of the plot involves the potential creation of a new universe--at the expense of our own, of course. Which is interesting because that was also the plot of Star Trek #13 - The Wounded Sky and Star Trek #43 - The Three Minute Universe. I suspect there are more Star Trek novels (in all sub-franchises) that also have a similar plot...

I once contemplated doing a YouTube series "Who did it better?" comparing scifi shows that used the identical plot device. Stargate SG-1 "Under the Dome" and Star Trek Voyager "Workforce" use the same plot device of the crew being brainwashed into performing manual labor for an authoritarian society. Stargate Atlantis "The Tao of Rodney" and TNG "The Nth Degree" both use the plot of character achieving superhuman intellect through alien tech.

Even going back to TNG "The Child" and Space 1999's "Alpha Child" copying the plot of an alien using a human mother to give birth to itself in human form. This last is interesting because the Space 1999 episode is from 1976 and the TNG episode from 1988. BUT... the TNG episode was originally written for Star Trek Phase II back in 1975, so....

Posted by: Victor Tango Kilo at June 02, 2024 10:57 AM (9yUzE)

239 221 The new Iliad with Diversity characters will be lit
Posted by: Skip at June 02, 2024 10:44 AM (fwDg9)

This past week, I got halfway through a youtube essay cataloging/critiquing a bunch of modern feminist retellings of Greek mythology. Apparently, that's a big thing these days...

Posted by: Castle Guy at June 02, 2024 10:57 AM (Lhaco)

240 Kindltot, Garrett was a very clever writer. He did one SF tale in Galaxy, I think, under Fred Pohl, in which a human is captured by a race of aliens and subjected to a sort of super-lie detector, where he has to tell the truth. He saves the human race from invasion by telling The exact truth, and it works and is hilarious at the same time.

I think it's called "The Best Policy"!

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at June 02, 2024 10:58 AM (omVj0)

241 Even going back to TNG "The Child" and Space 1999's "Alpha Child" copying the plot of an alien using a human mother to give birth to itself in human form. This last is interesting because the Space 1999 episode is from 1976 and the TNG episode from 1988. BUT... the TNG episode was originally written for Star Trek Phase II back in 1975, so....
Posted by: Victor Tango Kilo at June 02, 2024 10:57 AM (9yUzE)

Actually the Space: 1999 episode you reference was from 1975 (possible cross pollination?) , a.k.a. the one good season of Space: 1999.

Posted by: Catch Thirty-Thr33 at June 02, 2024 10:59 AM (8sMut)

242 I've mostly been reading about food. Ever hear of bamboo bread? It could be handy in the future.
Posted by: fd at June 02, 2024 09:30 AM (vFG9F)

You have to wrassle a panda for it.

Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at June 02, 2024 11:00 AM (Jlh1S)

243 CharlieBrownsDildo: I'm reading a translation by Richmond Lattimore that I bought for a literature class at UW-Madison in 1975. I recently picked up a copy of his translation of the Odyssey that I will get to eventually.

Posted by: who knew at June 02, 2024 11:00 AM (4I7VG)

244 Speaking of pure poetry . . .

“Celebrate now, you Liberal Commie Fxcktards — You have no idea what’s coming. Because we are going to be licking up your delicious tears on Election Day.”

—Dan Bongino

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, The Outlaw Donald Trump 2024 at June 02, 2024 11:01 AM (L/fGl)

245 good morning Perfessor, Horde

Posted by: callsign claymore at June 02, 2024 11:01 AM (RNsNI)

246 Mrs. JTB came across an article about the Romance Writers of America group. Apparently, they (not sure if it's the members or the board of directors) went woke and DEI batshit crazy. Between that and Covid membership dropped from 10,000 to about 2,000. That's not enough members to meet the organization's fiscal needs. They are filing for a restructuring bankruptcy.

Posted by: JTB at June 02, 2024 11:01 AM (zudum)

247 We Nevadans love us some ghost towns. Wonder if it's for sale.

Posted by: Reforger at June 02, 2024 10:35 AM (xcIvR)

I don't think there's anything out there now, except maybe the remains of the Terrible's. It was supposed to be knocked down too. I'll be heading south next month. I'll see what's there. There is another town near LV, but I can't think of its name right now. Has the carcass of an airplane and some old rusted cars. Someone lives there and you can tour the property for a small fee.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at June 02, 2024 11:03 AM (0eaVi)

248 Romance Writers? I went to a local meeting of theirs back in '95 or so. It seemed to be all about the people who were already published, not much attention given to aspiring writers, and they wanted some annual fee for membership. I declined.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at June 02, 2024 11:05 AM (omVj0)

249 Covid killed 8,000 Romance writers?

Darn the luck.
Anyway...

I kid. I kid.

Posted by: Reforger at June 02, 2024 11:05 AM (xcIvR)

250 Mao got the entire equipment of the Kwangtung Army as well as the Manchukuo puppet forces - a massive windfall in equipment. He also raided the ammunition and supply dumps and virtually overnight the balance of power was completely upended.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at June 02, 2024 10:33 AM (llXky)

Thanks. And by the late '40s, the US was soured by the constant reports of Kuomintang corruption and ineptitude + the severe cutbacks in US spending for our own military services meant that the RoC' s chances of survival on the mainland were about nil.

South Korea was in the same boat. Truman didn't trust Rhee with a military capable of offensive operations against the North, so SK's defense procurement was no match for the NK's armament program. In fact, the US destroyed a P-38L fighter group in place in SK just months before the 1950 invasion rather than turn the planes over to the South's government.

Posted by: mrp at June 02, 2024 11:05 AM (rj6Yv)

251 Give Alexander Pope's translation of "The Iliad" a whirl for something completely different.

Posted by: naturalfake at June 02, 2024 10:47 AM (eDfFs)

Interesting!

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at June 02, 2024 11:05 AM (d9fT1)

252
Romance Writers of America...They are filing for a restructuring bankruptcy.

Needs more cover art featuring Fabio.

