The horror! The horror! Band of Brothers, the Aubrey/Maturin Musical!

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Hmmm...

Fondness for small cups of intense coffee. CHECK.

Uses an iPod. CHECK.

Jots in a Moleskine. CHECK.

Do I pass the coolness test?

Nah.

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 12:08 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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365 short works completed. I wonder what the count will be on December 31? more...

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 02:48 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Captain Aubrey was a being that confused superior force with superior reason, that was Captain Aubrey's affair: nothing would prevent Professor Graham from telling the truth, calmly and without raising his voice. Volume of sound was in no way related to volume of veracity. Captain Aubrey might speak violently, if he chose; it made no difference to the truth. If Captain Aubrey were to turn his cannon—the ultima ratio regum, and of other bullies—on Professor Graham, the truth would remain unaltered. No, said Professor Graham, now quite hoarse from bellowing, he did not suppose that he possessed a monopoly of wisdom—the remark he might observe in passing was wholly irrelevant and as illiberal as if Professor Graham had referred to Captain Aubrey's remarkable bulk or to his lack of education—but in this particular case an impartial observer comparing Professor Graham's not inconsiderable knowledge of Turkish history, language, literature, policy, and customs with the encyclopedic ignorance and presumption of those who contradicted him, might be tempted to think so.

(Patrick O'Brian, The Ionian Mission)

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 07:35 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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"What a ghoul you are, Stephen, upon my word."

(Patrick O'Brian, The Nutmeg of Consolation)

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 07:51 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Racks of shelves
with books and dangers
wallet emptied.

(Bruce Trinque, writing at The Gunroom, after having purchased a volume on the Titanic and a complete collection of haiku poems by Matsuo Basho!)

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 09:08 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Davis had at no time expressed any particular gratitude, but the fact of the rescue had given him a kind of lien upon his rescuer. Having rescued him, Jack was obliged to provide for him: this seemed to be tacitly admitted by all hands and even Jack felt that there was some obscure justice in the claim. He regretted it, however: Davis was no seaman, although he had spent his whole life afloat, a dull-witted, clumsy fellow, very strong and very dangerous when vexed or drunk, easily vexed and easily intoxicated; and he either volunteered for Jack's various ships or managed to get transferred to them, his other captains being happy to see the last of a troublesome, ignorant, untameable man.

(Patrick O'Brian, The Ionian Mission)

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 07:46 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Robert A. Heinlein (introduction by John Scalzi): Project Moonbase and Others (Subterranean Press, 2008, ISBN 978-1-59606-186-6; cover and interior art by Bob Eggleton).

Review found here.

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 05:28 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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...ever happened to Tom Clancy? I mean, there are books "co-written" by him. Which I suspect means they slap his name on the cover, he gets some money for the act, but the writing is done by others.

Long spell of writer's block? I mean its summer...and there ain't no Clancy to read. Hasn't been for years!

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 07:44 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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I recently acquired a somewhat battered set of the famous Harvard Five-Foot Bookshelf. Supposedly you can get through it all in fifteen minutes a day. Well, I'm not sure how long that will stretch, but it looks like I've got another ongoing reading project coming into play!

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 05:02 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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C.L. Moore; Northwest of Earth: The Complete Northwest Smith (Planet Stories/Paizo Publishing; 2008; ISBN 978-1-60125-081-0; cover by Sean Glenn).

Review here (no, I haven't given up my "day job").

Made up of: Introduction: Teaching the World to Dream (C.J. Cherryh); Shambleau; Black Thirst; Scarlet Dream; Dust of Gods; Julhi; Nymph of Darkness (with Forrest J. Ackerman); The Cold Gray God; Yvala; Lost Paradise; The Tree of Life; Quest of the Starstone (with Henry Kuttner); Werewoman; Song in a Minor Key.

Part of the 2008 Year in Shorts.

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 08:29 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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The review can now be viewed here.

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 09:26 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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In 1971, science fiction lost of its greatest advocates on this day.

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 05:43 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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A fair wind right down the Channel was rare enough: often and often he had had to anchor for the tide, beat up tack upon tack in the narrow seas, winning a few miles only to be driven back again—weeks sometimes before he could get clear into the Atlantic; but now the familiar landmarks filed by in fine brisk succession: the South Foreland, Dungeness, Fairly, and Beachy gleaming through a wall of rain with solid blue-black cloud behind it; and then late in the evening there was the Wight clear on the starboard bow. Jack climbed into the mizentop with a telescope and before the green light vanished in the west he thought he caught the glint of his observatory dome at Ashgrove Cottage. He stared at it in a strange confusion of spirits, as though at another world, farther from him now than when he had been in the Antipodes.

(Patrick O'Brian, The Surgeon's Mate)

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 09:40 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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The monthly summary from me will be delayed a tad until I find some free time to write up some pithy comments and do a final count on books and short works read...

Not quite completely updated book and short list here...

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 07:21 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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"The Republics were assembled. The Games were set to begin. The Sun glared down upon the Olympiad, brutal. Tempers were short. Surly Greeks exchanged surly words. An old man entered the arena. He was bent, this old man was. His every bone ached. He pleaded to the Athenians for a place to sit—and they ignored him. Leaning heavily on his walking stick, dizzy now, his knees quaking, the old man begged the delegates of Corinth, of Mykonos, of Naxos, of Thira. Each turned a deaf ear to his plea. At last, the old man staggered to the Spartan delegation—and before he could croak out a single word, every Spartan rose as one, and stepped aside. And the old man shook his walking stick at all assembled, his voice rising to a lion's roar that rattled the very stones. "Every Greek knows what is right," he bellowed, "every Greek knows—but only the Spartans choose to do it!" (The character "Dilios", 300, Frank Miller and Lynn Varney)

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 07:20 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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John's Reading Report (June 200

OK, here's what I've read over the past month, some of it unplanned:

Pattern Recognition, William Gibson

No More Mr. Nice Guy!, Robert Glover

Skeleton Crew, Steven King

In progress:

Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, Douglas R. Hofstadter.

Consciousness Explained, Daniel C. Dennett.

On deck (this is growing faster than my finished list):

Necessary Losses: The Loves, Illusions, Dependencies, and Impossible Expectations That All of Us Have to Give Up in Order to Grow

My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist's Personal Journey, Jill Bolte Taylor

Extraordinary Relationships, Roberta Gilbert.

Suite Francaise, Irene Nemerovsky.

Soul Made Flesh: The Discovery of the Brain--and How it Changed the World, Carl Zimmer.

Spook Country, William Gibson.

Posted by: JohnL at 03:47 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I've read Homer's The Odyssey several times, including once in Latin (high school). One thing that has fascinated me about The Odyssey...as well as The Iliad...is how much "truth" there is to the epic. Amazing to find an occasional bit that has survived the passage of time, countless re-translations and re-interpretations and the like.

And then there's the fanciful side. For example, here's a depiction of the "cosmos" of The Odyssey...as a snowglobe.

Addendum: The scholarly paper (Adobe Acrobat).

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 09:18 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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