DirtPriest's 50-A Year in the Trenches

Hi. I've made it all the way to -- 50!

1. Cities in Flight by James Blish
This is one of my all-time favorite books and I thought that starting with a classic that I haven't read in years would be rather fitting. I like Blish mostly because the science is sensible and maybe even possible someday, like the Spindizzy space drive which is based on the actual physics book Dirac Equation, postulating a way to use angular momentum of electrons to create a gravity field that the drive 'falls into' at greater than light speed. In a not too distant future, humans use this drive to lift entire cities into space inside a spherical spindizzy bubble. With the addition of a logically developed, but fictional, set of anti-aging drugs, a rather grand history spanning thousands of years is presented for the enjoyment of readers. There are also interesting insights into how people learn and remember things, and how that might be different if people develop a way to live for thousands of years. As a side note, there is a lot about Communist Russia since these books (the novel actually is four joined shorter works adapted from serial magazine stories) were written in the late '50s/early '60s. In Blish's universe, the Russians indirectly won the cold war by default when the U.S. and its allies became so much like the Russians that they became indistinguishable from each other, excessive secrecy, government control of the people through media, rise of military caste, etc. It sounds weird but I'll bet it was a rather interesting conclusion to ponder in the 1960's.

2. Solving Stonehenge by Anthony Johnson
Even considering the grand and eye-catching title, this is probably the clearest and simplest book on Stonehenge I have read. After several chapters of historical archaeology on the site over about 400 years, Johnson presents a simple and elegant geometric solution showing how Stonehenge was plotted out using nothing more than a piece of rope and a peg. Using some simple circle, square and hexagon geometry, the design becomes quite clear. I've always been amazed at what you can do with a compass and straightedge, and this theory doesn't even use a ruler, either for an edge or for measurement. However there are absolutely no claims made about the people who built it or why it was built or what it was for. Well, actually there are a few speculations but they are clearly noted as such. For people who think that the ancients were just club carrying dolts, many of the oldest known human artifacts are decorated with geometric designs, and there are several bones and stone markers that clearly track the 29 1/2 day lunar cycle, so maybe only some of our ancestors were complete cavemen. Wait, that might apply to people today. I should stop before I get into trouble.

I should add that I am currently reading Athens: A Portrait of the City in its Golden Age by Christian Meier. It seems to be rather interesting and well-written so far, after reading about the first quarter or so. There are some odd phrases here and there as Herr Meier is a German professor and the book was written in German and translated into English. I doubt that any Greek ever referred to Greece as 'The Fatherland', but I say it makes for an extra layer of enjoyment for an experienced reader. Umberto Eco's books are similar in this sense, as they are all originally in Italian.

Hi, DirtPriest!
I am enjoying your reviews!
--BJ

Thanks for reading my opinions. I don't have any additions to my Athens review yet, but I did take a few minutes to read a Star Trek:TNG comic written by David Brin, who is one of my handful of favorite SF authors. He not only is a great writer and storyteller, but a consulting NASA physics lecturer (or something similar). Brin is an intellectual's SF writer, in a class with Dan Simmons, Mike Resnick, Gregory Benford, etc. I could list more I guess, but why? I'll not count that comic since anything I can read in a half hour shouldn't count.

The new Star Trek movie is coming out this week. I can't wait to see it, but I might have to wait until my daughter finishes her AP tests. Are you going to go see it?
--BJ

Of Course! I'll try to catch a matinee next week when tickets are 3 or 4 bucks instead of 8 and its easier to sneak a flask of scotch in and REALLY enjoy the back row. Just for fun, a friend and I snuck in 2 half gallon growlers of Dragonmead microbrew and a few pints for Lord of the Rings. (We had almost an entire row and just enough toddies for everyone.)

I think that you might have more fun at the movie than I will!
--BJ

Weekend Update on Athens.
This is not a very good late night read unless you really like philosophy and sociology. Informative, but boring. Sunday I finally got into the actual 'history' part after almost 200 pages of 'Where did the Greeks get the idea of democracy?' There was lots of speculative social detail of prior cultures and governments in the area. I think I'll boil about 150 or more pages down to a few sentences. Basically, Solon in about 600 BC decided that the rich were a little too big for there britches and gained power for himself by giving a voice in city government to the average middle class guy. He did this by giving responsibility to the citizens for the welfare of the city, taking it away from the rich aristocratic families that had mucked it up for generations. He used an invoking the Gods 'What you do to the least of these you do to me' strategy that the citizens used to claim some control of politics, using the Council of Four Hundred set up by Solon. The regular Joes then entrusted Solon to write laws for the city, which blossomed into the heyday of Cleisthones (no more Tyrants, setting up local governments around Athens in Attica (demes)), Themistocles (defeating the Persians at Marathon and Salamis), and Pericles (Plato, Socrates, Peloponnesian War). Anyhow, I'm now almost at the midpoint of the book, where the Athenians become the dominant regional power, and Sparta is not happy about it.

Sounds pretty interesting. I've always wanted to go to Greece, the birthplace of Western civilization. Lots of great stuff going on in those days, wasn't there?

After graduation, I am planning to take my daugther to see Star Trek. Have you seen it yet?
--BJ

I haven't seen Star Trek yet, but I am planning to go on sunday with some pals. I've had to make do with a mini-marathon of Next Generation on Sci-Fi channel monday night, which was fine. For some reason Star Trek isn't on very often on standard cable channels, which is a shame. A Star Trek channel would make some decent cash on advertisements, you'd think.
In regards to Greece, there were plenty of interesting things to do, say and think about, as long as you weren't worried about invasions or pirates, or stuck in Sparta, or under Persian rule in northern Greece/Macedonia. The Persians seemed to leave the Greek cities pretty much alone to govern themselves as long as they remained loyal to Darius or Xerxes or whichever other monarch was in charge. Don't forget the whole slavery issue too, which wasn't as bad (according to contemporary sources, anyway) as you would normally associate with the word, but hey-slavery is pretty much slavery to me.
I also neglected a point in enter #9, namely that Solon cancelled ALL debts on property, which would be a good way to get the common farmer (a majority of the citizens) to really like you as a politician. Also, the Greek word for their government was Isonomy, which means about the same as equality. The word democracy came along later, based on the word Demes, which was one of the words for the regional governments in Attica. As I recall, the Demes were organized into groups (of three?) and the groups sent representatives to the main Council in Athens proper. Anyway, 1 o'clock-Tigers/Twins Verlander on the mound and the Tigers are very mad after the 14 inning loss last night. Joe Crede can jump off a bridge. I'll be polite on a library site, but a walk off grand slam to end a 5 1/2 hour game just burns my biscuits! We hates it forever!

LOL! You are so right!

My husband kind of wants us to go see Star Trek on Saturday even though we have a packed weekend. Kind of an end of testing celebration. This is really nice, since I am the Star Trek fan in the family. :)

By the way, I just started reading Till We Have Faces by C. S. Lewis, which is based on the story of Psyche and Cupid. I used to love to read all about the Greek gods and goddesses when I was younger, but did not recall the story. So far, it is really good. There are slaves in the book, which I had not remembered from studying Greece. This is my first by Lewis other than The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, which I read long, long ago.

Have a great weekend and we can compare notes on the movie next week! :)
--BJ

Just wanted to say that you've got some really interesting books here! And enjoy Star Trek, when you do get to it. My fiance and I saw it last Friday and both really liked it.

Hi again. I have a sadly short update on Athens but I plan to take a round out of it tonight. My nephew woke up from a nap as I started typing this, which explains much. I have to get up at 7AM most days to watch him all day, then cook dinner for everyone, then me time, either Disc Golf or Tigers baseball, or both. In fact, a pal invited me out to golf right now, so I'll do my update later. This is what happens when I try to read during the day or evening. Jinkees!!!

What a shining example of why my reading time is way down. I can't even sit down to have a nice online chat. Anyhoo, I'll post more about Athens tomorrow sometime, since I've only read about 40 pages in a week. At least the Socrates/Pericles era is next, in fact, I had my first Pericles sighting last night. He was part of a political sect that ostracized Themistocles. He eventually (Thm.) wound up in Persia convincing Xerxes that he could govern a few Greek cities in Asia Minor, but it didn't work out. Does it ever between politicians? Not really. Oh well.

That's pretty funny. Still haven't seen Star Trek. Too much going on with the graduation. But maybe next weekend will be the time. I haven't been reading too much either, mainly just too excited about the graduation. Now I need to get back to my books. Have a great Wednesday!
--BJ

Star Trek rules! OK, that was juvenile, but hey... What a great show! And sober to boot! That was the best movie I've seen in the theater in years, since LOTR, and one of the handful of great cinematic moments ever, for me, anyway. I think that was a run-on sentence. I'll have Athens done by the end of the holiday weekend, easy. Famous last words, though.

I totally agree. We went to see the movie yesterday, and I loved every single minute of it. Both of my girls and my husband liked it as well, although it did not turn them into trekkies. Too late for that I suppose. I think that this might be my favorite of all of the Star Trek movies. Although it has been so long since I have seen any of the others, I can't be sure. I remember really liking The Wrath of Khan. But I still think that I liked this one the best. I wonder if the original Star Trek series is available on dvd? I will have to look into that. Have a great day!
--BJ

BJ - Yes, the original series is available on dvd now, remastered! You can also get Voyager and I think a few other versions as well. The Next Generation, with Patrick Stewart as Captain Jean Luc Picard has always been my personal favourite :)

Make it so!

