Monthly Archives: January 2012

Does The Bloodbath End Tonight?

Today is the 4th Republican Primary as they attempt to select a Presidential Nominee to contest Obama for the White House this fall. After a seeming endless series of debates, the rise and fall of countless not-Romney stretching from the credible to the incredible, the field has been narrowed to four candidates left standing; Romney — leading in the polls and very likely the nominee, Gingrich  — the current not-Romney, a man with a volatile personality and checkered political past, the current vessel for the hopes of dreams of the hard core base (though how a man who lobbied for Medicare Part D, the individual mandate, and action on Global Warming, wins the support of that base is a manifestation just how unloved Romney truly is by the base.) Santorum – social conservative, his says all the right things about abortion and gays, but he can’t seem to fire up the base and lastly Paul – the ‘libertarian’ though he strike me as less libertarian and more like someone who felt that the Articles of Confederation were the right path.

The aggregate polling indicates that Romney is the likely winner tonight. I think the essential question is not if Romney wins but by how much and does that stop the fighting? Continue reading →

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Sunday Night Movie: Total Recall

Phillip K. Dick came to the silvered screen in 1982 with Ridley Scott’s powerfully influential, but box-office miss,  science-fiction film, Blade Runner, but it wasn’t until 1990’s Total Recall that Dick found commercial success at the theaters.Hollywoodhas ever since sought to find the right action/adventure movie that can be mined from a Phillip K. Dick story.  Frankly, Dick is the wrong author to mine for action adventure, but they keep trying to force that very round peg in our Village’s square holes. Continue reading →

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The Dream

I dreamt I was back in the Navy. At the start of the dream I was aboard a Submarine with my friend Brad. There was a particular scene where we watched as a sailor went up a ladder and as the ship rolled the sailor smoothly went from one face of the ladder to the other face traversing a complete 180 degrees.  It would literally be like if the ship rolled upside down and you had to use the reverse side of the ladder. My dreams can often seem very real at the time but have the most unreal events in them. I showed Brad around the ship a bit, explaining how the layout worked; we even passed a rather large open elevated compartment with a placard indicating it was the “Imperious Flying Bridge.”

Soon it was morning and by this time the ship was no longer a submarine but a surface ship, a very large one like a battleship.  I started to be very concerned because I had no idea where to find my division, and I had to find them and stand with them at muster. At this point I awoke.

For those not in the know I was in the U.S. Navy from 1979 to 1982. I did not make a very good sailor; the military life was not for me, though I have a deep and sincere respect for those who do serve. It is part of why I write military SF.

It seems every four or five years I have a dream where I am back in military service, rarely does the discomfort in these dreams rise to a nightmare, but usually there is the element that I don’t belong. Like last night’s dream when I was lost at muster. There can be no doubt that the service left an enduring mark upon me.

I think this is the first time a friend of mine who had never served was somehow in the Navy with me.  I guess that’s an example of a phantom pressganging. Hmm is there a fantasy. horror, or an RPG adventure in that concept? I’ll have to think about it.

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A Passion For Games

I have always had a passion for games. I have intense vivid memories of board and yard games from my youth that still bring a smile to my lips. Today, with more than half a century of life behind me, games are still an important and vital pastime.

As I sit here composing this missive, I can look up from my desk straight to my board and card game shelving, and to the right of that my bookcase with numerous Role Play Gaming books. Continue reading →

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Book Review: Soulless

SOULLESS by Gail Carriger

Published in 2009 to great reviews and tremendous sales Gail Carriger’s Soulless, is a whimsical steam punk paranormal romance with Vampires, Werewolves, and Parasols (please, never umbrellas.) It is the first of the Parasol Protectorate series, which concludes this March with the publication of Timeless.

The book’s protagonist is Alexia Tarabotti, who lives life under a number of difficult conditions. She is soulless, though that is a guarded secret from most of the world, her father, with whom she shares a complexion, was Italian, an ancestry hardly praised  in Victorian London, and she’s a spinster, her marriage prospects considered to be non-existent as totters on in the advanced age of twenty-something.

Alexia’s London is not our Victorian setting, but one where the werewolves, vampires, ghosts, and other unworldly creatures of the night have become part of English Society, influencing fashion, politics, and colonialism.

Alexia’s comfortable if somewhat boring life is disrupted when an unknown, hiveless vampire attacks her and she is forced to dispatch the creature. Being soulless, a trait the unfortunate vampire seemed terminally ignorant about; Alexia’s touch negates all supernatural abilities. QueenVictoriadispatches an investigator, the Scottish werewolf Lord Canall Maccon whom harbors ill feeling towards Alexia over ‘the hedgehog incident’. not only to probe into the unlawful destruction of this vampire, but into his mysterious origins as a hiveless vampire is the best knowledge, impossible as all vampire are products of the a hive queen.

Alexia is quickly drawn into a adventure of mysterious appearing vampire and mysteriously disappearing werewolves while dealing with the infuriating Lord Maccon and bothersome American scientists.

Soulless is a fun read, wonderfully free of angst and best described as whimsical. The book is a light, fast read that promotes giggling and isn’t afraid to look silly. Escapism gets a bad rap in entertainment, but there is a place and a need for escapist fare. One cannot dine happily upon staid state dinners every evening, the occasional good times, good drink, and good food with friends are also good dining and Soulless is to books what these fun diner days are to posh restaurants. The characters are well drawn and distinctive, each bringing a set of traits that promotes comedic effect rather than having comedy forced upon them. The plot moves quickly and yet takes the time to hint, display, and illuminate Gail’s marvelous world building. While her vampires are inspired from the same traditions of Dracula and her werewolves are clearly derived from, as are nearly everyone’s these days, Sidomak’s Wolf-Man, she adds more than enough to make each fresh and her own.

The most memorable misstep in the novel was that Gail explained the ‘hedgehog incident,’ an event that should have forever remained unknown and therefore of limitless possibilities in her fans’ minds, but really that is a very small flaw in my opinion.

This is a book I would have not read had I not known the author personally, and I would have been poorer for that loss.

 

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A brief look down memory lane

The other day I had the urge to look upon my childhood home. Now, that home is in another state that happens to be located on the far side of the North American continent from where I currently reside. This being the 21st century those things were not insurmountable problems. What was more of a problem was that I had no idea of the address.

After consulting with my brothers and sisters, they were able to give me the data I needed in order to not only find it on google maps, but see it through the google map street view function.

Continue reading →

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