Teaser Tuesday (8 March)

Posted on March 7, 2011 by smellincoffee

Ah, teaser Tuesday time again.

“And the sea-monsters here are extraordinary,” McLean went on, “like dragons, wouldn’t you say, John? Pink dragons with green spots?”
“Indeed, sir,” Moore said, then gave a start as he belatedly realized the brigadier was teasing him.

p. 51, The Fort. Bernard Cornwell

Garak regarded the doctor warily, the reptilian nobs of his forehead bunching together in deep furrows.”Oh, doctor, I’m afraid that in matters of mysterious deaths, I am entirely bereft of experience.”
Quark took some comfort in noting that no one in the infirmary seemed to believe Garak any more than they believed him.

– 108, The Fall of Terok Nor. Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens

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The Fall of Terok Nor

Posted on March 7, 2011 by smellincoffee

Star Trek Deep Space Nine: Millennium, Book I, The Fall of Terok Nor
© 2000 Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens
464 pages



The Millenium trilogy was, prior to Destiny, the most epic story ever approached in Trek literature, and  in fact even spawned a PC game — a third-person action/adventure shooter called The Fallen.  It’s a story of the past and future, of grand mythology, in which the good guys battle for nothing less than the existence of the Universe — and lose. It brings together characters from all the Next Generation-era shows,  and is responsible for many of my favorite scenes in Trek literature. But it all started when an Andorian merchantman of questionable repute was found dead in the lower levels of the station…and flooded  Deep Space Nine with mysteries.

The investigation of the Andorian’s murder leads to two more bodies — old bodies, which had been fused into the station‘s bulkheads at some point around the Day of Withdrawal, when the Cardassian Union ended its occupation of Bajor and abandoned its ore-mining station — a day, strangely enough, that three of the station’s residents who were around back then can’t remember.  Suddenly smugglers are coming to the station in droves, which frustrates Captain Sisko mightily, given that he’s in the middle of the Federation’s equivalent of World War 2.  All the little threads seem to lead to three religious artifacts, the Red Orbs of Jalbador — which could open a second wormhole. Though dismissed by most Bajorans as apocryphal,  the various smugglers, a sect of Bajoran cultists, and three Cardassian operatives pretending to be humanitarian officials are all quite obviously interested in finding them.

This first volume of the trilogy is an impressive start: mystery and adventure seem to end in resolution, only things to go badly wrong: Terok Nor ends with the destruction of the station and the DS9 crew aboard the Defiant being thrown into a nightmare.

I had no intention of re-reading this: I just found the first volume while digging through a trunk of books looking for The Ancestor’s Tale,  and foolishly opened it up to see if it was good as I remembered. I read 200+ pages that very night and 200+ more the next day. It would appear my fond memories do it justice.

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Reap the Whirlwind

Posted on March 7, 2011 by smellincoffee

Star Trek Vanguard: Reap the Whirlwind (Book Three)
© 2007 David Mack
464 pages, including a ‘Vanguard Minipedia’, which combines a glossary and dramatis personae. 


 
Cover art by Doug Drexler, depicting the scoutship USS Sagittarius being pursued by a Klingon cruiser
 At the edge of known space, at the borders of three great powers — the Federation, the Klingon Empire, and the Tholian Assembly — lies the mysterious Taurus Reach, a region dominated by solar systems bearing the mark of having once been the seat of power for an ancient, immensely powerful, organizations. The Federation is eager to learn the Reach’s secrets, but given the immense power they may unearth, their investigation must be done largely in secret. Vanguard Station sits at the edge of the reach, but only a select few of its officers know its importance in administrating this top-secret project. Lives have already been lost, but this pandora’s box is only just beginning to spill out its contents — and they will change the lives of individuals aboard Vanguard and stagger the powers involved.