3. Athens: A Portrait of the City in its Golden Age by Christian Meier
I would have to start by saying that this is a pretty good overview for a serious scholar. There is a pretty dense opening with a detailed study of the earlier Greek societies, not so much the dreaded Names and Dates history stuff, but the underlying social conditions and world view of the Mycenaeans and the northern Greek ancestors of the Classical Athenians. The book then turns into a pretty enjoyable general history of Athens and its relations with its neighbors in the 'known world'. Every facet of the city's people is examined in at least some detail, from the origin of it's government to the arts, and how the cultural concept of beauty and equality of all men demanded a representative government to rule over it. Even the tragedies by the great playwrights are summarized and helpfully placed in their proper social context as satires worthy of anything on The Daily Show or Countdown or whatever particular program you enjoy that puts the government in its place. The period covered ish the Golden Age (as the title claims) of Athens and its rapid and fortuitous rise to unequalled heights, to its equally rapid fall back into anarchy and despotism. There is much ego and self-serving politics in the meantime. In the span of literally a few generations (about 80 years), Athens morphs from a tyranny consolidating power for itself by giving rights and responsibilities to the lower classes, to a city that demanded freedom for all, then to an angry and stubborn military power that promised freedoms to those conquered as long as the local governments met the approval of the Athenian councils. This did not work too well then, or now frankly. Eventually, the Spartans and a coalition of almost every other Greek city and even the old enemy, the Persians forced Athens back into its little britches that were long outgrown. The irony is that Athens was the only city (polis to be proper) that had the means to stop the Persians in the beginning (480 BC), which led to the organization of the 'Delian League' that made Athens rich and powerful, enabling them to try to rule over the whole region. Which they successfully did under men like Pericles for about fifty years or so, by the way. As you would imagine, there are many lessons to be learned from the example of Athens and I believe that it should be studied in depth in all high schools (along with mandatory readings of Sherlock Holmes). The lessons of fairness, equality and friendship, both passed and failed by the Athenians, are equal cultural legacies to their arts, sciences and philosophies.

One little fact I left out was that the councils and officials were all drawn by lot, and were not filled by 'career politicians' hoping to get votes. Each citizen could hold each office available no more than twice and all positions were changed over each year. There was a council of 'strategoi' that was elected by the other councils that was in charge of actually commanding the military and tended to keep the same upper echelon 'career politicians' for long periods, but the straegoi could be voted out or ostracized right out of Athens. Some of the strategoi are Pericles, Cimon, Themistocles, Alcibiades, and the two Thucydides', and pretty much any other famous statesman you may be familiar with. One of the Thucydides was the famous historian, the other an Olympic wresling champion who was a main opponent of Pericles.

Up next is The Campaigns of Napoleon by David G. Chandler. This is another long book, but it is one I have been procrastinating on for many years and decided that this forum would give me the little bit of incentive to finally read it. I have seen it every time I go to the 900's section at the library (which is almost every time I go) for at least 15 years. I checked it out way back then and got bogged down a bit on the geography at the time and moved on to other, more fun reads. I am much more prepared to properly appreciate it now, so here goes...

I've decided that the Napoleon is just too long for a summer read when my time is limited and isn't really a good book for a discussion forum like this anyway. Not many people are interested in a technical treatise on the military science of a bygone age. That was more of a winter, 8-10 hour a day book as opposed to a couple hours a day baseball and golf season read. Instead I'll read Jack Williamson's The Stonehenge Gate, which so far seems pretty interesting. My favorite part of f/sf is creative alien realms, and this has just that with a set of trilithon gates buried in the Sahara, with gates to apparently seven different worlds. Each one is from the mind of an old sf master in the rank of Asimov, Bradbury and Clark. I am a bit biased as my first sf read years ago was Williamson's With Folded Hands short story in a Grandmaster's Choice anthology, a collection of the six initial SF Hall of Fame Inductees' personal favorite stories. (Williamson, Asimov, Lieber, Le Guin, Andre Norton and de Camp? I loaned it out ages ago and now it's lost.)

Great review of Athens: A Portrait of the City in its Golden Age. I added it to my wishlist. I just got back in town from visiting my daughter in Austin and just had to go to Half Price Books, my favorite store! I was trying to find the book for the Group Reads -SciFi reading group, but no luck. Not at the local store either. I guess I will just have to order from amazon again with the slow super saver shipping. The book is called Beggars in Spain, which is kind of funny because we are taking a really short trip there in July. Right now I am reading Ender's Game, which I really like. I am supposed to be reading Atonement, but I switched! I am looking forward to seeing what you think of The Stonehenge Gate. Sounds pretty good! Have a great day!
--BJ

4. The Stonehenge Gate by Jack Williamson
Interesting but somewhat disappointing. Definitely an amazing creation by a master but most any author would have developed the story idea much farther. The main story line revolves around a trilithon circle in the Sahara that is discovered by a ground penetrating radar survey from Eastern New Mexico University (Williamson lives and teaches there). A group of four professors, an unlikely mix of archaeologist, astronomer, english lit, and a guy from Kenya with a strange birthmark on his forehead (oooooh!), decide to sneak off and investigate the circle over the holiday break and obviously wind up being drawn in to a few alien realms and discovering the origins of man on Earth. There is a large portion of the book set on an unnamed world with two continents, one of equatorial jungle blacks and the other of slave owning whites. This seems to set up the moral argument of equality vs. inequality whilst being set against the discovery of man's creation (of one race that has diverged) by an alien race powerful enough to create the gates between worlds. All in all, I really enjoyed the ideas and the writing, and the narration by an English Lit professor that just wants to get home and leaves the thinking up to his astronomer and archaeologist friends, but the grand scope seemed curtailed and left me wishing for a trilogy (or more). Still-Thumbs up!

I'm not sure what to read next-Intelligence in War by John Keegan, Clarke's 2001 series or some of my new pickups by him or Simak, maybe Foucault's Pendulum or the Second Generation Dragonlance books? A Canticle for Leibowitz, perhaps? The Square Root of Negative One: An Imaginary Tale? The Greek Myths? The Singing Life of Birds (the early leader with one vote)? One of the Morgan Llywelyn books that I've never gotten to? Polls are open until tonight, maybe tomorrow afternoon, depending on today's plans, which are up in the air. Take a look through my library and make a suggestion if you like.

Aha! The HTML one works! Ticker at top of page

Very nice! And to update it, you click on your ticker. It will take you back there and you put in your pin and click on update/edit data (I think). Then you can change your numbers and hit save. I think the tickers are the neatest things. Mine is a football on a football field. Only 3 months until football season!! Have a great day!
--BJ

I've finished Secrets of the Great Pyramid by Peter Tompkins and will post a review later today of one of the best books on ancient history I have ever read. I have to a little scanning to make sure I cover it properly in the writeup. Also, I have decided to go on a Dragonlance tear, since the Weis & Hickman books are like carrot cake and ice cream. The early books in the core series I have read before (not recently) but the later books (the Second Generation books about the original character's children) are new to me and I am exited! And busy with my 2 year old nephew right now. Messy lunch

After a long break, I guess I'm back. I have spent so much time on Dragonlance that I didn't realize that three weeks have passed since finishing Secrets...

5. Secrets of the Great Pyramid by Peter Tompkins
Where to begin... I suppose with stating that the purpose of this book is to show the intricacies and exactness of the Pyramid, and how they prove that the ancient Egyptians were no intellectual slouches. They were able to measure the size of the earth very accurately and establish a unit of measure that became a standard that is still used today, believe it or not. Their standard was based on a segment of arc length of the meridian, carefully calculated by comparing the relative transit speeds of stars at different latitudes. This is the same basis as the metric system and, surprise surprise, they had a foot of exactly 300 millimeters! Also, the list of specific mathematical ratios built into the geometry of the Pyramid itself are so numerous as to be confusing in their numbers. There is even evidence that the southern face is slightly concave to create a shadow effect on the equinox (and only the equinox). Also, there are several chapters discussing early exploration and theories about the Pyramid, surveying results, just such a mass of data that I'll probably read it again in a few months to really let it sink in. I cannot recommend this tome highly enough to anyone who is even remotely interested in the culture of ancient Egypt. I think it is a must have for any serious student of history. It also has many similarities in plan and goal to Solving Stonehenge, of which my thoughts are to be found in message 2.

6. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie
I actually bought this book for my friend's birthday and he both enjoyed it and hated it so much that he more or less begged me into reading it right in the middle of the Dragonlance Chronicles. He had reason for doing so. As a Holmes enthusiast, I tried a few of Christie's books years ago and I didn't enjoy them nearly as much as the classic Holmes stories way back then. I am very glad I read one again on recommendation (mystery stories are generally far from my reading list). This book was very enjoyable, well paced and, as expected, filled with delightful twists and a great ending. At least, I liked the end-my friend was very shocked and disappointed for reasons that would spoil the solution to the crime if I went into details. The main story is about a rich businessman who is found dead in his study, and each member of the household has some suspicion on them towards the murder. By chance, a retired Hercule Poirot happens to be the new neighbor and eventually is invited in to help the police solve the crime. Blah, blah. My only complaint was that there seemed to be a lot of characters for a short work, but hey, it wasn't particularly complicated or overdone. This was a very well thought out, witty and extremely enjoyable short read and I shall read many more Poirot stories and the other Agatha Christie sleuths' tales in the future. By the way, there are many reviews of this book on its little info page and they explain the story better than I do.

Well, back to dragonlance. I've finished the Chronicles trilogy (for the fourth time) and am well into the Legends trilogy. I'll post some thoughts on the Chronicles soon. Also, I was wondering how Ender's Game treated you, billiejean. I am missing a few of the ten books in the series (according to wikipedia) and have been eager to read the set for years, but I always wait until I can get my paws on a whole series before starting it.

Hey, DirtPriest!
I loved Ender's Game. It was a great read. I have not read any of the other books in the series, but I would like to. :) Loved your review of The Great Pyramids. And I am a fan of Agatha Christie, too.

