Book List and Reviews

I realized that I haven't posted any book reviews in quite a while, and their one of my favorite things to blog about, even if blogging is passe'. I've been reading a lot of history lately, as I found an excellent source of good, bargain history books (E.R. Hamilton Bookseller). Here is a partial list: The First Century, Caesar Against the Gauls, Vienna 1814, Empires of the Sea, Justinian's Flea, Byzantium, The Fatal Shore, The Dead Hand.

I'll add reviews soon, but Lucy just caused a skunk to spray in our yard and the stench is going to drive me out of the Library. I hope it clears up overnight!

Sully and Suley, the pilot and Octomom

This opinion piece by Peggy Noonan of the Wall Street Journal is very well-written. It does sort of capture the zeitgeist....

Here's a partial synopsis:

"There's a sense that everyone's digging in. President Obama has dug in on this stimulus bill: Pass it or see catastrophe. Republicans are dug in: Pass it and see catastrophe....

And there's something else,... It's Sully and Suleman, the pilot and "Octomom," [...] Sully, the airline captain who saved 155 lives by landing that plane just right—level wings, nose up, tail down, plant that baby, get everyone out, get them counted, and then, at night, wonder what you could have done better. You know the reaction of the people of our country to Chesley B. Sullenberger III: They shake their heads, and tears come to their eyes. He is cool, modest, competent, tough in the good way. He's the only one who doesn't applaud Sully. He was just doing his job.

This is why people are so moved: We're still making Sullys. We're still making those mythic Americans, those steely-eyed rocket men. Like Alan Shepard in the Mercury rocket: "Come on and light this candle."

But Sully, 58, Air Force Academy '73, was shaped and formed by the old America, and educated in an ethos in which a certain style of manhood—of personhood—was held high.

What we fear we're making more of these days is Nadya Suleman. The dizzy, selfish, self-dramatizing 33-year-old mother who had six small children and then a week ago eight more because, well, she always wanted a big family...."Suley" doubletalks with the best of them, she doubletalks with profound ease. She is like Blago without the charm.....

Any great nation would worry at closed-up shops and a professional governing class that doesn't have a clue what to do. But a great nation that fears, deep down, that it may be becoming more Suley than Sully—that nation will enter a true depression.

All I can say is: ouch!

These are the times that try men's souls...

That quote from Thomas Paine came to mind last week as the stock market was crashing, and the whole western financial system seemed to be seizing up. It certainly did not help to be unemployed during this crisis. I don't doubt that we will come out of it eventually, but it looks to be a fairly long and bad downturn. Some people were even using the "D" word--depression. I'm not ready to subscribe to that train of thought yet, but we are definitely tightening our belts.

Texas

Heading to Texas week after next for the Texas Jack Association Round-Up got me to thinking about the great state of Texas and the role it has played in my life. My family moved to Ft. Worth when I was about four, for my dad's job as Dean of Tarrant County Junior College (he later became president and had that post for twenty years). So, I spent my childhood and formative years in Ft. Worth, until 1978, when my mom and I moved to Santa Barbara. I've been back many times, and it still has a special place in my heart.

It is an incredibly diverse state that defies that stereotype that many people have of cowboys and oilmen. In addition to deserts and plains (which it has in abundance), it also has hundreds of miles of beaches, beautiful hill country, swamps and piney woods, and several of the largest metropolitan areas in the nation. Like the state tourism board's slogan: "It's a whole 'nother country."

Games

My love affair with boardgames began in the early 1970s with the Avalon Hill military strategy games. I think I got D-Day as a present, and quickly moved on to Blitzkrieg, France 1940, and SPI games. I remember being blown away by the complexity and novelty of SPI's StarForce, one of the earliest science fiction simulation boardgames.

Over the years, I played probably hundreds of different titles, and even got involved in miniatures gaming, including 7 years war, with my friend Jon Southard, and WWII micro-miniatures.

I also played various role-playing games, the progenitors of todays MMOGs. In a sense, they were the first virtual worlds, because they created rule sets to define the operation of an entirely fictional world. Later I gravitated to multiplayer games for their social aspects.

So, going to work for Multiverse, was sort of coming full circle for me.

Beowulf

The Robert Zemeckis film, based on one of the oldest stories in English literature.   Screenplay, I noticed, credited Neil Gaiman of Sandman fame.

I found the whole motion-capture computer animation thing to be a bit disconcerting.  Like it wasn't real, even the mundane parts with no special effects.

The dragon was good, I have to admit...and Angelina Jolie was very good as Grendel's mother.  But overall not much better than the somewhat more low-budget "Beowulf and Grendel".

"East of the Sun" by Benson Bobrick

Amazing history of Siberia, an incredibly vast and diverse land that many Americans don't know or care about. Like most Russian history, very violent. Interesting to compare with the history of the American West and frontier. In fact, Siberia is often called Russia's Wild East.

Very well written, and thorough history, though it might not be lively enough for some. For me, I found it thoroughly fascinating. Also includes history of the Russian exploration of the Pacific North, Alaska, and the west coast of America. Some of the stories of early explorers are simply amazing, such as that of Bering--who was financed by the Russians, but was himself Swedish.