David Mack created the Vanguard series with this vast mystery already in mind, and in Reap the Whirlwind the drama skyrockets. The Federation’s secret is costing lives, and the awakened power is increasingly unpredictable and aggressive. Reap is easily the most eventful book in the series thus far, radically changing the destinies of several of Vanguard’s officers by book’s end. Commodore Diego Reyes commands most of the reader’s attention, as he struggles to keep a lid on a situation that proves more deadly by the day. Meanwhile, the resident agent of Starfleet Intelligence realizes her manipulations have consequences, both personally and professionally. Though there’s a fair bit of character development, the rise of the ‘Shedai’ and the havoc they wreak predominate the novel. Reap also introduces Dr. Carol Marcus, and given that ‘Clark Terrell’ is also present, it looks like this novel may tie-in to The Wrath of KHAAAAAAAAAAN! KHAAAAAAAAAAAAN! KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAN! 

Even though some of my favorite characters are being sorely absused, I’m looking forward to seeing what happens next.


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Confessions

Posted on March 3, 2011 by smellincoffee

Confessions
Augustine of Hippo, 354 – 430
Translation © 1961 R.S. Pine-Coffin
346 pages

At the age of nineteen a young man encountered the golden voice of Cicero. Inspired by Cicero’s lush oratory, this boy began to pursue the love of wisdom, philosophy; truth. Ultimately this journey brought him to the faith of his mother, to the Catholic church, and he became a saint — molding the minds of generations to come through his books, now part of the canon of western literature. Confessions records the ten years Augustine spent shifting from Manichaeism  and contempt of Christianity to becoming an ardent saint, one with an impressive talent for self-loathing.

The bulk of the Confessions is a prayerful biographical narrative, in which Augustine monitors his slow transformation — constantly lamenting over the errors of youth and offering earnest prayers of thanks and adoration toward the god he eventually found. Following his conversion-in-heart and conversion-in-fact, Augustine muses on memory, the senses, temptation, and theology before devoting a final book to more praise. The praise and adoration Augustine lavishes upon his god and the church are rivaled only by the amount of scorn he heaps upon himself, others, the cares of life, and earthly pressures. The man is a prodigy, a raging Puritan before his time. I found this self-debasement rather dreary and depressing, and it’s part of the reason I’ve been pecking at the book since mid-November while thinking of Augustine as “that miserable bishop” and “Gloomy Gus”.  This is not a man who I want to emulate.

I approached the book in the first place as a student of philosophy and the humanities, and I hoped to find in Augustine a brother-spirit. This was not the case, for in spite of his praise and quest of ‘truth’,  Augustine accepts the dogma of scriptures freely, never so much as questioning it, and regards those who are interested in the world with derision. The Platonic contempt for material things is fully present here, and rather than studying science, Augustine would advise us to keep our minds on more spiritual things, like the dozens of pages he devoted to sorting out what ‘Moses’ really meant when he wrote that God created “the earth and heavens” and that earth was a ‘formless void’, where ‘darkness was upon the face of the deep’.  He wrote page after page, which I read in utter bafflement. Theology, like debating the meaning of the trinity, often has this effect on me, for it seems no more potent than debating how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. It’s minds like Augustine’s that made the medieval world, and I do not say that as a compliment. In principle, I admire his desire to find truth and to be a better person,  but I found nothing of inspiration here. I appreciated his skepticism toward astrology and horoscopes (which he developed through reason and the lack of evidential proof), and  I gleaned some historical knowledge from his biographical account — for instance, the Academics were still around in Rome at this time, and apparently influenced by the Skeptical belief that nothing could be known for certain — but that was it.  Augustine is a man whose mind was fixated on the ethereal, consumed by ideological commitment.  He’d make an excellent Muslim (very keen on submission to God, this one) or a Christian puritan, but…as someone who regards ‘orthodoxy’ as a word more obscene than any of George Carlin’s famous “seven”, I felt discouraged by his utter lack of spirit.

Reading the book did help me though, in that it made me realize how easily the contemplative life can turn people into sanctimonious sourpusses. As someone interested in this kind of reflection, but also insistence on enjoying life, it prompted me to decide to err on the side of pleasure — in Bernard Cornwell’s words, to be more of a cavalier than a puritan.