Today I am leaving on a trip to Spain. My daughter is going to study there for the rest of the summer and the rest of us are going along for a week. The air conditioning company came to change our filter and broke the fan motor, so our poor house will sit in this heat for the whole time. It was toasty last night, but at least the refrigerator works. See ya when I get back. Have a great day!
--BJ

7, 8 & 9. The Annotated Chronicles by Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman
It was a nice treat to reread the classic DragonLance Chronicles. This Trilogy (Dragons of Autumn Twilight, Dragons of Winter Night, Dragons of Spring Dawning) launched a long list of sequels, prequels and other DL stories. I first read these back in high school and they still are fun. Their charm and downfall as good fantasy writing are the same thing. The set of characters is a prototypical 'balanced' Dungeons & Dragons party, covering all the bases of character class and race. As I recall, the classes were Fighter (Caramon), Ranger (Tanis), Paladin (Sturm), Barbarian (Riverwind), Thief (Tasslehoff), Cleric (Goldmoon), Mage (Raistlin), Dwarf (Flint), Elf (Laurana) and Half-Elf (Tanis again). I guess a half-orc was just too much. Now, in its defense, the novels were based on a set of D&D modules (adventure outlines) written by Hickman, Douglas Niles and Jeff Grubb. Margaret Weis was an aspiring writer working as TSR book editor and their gaming group decided to write a novel about their DL campaign. The first book was successful (as were the modules) and a trilogy was completed. The storyline deviated farther and farther from their game story to make for better writing and they became quite popular in the nerd sect. Most mainstream media critics either hated the books or wouldn't even bother reviewing them, since they were 'pulp' fantasy. I say they are pretty good, not great, and are worthy of a place on any fantasy shelf.
As far as the story, a group of adventurers from the treehouse town of Solace are returning from a five year quest to find any sign of the true Gods who had been missing in the realm of Krynn since the Cataclysm hundreds of years earlier (two parenthetical notes here-two Meetings trilogies and two Preludes trilogies were later written to cover these years and before, and also there will be mention of the Cataclysm in my write-up of the superior Legends set). This allows introductions of the characters in the form of old friends meeting again after years apart, which I always liked. The characters return after their adventures to Solace bearing reports of war in the north (Krynn is a southern hemisphere land) and reports of dragons and dragonarmies. Clerics of a false religion called Seekers have taken over Solace and when a Plainswoman bearing a crystal staff seeks refuge in Solace, the group flees the town with them when the Seekers demand their arrest. The staff is the Staff of Mishakal, the old goddess of healing. Thus bearing proof of the return of the gods, hijinks and adventures ensue, Elves are snotty but good hearted, the Dragonarmies are eventually defeated and a good time was had by all.
Well, not really all. The characters are all pretty interesting and have many great things and horrible things happen along the way. You know-love, death, joy, humor, goofy absentminded wizards, fighting Draconian soldiers (humanoid Dragonkin). To me, There are two aspects of the tales that I really enjoyed. The first is Tasslehoff, the kender. Kender are hobbit-like little people that have a talent for 'borrowing' things and are generally considered a major nuisance by all. But Tas is one of the funniest characters I have ever read. His relationship with Flint, the typical grumpy dwarf, is great. You have to read the books to really appreciate this but they are like an Oscar and Felix Odd Couple. Also, the red-robed (soon to be black-robed) mage Raistlin and his twin brother Caramon are also well thought out characters. Caramon is a great swordsman and Raistlin is a frail and sickly mage. Raistlin is very selfish and uncaring but extremely powerful. However, he has a soft spot for the weak and downtrodden, as he once was himself as a child. This gives him some 'evil Gandalf' type mojo. The subsequent Legends trilogy is mostly about Raistlin and Caramon.
As a wrapup, the story is good but the characters are great, even if the mix is a typically unrealistic D&D group. I believe that Weis and Hickman really grew as writers with this trilogy and went on to better things later, but the Chronicles will always have a special spot in my nerdy heart. The Annotated Chronicles omnibus is the best way to go, because you get an insight into the ideas and growth of the authors and, even though an introduction says nay, the spoiler factor of the annotation is minimal and, in my opinion, lets you appreciate the story far more. I have no problem with a few *"This foreshadows future events..." notes. I don't recall anything that would ruin the story at all.

10, 11 & 12. The Annotated Legends by Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman
Here is one of the best fantasy series I have read over the years. When they first came out in the mid 80's I wasn't that impressed, but as a more mature reader now, these moved way, way up on my list. The first in the trilogy, Time of the Twins, tells the tale of Caramon and Raistlin Majere after the War of the Lance (the Chronicles). Caramon has descended into alcoholism since nobody seems to need him anymore, or maybe just because his twin, Raistlin, is the master of the Tower of Sorcery in Palanthas and no longer needs Caramon to aid him every day. The third character is Crysania, a cleric of the holy Paladine. She is from Palanthas and believes she can save Raistlin from himself through her love. This forms a rather important triangle reflected throughout the trilogy. Caramon addicted to dwarven spirits out of pity for himself and addicted to caring for others (mostly his mentally abusive brother), Raistlin addicted to his magic and power, and Crysania blindly addicted to her faith. In an effort to keep this reasonably brief, Caramon, Crysania and (inadvertently) Tasslehoff the kender are sent back in time by the Council of the Mages. They arrive in Istar before the Cataclysm, caused by the hubris of the Kingpriest in demanding that the gods grant him more power to fight evil in the world. The people are given many signs of the disfavor of the gods (one of many biblical parallels in these books) but, of course, they are ignored. Raistlin has also gone back in time to challenge the mage Fistandantilus in an effort to complete his knowledge of magic so he can challenge Takhisis the Queen of Darkness and become a God. Which he later does.
I don't want to give away too much of the story of the rest of the series but in War of the Twins and Test of the Twins Caramon and Tas return to a future where all of Krynn is dead and Raistlin rules over a world of nothingness, Raistlin's use of Crysania for his own benefit reaches a climax in the Abyss where he leaves her to die (she is later rescued by Caramon in an attempt to stop his brother from basically destroying the world through his attempt for ultimate power) and Raistlin faces a choice between eternal torment by Takhisis but Krynn goes on existing or destroying everything, including himself, in his attempt to become a god. In the end, Crysania realizes the errors of her blind faith and love for Raistlin only after she is blinded in the Abyss. She returns with Caramon to Palanthas and reforms the church of Paladine to a much more sensible and less sefish mode, since she has witnessed the errors of the Kingpriest leading up to the Cataclysm.
These books are more of a sci-fi time travel story wrapped up in mage's robes. There are many parables taken directly from the bible and the overriding theme of Good redeeming itself, Evil feeding on itself, and the balance between the two causing all motion in the world. Extreme Good is just as detrimental to society as extremes of Evil. Both breed complacency and discontent, selfishness and self-righteousness.
Anyways, these are outstanding, well written and impressive works of psychological fiction. The action quotient is a bit lower than alot of fantasy but the characters and events that transpire are great.
Again, the annotated omnibus is the way to go, even more so than the Chronicles.

Hey, DirtPriest,
I was wondering, do you have to have played D&D to understand these books?
--BJ

Welcome Back! I read abut your trip in your 75 book challenge thread and it sounded pretty cool. I'm a big fan of testing my map reading skills and it sounded like it was a challenge.
D&D skills are not a prerequisite, and the Annotated omnibuses (omnibusi? omnibus'?) actually explain any D&D quirks like spell components or other spell-casting minutia. Besides, I've read more complex magic systems than what gets written up in a D&D novel. W&H put things in general terms that could be more succinctly done in gamer lingo, but at the risk of losing general readers. The deal is that a D&D party usually is some odd collection of characters that you have to struggle to figure out a way to have them all meet and not turn out like some silly Lifetime movie. The original Chronicles starts off sounding much like a game session, but this tails off and assumes more of a standard fantasy pacing. The Legends series is almost like a (long) Star Trek episode. I would compare it to the one where Captain Picard is snagged by an alien probe and lives a lifetime on some now extinct desert world as he lays in a coma in sick bay for a day or so. Not a bad way to learn the flute! Also, Time travel is rarely done in fantasy books.
I would sum up with this-The average non-gaming reader might find the Chronicles a bit silly and trumped up, but the later books by W&H and the better of the side-story series are legitimately good fantasy stories. They just happen to be set in a shared D&D world. The characters really grow on you. Weis & Hickman in turn grew into a great writing tandem over the last twenty plus years. Their Death Gate Cycle of seven books is a masterpiece of fantasy world-building and their recurring theme of excessive goodness stagnates a culture just as much as evil.

Thanks! It was lots of fun. I must admit that although I was in charge of reading the maps and I thought I did a pretty good job of it, my husband really has the true geographic skills. We had a map of the old town area of Segovia and were trying to find our way back to the hotel when I showed him which way to go. He did not have his reading glasses and could not read the small print. But he did point out to me that the green on the map was for the playground behind us and I showed it across from us. I insisted that I was right as the stairs went down and we had to go down. Guess what? He was totally right. I still do not understand how we had to go up to go down. Luckily, I had the advantage in the Spanish speaking skills, so I was handy in a pinch. And even he could not follow the crummy maps in the atlas. Only the hotels had good town maps.

Thanks for the info on the D&D books. I love Star Trek, as you know, so I am tempted to check them out! :) Have a great day!
--BJ

13. The Second Generation by Weis & Hickman
This is actually a collection of short stories about the children of some of the Heroes of the Lance stories noted earlier. There are two about Caramon's three sons, two warriors who join the Solamnic Knights and their youngest brother Palin, an apprentice White mage. There is another about the legend of Raistlin's Daughter and also one about Tanis' sickly boy when he grows up. Being 1/4 human and 3/4 elf must be awkward no matter what happens. I enjoyed these short stories, but to someone who hasn't read the stories of the parents, they might seem a bit shallow or at least the reader might miss some nuances of character.

14. Dragons of Summer Flame by Weis & Hickman
Back to Krynn again. This story introduces the Knights of Takhisis, a lawful but evil order of knights modeled after the Solamnic Knights by their founder, Ariakan. His father was the head Dragon Highlord in the Chronicles and spent many years as prisoner of the Solamnic knights. As Ariakan invades Krynn with is own dragonarmies, the creator of the gods (Chaos) is released from a magical prison. He is obviously angry at his children and decides to destroy their cherished creation-Krynn. Raistlin makes a reappearance and assists Palin, his nephew, in a battle in the Abyss with Chaos. "I only have one spell, but it's a good one!" Yeah, a classic gamer line! To me, that's the funnest part about these books. Eventually a band of knights, both Dark and Light unite with Palin and save Krynn... for now. Until the War of Souls series set a bit into the future and the trilogy W&H are writing right now.

15. Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut
What can I say about this book that hasn't already been said? I love Vonnegut's style and philosophy of religion. As Asimov said when Dick Cavett asked him if he would ever find god, "God is alot smarter than I am. I'll Let him find me."

