Category Archives: Reviews

Book reviews, as well as Reads to Reels

The Ordinary Spaceman

Posted on August 12, 2016 by smellincoffee

The Ordinary Spaceman: From Boyhood Dreams to Astronaut© 2015 Clayton Anderson330 pages Clay Anderson knew when he was nine years old that he wanted to grow up to be an astronaut.. He knew it when he witnessed the crew of … Continue reading →

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Playing to the Edge

Posted on August 11, 2016 by smellincoffee

Playing to the Edge: American Intelligence in the Age of Terror© Michael Hayden 2016464 pages As someone who became a civil libertarian in response to the increasingly sweeping powers of the surveillance state during the Bush administration, I began reading … Continue reading →

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Rising Sun

Posted on August 9, 2016 by smellincoffee

Rising Sun385 pages© 1992 Michael Crichton In downtown Los Angeles, in a gleaming tower of Japanese commercial success, a woman lies dead on a boardroom table.  The  grand opening of the Nakamoto Corporation’s downtown skyscraper attracted celebrities and politicians alike, … Continue reading →

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Airframe

Posted on August 7, 2016 by smellincoffee

Airframe© 1995 Michael Crichton352 pages What could happen on a plane to leave three people dead, fifty others seriously wounded, and the passenger cabin in ruins?   Why did its pilot only break radio silence shortly before he was due … Continue reading →

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The Director

Posted on August 5, 2016 by smellincoffee

The Director© 2014 David Ignatius384 pages The first week at a new job is rough for anyone, but what if you’re the new director of the CIA and a German kid off the street just informed you that every agent … Continue reading →

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Devil in the Sky

Posted on August 3, 2016 by smellincoffee

ST DS9: Devil in the Sky© 1995 Greg Cox and John Gregory Betancourt280 pages In the classic TOS episode, “Devil in the Dark”,  Kirk and the Enterprise were dispatched to a mining colony to discover and put an end to … Continue reading →

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Glass Houses

Posted on August 2, 2016 by smellincoffee

Glass Houses: Privacy, Secrecy, and Cyber Insecurity in a Transparent World© 2011, 2013 Joel Brenner320 pages Glass Houses, originally titled  America the Vulnerable, outlines some of the major ways that private citizens, corporations, and the government itself are exposed to … Continue reading →

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The Spanish Frontier in North America

Posted on July 30, 2016 by smellincoffee

The Spanish Frontier in North America© 1992 David J. Weber602 pages Although American history books will generally mention the early exploration of North America by figures like de Soto,  little attention on the whole is given to the Spanish colonial … Continue reading →

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The Ugly Little Boy

Posted on July 28, 2016 by smellincoffee

The Ugly Little Boy© 1991 Isaac Asimov, Robert Silverberg. Based on the 1958 short story by Asimov.290 How would you like to babysit a Neanderthal?   Granted, Edith Fellowes didn’t realize that was the job description. She knew she’d be … Continue reading →

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Men from Earth

Posted on July 23, 2016 by smellincoffee

Men from Earth© 1989 Buzz Aldrin and Malcom McConnell314 pages Forty-seven years ago, men from Earth first stepped foot on the moon. There, they left medals commemorating the men of Apollo and Soyuz who perished in this quest for fire … Continue reading →

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