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The Fort

Posted on March 3, 2011 by smellincoffee

The Fort: A Novel of the Revolutionary War
© 2010 Bernard Cornwell
480 pages

It’s the summer of 1799, and Britain’s attempts to restore their wayward colonies to the Crown are not going well. Following the battle of Saratoga, the French and Spanish have declared common cause with the rebels. Though the course of the war has moved to the southern colonies, Britain has seen fit to establish a small outpost at the mouth of the Penobscot River (in what is today Maine) in order to establish a safe harbor for fighting privateers and provide sanctuary for political refugees, particularly Loyalists fleeing persecution.  In response, the Massachusetts and Continental governments have sent a fleet to drive the invaders away. They find the outpost, Fort George, still in the early stages of construction — and scarcely defended, for its commander lacks the men to take even the high bluffs on the river. The Fort begins with the arrival of the British in what they call ‘New Ireland’ and carries through the last weeks of July until the defeated party flees downriver, utterly ruined.

The Fort  is a remarkable departure from Cornwell’s usual approach. Instead of focusing on one central character and have him live through the events of history, Cornwell instead draws on an ensemble cast of historical characters, both American and British (specifically, Scottish soldiers and Royal Marines). His main characters are a generally sympathetic lot, with the exception of the emotionally turbulent Lieutenant Colonel Paul Revere. The Americans tended toward the grumpy, though, and I far more enjoyed the company of General Francis McLean, commanding the fort, and his young ward John Moore — the future Lieutenant-General Sir John Moore.  They were consistently in high spirits despite the presumed certainty of their defeat,  and both possessed a wicked sense of humor that left me looking forward to their viewpoint sections. Cornwell also ties the chapters together with excerpts from historical letters, memos, and other literature concerning the battle — including a legal document indicting one of the book’s characters for disobedience and cowardice, and letters from the ever-pleasant General McLean. Unlike Redcoat, The Fort contains plenty of combat, both on land and on the river. I didn’t realize that there were rivers big enough for frigates to move through — rivers are fascinating areas for battle.

This is a fascinating, generally untold story of the American Revolution:  definitely above average if not Cornwell’s best.

Related:

  • Jeff Shaara’s Rise to Rebellion and The Glorious Cause, his novels of the war. (And speaking of which, his Pacific War novel is due in May….!)
  • Cornwell’s own Redcoat, which focuses more on character drama than combat, but which enthralled me.
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The History of Japan

Posted on March 3, 2011 by smellincoffee

The History of Japan
© 1918, 1947 Kenneth Scott Latourette
282 pages

““Under a Wave off Kanagawa”, Katsushika Hokusai

In Fall 2009 I took a class in Japanese history and enjoyed it tremendously, but given that it’s been well over a year, I figure I’m due for a refresher. My home library carried this slim narrative, which did the trick despite being a bit dated — the most current revision was written in 1946, only months after Japan surrendered and ended the last conflict of the Second World War.

After describing the initial settlement and climate of the Japanese islands (complete with lovely photographs), Latourette begins the long story of the Japanese empire (legendarily declared thus in 660 BCE, around the same time Egypt and Assyria were arguing over who should rule Egypt). It’s remarkable to me that a single institution has managed to survive over 1500 years of history, though largely in an impotent fashion. Japan was more strongly unified under the varying shogunates — military administrations — but emerged as a world power only in the late 19th century, when the warlords were ousted and the Emperor “restored”.  Modernization — and westernization, for the new government formed itself by drawing from various European powers like Germany and France — followed, and Japan shifted from late-medievalism to modernity in scarcely more than a couple of decades, a remarkably dramatic transformation. Japan also pursued economic growth in the tried-and-true way of Europe’s great powers and the United States — invading other people, borrowing their resources, and turning them into markets for goods. This eventually led to war, defeat, and revival — though the book doesn’t cover Japan’s resurgence.

Latourette is a generally fair author, easy to read for the most part. He doesn’t have the patronizing tone I would’ve expected from an author of this period, though his partiality amused me at times. He cheerily reports the ‘peaceful‘ Perry expedition’s role in opening Japan up to the west by saying it was fortunate that this was led by the United States, who had no interests in the Far East.  When writing on the increase of tensions between the United States and Japan, he finally admits the presence of American interests by saying it was the ‘unavoidable result of the force of circumstances’ that the United States happened to be all over the Philippines and Guam. I’m not sure I carry his meaning.  Did a freak storm carry the US Navy all the way across the Pacific where it bumped into the Spanish navy and accidentally threw invasion troops into the islands, where they were trapped for four years?  Did Spain refuse to treat in peace with the United States unless America agreed met them on the field of battle in Manila? Inquiring minds want to know what this unavoidable force of circumstances was.