16. Fragment by Warren Fahy
Here's my first Early Reviewer post

Fragment was quite fascinating. There is plenty of blood and guts which may turn off some people, but the ecosystem envisioned in this book is actually quite amazing and intense, if a little gross. I am not really into gory horror, but I figured that there would be something worthwhile at the end and there was. Mr. Fahy's style is crisp and effective and he even worked in the possibility of a sequel. I will keep an eye out for more books by Warren Fahy.

Thanks for the early copy. I appreciate it.

17. The Physics of Baseball by Robert Kemp Adair
There is a review of this book on-site that says 'If the title sounds like something you would like, then it probably is." I agree. The nice thing about it is the fact that the modeling of physical systems involved in pitching and hitting is pretty imprecise. A lot of slack is used in the discussions, but the limits of how far a ball can be hit are good solid estimates. The question of how far a ball can be hit is answered logically and sequentially considering the elasticity of the ball and bat, swing and pitch speeds, air resistance, humidity and the Magnus force. It adds up to about 545-550 feet as you keep adding in more and more ideal situations. The fact most people miss is that there is a point where the wood will start to deform and crush instead of transferring energy to the ball. The Magnus force is the force that makes a golf ball rise from its backspin creating vortices of high pressure under the ball and low pressure above it. If that was a scary sentence then this is not the book for you. On the other hand, if a detailed analysis of the nodes and antinodes of a vibrating bat or the angles, spin, air pressure differences and velocities of the different pitches sounds like fun, then its meat and potatoes time.

18. Atlas of the Dragonlance World by Karen Wynn Fonstad
The reading is rather dry, but its main attraction is the cool maps and diagrams of the places on Krynn visited by the characters in the Chronicles, Legends and a few other works. All in all, a pretty cool book for someone who is interested enough to peruse it, but not so much for others. Also, Fonstad's Atlas of Middle Earth is very similar and even more in depth.

Hey, DP!
I was wondering if you have ever read Neuromancer? (Sorry if I have already asked you this.) I belong to this group called Group Reads -- Science Fiction. I nominated this book quite a while ago and it finished in a tie, and lost the tiebreaker. Then someone else nominated it and the same thing happened. Now it has been nominated again and is losing the tiebreaker for the 3rd time in a row (but time is not yet up). So, do you think I should just read the book already? If you read it, what did you think of it?

I went to see HP last night and thought it was a pretty well made movie. However, I think that I do need to start reading the books to totally get it. My daughter has been filling me in. Have a great day!
--BJ

I'm personally not a cyber-punk fan but Neuromancer is probably THE classic of its field and I will definitely check it out (pun) next time I trundle off to the local library. I have role-played Shadowrun, which is heavily influenced by Mr. Gibson. Cyberpunk just seems so depressing, being post-apocalyptic and all and in general a bit too bleak and violent for my liking, but this may not be true for the whole genre. The truly great Sci-fi stories usually end on a hopeful note for the future. Anyway, I'll check out the Group Reads stacks.
I've been waiting to get the last HP book so I can read the series. Several friends have enjoyed them for years and I have been quite the stick in the mud on this, apparently.

19. And All the Stars a Stage by James Blish
Well, well, well. A stinker by my favorite little known author. A little stinky, anyways. Set in a near future earth where a faster than light spaceship drive has been designed, the time for exploring the galaxy has finally arrived. Unfortunately, discovering that the sun will go supernova before the fleet of ships can be finished means that the specially selected crews and their lucky (?) passengers must leave in a hurry before the unwashed masses can take over the ships. Along the way two colonization attempts are made, which fail for differing reasons. I really liked the way the story started, but it really petered out bad. One of those 'That's it?!?!' endings that everyone hates.

I also filled in my blank spots in messages #47 & 48

20. The Body in the Library by Agatha Christie
Another delightful mystery by a true master. This one was a quick one night read and very satisfying. Christie has a knack for quickly developing characters and keeping interest levels high. I have a feeling that each time I wander off to the library I'll grab another of her mysteries, but not too many and overdo a good thing.

For the record, I started the Dragonlance books that I was so excited about, only to discover I was missing some major events. I would say that having the gods abandon the world and dragons taking over the land is a big change. There is a trilogy by Jean Rabe (one of the original game group that started DL in the 80's) that introduces this Fifth Age of Krynn. A used book store in town has two of the three so I'll have to buy the last from abebooks.com soon. Ah well, that gives me time to read neuromancer and that Delany book for the group read.

21. Murder in Mesopotamia by Agatha Christie
These Christie mysteries are really neat. This one is a little too happenstance, having Poirot just happen to be passing through the town on his way to Baghdad, but hey-its fiction, right?

I need to take a break from fiction before I read the Delany book for the group read. It doesn't sound too interesting to me. I read some stuff on Wikipedia about his style and I am already put off by his habit of remaking grammars to make things sound like the language is evolved. This sounds like a bit too much work for a minimal effect (at least on me), but I am willing to try it out. The story outline on the jacket sounds pretty cool, but don't they always? Anyways, either Robert the Bruce or some math stuff first (Dr. Euler's Fabulous Formula: Cures Many Mathematical Ills), then Delany. I look forward to garnering an opinion or two first.

Hi DirtPriest! Just wondering about The Physics of Baseball, is it reader-friendly enough to be able to take some of it and use it in a high school science classroom? Or maybe not directly but at least use it as a reference?

Some of it definitely is, some is vague guesswork. There is some moderately advanced equation work relegated to the post chapter notes, but the text is pretty much free of math. The diagrams are great and the explanations are too. I really was intrigued with the hitting diagram of a perfectly off-center impact that transfers energy from bat to ball most efficiently and the node-antinode properties of a bat. The pitching chapters in the beginning were the tougher ones, but hey-its physics. However, it is overall somewhat complex, but I would have been fine with it in HS (I think) and easily in college. My suggestion is to buy a used copy online (abebooks.com for less than $5) and at least enjoy it yourself.

Thanks, I definitely will be checking it out for myself but if I can use any of it in a classroom, that's an added bonus. I try to keep an eye out for anything and everything that can spice things up a little bit, make it a little different. This sounds like something senior students especially could get some use out of...now I just have to hope I teach baseball fans in the future ;)

I got the Delaney book but haven't started it yet. I hope it is a good one. I was thinking about reading Neuromancer first, but now I can't find where I put my copy. Really, I must find a better way to organize my books. :)
--BJ

I actually started Neuromancer, but then I decided to check out Stars in my Pocket late one night and got hooked right in. The writing is superb, except for the confusion with the he/she male/female stuff. I'm beginning to think that the point is to make gender rather meaningless, which might be because I can't tell who is what... And I'm not really in to 'love stories', which this is to a point, but the more traditional SF story in the background between the Family and the Sygn seems interesting enough to keep me going. Not my favorite read, though.

22. Stars in my Pocket Like Grains of Sand by Samuel R. Delany
Finally finished the Group Read book. I won't say much yet except that I wanted to like it, but didn't really at all and was glad to be done reading it. When the reader quits caring about the characters because the story is so drawn out in ways he doesn't care about, that sucks. It was way too much work for what I got out of it. I'm sure others will like the Dyeth family, or stream, or whatever, but it was like only getting one bite of apple pie when a huge slice is called for. And no ice cream either.

23. The Joy of Pi by David Blatner
This is a neat little book outlining the history of man's attempt to define pi (the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter). In a few short pages it covers thoughts on pi from Egypt to Greece and on to Rome (they used 3 1/8, which is way off as far as construction calculations go-any jab I can get in on the Romans I'll take), through the middle ages and into the modern world, with segues through India and China. Ironically, the 5th century Chinese mathematician Tsu Chung-chih and his son Tsu Keng-chih calculated pi to within 8 millionths of a percent, approximating it at 355/113. They used a hexagon and kept doubling the sides 12 times to approximate a circle. I'm always amazed at how close mankind came to discovering the rules of integral calculus in the ancient past. The book also has the first one million decimal places of pi scattered throughout the text, some of which is too small to read. There are even a few math puns, comics and poems, along with MIT's football cheer. All in all, this is a really good book for anyone who cares to learn a bit about the magic of pi without being overwhelmed by technical minutia.

'Tis a favorite project of mine
A new value of pi to assign.
I would fix it at three
for it's simpler, you see
than 3.14159'

'Integral z squared dz
from 1 to the cube root of 3
times the cosine
of 3 pi over 9
equals log of the cube root of e'

These poems either prove 1) Math nerds have a sense of humor, 2) Math is a language easier to learn than French but not as easy as Japanese, or 3) You can easily make a limerick out of almost anything

OK, so what is the MIT football cheer? I wasn't aware that they had a football team.
--BJ
BTW, like the limericks. :)

Just waiting to see if anyone would ask.

e to the u du/dx
e to the x dx
cosine, secant, tangent, sine,
3.14159
integral, radical, u dv,
slipstick, slide rule,
MIT!!

Love it!
--BJ

Love the poem, love the cheer!

Re message #64 - I think the poems prove all of the above, especially #1. An old high school math teacher of mine had a set of buttons with cheesy math puns that she'd wear every day. I only remember one of them, though: "What's your sine?" Cue the groaning :)

I had a Physics teacher in high school that said some of the goofiest things, in fact I had a screensaver that displayed some of his gems (and stuff from other teachers and friends). Charles Hanson of Bullock Creek HS, Midland MI, will go down in history of the inventor of Sideways Algebra.

Today's film - Kepler Does Dallas!
Thermometers roll well, but they don't bounce well.
Look at Steve. Do you see any potential energy? Not potential, but potential energy?
I wonder if I could draw a TRI-focal sandbar?

Those are great, he sounds like a fantastic teacher!