Posted by: Fabio at June 02, 2024 11:05 AM (RKVpM)

253 I'm not so sure about Freiberger being out of his depth with SF. According to Robert Conrad's introductions on the Season 1 DVD set of The Wild Wild West, Freiberger insisted on there being a weird element in every WWW episode (and some of those elements got very weird indeed--the plot of "The Night of the Druid's Blood" isn't that far removed from "Spock's Brain"). So it may just be that his take on SF was out of step with the way the first two seasons of ST:TOS had gone.

Posted by: Elisabeth G. Wolfe at June 02, 2024 11:05 AM (LLJRz)

254 It's ironic. It's Star Trek Day here in the book thread just as we're all living in Bearded Spock World.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, The Outlaw Donald Trump 2024 at June 02, 2024 11:07 AM (L/fGl)

255 I'm reading a translation by Richmond Lattimore that I bought for a literature class at UW-Madison in 1975. I recently picked up a copy of his translation of the Odyssey that I will get to eventually.

Posted by: who knew at June 02, 2024 11:00 AM (4I7VG)

His is the classic! Great stuff.

If you want to try a different sort of translation, try Robert Fagles.

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at June 02, 2024 11:07 AM (d9fT1)

256 Anyone like the Harry Hole series by Jo Nesbo?

It's weird, because Norway is weird. But the characters are interesting, and the crimes and criminals are always twisted and strange.
Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at June 02, 2024 10:39 AM (d9fT1)

Why do I think those books should be sold in plain brown wrappers?

Posted by: OrangeEnt at June 02, 2024 11:08 AM (0eaVi)

257 Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, The Outlaw Donald Trump 2024 at June 02, 2024 10:52 AM (L/fGl)

Heh...great minds....

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at June 02, 2024 11:08 AM (d9fT1)

258 Actually the Space: 1999 episode you reference was from 1975 (possible cross pollination?) , a.k.a. the one good season of Space: 1999.

And honestly, the S1999 version is superior. There's a genuine sense of peril, and the resolution, though a bit deus ex machina, makes sense in the context of the episode.

The TNG episode never really has a sense of peril, and such as it is (the alien child emits a form of radiation that is activating some sort of plague virus the ship's doctor is transporting) feels contrived. And the resolution... the child turns into a glowing ball and Counselor Troi has sadz... is just flat.

Posted by: Victor Tango Kilo at June 02, 2024 11:08 AM (9yUzE)

259 I'm not so sure about Freiberger being out of his depth with SF. According to Robert Conrad's introductions on the Season 1 DVD set of The Wild Wild West, Freiberger insisted on there being a weird element in every WWW episode (and some of those elements got very weird indeed--the plot of "The Night of the Druid's Blood" isn't that far removed from "Spock's Brain"). So it may just be that his take on SF was out of step with the way the first two seasons of ST:TOS had gone.
Posted by: Elisabeth G. Wolfe at June 02, 2024

***
Elisabeth, you may be right. I did not know he was attached to the West series, which was a pretty wild fantasy adventure in its own right.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at June 02, 2024 11:09 AM (omVj0)

260 It's ironic. It's Star Trek Day here in the book thread just as we're all living in Bearded Spock World.
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, The Outlaw Donald Trump 2024 at June 02, 2024

***
We haven't gotten to the vice-president moving up to the top slot by actually bumping off the prez.

Yet.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at June 02, 2024 11:10 AM (omVj0)

261 246 Mrs. JTB came across an article about the Romance Writers of America group. Apparently, they (not sure if it's the members or the board of directors) went woke and DEI batshit crazy. Between that and Covid membership dropped from 10,000 to about 2,000. That's not enough members to meet the organization's fiscal needs. They are filing for a restructuring bankruptcy.
Posted by: JTB at June 02, 2024 11:01 AM (zudum)

Boy, if only there had been a half-dozen examples of that exact same thing happening to other publishing-related organizations that could have served as a warning. But, alas....

Posted by: Castle Guy at June 02, 2024 11:13 AM (Lhaco)

262 I used to have most of TOS books. Please don't tell me they were worth something. I gave them all away except #39 Time for Yesterday. I also kept Strangers FromThe Sky. Fun reads every now and then.

Posted by: Diogenes at June 02, 2024 11:13 AM (W/lyH)

263 Give Alexander Pope's translation of "The Iliad" a whirl for something completely different.

Posted by: naturalfake at June 02, 2024 10:47 AM (eDfFs)

Hm...ninety-nine cents on Kindle. I'll try that, and if I like it, I'll buy a paper copy.

Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at June 02, 2024 11:14 AM (OX9vb)

264 And honestly, the S1999 version is superior. There's a genuine sense of peril, and the resolution, though a bit deus ex machina, makes sense in the context of the episode.

The TNG episode never really has a sense of peril, and such as it is (the alien child emits a form of radiation that is activating some sort of plague virus the ship's doctor is transporting) feels contrived. And the resolution... the child turns into a glowing ball and Counselor Troi has sadz... is just flat.
Posted by: Victor Tango Kilo at June 02, 2024 11:08 AM (9yUzE)

At the great risk of offending Star Trek fans, since running into the 24/7 YT stream of Space: 1999 in April, I have been calling it “Star Trek, except without the homework”.

Posted by: Catch Thirty-Thr33 at June 02, 2024 11:14 AM (8sMut)

265 Elisabeth, perhaps Freiberger's take on SF was more that of an early and mid-Thirties pulp writer, more blood and thunder, while the scripts on Seasons One and Two had aspired to be more like the work Asimov and Heinlein did for John Campbell at Astounding -- more mature. They didn't always achieve it, but they tried.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at June 02, 2024 11:14 AM (omVj0)

266 It's a bookish group here, so I'll toss out a question.

Anyone have any idea what's going to be happening with the work of Jorge Luis Borges going forward? Amazon shows very little in English since 2015 if their publication dates can be believed.

Thought I heard that his widow Maria Kodama died without having provided for the future publications of his work. She'd had the di Giovanni translations pulled because she didn't like the 50-50 split in royalties between di Giovanni and Borges; the Hurley translations aren't as readable. It'd be nice to see the di Giovannis available again in legit editions (or even Kindle editions of the Hurleys, for that matter).

Posted by: Just Some Guy at June 02, 2024 11:15 AM (q3u5l)

267 Freiberger insisted on there being a weird element in every WWW episode.
Posted by: Elisabeth G. Wolfe at June 02, 2024 11:05 AM (LLJRz

No wonder why I love that series. And it has the best interstitial panel art ever made.