Aside from that, which elicited more laughter than anything else, the book proved amply adequate (by which I mean it skirted the line between average and above average)  at reminding me of what I’d learned in class previously. Indeed, it supplemented my knowledge because it placed more emphasis on Japan’s rivalry with Russia than I’d witnessed in class, and the author frequently paused in his general narrative to explain how Japan was transforming from decade to decade, economically as well as socially.  It’s thus useful, but dated — and apparently obscure, because I couldn’t so much as find a cover for it.

Related:

  • A Modern History of Japan (Andrew Gordon)
  • Peasants, Rebels, Women, and Outcastes: The Underside of Modern Japan, by Mikiso Hane. These two books were used in my course, along with Kokoro, but that’s a novel. 
  • The Japanese Experience, W.G. Beasley, which I read in preparation for said class.
  • Our Oriental Heritage, Will Durant, which covers the ancient-to-modern histories of India, Japan, and China along with the ancient-era Mesopotamian history.
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These Weeks at the Library (15 Feb – 2 March)

Posted on March 2, 2011 by smellincoffee

The tail end of this month has seen me finally getting around to reading some history, H.G. Wells’ The Outline of History consuming the better part of the week before last. I’ve also been reading from The History of Japan, and finished With Wings Like Eagles, an excellent narrative of the Battle of Britain.  It stands out along with The Revolutionist, a novel of the Bolshevik Revolution and the first thirty years of the Soviet Union.  That marked my first time reading Littell, and if it’s any indication of the kind of quality I can expect, I may dive into his The Company, a history of the CIA,  at some point in the future.  Outstandingly gritty.

In addition, I completed the Typhon Pact miniseries with Paths of Disharmony,   which provides a stunning political shakeup to the Trek  litverse.

Selected Quotations:

…two smart brigs, both armed with fourteen six-pounder cannons and both anchored close to the Warren, flew the Massachusetts Navy flag, which showed a green pine tree on a white field and bore the words “An Appeal to Heaven””.
“An appeal to nonsense,” Saltonstall growled.
“Sir?”  the midshipman asked nervously.
“If our cause is just, Mister Conigsby, why need we appeal to heaven? Let us rather appeal to force, to justice, to reason.”
“Aye aye, air,” the midshipman said, unsettled by the captain’s habit of looking past the man he spoke to.
“Appeal to heaven!” Salton sneered. “In war, Mister Conigsby, one might do better to appeal to hell.” 

p. 21, The Fort. Bernard Cornwell.

Eppler collected his thoughts. “A self-appointed vanguard has come to think of itself as the working class in whose name it speaks. So first the vanguard party substitutes itself for the entire working class, yes? Then the party organization substitutes itself for the entire party, yes? Then the Central Committee substitutes itself for the party organization, yes? You see where it leads? It is inevitable! One day a single dictator will substitute himself for the Central Committee, yes?”   

[…]

Lili, furious, cried, “In the name of what cause do you betray us?”
Eppler smiled tiredly. “In the name of common sense,” he said. “In the name of pure Marxism. In the name of the millions of people who will suffer if this king of communism has his way, yes?” Eppler addressed himself to Zander. “I started to tell you one night when I had a bit too much to drink. You remember, yes? This Lenin of yours is taking communism down the wrong road. No good will come of it. No good at all. He is an elitist, yes? He creates elites. And he — yes? — he is the elite of the Central Committee. He is making footsteps, yes? After him others will folow in his path. The dictatorship of the proletariat will become the dictatorship of a single man.”

p. 76 and p. 147, The Revolutionist. Robert Littell.

Lenin was not amused. “There are no accidents in history, young man,” he said. Suddenly his brow pleated like a curtain. Was he in pain, Znder wondered, or was he thinking about what lay ahead? “There are only leaders who correctly analyze the forces at work,” Lenin mumbled, “and then exploit this knowledge.”
Which was another way of saying, Zander thought, that a revolutionist is someone who gives history a push.

p. 138, The Revolutionist. Littell.

