Category Archives: Library

Science Fiction Recommendations

Posted on February 29, 2012 | Comments Off on Science Fiction Recommendations

I’ve finished several new ones lately, some I’ve reviewed at Amazon and others I haven’t, either for lack of time or indecision about how to put my conclusions about them. Even when I enjoyed them as much as I did these.

Ashes of Candesce seems to be the end of an incredibly imaginative five-part series. Count to A Trillion is another dandy, also a far-future story, that won’t lose your interest.

Then, there’s Night Trains, a time-travel tale, the sort of thing I don’t normally read but I’m glad I read this one. And Chronospace, another time-traveler. Hmm. I guess I do read them.

And, of course, there’s In The Lion’s Mouth, the latest installment of an absorbing Celtic space-opera series. And, while you’re at it, don’t miss Permanence, more far-future story-telling worth your time.

Or you could take the more classic, Instapundit recommendations route.

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Posted in Library, Rancho Roly Poly, Science/Engineering, Scribbles

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Banned in Iran

Posted on February 8, 2012 | Comments Off on Banned in Iran

Ah, those crafty Mullahs, ever on the watch-out for the 12th Man, uh, Imam, have spied out the nefarious rabbi father of Krusty the Clown and banned the very dolls created from the Simpsons.

But you know who they really fear? Maggie. The one with the gun.

It’s the Second Amendment thing, you see, what gave the common folk the right to bear arms, something only the elite had been allowed to do since the Middle Ages—and the elite, even the so-called democratic version, have been trying to take it back ever since.

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Posted in Israel, Library, Scribbles

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Time machine

Posted on February 6, 2012 | Comments Off on Time machine

Mrs. Charm is the television consumer at the rancho. Unless you count Mr. Boy’s periodic consumption of Sponge Bob. Her fave Roku show these days is Mad Men, a soaper return to the early 1960s urban advertising game, with lots of skinny ties, incessant smoking and martini lunches.

Also the girdled wives and girlfriends, which brings back some interesting memories I won’t mention (this is a family blog). This was back when women used hairspray but men didn’t. Instead, for us, it was grease or oil—Brylcreem or Vitalis, as I recall. Awful stuff, really, even the smell.

Supposedly, according to the show, throwing trash on the ground was also common. I don’t recall doing that, expect for one item. Pulling over to the side of the road to dump the car’s ashtray. How many times did I do that? Too many to count. Shameless behavior, truly.

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Posted in Library, Mr. Boy, Mrs. Charm, Scribbles

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Bleeding imagery

Posted on January 29, 2012 | Comments Off on Bleeding imagery

Michael Flynn’s third installment in his January Dancer series falters nae a bit, with such lines as these:

“A faint band of red has cut the throat of night and bleeds across the eastern horizon.”

I’m only half through this one but it’s already safe to say it’s as good as the first two about the Fair-haired Donovan, and well worth your time if you like complex, near-literary Celtic space opera.

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Posted in Library, Science/Engineering, Space

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Virga: Cities of the Air

Posted on January 20, 2012 | Comments Off on Virga: Cities of the Air

A world where free-fall is normal and gravity is a luxury you have to pay for. A world where sunlight is not available to all and even those who have the machines that produce it have to get used to full-dark hours of sun-off with no moonlight. Some even live in full-dark all the time.

Virga, life inside a Fullerene balloon thousands of miles in diameter, on the edge of the Vega solar system, is scifi author Karl Schroeder’s five-book (so far) series of swashbuckling tales. This is steampunk Victoriana where computers and other electronic devices cannot exist—unless a crucial part of the central “sun of suns” is turned off.

Great stuff, truly, though it’s not a future world I would care to actually live in, unlike the future world of Jack McDevitt’s Alex Benedict detective series. Virga’s hard science instructs as the romance entertains and the characters introspect, change and grow.

Well worth your time and money to read the first in the epic and don’t be surprised if you find yourself hooked. Unfortunately, they are fast reads. They go lickety-split. Having finished No. 4, a cliff-hanger, I must now wait until Valentine’s Day to receive No. 5. Sigh.

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Posted in Library, Science/Engineering, Scribbles

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The ruins of Detroit

Posted on January 17, 2012 | Comments Off on The ruins of Detroit

The once-fabled American (and African-American) city (affectionately called MoTown) is a burned-out shambles, thanks to gimme politics, socialist policies and predator labor unions. Photographs of the ruins (above) are part of a new gallery show in, of all places, Germany.

Via David at Spengler

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Posted in Blogosphere, Library, Scribbles

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De Havilland D.H.4s of WW1

Posted on December 31, 2011 | Comments Off on De Havilland D.H.4s of WW1

After the war the American versions flew USA airmail routes cross-country.

I used to make plastic models of these and similar planes when I was Mr. B.’s age (11 going on 12) and hang them by threads from my bedroom ceiling.

UPDATE:  These birds, photographed sometime after 1918, were from Benbrook Field, southwest of Fort Worth. Photo from the Benbrook Public Library.

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Posted in Library, Science/Engineering, Scribbles

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