Posted by: 13times at June 02, 2024 11:16 AM (visjJ)

268 Part of the plot involves the potential creation of a new universe--at the expense of our own

-
I watched an OK movie last night, Kill Switch, that has a similar premise. The experts create a device for unlimited clean energy but something goes wrong. I couldn't help thinking while watching it that this should be a video game. For example, in one scene the good guys are speeding down the road being chased by killer drones and a truck filled fascist killers. Our hero is on a mounted, flexible machine gun in the back fighting them off.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, The Outlaw Donald Trump 2024 at June 02, 2024 11:17 AM (L/fGl)

269 All I know about Jorge Luis Borges is that Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine published a story of his, "The Garden of Forking Paths," in the late Forties. I think I read it, but remember nothing much about it. He was one of the pioneers of what is called magical realism, yes?

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at June 02, 2024 11:17 AM (omVj0)

270 Give Alexander Pope's translation of "The Iliad" a whirl for something completely different.

Posted by: naturalfake at June 02, 2024 10:47 AM (eDfFs)

Hm...ninety-nine cents on Kindle. I'll try that, and if I like it, I'll buy a paper copy.
Posted by: Dash my lace wigs!

It's better in the original Klingon.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, The Outlaw Donald Trump 2024 at June 02, 2024 11:19 AM (L/fGl)

271 Perhaps that "weird" element in the stories is part of why Wild Wild West is considered to have jump-started the "steampunk" subgenre? I don't know, never having read much of the latter.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at June 02, 2024 11:19 AM (omVj0)

272
I wasted $12 on an e-book edition of The Last Pope by David Osborne. It was stupidly written and factually wrong. But, once again, traditional Catholics are presented as scheming, arrogant, evil, stupid and repressed, while liberal Catholics are humble, saintly, brilliant and great in the sack, even the clergy.

Comically, the collapse in vocations and church attendance is due to archaic doctrines like clerical celibacy and no Communion for the divorced and remarried. All we have to do is look at what happened to Protestant denominations that went all liberal to know the truth of that.

Money badly spent. Deleted.

Posted by: Hadrian the Seventh at June 02, 2024 11:22 AM (MoZTd)

273 Speaking of pure poetry . . .

“Celebrate now, you Liberal Commie Fxcktards — You have no idea what’s coming. Because we are going to be licking up your delicious tears on Election Day.”

—Dan Bongino
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, The Outlaw Donald Trump 2024 at June 02, 2024 11:01 AM (L/fGl)
***

Heh.
I was told this morning that I lack class for saying MSNBC could go fu*k themselves. I just told the dude I use specific words to make a point, well over half the country feels this way, and if he didn't understand that he's missed the point.

Posted by: Diogenes at June 02, 2024 11:22 AM (W/lyH)

274 AP, yesterday, 'Drag queen story time reading in Philadelphia sets Guinness World Record for attendance
The event, hosted by the Philadelphia Gay News and sponsored by Visit Philadelphia, saw Philadelphia drag performers reading children’s stories to 263 people, which organizers said was a first-ever Guinness World Record for such an event.'
--------
I simply look upon it as a wee bit of provocation in an important swing state, within a desperately needed voting region. (CBS News morning show was also going on about Trump & related rallies in PA this morning.)

Posted by: L - If they do it with you, they'll do it to you, too at June 02, 2024 11:22 AM (NFX2v)

275 If somehow, someway the Dems manage to get DJT off the ticket by jailing him or killling him or whatever, I think the perfect substitution would be his son, Don Jr. Cut from the same cloth as the old man.

Posted by: Pete Seria at June 02, 2024 11:23 AM (7ZQe3)

276 and Counselor Troi has sadz... is just flat
=====

However astoundingly beautiful the actress is, Troi's character is 'just flat'.

Posted by: mustbequantum at June 02, 2024 11:23 AM (MIKMs)

277 Wolfus, that's possible, or maybe more in the weird fiction vein (to tie back to the discussion of Lovecraft). IIRC, the first WWW episode Freiberger produced was "The Night the Wizard Shook the Earth," which introduced Dr. Loveless.

I guess I could run the question by a friend of mine who's both a major Trekkie and a weird fiction scholar.

Posted by: Elisabeth G. Wolfe at June 02, 2024 11:25 AM (LLJRz)

278
At several points during Japan's initial push into China the Nationalists gave them bloody noses and even a resounding defeat at Taierchwang in April, 1938. Chiang's overriding goal was to keep his forces intact because he knew that Japan did not have enough logistics to overcome his superior strategic depth.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at June 02, 2024 10:41 AM (llXky)

2 million Chinese died as a direct result of CKS ordering the Yellow River breach. It slowed the Japanese advance by a few weeks and drown a few troops.

Posted by: 13times at June 02, 2024 11:25 AM (kEB4M)

279 No Starliner launch today. No launch earlier than June 5 9:52 CDT.

Posted by: Catch Thirty-Thr33 at June 02, 2024 11:26 AM (8sMut)

280 LatAm authors are always credited with "founding" magical realism for some reason. Kafka did that. Not that there weren't a lot of good LatAm authors who used the style. But it was invented by a Slav, which is completely unsurprising.

Posted by: Yudhishthira's Dice at June 02, 2024 11:27 AM (0FoWg)

281 Wild Wild West ...

There were 2 shows in the 1960s that my dad and my teenage self never missed: The Wild Wild West and the Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau. The Cousteau specials were even better when we finally got a color TV. (Although my favorite WWW shows were the first season or two when it was shown in black and white. Could say the same for Man From UNCLE.)

Posted by: JTB at June 02, 2024 11:28 AM (zudum)

282 No wonder why I love that series. And it has the best interstitial panel art ever made.
=====

Later seasons have the stabby woman being punched. I am still trying to figure out who did the theme song because credits are so unclear.

Posted by: mustbequantum at June 02, 2024 11:28 AM (MIKMs)

283 No Starliner launch today. No launch ~~earlier than June 5 9:52 CDT.~~ ever!
Posted by: Catch Thirty-Thr33 at June 02, 2024 11:26 AM (8sMut)

Fixed it for ya.