24. The Destruction of Atlantis: Compelling Evidence of the Sudden Fall of the Legendary Civilization by Frank Joseph
I always enjoy a book exploring this theme, because there's so much evidence for there having been a civilization before ours. This synthesizes a lot of data from varied streams, like geology, archaeology, linguistics and ethnography in a concise way. Just in language alone, there are so many words that are shared on each side of the Atlantic, so many similar place-names that have the same legends attached to them, that there had to be something connecting them. The conclusion of the book postulates a branch of homo sapiens that followed game out along land bridges to a central Atlantic island that became cut off by rising sea levels and eventually sank. In the meantime they developed sciences, navigation arts and who knows what else. In early November 1198 BC (so the author narrows it down to), The Atlantic was smashed by a huge meteor storm. The resulting geologic upheaval sank the remainder of the landmass caused many other disasters recorded around the globe. The Egyptians reported ashes in the sky and a final frenzied attack of the 'Sea People'. Virtually all of Europe and Asia Minor demonstrably burned, taking with it many great ancient cultures. Even in the Americas and Pacific basin meteors and ash and fire were recorded. Everywhere. The Taurid shower is a donut of debris that the Earth's orbit passes through twice a year (July with the stream and November against) and might explain the significance of bull worshiping cults and sacrifices around the world, as well as Day of the Dead, Hallows Eve type celebrations all clustered around the 1st of November, worldwide. Some interesting new ideas in this were that Plato's years were not classic solar years, but ceremonial lunar years, which was commonly used in Egypt, where Plato got the story in the first place, some acknowledgment of the Michigan Upper Peninsula copper mines that were worked on a massive scale three thousand years ago (just the right time for some sort of Atlantean culture, who by the way was wealthy and famous for their high grade copper trade and expert levels of sea navigation), and just the small mountain of shared myths and shared words and places world wide. I would consider it a key reference for anyone interested in the subject. It had data on two of my four or so fundamental questions of ancient history.

1. What's the deal with the copper mines in the UP?
2. How can there be so many shared words and stories on either side of the Atlantic?
3. How do the constellations have the same names and/or stories worldwide? (This can be easy to explain or tough. Ursa Major acts like a bear-It's rising at sunset in the spring, high in the summer, low and setting in the fall and winter, just like a bear. Sagittarius the Goat-Dude? Who knows?)
4. Seriously, where the heck did corn come from? And plantains and bananas for that matter? Corn has no close relatives and those eject their seeds off their munchkin ears after ripening, whereas corn does not. And from what little I know about them, plantains require mechanical assistance to pollinate, namely, a person or maybe a smart monkey to climb up and manually do it.
5. Why is up and down yes and side to side no pretty much everywhere?
6. What number systems were used by these people? That can tell a lot about the level of thought in a culture, like the Sumerians base-60 system that we still use for some things. Like the 360 degree circle, 12 hour clock face with even thirds and sixths, and so on. Any culture that takes the time to learn something other than base 10 so that fractions can be eased or eliminated gets a tech point, even though I love fractions. Decimals are for pansies.

I am curently reading The Labours of Hercules by A. Christie and Starlight, a SS collection of Alfred Bester, which I have been picking at when time is limited.

25. The Labours of Hercules by Agatha Christie
This is my favorite so far. I really liked the premise of Poirot's friend pointing out that he should undertake the Labors of Hercules after his namesake before retiring. The following twelve short stories were all interesting, if a bit contrived as far as chance meetings and such, but when undertaking an homage to the gods, who knows what might happen?

26. Starlight: The Great Short Fiction of Alfred Bester by Alfred Bester
Now this is how you write a SF SS collection. Nice helpful intros by the author, and nothing overly long, which defeats the purpose of a short story. I hate SS's in an anthology that take hours to read and never seem to end. That's not a short story, it is a novella. 'Hell is Forever' is, I suppose, a novella but the reader is told that in the witty introduction, so there. My old (70's) book club edition contains the previously released collections The Light Fantastic and Star Light, Star Bright. The first is named after a Milton quote and has nothing to do with the goofy and inane Pratchett of the same name. Of the two, SLSB would rate above the other as it contains the best of the best 'Adam and No Eve' and 'Time is the Traitor', as well as 'Hobson's Choice', which may be the best SS I've read, at least as I recall. The conclusion is an excellent short biography of the author, who actually wrote comic and TV scripts, and took to SF as an outlet for his frustration over the lameness of the TV work he was asked to do (Like his producer asking him for just 'normal' stories). He later became a magazine editor and had free reign to write and interview whatever/whoever he wanted, so no more SF. Sad, but true-Bester has a small output compared to the other legends of the Golden Age of SF, but he is one of the best.

27. The Etruscans by Michael Grant (neither TS links to the right place)
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. After dallying for years on starting a study of the classical world, I finally stepped in and regret waiting so long. Michael Grant's writing style is very fun to read if you are a semi-serious historian. If not then you may find it dry and boring anyway. He uses nice turns of phrase and has a way of making dull textbook data on the geography of ancient Etruria seem more fun and easier to remember than alot of history writers out there. That's a nice touch. Anyway, on to the book itself. It is broken down into an introductory section, where the reader meets all the players (the cities and colonies) in the Mediterranean area of 800-400 BC, then there is a chapter devoted to each of the provinces controlled by the Etruscans. These chapters tell a story of how the different regions were at odds with each other and were not the 'all for one and one for all' generic Etruscans in the Greek and Roman histories. As the Etruscans have virtually no writings that have survived, and no one even knows where their language (or people) came from, these are the main sources of information on their culture, other than the archaeological digs of their cemeteries. There are virtually no remains of their cities as the hilltops and crags that they inhabited were occupied for who knows how long before the Etruscan golden era, and are still inhabited today. That leaves little room for traditional archaeology. And besides, when your enemy writes about you as being 'pirates' and 'raiders', they usually won't take the time to get the facts straight. In fact, the Romans were famous for rewriting their histories to make themselves appear in a better light. I should add that Etruria was directly bordering Rome to Rome's north, (roughly eqivalent to modern Tuscany, that being the northern west coast of Italy) across the Tiber River and you can make a point that Rome's domination began when Veii founded a colony on Rome's bank of the Tiber and the neighbors went to war over territory and the salt flats at the river mouth. Before all this, Rome was ruled by a series of semi-legendary Etruscan kings, whose overthrow led to the rise of the Republic culminating in the new government sending an army out to attack its Etruscan neighbor Veii and conquering it in 396 BC. The other Etruscan centers were happy to see their rich neighbor vanish and within a hundred years were all swallowed up by Imperial Rome on their way to dominating the main continent of Europe. Before their exit as an independent regional power, however, they managed to spread their version of the Phoenician alphabet northwards into what would become Gothic Germany and southwards into Rome and Latium, and we still use the alphabet and parts of the Latin language today. In fact, you are reading the Roman version of the Etruscan alphabet right now. Neat, huh? This should be an essential reference for anyone seriously interested in the Classical world, as it is probably the best source for information on this obscure era of pre-Roman history.

28. Murder at the Vicarage by Agatha Christie
Another great mystery with a great twist to it. I guess that should be expected, but the ingenuity of it is so impressive. Reading the Christie mysteries is like eating a bag of those awesome orange Circus Peanuts candies. With a Hires root beer in a glass bottle.
I'm reading Rise of the Greeks right now by the same writer as The Etruscans above, and after that his The Classical Greeks, which is more like a biography of forty or so famous Greeks and using their lives to show the culture of the Hellenic world. I'm really looking forward to reading the lives of Pindar and Sophocles and so many others and having their writings placed in s detailed social context.

Just felt like posting this...

Gordon Lightfoot's 'Don Quixote'

Through the woodland through the valley comes a horseman wild and free
Tilting at the windmills passing who can the brave young horseman be
He is wild but he is mellow, he is strong but he is weak
He is cruel but he is gentle, he is wise but he is meek

Reaching for his saddlebags he takes a battered book into his hand
Standing like prophet bold he shouts across the ocean to the shore
Till he can shout no more

I have come o'er moor and mountain like a hawk upon the wing
I was once a shining knight who was the guardian of a king
I have searched the whole world over, looking for a place to sleep
I have seen the strong survive and I have seen the lean grow weak

See the children of the earth who wake to find the table bare
See the gentry in the country riding off to take the air

Reaching for his saddlebags he takes a rusty sword into his hand
Then striking up a knightly pose he shouts across the ocean to the shore
Till he can shout no more

See the jailer with his key who locks away all trace of sin
See the judge upon the bench who tries the case as best he can
See the wise and wicked ones who feed upon life's sacred fire
See the soldier with his gun who must be dead to be admired

See the man who tips the needle, see the man who buys and sells
See the one who puts the collar on the ones who dare not tell
See the drunkard in the tavern stemming gold to make ends meet
See the youth in ghetto black condemned to life upon the street

Reaching for his saddlebags he takes a tarnished cross into his hand
Then standing like a preacher now he shouts across the ocean to the shore
Then in a blaze of tangled hooves he gallops off across the dusty plain
In vain to search again, where no one will hear (pause)

Through the woodland through the valley comes a horseman wild and free
Tilting at the windmills passing who can the brave young horseman be
He is wild but he is mellow, he is strong but he is weak
He is cruel but he is gentle, he is wise but he is meek

Hi, DP,
I have been enjoying your reviews. And, of course, I love the DQ song. Are you enjoying the book? I loved both Don Quixote and Sancho Panza. I thought that they were magnificent characters.
--BJ

I've read a few random passages but I have two library books on the Greeks to finish first, as well as a short two book fantasy series that I could finish today if there was no football. I may finish the first tonight depending on how late I get home and the other by wed. Honestly it will probably be a month or so before I start DQ in earnest.

And thank goodness for the start of football season at last! Did you see the USC-Ohio State game? I thought Ohio State was going to win for sure.
--BJ

I saw the second half after the Tigers game. That loss hurt me a bit even though I hate OSU, being in Michigan and all. I found a college pick 'em league on ESPN's fantasy games site and hit 9 out of 10 games. Guess which one I missed. Crappy Buckeyes screw up something for me every week. How can you lose like that to a freshman QB? I almost won a free Bloomin Onion from Outback, but there isn't one in town so it wouldn't do me much good. I hate Ohio State and USC anyway.