Potentials for next week:
I’m almost done with The History of Japan, and — having finished that volume of Wells which so grabbed my attention — I’ve returned in earnest to The Confessions.  I’ll also be reading Bernard Cornwell’s The Fort: A Novel of the Revolutionary War and (assumedly) another Trek novel, probably Reap the Whirlwind, third in the Vanguard series.

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Top Ten Books Gathering Dust

Posted on February 28, 2011 by smellincoffee

Not every book purchased gets read immediately, despite our best intentions. This week the Broke and the Bookish are revealing the identities of long-term residents of the To-Be-Read piles, stacks, and mountains hiding in their homes.

1. A Man in Full, Tom Wolfe
I only bought this book last week, so strictly speaking it shouldn’t count — but I’ve been “meaning to” read this book for well over a year now, because one of the characters quotes repeatedly from Marcus Aurelius and has been the inspiration for some people to study Stoicism.  I’ve been going to the W’s and pondering this book once a month or so for many months now, and every month I find that the book is still big and is still set in the business world.  Last week I noticed it had been discarded, and so snapped it up.
2. Stiffed, Susan Faludi
I heard about this book in sociology class, specifically in my “Gender Roles and Culture” class….then I saw it in the library’s bookstore and picked it up. I’ve read the first few pages several times.

3. Asimov’s Guide to the Bible, Volume II: The New Testament (Isaac Asimov)

I read the first volume in this series in the summer of 2008, I think, and purchased this in the fall of 2009. Still haven’t gotten around to reading it, but I certainly don’t regret buying it — as with many other rare Asimov books in my collection, the price for finding a copy has risen sharply.  I say carpe diem and buy the books whenever I spy a good opportunity.

4 Marcus Aurelius: A Life, Frank McLynn

Purchased this in the spring of 2010, intending to read it over the summer. Hasn’t happened yet but it will: I’m particularly interested in Aurelius’ philosophical life.

5. Triangle, Isaac Asimov

My used copy was purchased without a dust cover, but this appears to be from the same edition.

Triangle contains the original Empire trilogy. I purchased it in…oh, the fall of 2008, and in the years since I’ve read a third of it. I want to finish the Empire series this year, though, so it may be stricken from the list at some point this year.

6. The Captain’s Table anthology

This book collects…four or five books into one very BIG book. I bought it because at $2, it was a bargain on Amazon. Never read it, though, nor even started to. I would’ve, but last year I started getting back into Trek literature and reading dozens of standalone novels set in the new shared continuity.

7. A People’s History of the World, Chris Harman

I bought this in the spring of 2010, thinking it to be a summer read.  Since then it’s sat on my shelf, though I read the first couple of chapters alongside Will Durant’s Our Oriental Heritage.

8. ….that Michael Crichton anthology containing several novels which I also picked up in the library discard bookstore and can’t even FIND now.
I can’t remember its title, or any of the books in it. But I paid .50 cents for it, and it’s…somewhere in my bedroom, hiding under stacks of books.

9 & 10. Various Isaac Asimov science books.

I bought a dozen or so paperback science texts by Asimov last summer and haven’t gotten around to them yet.  I mostly bought them because I’m an…Asimovophile and seeing several shelves full of Asimov books all arranged in a neat row pleases me. I do intend on reading one of them soon, though — “The Wellsprings of Life”, which I purchased with birthday money.

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Teaser Tuesday (1 March)

Posted on February 28, 2011 by smellincoffee

Marching headlong into spring, this is the first Teaser Tuesday of the month.
…well, it’s Tuesday already somewhere in the world.

“Are you in trouble again? Did you kidnap another world leader when I wasn’t looking?”
“No, but the day’s young yet,” Picard said, pulling down on the front of his uniform.

p. 21, Paths of Disharmony. Dayton Ward.