Posted by: Diogenes at June 02, 2024 11:28 AM (W/lyH)

284 I don't think there's anything out there now, except maybe the remains of the Terrible's. It was supposed to be knocked down too. I'll be heading south next month. I'll see what's there. There is another town near LV, but I can't think of its name right now. Has the carcass of an airplane and some old rusted cars. Someone lives there and you can tour the property for a small fee.
Posted by: OrangeEnt at June 02, 2024 11:03 AM (0eaVi)

Ever check out Goodsprings? Not too far from Jean.

Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at June 02, 2024 11:30 AM (e+kKL)

285
Later seasons have the stabby woman being punched.

Better warn vmom.

Posted by: Hadrian the Seventh at June 02, 2024 11:31 AM (MoZTd)

286 Jerry Boyd just released #47 in his SF "Bob's Saucer Repair" series on Kindle. He cranks out one a month of these, and I stand in awe at the discipline required to write a short novel at that pace and still maintain interest in the characters and setting.
Some of the 47 are better than others, and you really need to read them in order to have any idea what is going on, but once you start it's like opening a bag of potato chips.

Posted by: Idaho Spudboy at June 02, 2024 11:32 AM (JGpCh)

287 I'm a casual watcher of WWW re-runs, but one episode I really enjoyed was "The Night of the Man-Eating House".

Posted by: mrp at June 02, 2024 11:32 AM (rj6Yv)

288 (Although my favorite WWW shows were the first season or two when it was shown in black and white. Could say the same for Man From UNCLE.)
Posted by: JTB at June 02, 2024

***
JTB, I only recently found out that WWW was in B & W in Season One. We didn't have color TV at home when that show was new, and the reruns I'd seen in more recent years were in color, so I assumed it had always been.

In U.N.C.L.E.'s first season, the B & W gives it a crisp, almost "documentary" feel. The second and succeeding years, all in color, lack that in some ways. There are several episodes and many scenes in that season that would have not worked the same way if they had not had the B & W shadows that they did.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at June 02, 2024 11:33 AM (omVj0)

289
If somehow, someway the Dems manage to get DJT off the ticket by jailing him or killling him or whatever, I think the perfect substitution would be his son, Don Jr. Cut from the same cloth as the old man.

Posted by: Pete Seria at June 02, 2024 11:23 AM

If you haven't seen it yet there is a new Tucker interview with Don Jr. where Don Jr. begins to say he disagrees with his father... pauses... then says, "I don't disagree with him on anything."

Posted by: Fabio at June 02, 2024 11:33 AM (RKVpM)

290 We haven't gotten to the vice-president moving up to the top slot by actually bumping off the prez.

Yet.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at June 02, 2024 11:10 AM (omVj0)

Huh?

Posted by: LBJ at June 02, 2024 11:34 AM (0eaVi)

291 254 It's ironic. It's Star Trek Day here in the book thread just as we're all living in Bearded Spock World.
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, The Outlaw Donald Trump 2024 at June 02, 2024 11:07 AM (L/fGl)

Alternate Universe Spock was actually wearing a goatee.

Posted by: Wesley Crusher at June 02, 2024 11:35 AM (PiwSw)

292 I never thought this day would arrive.
The Gope is ready to go to WAR with the Dems over Trumps political persecution.
How you ask?

Well. They're vowing to end support of Dems legislation and their nominees.

Posted by: I've got bad news for you at June 02, 2024 11:19 AM (bnQ7K)

That's what I demand constantly. Never partner with communist. Oppose everything.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at June 02, 2024 11:38 AM (0eaVi)

293 Alternate Universe Spock was actually wearing a goatee.
Posted by: Wesley Crusher at June 02, 2024

***
If I corrected you to say it was a "ring beard," I'd be down in the same mud pit with you Wesley. So I won't.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at June 02, 2024 11:38 AM (omVj0)

294 Kinda liked black and white movies and tv -- of course that was what we had growing up. Didn't see anything in color regularly until I went to college where one of the dorm parlors had a color set (first time seeing Forbidden Planet in color). The addition of color hurt the mood of shows like The Fugitive, though. Don't think color would have improved series like the Hitchcock hour or Thriller at all.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at June 02, 2024 11:39 AM (q3u5l)

295 Once I read Dean Koontz I never picked up another Steven King Novel. I especially enjoyed the Odd Thomas books. They even made one of them into a movie, which is never , ever as good as the book.

Posted by: The Walking Dude at June 02, 2024 11:39 AM (cCxiu)

296 Romance Writers? I went to a local meeting of theirs back in '95 or so. It seemed to be all about the people who were already published, not much attention given to aspiring writers, and they wanted some annual fee for membership. I declined.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at June 02, 2024 11:05 AM (omVj0)

Did you at least get laid?

Sorry, that's not romantic... did you make sweet love to one or more of them, down by the fire?

Posted by: BurtTC at June 02, 2024 11:39 AM (ja4w0)

297 Last week I finished Sailing to Sarantium, book 1 of Guy Gavriel Kay's Sarantine Mosaic duology, as well as The Hexologists by Josiah Bancroft.

This week I've started on Lord of Emperors, the conclusion to the Sarantine Mosaic, as well as Rise of the Ranger by Philip C. Quaintrell.

I've only read 2 of GGK's works before this duology (Tigana and The Last Light of the Sun, both probably 15 years ago, give or take), and while I found both to be worthy of admiration or appreciation, I don't think I could say I loved either. I really am digging both books in the Mosaic duology though, so I'll definitely be continuing with more of Kay's work at some point this year.

The Hexologists was fun, much like Bancroft's Books of Babel series. Interestingly, I didn't really care much for the main character, Isolde (didn't hate her by any means, just some tics that kept her at arm's length. Though to some extent this is true of Senlin in the Books of Babel as well), but it didn't really matter or keep me from enjoying the read.

Rise of the Ranger is ok. Interesting enough to get me a quarter of the way in, so I'll probably finish, but there's some sloppy writing (clauses that don't go together)

Posted by: tintex at June 02, 2024 11:39 AM (sBl13)

298 That's what I demand constantly. Never partner with communist. Oppose everything.
Posted by: OrangeEnt at June 02, 2024 11:38 AM (0eaVi)

Until the next war funding comes up, then everyone suddenly agrees.