Well, you must have loved the Michigan-Notre Dame game. I usually root for Notre Dame, but I couldn't help but be happy for Michigan after last year.
--BJ

That was nice. I'm not a huge fan of either of the Michigan schools since I didn't attend either, basically whichever one needs the support to get to the top I'm there. in fact, I'll be rooting for Central Michigan this year. Dan LeFevour is an awesome QB. Just because he plays in the MAC Doesn't mean he's not ane elite player. His numbers are the same as Tebow and if LeFevour played at UF (yuk) he would win Heisman Trophies too. He led a slightle less talented Chippewa team over Sparty saturday in a great game. Actually MSU blew it by jumping offsides on a missed FG at the end but hey... Oh yeah, CMU's kicker is decent too and the O-line is actually Big 10 caliber. Getting the Wolverines back in the national spotlight (in a good way) would be nice too and having a freshman like that Fourcier dude is a great start. Rich Rodriguez is a genius but he needs to learn how to smash heads with a fullback and lay off the pansy spread a bit. He IS a Wolverine now. Hopefully MSU will gain a bit in the meantime as a really good UM squad eats in to the Spartan recruiting a bit more than they can handle. This whole message probably sounds much like your Sooners/Cowboys/Golden Hurricane triangle only Oklahoma would whale on any of the Michigan teams right now, and so would Okie State. Tulsa, not so much...

Rich Rodriguez does look like a great coach. Quick turnarounds for his teams. For the Oklahoma teams, I am more of an OSU fan. OU is routinely good in football, but they have had some setbacks this year with injuries. I think that OSU had a letdown after the big Georgia win. Tulsa is actually a really good team for such a small division 1 school. My favorite team is the Texas Longhorns. I come from a long line of Longhorns in Texas. We have quite a big game next week. Hope it goes well. At least I will be able to see the game on tv this weekend.
--BJ

Uh oh. I've been saying for years (only half-jokingly) that I root for Texas A&M because, guess what? They hate Texas too! These things happen in sports I suppose, nothing personal. On a friendlier note, The ballpark in Arlington is now the last remnant of old Tiger Stadium in Detroit. The 'Old Grey Lady' as Ernie Harwell called it has recently been torn down. There has been a diamond on that site since the 1870's and now it's weeds and busted-up mess. In Arlington, the right field bleachers are modeled after Tiger Stadium, which was two tiers like that all the way around the field. The right field section actually overhung the playing field a bit and would grab a free homer every few weeks on a popout. The Arlington stands don't overhang the field but someone involved in designing the stadium liked the look of the Tiger's field and copied it. Oh yeah. I was trying to search for the name of that really good kick returner that Tulsa had a few years ago when they won that conference and played in a few bowl games but couldn't find it quicklike on Wikipedia. I did find that Tulsa is the smallest enrollment of all the 117 or so D1 schools.

29. Another Day, Another Dungeon by Greg Costikyan
I started reading this because I finally found (online) the companion volume 2 that I have been looking for since 1992 when I bought this from the Book Club. I remembered it at a somewhat farcical fantasy dungeon quest and I remembered it rightly. It is funny with just the right amount of cheese to make it really fun to read, like orcs with cockney accents and a barbarian that talks exactly like Schwarzennegger (Vere is vhisky. My head hurts like devil. Vhy not let me kill them. An epee? I do not sell such filth, ve have honest manly veapons here). In a nutshell, a few adventurers for hire and their wealthy wizard patron find a magical life sized statue of the last king of the realm in the caverns outside of town and sneak it back in to town to sell. Unfortunately, every little group in the underworld in town gets wind of it and wants to take it for themselves. I couldn't really remember the ending before I started, which was weird, but after I read it, I remembered why. There isn't one. Is just says 'THE END, or at least a shameless cliffhanger', right in the middle of a dinner as the heroes are deciding what to do with their treasure that they manage to keep, with some high placed help. It then morphs in to volume two 'One Quest, old the Dragons' which begins a month or so later, and I have read a few chapters of today.

That is an interesting way to end a book!

Actually, everyone it seems loves to hate Texas! But I grew up in Texas, and everyone there (at least in Central Texas, I know that TT has lots of fans these days) is either a Longhorn fan or an Aggie fan. Both are great people and both are your friends. Longhorns do not hate Aggies. I don't really think that Aggies hate Longhorns. Don't get me wrong -- that game at Thanksgiving is a major big deal and both teams really want to win, but after it is all over we are all still friends.

My daughter just started school at Rice University. She also applied to Tulsa. Both schools claimed to have the lowest division 1 enrollment. I think that Tulsa has done better of the two with the football program. But I always have a soft spot in my heart for Rice. I love watching their halftime show with the MOB (Mighty Owl Band).
--BJ

30. One Quest, Hold the Dragons by Greg Costikyan
More of the same. The heroes finally begin their quest with the magic statue and promptly have it stolen and have two silly adventures trying to recover it and yet they don't. The end. No more books in the series and even worse (at least to me), the book ends with an evil lich driving the heroes' wagon through a farmer's field and the horse dies. Apparently his lich status is weak as he doesn't just raise a zombie horse to pull the wagon tirelessly but goes off in search of another horse. Everybody knows that liches are masters of raising undead servants in any fantasy realm so this is inexcusable, at least in a book with no conclusion. I knew I was in trouble when I got the book in the mail and peeked at the last page to see if it said 'The End' and it said 'The, um, Intermezzo'. Dammit Jim, I'm a game designer, not a writer! This book was published in 1995 so I guess there is still a slim chance that more stories will be upcoming, but I have a feeling that a Monty Python reunion to make a movie of this story is about as likely, and it would be a good Python bit too.

Hey, DP!
There is only so much cliffhanger that I like in a book. I do like it have a real ending. One series that I started about a year ago was that one by Patrick Rothfuss called The Name of the Wind. I heard that the sequel was supposed to by published last April, but I cannot find it. Do you know anything about it? I know some people won't start a series until all of the books are published, but I think that all were written. Lots of people really liked the book. So I am guessing that it will be published. Anyway, I thought you might know about it. The first book is still for sale.

Last weekend was an exciting one for football. I wonder if Alabama and Florida will play each other? That would be a good game to see. I wish I had watched the USC-Washington game. I am going to the Rice-Vanderbilt game next weekend. I haven't been to a game at Rice stadium in a long time, so I can't wait to see it. I wonder how Vanderbilt is doing without Jay Cutler? I need to check their schedule out so far. And Michigan wins again. :)
--BJ

I really liked The Name of the Wind, enough to check out Rothfuss' website when I got fed up with waiting for book 2. He has the entire story basically done but it needs polishing into a proper novel. The problem is that he has had personal life problems, his mom died and he was so stressed out over the book that he had to quit his teaching job and some student advisory position to try to focus on finishing the book. Hopefully it will be ready soon!?...

Bama and Florida don't play this year until the SEC championship game, which I can't see either of them missing. That UM game was interesting. They played Eastern Michigan, a cross town rivalry as Ypsilanti is basically East Ann Arbor. And EMU's coach is Lloyd Carr's old defensive coordinator that Rich Rodriguez rather unceremoniously refused to keep around. They're not really pals, if you know what I mean. I have no idea what kind of talent Vandy has these days, if their staff is decent then they should have decent talent after finally doing something in conference recently. The schedule is fairly easy as the East division is much weaker than the west but it's still the SEC, and playing at Florida and Tenn is no picnic. Maybe it's not that much weaker now that I think about it. If they played each other a bit more often we might have a better idea but with the old rivalry games still being played there isn't much room for inter-division play.

Thanks so much for the info on Rothfuss. I am sorry that he has had so much to deal with. I really liked his book, also. I guess I will stop complaining and then when I see the title pop up around LT I look for it then.

Interesting story on UM. I kind of thought that MSU was also close by. I have never been there, but my daughter went to MSU for an Odyssey of the Mind competition once and loved it. I will cross by fingers for Rice. I noticed that they put some points on the board last Saturday, so maybe there is hope. :)
--BJ

MSU is only 50 miles or so From Ann Arbor, plus the MSU campus is in East Lansing anyway, which makes it closer. Not to mention both have major freeway exits. I think Eastern and UM should play more often, since Ann Arborers really look down on the Ypsiers and the EMU people in general think the Wolverine fans are snotty spoiled brats. Maybe it's similar to Dallas/Fort Worth. The last I knew, Rice still ran some sort of double wing/wishbone option offense from the 50's. I wish some school would man up and pound teams with the old Power T. I did Odyssey of the Mind back whenever that was, but I only got to go to Saginaw Valley State U. It was pretty much the first event at their fairly huge Ricker Center which marked their jump from SVSC to SVSU. They went from Delta Down the Road to a rather nice school with a nationally competitive D2 football team. Who knew? They've had 8 or 9 guys played in the NFL, most notably Paul Spicer in Jacksonville and that Herrimans guy in Philly on their O-Line.

Doesn't it seem like everyone runs the spread offense these days? I will enjoy seeing the wishbone from the glory days of football. I had never heard of Odyssey of the Mind until my kids were in I think middle school. My younger daughter just loved it and participated for all four years of high school. She wanted to continue in college, but she is just too busy with homework to do it for now.
--BJ

I'm sick of the spread offense, or as I call it, the Chuck and Duck. It's just so pansy-ish. Quit being cute and bust some heads.

31. Requiem of the Human Soul by Jeremy R. Lent
Here's my overdue thoughts on a great book by a new author. Not many books grab me at an emotional level, but this one certainly did. Usually I am interested in the story and outcome but the really great stories have characters that are interesting. Eusebio in this book is such a nice ordinary caring person that gets shanghaied into an intense situation that you just have to root for him, and you know he will make the right choices, and they will probably be the same ones you would make. Also, a first person narrative helps involve the reader personally in the story. Eusebio is a Native American History teacher on a Primal (non-genetically modified) reserve in the Midwest who wakes up in a hotel room in Manhattan. He has been 'selected' to represent the Primals in a UN trial to determine whether the Primals should be exterminated since the 'd-humans' are more resistant to disease, more caring, etc. During this trial we (I'll use some first person here as well) see examples of the horrors of man against both his fellow man and the environment as well. The 'Judge' on his trial is constantly twisting Eusebio's arguments about the purity of Aboriginal ways into an Inquisition of the supposedly educated Primals destroying the land and the ancient people that had made such beautiful Dream-like mythologies about their realms. I spent much of my time reading this book feeling disgusted over things from the past that I would have been so angry about at the time (unless I had already been burned at the stake or whatever) and hating Harry, the judge, for being such an obnoxious dinkhammer. Eusebio has so much emotion piled on top of him that he is overloaded and has to fall back on his Humanist 'Bible', the fictional works of Dr. Julius Schumacher, which seek to define the human soul, and makes up another layer of this story. Even with this, Eusebio is put in a very awkward position where he has to decide between letting what he considers true Humans be exterminated or detonating a nuclear device that has already been planted in the UN building by a prior operative. Again, the soul-searching by such a loving person is excellently written and is very heartfelt and honest. Mr. Lent, the author, is a talented writer with a great knack for keeping the reader interested in his powerful tale. And using the lyrics to Bob Dylan's 'A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall' as chapter headings is a great idea. The words of both send the reader (or listener) on a journey inward, in search of what makes us Human. I could go on for a while longer, but I will end with this. Not many books cross genre boundaries like this one. I suppose it is technically sci-fi but it would appeal to a much wider range of people of all religions and inclinations. It really shows the inner goodness of people that often gets wrung out when the group dominance begins, be it some annoying religious sect, an army, or societal prejudice. I highly recommend Requiem of the Human Soul to anyone who wonders at night about the human condition and how we are so different, and yet sometimes so like, the lower animals. It's really good.