Combat was physically exhausting for even the strongest of fighter pilots, requiring enormous effort from limbs that were stiff with cold, as well was constant, almost superhuman alertness, split-second reaction to danger, and complete physical indifference to rapidly building g-forces and stomach-churning changes of direction that no fairground ride in the world could have imitated — with your mouth dry from breathing oxygen; your eyes smarting from the fumes of gasoline, oil, and exhaust seeping into the cockpit and from staring into the sun; and the radio pouring into your ears a constant tumult of static, orders, warnings, and awful cries of pain and despair. All this in the knowledge that you were sitting behind (or in the Messerschmitt, in front of and above) many gallons of high-octane fuel that could turn you into a blazing torch in seconds, not to speak of hundreds of rounds of ammunition, while somewhere from above and behind you another nineteen- to twenty-year old might already be swooping down on you from behind the sun to change your role in an instant from hunter to prey and end your life in a burst of fire lasting less than a second. 

p. 65- 66, With Wings Like Eagles: A History of the Battle of Britain. Michael Korda.

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With Wings Like Eagles

Posted on February 28, 2011 by smellincoffee

With Wings Like Eagles: A History of the Battle of Britain
© 2009 Michael Korda
322  pages

“The odds were great: our margins small: the stakes infinite.” – Vice Air Marshal Keith Park, No. 11 Group. RAF.
As far as drama goes, the Second World War is unmatched, for few conflicts in human history have lent themselves so well to stories of good and evil. Following the unexpectedly quick collapse of the French army in May 1940,  Great Britain found itself the lone democracy actively engaged in opposition against the monstrous ego of Adolf Hitler, set to make himself the master of Europe.  The other democracies had been conquered by the Blitzkrieg, Germany’s potent combination of tanks and dive bombers, and the Soviet Union, the only continental power capable of curbing Hitler’s ambitions, had become his accomplice in destroying Poland. Far across the Atlanatic, the United States looked on disinterestedly,  not keen on the idea of being engaged in another European war.  Throughout the summer of 1940,  Britain stood alone — defended by her Navy and her airmen in the Royal Air Force. This is their story.
Though highly complimentary of the airmen — whose character and fortitude stand out — and the Spitfires and Hurricanes they flew,  Korda sees the RAF’s triumph as being the product of sound leadership, both from forward thinking politicians like Neville Chamberlain and its own military leadership, particularly that of Air Marshall Hugh Dowding. Though reviled as an appeaser, Korda is kind to Chamberlaine and sees his leadership as responsible for the establishment of Britain’s “Chain Home” range of radar stations. Dowding is the great hero of Korda’s story, though. As the head of Fighter Command, his gifts for organization and grasp of air strategy allowed him to consistently turn back the Luftwaffe through the long summer, a time of generally clear weather and smooth seas that would pave the way for a German invasion in the event of failure.  Korda hails him for not only guiding the RAF’s fighters through these perilous times, but standing up to the British government, particularly Winston Churchill, when their actions compromised his fighters’ ability to do their work.
With Wings Like Eagles is an excellent narrative history of the Battle, remarkable for its thoroughness and detail. The story begins in the 1920s, covering the evolution of British and German air strategy and advances in airplane design. I had no idea that seaplanes were at one time regarded as the future of military aviation, or that the Spitfire was created from maritime designs. Like Albert Marrin, Korda’s use of detail puts the the reader in the driver’s seat along with the pilots, or inside Bentley Priory where all the information from the RAF’s observation posts and RADAR stations  was channelled and interpreted by Dowding into squadron-by-squadron instructions. Rather than risk all his men in a set-piece battle with the Luftwaffe, he chose instead to force them to underestimate his strength and bleed themselves to death by rushing into apparent breaches again and again. This airborne chess match between Dowding and the Luftwaffe continues throughout the book, ending only in the fall of 1940, when weather conditions marginalized the prospect of German invasion.  Along with his reappraisal of Chamberlain, Korda is also skeptical of Operation Sealion’s threat to British sovereignty. Hitler seemed to be less than enthusiastic about the operation and committed to it only after it became obvious that Churchhill was not about to be replaced by ‘reasonable’ men who were willing to admit to Britain’s defeat. 
I’m quite impressed with With Wings as Eagles: I enjoyed it chiefly in one sitting and think it as appropriate for an undergraduate history paper as it is for a leisurely afternoon read. Korda is generous with book recommendations, another boon for students of the subject. Recommended. 
Related (and Recommended):
  • The Airman’s War, Albert Marrin.  Coverage of WW2’s aerial campaigns from the American perspective.
  • The Luftwaffe: Creating the Operational Air War, James S. Corum. 
  • The Influence of Air Power Upon History, Walter J. Boyne

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