Posted by: BurtTC at June 02, 2024 11:40 AM (ja4w0)

299 WWW may be credited with kick starting steampunk while WWW art direction was revisioning Jules Verne.

Posted by: 13times at June 02, 2024 11:41 AM (kEB4M)

300 Ever check out Goodsprings? Not too far from Jean.
Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at June 02, 2024 11:30 AM (e+kKL)

(snif)
I was going to run the MG down there on the boulevard instead of the interstate. But now, I can't....
(snif)

Posted by: OrangeEnt at June 02, 2024 11:42 AM (0eaVi)

301 Later seasons have the stabby woman being punched. I am still trying to figure out who did the theme song because credits are so unclear.
Posted by: mustbequantum at June 02, 2024 11:28 AM (MIKMs)

The earlier eps had the punch.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at June 02, 2024 11:42 AM (0eaVi)

302 Kinda liked black and white movies and tv -- of course that was what we had growing up. Didn't see anything in color regularly until I went to college where one of the dorm parlors had a color set (first time seeing Forbidden Planet in color). The addition of color hurt the mood of shows like The Fugitive, though. Don't think color would have improved series like the Hitchcock hour or Thriller at all.
Posted by: Just Some Guy

Some things are just better in black and white though I would have loved to see the colors of the gorgeous clothing in which the female stars were clothed in the 30's and 40's movies.

Posted by: Tuna at June 02, 2024 11:43 AM (oaGWv)

303 The addition of color hurt the mood of shows like The Fugitive, though. Don't think color would have improved series like the Hitchcock hour or Thriller at all.
Posted by: Just Some Guy at June 02, 2024

***
It did hurt The Fugitive. Kimble's world was one of shadows and continual danger from cops and people wanting to turn him in to the cops.

Maybe that was why Peter Bogdanovich made the decision to film The Last Picture Show in B & W. Not danger, but the starkness of "Thalia, Texas," and its surrounding prairie.

(I've been through Archer City, TX, the stand-in for the fictional Thalia. It's pretty stark, all right. Starkly lacking in air conditioning. I visited McMurtry's bookstores in town, and fled after ten minutes.)

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at June 02, 2024 11:43 AM (omVj0)

304 At #43 upthread, Trimegistus posted an interesting note about the British regime in Borneo, headhunting there, and the Japanese.

For those of you who haven't read about colonial Borneo, it was a very interesting place for most of the 19th century into the beginning of WW2.

The northern shore of Borneo from about 1841, through WW2 was the Raj of Sarawak, ruled by James Brooke and his family, generally referred to as the white Rajas of Sarawak. Brooke, one of several British adventurers who carved out their own colonial empires for a time, devoted his time and funds to providing enlightened administration (of the Charles Napier type) to the natives, and suppressing headhunting and piracy in the area. At the end of WW2, the British muscled the third Raja, Vyner Brooke, into handing the place over to the Brits as a crown colony. Eventually it was handed over to Malaysia.

To tie this back into the boon thread... Several of the Brookes (consisting of James, Charles and Vyner) and their wives kept journals or other accounts that were published and are now available-mostly at the Internet Archive.

cont. below

Posted by: Pope John 20th at June 02, 2024 11:44 AM (cYrkj)

305
Sorry, that's not romantic... did you make sweet love to one or more of them, down by the fire?
Posted by: BurtTC at June 02, 2024 11:39 AM (ja4w0)

_________

Unless he's a tycoon, prince or millionaire handyman, likely no.

Posted by: Hadrian the Seventh at June 02, 2024 11:44 AM (MoZTd)

306 The KMT lost the Chinese Civil War for several reasons, one of which was that we held them back out of the usual brain-dead idea that there could be a power-sharing arrangement.

-
Hen Mazzig
@HenMazzig
The Hill’s @briebriejoy says Hamas’ true intentions is not to kill all the Jews in Israel, but to establish a free democratic country “like what we have here in the USA.”

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, The Outlaw Donald Trump 2024 at June 02, 2024 11:45 AM (L/fGl)

307
Robert Patrick Casey Sr. was an American lawyer and politician from Pennsylvania who served as the 42nd governor of Pennsylvania from 1987 to 1995.

Robert Patrick Casey Jr. is an American lawyer and politician who is the senior United States senator from Pennsylvania, a seat he has held since 2007. He is a member of the Democratic Party.

Political dynasty stuff in PA. They gotta get Don Sr. before Don Jr. gets some traction.

Posted by: Divide by Zero at June 02, 2024 11:45 AM (RKVpM)

308 Did you at least get laid?

Sorry, that's not romantic... did you make sweet love to one or more of them, down by the fire?
Posted by: BurtTC at June 02, 2024

***
Even in '95, most of the female attendees looked more the way Melissa McCarthy eventually would, rather than Jenny McCarthy.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at June 02, 2024 11:45 AM (omVj0)

309 Romance Writers? I went to a local meeting of theirs back in '95 or so. It seemed to be all about the people who were already published, not much attention given to aspiring writers, and they wanted some annual fee for membership. I declined.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at June 02, 2024 11:05 AM (omVj0)

Did you at least get laid?

Sorry, that's not romantic... did you make sweet love to one or more of them, down by the fire?
Posted by: BurtTC at June 02, 2024 11:39 AM (ja4w0)

Oh, I thought they secretly wanted to be ravished by some dusky man?

Posted by: OrangeEnt at June 02, 2024 11:45 AM (0eaVi)

310 Well, shoot. Gotta check out early. Be back to read the rest later.

Thanks for the thread, Perfessor.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at June 02, 2024 11:46 AM (0eaVi)

311 I am still trying to figure out who did the theme song because credits are so unclear.

IMDb says Richard Markowitz composed the theme but was uncredited. Not sure of the source, but there we are.

BTW, "The Trouble with Tribbles" and "A Piece of the Action" are my favorite ST:TOS episodes, too.

Posted by: Elisabeth G. Wolfe at June 02, 2024 11:46 AM (LLJRz)

312 Unless he's a tycoon, prince or millionaire handyman, likely no.
Posted by: Hadrian the Seventh at June 02, 2024 11:44 AM (MoZTd)

He was at a meeting of "romance" writers. I suspect none of them have had tycoons or princes. I'm sure they rut like savages, just like the rest of us.