OK-the Grand Prix is over, so I'll catch up with this...

32. Sundiver by David Brin
This is the first of six highly acclaimed books in the Uplift series that I have been looking forward to reading for years but could never find this volume. I bought it online so here goes. It starts after humans have genetically engineered both dolphins and chimpanzees into human level intelligences and added speech mechanisms. That makes man unique in the galaxy as sentience is bestowed by a patron species on a client species, hence the term Uplift. Man is the only species to have achieved entry into the galactic civilization without the aid of a patron and are elevated in this society by virtue of their two client species. This causes instant resentment from older races that foreshadows conflict in future books. In Sundiver, the bulk of the story takes place on Sundiving ships that are exploring the sun and discover a form of life that lives in the photosphere. A Hercule Poirot style mystery erupts when Bubbacub, a Pila alien, is caught manipulating events involving these sun beings, and hijinks ensue. There is no record in the immense galactic Library of life like these beings in the sun, fueling speculation that these are either the Patrons of mankind, or perhaps the original Progenitors that founded the galactic cultures billions of years ago. The series revolves around the search for these entities and the other races jealousy and hatred of humans and their clients, the dolphins and chimps. The writing is pretty clear, but there are a few fuzzy areas here and there. I don't have a problem with this, as the story continues on, but it's not perfect. The science is definitely emphasized and is in itself pretty interesting. You figure out a way to build a spaceship capable of entering the sun without sounding like a moron! I am a ways into book two, Startide Rising. It is much more dense and significantly longer. My early opinion is that it is hard to remember the characters as they are almost all dolphins with goofy names (Creideiki, K'tha-Jon, Keepiru, Tsh't, and about twenty more of two rival species of dolphin) and that they are pretty fortunate to have found an ocean world to hide on while they repair their ship. Several fleets duke it out in space for the right to capture them for information on a billions-year-old derelict fleet that they discovered way above the galactic plane, itself a freakish coincidence. More later.

33. Startide Rising by David Brin
Quite a complex work about a mostly dolphin crewed starship that discovers an ancient derelict fleet on the fringes of the galaxy and has to evade several enemy fleets to protect their find. They hide on a water world (pretty convenient) and use some clever tactics to escape after a major space battle. This book sets up the rest of the Uplift series. The length was a bit much, but by the time the book was finished, I had really learned alot about the characters and their interactions with each other and with the few humans on the 'Streaker'. Hopefully the rest of the series is as involved and interesting as this one.

So I was mentioning to my husband this morning about A&M's coach and he said that he had been at the Houston Texans. That rang a bell with me, so he must have told me about their new coach already. I just heard he was from the Texans, which gives a different impression than from Green Bay. Plus, my husband mentioned that a big O-line recruit just chose A&M over us. This all scares me for playing at College Station this year!! The rest of our season looks pretty tough. And most of it is on the road. My older daughter is at UT and is going to the OU game for the first time. I hope that it is a good one. Have you started that Door Into Ocean book? I have not even bought it yet. I am supposed to stop buying books these days. Which is slowing down the group reads unless I have the book already. I need to check the library. :)
--BJ

Mr. Sherman was a really good coach in GB, but he never really had the talent there after taking over for Mike Holmgren. I see plenty of the Packers in MI, and the cupboard was pretty bare when he started and never got that much better. Green Bay isn't a real hot free agent destination and they have brought in very few elite level FA's that I can recall (other than Reggie White). Sherman did alot with a decent at best team. He WAS Offensive Coordinator in Houston in 2007 before TAMU. News to me.
As far as the Door into Ocean goes, I'm not in a real hurry to read it. Right now I'm taking a break between the two Uplift trilogies (great, but long and involved) by reading Flags of our Fathers. Also on the list are Flyboys by the same guy, A Bridge To Far and a first edition Mysterious Affair at Styles. It says copyright 1920 so what else can I assume? If I had enjoyed that last one (Stars in my Pocket...) I would be much more eager to read it but the best thing about it was the title. I honestly wouldn't bother with it and try one of Delany's other books instead. I bought Babel-17 recently and hopefully it will be better. Or at least a complete readable book.

I never even made it through the prologue. I have lately kind of made it a mission to finish all the books that I am in the middle of, so I might finish it after all. But I just keep putting it off. I have heard good things about Flags of our Fathers, so I look forward to seeing what you think of it.

For some reason when you brought up Ralphie, I was thinking of Reveille (I don't know how to spell that). Talk about mixed up!!! I kind of like watching the buffalo run around the field. Although you must admit that they are using a young one at the game. Still think that Bevo would be in control. We went to Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks a few years ago and saw lots of buffalo. They are tremendous, beautiful animals. Pretty good mascot, if you ask me!
--BJ

That prologue was the best part even if it was dehumanizing. The rest is unfollowable flowery drivel that I couldn't understand with no sensible conclusion. Why it was nominated I'll never know.

34. The Uplift War by David Brin
I have a sneaky suspicion that this Uplift Saga will be better than the sum of it's parts, like the old Shannara books. This was another long story about neo-chimpanzees trying to survive in an isolated mountain region against overwhelming odds. The Gubru birdlike aliens were a great and well thought out enemy and I really enjoyed the guerilla/gorilla pun aspect. The Tymbrimi aliens are one of the few 'eatees' that are allied with the 'wolfling' humans and their clan, and the Tymbrimi enjoy a good joke. As in Startide Rising, the characters are very well developed and the situations are pretty reasonable. Brin does a great job showing the reader human actions and thoughts through very alien minds, which is nice. All in all, these have been great stories with incredible but yet realistic characters so far, and trying to describe the thoughts and feelings of a fully sentient dolphin or chimp can't be easy. Although, what can you compare his story against in reality. I bet there is more of the same in the second trilogy. Oh yeah-his Earth book is one of the most outstanding SF books ever and predicted many technologies we have today. If you are a visiting NASA lecturer you might have an inside track on new ideas, but I think the SF author 'predicting the future of technology' idea is more like 'the techs that go into engineering fields all read SF novels' and that's where they get their ideas. But hey, as long as William Shatner has a flip open cell phone that plays the old Star Trek chime as Denny Crain (!) on Boston Legal, I don't care which way that argument goes. Now back to the very emotionally involved Flags of our Fathers...

36. The Mysterious Affair at Styles
37. Five Little Pigs both by Agatha Christie
There isn't much to say that hasn't been said about Christie or monsieur Poirot. Again, at Styles, the chance meeting of Poirot and a friend from the continent in England is a bit contrived, but there wouldn't be much of a story if he hadn't been invited to investigate the murder of Mrs. Inglethorp. Five Little Pigs was the most interesting scenario of all the Christie mysteries I have read this summer, excepting The Labours of Hercules. A young lady asks Poirot to investigate her father's murder from when she was a young child, of which her mother was convicted and died in prison. Caroline, the mother, had written a letter expressing her innocence to her daughter, to be opened when she was 21. The way Poirot smooth-talked the five witnesses, suspects, piggies, whatever that were involved in the poisoning of a fairly famous painter was excellent. And the misleading trail of clues was a well planned trap. For once I thought I had actually solved a murder mystery using Poirot's methods, but I was wrong and overlooked a few clues. I did grasp some of the more nuanced clues and made inferences in the discrepancies of the 5 written testamonials that the monsieur collected for his, ahem, book he was consulting on. Oh well. I don't think the Chritie mysteries are meant to be solved as the clues are often written in misleading ways, and the fun is seeing how they are properly threaded together. I'm glad these books are rather short as I think I would quickly tire of one that was too long.
I have one more of these that I plan to read soon, By The Pricking of My Thumbs which I will follow up with Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes. These two titles are taken from a line by one of the witches in Macbeth and it just seems right to read them together, especially this time of year. Then I have to finish that Uplift series, Robert the Bruce, Flyboys and Don Quixote by Christmas. That's better than digging ditches I suppose.

Krikey!
35. Flags of our Fathers by James Bradley will be posted soon

A&M sure had a long day yesterday. Michigan is still on a roll. And Colorado beat Kansas. ND almost caught up with USC. And Florida had a close one with Arkansas!! This is a surprising year for football. I have a feeling that Alabama will get the #1 ranking.
--BJ

I don't think beating Delaware State counts as on a roll, especially after losing to MSU and Iowa. Plus Del St forfeited a conference game for $500,000 and a spanking saturday. Bama is easily the best team in the nation, they have NFL players at almost every position.

Did you see that Ohio State lost to Purdue? We rewatched the UT-OU game today. We saw where Colt injured his thumb. Funny, I had noticed it during the game, but he never came out so I forgot about it. I hope that Bradford is going to be ok.