Posted by: BurtTC at June 02, 2024 11:48 AM (ja4w0)

313 Oh, I thought they secretly wanted to be ravished by some dusky man?
Posted by: OrangeEnt at June 02, 2024

***
Unfortunately I'm too fair to be considered dusky. Recently random people have been telling me how much I resemble Vincent Van Gogh. I never heard that when I was younger.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at June 02, 2024 11:48 AM (omVj0)

314 Tulsi Gabbard’s Aunt Murdered, Prominent Samoan Author Charged

https://shorturl.at/XiDFY

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, The Outlaw Donald Trump 2024 at June 02, 2024 11:49 AM (L/fGl)

315 These days I probably wouldn't last five minutes in McMurtry's bookstore without AC.

Funny -- my folks didn't have AC window units until the late 60s, and the college dorms didn't have it at all when I was there, the window units I had later never seemed to quite do the job, and now I couldn't cope at all without central heat and air.

Once the grid goes down, it's guys like me that die first.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at June 02, 2024 11:50 AM (q3u5l)

316 'Bout time for me to handle a few household chores, I guess. Thanks, Perfessor, and many thanks to the rest of you as well, for a brief period of sanity and fun amid the howling chaos of 21st Century America!

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at June 02, 2024 11:50 AM (omVj0)

317 Dad only had black and white TVs. He was not a TV watcher. (Mom eventually talked him into buying color TV. She was the TV boss in our house)

One of my best memories as a kid was going to Grandma and Grandpa's and watching Looney Tunes on a huge color TV console. Grandpa loved the looney tunes.

Posted by: Pug Mahon, with a drawer full of pieces of flair at June 02, 2024 11:50 AM (hZc6Q)

318 Even in '95, most of the female attendees looked more the way Melissa McCarthy eventually would, rather than Jenny McCarthy.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at June 02, 2024 11:45 AM (omVj0)

That's what I would expect. Lots of polyester and faintly unpleasant odors.

Posted by: BurtTC at June 02, 2024 11:50 AM (ja4w0)

319 I love this part.

“Starkly lacking in air conditioning”

And thus concludes another Sunday Morning Book Thread.

Posted by: 13times at June 02, 2024 11:50 AM (bjh/i)

320 I'm back!

I have 22 more pages to read in Brother Odd by Dean Koontz.

I debated whether or not I should finish it before going to church, but church won out.

Great message today on humility.

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at June 02, 2024 11:52 AM (BpYfr)

321 OT: Vermont Becomes First State to Require Oil Companies Pay for Climate Damages

I'd love for all oil and gas shipments to cease to that state. Winter will be fun.

Posted by: jim (in Kalifornia) at June 02, 2024 11:52 AM (ynpvh)

322
Recently random people have been telling me how much I resemble Vincent Van Gogh.

Did you have a lobe-otomy?

Posted by: Divide by Zero at June 02, 2024 11:52 AM (RKVpM)

323 These days I probably wouldn't last five minutes in McMurtry's bookstore without AC. . . .

Posted by: Just Some Guy at June 02, 2024

***
To be fair, Archer City was pretty dry, not as humid as Da Swamp here, and the rooms seemed stuffy rather that sweltering. But it was only late May. I shudder to think what it would be like in late summer. Or maybe he closed up shop for a month or so in the worst heat, like psychiatrists fleeing NYC in August.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at June 02, 2024 11:52 AM (omVj0)

324 Well, time to face the real world.

Thanks for the thread, Perfessor.

Have a good one, gang.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at June 02, 2024 11:53 AM (q3u5l)

325 Recently random people have been telling me how much I resemble Vincent Van Gogh.
*
Did you have a lobe-otomy?
Posted by: Divide by Zero at June 02, 2024

***
* Cupping a hand behind one earhole * "What's that you said?"

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at June 02, 2024 11:53 AM (omVj0)

326 Once the grid goes down, it's guys like me that die first.
Posted by: Just Some Guy at June 02, 2024 11:50 AM (q3u5l)

I had this conversation at work recently. Whatever form societal collapse is coming, I believe it is coming. My son is not the kind of person who will survive, and I would never leave him, so that means I won't either.

I'm resigned to it.

Posted by: BurtTC at June 02, 2024 11:54 AM (ja4w0)

327 OK, OK, Goateed Spock World.

-
Backstabbing Rages in Plots to Replace Biden

https://shorturl.at/SpGTY

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, The Outlaw Donald Trump 2024 at June 02, 2024 11:54 AM (L/fGl)

328 276 If somehow, someway the Dems manage to get DJT off the ticket by jailing him or killling him or whatever, I think the perfect substitution would be his son, Don Jr. Cut from the same cloth as the old man.
Posted by: Pete Seria at June 02, 2024 11:23 AM (7ZQe3)

Probably would work better than some shitheel like Nikki Haley or Asa.

Posted by: GOP sux at June 02, 2024 11:55 AM (Zzbjj)

329 No idea why I never bothered to pick up Till We Have Faces by C. S. Lewis until recently. It had been sitting on my shelf next to The Screwtape Letters and The Great Divorce, both of which I highly enjoyed. But for some reason I just didn't start Till We Have Faces until I knew I was going to pr spending a week traveling for work.

Started reading in the airport waiting for my flight and didn't put it down until I finished it late that night. What an excellent read. For my money, no author better describes the psychology of sin and brokenness than C. S. Lewis.

Posted by: Joe, living dangerously at June 02, 2024 11:56 AM (ZZpZy)

330 289 ...
Wolfus,

Some other shows that started out in B and W and later went to color were Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea and Lost in Space. Those B and W seasons were more about the action and characters. When they both went to color and started the stupid monster of the week syndrome, I stopped watching. Even the Beverly Hillbillies first season in B and W was better than the ones that followed. More about the characters out of place with actual moments of emotion.

Posted by: JTB at June 02, 2024 11:56 AM (zudum)

331 Probably would work better than some shitheel like Nikki Haley or Asa.
Posted by: GOP sux at June 02, 2024 11:55 AM (Zzbjj)

I'm cynical enough to believe the ones barking loudest right now about how Trump is being treated, are the ones jockeying for his job, once he's gone.

Posted by: BurtTC at June 02, 2024 11:57 AM (ja4w0)

332 Started reading in the airport waiting for my flight and didn't put it down until I finished it late that night. What an excellent read. For my money, no author better describes the psychology of sin and brokenness than C. S. Lewis.
Posted by: Joe, living dangerously at June 02, 2024 11:56 AM (ZZpZy)

Yes!

Posted by: GOP sux at June 02, 2024 11:57 AM (Zzbjj)

333 Shut up, ~~Westley~~ Romney!

Sen. Romney Accuses DA Bragg Of Political Malpractice in Trump Case

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, The Outlaw Donald Trump 2024 at June 02, 2024 11:57 AM (L/fGl)

334 329 No idea why I never bothered to pick up Till We Have Faces by C. S. Lewis until recently. It had been sitting on my shelf next to The Screwtape Letters and The Great Divorce, both of which I highly enjoyed. But for some reason I just didn't start Till We Have Faces until I knew I was going to pr spending a week traveling for work.

Started reading in the airport waiting for my flight and didn't put it down until I finished it late that night. What an excellent read. For my money, no author better describes the psychology of sin and brokenness than C. S. Lewis.

Posted by: Joe, living dangerously at June 02, 2024 11:56 AM (ZZpZy)

"Screwtape Letters" is awesome.

Posted by: jim (in Kalifornia) at June 02, 2024 11:59 AM (ynpvh)

335 I think Gillian’s Island was B/W.

Posted by: 13times at June 02, 2024 11:59 AM (qN3Jz)

336 335 I think Gillian’s Island was B/W.

Posted by: 13times at June 02, 2024 11:59 AM (qN3Jz)

All of them were if you didn't have a color TV

Posted by: jim (in Kalifornia) at June 02, 2024 12:00 PM (ynpvh)

337 Shut up, Romney!

Sen. Romney Accuses DA Bragg Of Political Malpractice in Trump Case
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, The Outlaw Donald Trump 2024 at June 02, 2024 11:57 AM (L/fGl)

Sure, it's all about a DA who can be bribed with maple donuts.

Just ignore the entire operation, that starts with oligarchs, filters through corporate media and the White House, and blame it all on the Manhattan Marshmallow.

Posted by: BurtTC at June 02, 2024 12:00 PM (ja4w0)

338 WE HAZ A NOOD

Posted by: Skip at June 02, 2024 12:01 PM (fwDg9)

339 Borneo/Sarawak cont.

There are also a few more academic histories available of the Brookes, Sarawak and its people (the Dyaks).

Sarawak also features in books, movies and. TV shows about a mid 19th century local pirate named Sandokan, who has a grievance against the British colonials and James Brooke (the villain of the stories); the Sandokan books and most of the rest come from Italy-I don't know why there is Italian interest in Brooke and Sarawak. The general storyline will be familiar to anyone who has read the Robin Hood stories, or Ivanhoe or anything else about plucky locals standing up to the foreign usurper-type national fiction. If anyone's interested in colonial Sarawak, the other independent British-ruled rajs, or Sandokan, I'd be happy to provide source lists.

To continue the movie theme, there was a 2003 movie, The Sleeping Dictionary, about the Raja's administration of Sarawak in the 20th century-it's been a while since I've seen the movie and I don't remember if it explicitly mentions anything that would establish its date-I'd guess, from memory, early 20th century through maybe 1920s. The movie stars Jessica Alba as a native of Borneo, the title character.

Posted by: Pope John 20th at June 02, 2024 12:01 PM (cYrkj)

340 Damn right wing war pig!

Sen. Fetterman Says Biden’s Ceasefire Proposal Won’t Bring “Meaningful Peace", Hamas Must Be Eliminated

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, The Outlaw Donald Trump 2024 at June 02, 2024 12:02 PM (L/fGl)

341 I think Gillian’s Island was B/W.
Posted by: 13times at June 02, 2024 11:59 AM (qN3Jz)

The first season was B&W, the rest in color.

Posted by: Additional Blond Agent, STEM Guy at June 02, 2024 12:03 PM (/HDaX)

342 I think Gillian’s Island was B/W.
Posted by: 13times at June 02, 2024 11:59 AM (qN3Jz)

The first season was B&W, the rest in color.
Posted by: Additional Blond Agent, STEM Guy at June 02, 2024 12:03 PM (/HDaX)

I remember Liz Montgomery telling me that "Bewitched is next, in color." Had to ask Mom what she was talking about.

Liz was my first naughty thoughts moment.

Posted by: Pug Mahon, with a drawer full of pieces of flair at June 02, 2024 12:06 PM (hZc6Q)

343 At the great risk of offending Star Trek fans, since running into the 24/7 YT stream of Space: 1999 in April, I have been calling it “Star Trek, except without the homework”.

The Eagle is the best spaceship in all of scifi. End of statement.

Posted by: Victor Tango Kilo at June 02, 2024 12:07 PM (9yUzE)

344 I'm cynical enough to believe the ones barking loudest right now about how Trump is being treated, are the ones jockeying for his job, once he's gone.
Posted by: BurtTC at June 02, 2024 11:57 AM (ja4w0)

Asa thinks Trump needs to go.
Haven't heard from Nikki
Lindsey and the rest of the "leadership" is acting blase about it
Lee couldn't possibly believe he could get the nomination and on X, he's been the noisiest.
Massie...no
Johnson pledged his unwavering support to Jack Smith, so he's probably anti-Trump. He kept he funding going for the mess, so he's completely untrustworthy.

Posted by: GOP sux at June 02, 2024 12:07 PM (Zzbjj)

345 If I were to reboot S1999, the production design would be all 1999-era technology and 1999-era aesthetic. Instead of being blown out of Earth orbit by a nuclear detonation, the moon would exit via a teleportation experiment gone wrong.

Posted by: Victor Tango Kilo at June 02, 2024 12:09 PM (9yUzE)

346 Some other shows that started out in B and W and later went to color were Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea and Lost in Space. Those B and W seasons were more about the action and characters. When they both went to color and started the stupid monster of the week syndrome, I stopped watching. Even the Beverly Hillbillies first season in B and W was better than the ones that followed. More about the characters out of place with actual moments of emotion.
Posted by: JTB at June 02, 2024

***
True. Maybe the network people thought "color" would obscure any weakness in scripts.

I think NBC was touting itself as "the first all-color network" the year Trek started, '66.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at June 02, 2024 12:10 PM (omVj0)

347 Just ignore the entire operation, that starts with oligarchs, filters through corporate media and the White House, and blame it all on the Manhattan Marshmallow.
Posted by: BurtTC at June 02, 2024 12:00 PM (ja4w0)

Now here's a guy who wants Trump's job. And he'll just funnel more money to the oligarchy

Posted by: GOP sux at June 02, 2024 12:10 PM (Zzbjj)

348 211 When it comes to Deep Space 9, my favorite episodes are the ones with James Darren as Vic Fontaine. He played a fun character and his singing was great. And the writers were smart enough to use his 'minor' character as a way to flesh out the regular cast. I got the CD of the songs he sang on the show. It's impressive.
Posted by: JTB at June 02, 2024 10:40 AM
****
My dream ST continuation (they actually made "Enterprise" instead) would have been "Star Trek: After Hours": Self-aware holobeings Vic Fontaine and The Doctor from Voyager meet regularly in the virtual world to have adventures, right wrongs, and pick up girls in the myriad settings programmed for the amusement of the "real people" out there. You could literally do ANY kind of story in any genre, with tones from personal tragedy to ROFL parody. Of course it could never happen ....

Posted by: werewife, princess of Delray Beach at June 02, 2024 12:19 PM (SPNTN)

349 Recently random people have been telling me how much I resemble Vincent Van Gogh.

Didja cut off your ear ?

Posted by: JT at June 02, 2024 12:21 PM (T4tVD)

350 82 OrangeEnt, I sent it to a Christian publishing service, The Writers’ Edge, but haven’t heard back so I need to bug them. I appreciated your input on it.

Posted by: Norrin Radd, sojourner of the spaceways at June 02, 2024 12:28 PM (X35xA)

351 Ha! This thread!

"You got Star Trek in my Book Thread!"
"Well you got books in my Star Trek Thread!"

Posted by: All Hail Eris at June 02, 2024 12:30 PM (FkUwd)

352 On Homer, I'm not sure how many translations I've read bits and pieces from, and I'm not certain I've read any of them through in their entirety in one go, but there are two translations of the Iliad and the Odyssey on my bookshelf.

The Lattimore translations may be the ones I've read the moat of, and I feel it is faithful to the Greek while still being readable in English.

The other translation I own is by Stanley Lombardo, and it is notable because it began as scripts for oral performances of the material, as the original Homeric epics would have been consumed (once upon a time I got to hear him perform a bit of one of the poems, which was pretty neat). I haven't read as much of these translations, but they're interesting as well

Posted by: tintex at June 02, 2024 12:37 PM (sBl13)

353 Currently reading "Happy Endings" by Jim Norton, the misadventures of a stand-up comedian and self-professed pervert.

Last book was "Pro" by Gordon R. Dickson, a scifi tale of a managerial class striver using dirty tricks to advance a primitive alien species.

Posted by: Pencilpusher at June 02, 2024 12:40 PM (ux/lY)

354 For those who are interested in ST:TOS history, Harlan Ellison's book, "The City On The Edge Of Forever," is available through archive.org. While Mr. Ellison's original, award-winning screenplay is included, most of the book is Mr. Ellison's version of the events that happened before, during, and after the filming of this episode. There is also commentary from cast (Nimoy, Kelley, Koenig, & Takei) and crew. I found the cast comments more diplomatically neutral in tone than that of the crew.

I think it would be interesting to use the original screenplay as part of the rebooted franchise, but I don't think the Rodenberry Estate would allow it.

Posted by: March Hare at June 02, 2024 12:55 PM (jfX+U)

355 Others co.Pete for first. It appears I usually compete for last. After weeks of not being able to access comments (who knows why?), today it magically leg me in. Yay!

I am in the midst of two books, one via Audible and one via regular old reading. The audiobook is Shakespeare: The Man Who Pays the Bills by Judi Dench. In it she talks about the Shakespeare roles she has played. The first chapter is about Macbeth and it is completely fascinating.

Eyeball reading is The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. I am late to this book. It has been on my gigantic to read list since it came out. 25% in and I am enjoying it. And being enormously thankful for those HeLa cells. And sad about poor Henrietta's life.

Posted by: SummaMamaT at June 02, 2024 01:35 PM (LC7FR)

356 Posted by: SummaMamaT at June 02, 2024 01:35 PM (LC7FR)

Send an e-mail to Perfessor Squirrel. It's perfessor do squirrel at G male.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at June 02, 2024 01:41 PM (0eaVi)

357 345 If I were to reboot S1999, the production design would be all 1999-era technology and 1999-era aesthetic. Instead of being blown out of Earth orbit by a nuclear detonation, the moon would exit via a teleportation experiment gone wrong.
Posted by: Victor Tango Kilo at June 02, 2024 12:09 PM (9yUzE)

If I were to reboot Space: 1999, I wouldn’t.

STOP. Make. Something. New. This nonsense of “If I could reboot this” or “We need to reboot that” got us into this fix of absolute uncreativity to begin with.

MAKE. SOMETHING. NEW.

Posted by: Catch Thirty-Thr33 at June 02, 2024 02:59 PM (8sMut)

358 sign in

Posted by: andycanuck (ZdexC) at June 02, 2024 04:22 PM (ZdexC)

359 I'm hoping it all comes together at some point. I'm determined to finish this book and the series, though I may not pick up That Hideous Strength for a while after this one.
Posted by: KatieFloyd at June 02, 2024 10:27 AM (zkZWb)

No one will ever read this, but That Hideous Strength is far and away the best of the three. Consider it your reward for reading the other two (which I only vaguely remember)

Posted by: spindrift at June 02, 2024 07:18 PM (8CgXU)

360 Spindrift - then I guess I'm nobody, lol. I'll just have to push through Perlanda then. Thanks for the encouragement.

Posted by: KatieFloyd at June 02, 2024 07:29 PM (QdAKW)

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