Turns out that Florida beat Alabama in the BCS rankings. I don't see how. We couldn't find the scores anywhere, so we don't know how close it was. But I guess it won't matter because they will play each other.
--BJ

hi my name is joshua i just sign up but not such how is work

I just popped in to say that during the Rutgers game both Lou Holtz and Desmond Howard picked Michigan to upset Penn State tomorrow. I'll be pulling for Michigan on this game!
--BJ

Who knows with UM? That spread option either works or it doesn't and when it doesn't, it's really bad. The Big House is magical and anything can happen. Plus, Desmond is a Wolverine and won the Heisman by the largest margin ever in '91. The nice thing for me today was finally seeing Michie Stadium. That is a classic old yard that has hosted many a great game and I have never seen it on TV other than old newsreel footage of Mr. Inside and Mr. Outside in the '40's.

What a busy few weeks! Between an ear/equilibrium problem, yard and house work, football, and World Series baseball (good god I hate the yankees so very very much! I wish I had $250 million a year to buy a baseball team. They're such dinks!) I very definitely slacked on my thread here. Ergo, I'll start catching up today/tonight/tomorrow because I'm really behind.

35. Flags of our Fathers by James Bradley
Now here's how you write a history book! This follows the life of the six Marines that are in the famous picture that was later made in to statues to honor the Marine Corps. There names were Mike Strank, Franklin Sousley and Harlon Block, Ira Hayes, Rene Gagnon and John Bradley. The first three died in action and never made it off Iwo Jima. Mr. Bradley is the author's father, and by refusing to talk to his family about the battle, indirectly inspiring his son to write this fine book. There is a rather brief look at their childhood, details of their training and their action on Iwo and a few chapters on the War Bond fundraising tours that the survivors were asked to participate in. A large part of the narrative is taken from quotes and writings of the six soldiers and their friends, families and soldier buddies, as many people as the author could find to talk to. To me, that's what sets this book apart from the majority of bland history texts. There is definitely a personal and emotional connection that is rare in the non-fiction world. I highly recommend it to casual readers who may not want to read a war story about arguably the most horrific battle in the modern era. The blood and guts is kept to a minimum (but what constitutes the minimum in such a bloody battle?) and the emotion on many levels is important and should be read by every American to get a sense of what our soldiers have had to do in a REAL war.

And just for BJ, I can quite calmly predict a Texas/Alabama BCS game. Nobody is beating either team until they face off for the so-called national championship. The next team to step up and smash Florida will knock them out, be it Bama or whoever. They lost to Mississippi State and the refs gave them that win on a silver platter. I've never seen a ref hang his head in shame after a review like that and there's a fair chance he was told by some higher conference official to let Florida keep that TD. Screw Florida and screw the Yankees.

Hey, DP! I hope that you are right about Texas. However, I have learned the hard way not to count chickens before they are hatched in football. :) I think Bama got a few good calls over LSU, too. I am thinking especially about that incomplete interception and then the bizarre timeout call. I think that staying focused and staying healthy are the keys. Why is USC ranked so high?

That book sounds great. I have got to get a copy of that. I will be in Austin briefly, so maybe I can check at HPB. Didn't Clint Eastwood do a movie of it? I never saw that either. Of course, I remember the old John Wayne movie, was it The Sands of Iwo Jima? I am thinking of the one where they show the Marines raising the flag just like the statue.

The other night I was flipping through the channels and found The Blob on TCM. I love that movie. Apparently, it did not do all that well at the box office. Yet three later movies. Later fame by Steve McQueen kind of gave it new life.

I hope that you are feeling better now. Sorry about the Yankees winning. I usually only watch college baseball because the World Series gets in the way of football. But my Grandpa was the biggest Atlanta Braves fan due to WTBS showing all of their games.

By the way, I am just wondering why Florida is always, always ranked #1. My husband says just because of Tebow.
--BJ

I see I forgot to mention that there was an Eastwood movie based on the book (Flags of our Fathers). And in 'Sands of Iwo Jima', Misters Bradley, Hayes, and Gagnon were actually used in the movie. As far as Florida goes, they are just popular, which is all the ranking system really is. Same with USC. The media/ESPN poll is designed around setting up big ratings TV matchups between schools with a national fan base. That's why the small conference schools get rammed every year. But is TCU really better than USC? Probably not. There really needs to be a playoff system, of which I have one figured out. Take the 10 conference champions and the top 2 remaining teams (or a ranked independent, whatever). The four lowest teams have a play-in game to get into the 8 game playoff, seed them by ranking and play it out using the existing bowl games that no one cares about except the people in, say, Shreveport. That seems simple enough. Too simple by half, I'm afraid.
As far as baseball goes, I have to follow it on sheer principle, after watching 130 or so Tigers games this year. After watching them get pinched in the strike zone all year, both batting and pitching, I had to see what kind of calls were made in the playoffs. If you don't believe me, reference Placido Polanco being rung up in that play-in game between the Tigers and Twins. He jumped back from a ball a foot inside that almost hit him in the knee and he was rung up to end a late rally in the tenth inning. That game summed up everything wrong with the Tigers' season. Refereeing and umpiring has really gone down the tubes in the last 5 years or so. This replay junk has ruined the ref's decisiveness and they make bad calls or let goofy things happen in the interest of replay. i've almost had it. I can whiff a conspiracy to try and set up teams that draw bigger ratings in championship games. Just look at the NBA. don't watch any games, but look at how shady their refs are.

38. By The Pricking Of My Thumbs by Agatha Christie
39. Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury
I read these together in honor of the quote by one of the witches from Macbeth (it's early in Act IV, Scene 1). The Christie was by far the better, but only because I really didn't care for the Bradbury. It was so filled with alliterations and metaphors that I grew very tired of trying to figure out what Bradbury was trying to describe and was very happy that the book was short. Alot of the images were pretty neat, but it was like watching a black and white french movie without the subtitles. I really liked the description of one of the boys who 'heard the ticking of other clocks that tell of other times'. There was just way too much of that for my liking, which is a bit of a shame. I really liked The Illustrated Man and The Martian Chronicles, but this was not for me, even considering that Mr. Dark (or was it Mr. Cooger?) IS the Illustrated Man. Oh, well.
By the Pricking of My Thumbs was quite different from the near Victorian age Poirot and Miss Marples that I have been reading this summer. It's a Tommy and Tuppence story and is, as Porua said in her (his?) thread, it is more of a thriller story rather than a classic mystery. With the setting in the '60's somewhere, the difference was quite startling. T&T were involved in some WWII intelligence operations (and books), but this is set well after their retirement. They visit an old aunt in a nursing home, who later dies and leaves a painting of a house to her dear family. Tuppence is sure she has seen the house from a railway car and sets out to, and actually does, find it. Along with a decades old unsolved child-murder mystery which unfolds very quickly at the end. There was alot of build-up to a very rapid finish. I would not say this is my favo(u)rite of Christie's mysteries, but it's not too bad, and I really would like to read more of the Tommy and Tuppence books, just to be thorough. Apparently she wrote this one because she was tired of fans asking her what had happened to the two characters.

38. By The Pricking Of My Thumbs by Agatha Christie
39. Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury
I read these together in honor of the quote by one of the witches from Macbeth (it's early in Act IV, Scene 1). The Christie was by far the better, but only because I really didn't care for the Bradbury. It was so filled with alliterations and metaphors that I grew very tired of trying to figure out what Bradbury was trying to describe and was very happy that the book was short. Alot of the images were pretty neat, but it was like watching a black and white french movie without the subtitles. I really liked the description of one of the boys who 'heard the ticking of other clocks that tell of other times'. There was just way too much of that for my liking, which is a bit of a shame. I really liked The Illustrated Man and The Martian Chronicles, but this was not for me, even considering that Mr. Dark (or was it Mr. Cooger?) IS the Illustrated Man. Oh, well.
By the Pricking of My Thumbs was quite different from the near Victorian age Poirot and Miss Marples that I have been reading this summer. It's a Tommy and Tuppence story and is, as Porua said in her (his?) thread, it is more of a thriller story rather than a classic mystery. With the setting in the '60's somewhere, the difference was quite startling. T&T were involved in some WWII intelligence operations (and books), but this is set well after their retirement. They visit an old aunt in a nursing home, who later dies and leaves a painting of a house to her dear family. Tuppence is sure she has seen the house from a railway car and sets out to, and actually does, find it. Along with a decades old unsolved child-murder mystery which unfolds very quickly at the end. There was alot of build-up to a very rapid finish. I would not say this is my favo(u)rite of Christie's mysteries, but it's not too bad, and I really would like to read more of the Tommy and Tuppence books, just to be thorough. Apparently she wrote this one because she was tired of fans asking her what had happened to the two characters.

40. Flyboys by James Bradley
It's pretty rare when the nice lady at your local bookstore (Sleepy Hollow Books in Midland MI) loans you a book that she wants you to read. Joey asked me to read this and I put it off for a while because I knew that there would be alot about the war atrocities on both sides of the Pacific War. I was right. This book tells the long hidden tale of several carrier pilots that were shot down near Chichi Jima and held prisoner on the island. Chichi is the next island after Iwo on the way to Japan. Their few days on the island were not very cool at all. There are similarities with Flags of our Fathers in that the author interviewed many people who knew these airmen when they were alive, but the background depth and set-up is much more extensive. This is to set the stage for explaining the extreme barbarism on both sides of this sad conflict. Bradley goes so far as to describe how the US sent armed warships into Tokyo bay after Japan had closed its borders for over a century to the West, the US invasion of the Phillippines (kill everyone over age ten), andthe evolution of the Westernized Japanese military. Oh, and the whole Rape of Nanking thing. Lots of gruesome deeds are described, but as a history buff, sometimes you have to walk through the blood to try and understand why man can be so animalistic to his fellow man. It's actually really outstanding historical writing.

41. The History of the Circle: Mathematical Reasoning and the Physical Universe by Ernest Zebrowski
I had to then purge myself with some logic and found this little gem at the local library. The title is a bit of a misnomer, but it does trace the story of the circle and its best friend π. The bulk of the book describes the nature of mathematical theory and how it differs from physical reality, but in a readable way. Seriously. Most math books that are marketed towards the 'general reader' really can be too much for a serious mathophobe, but this one is actually accessible and I recommend it heartily to the interested reader. The formulas are fairly minimal and quite simple, and the myriad of ways that π pops up in strange places is astounding, if you stop to think about it.

42. The Road to Infinity by Isaac Asimov
Aahhh, Asimov. How I enjoy thee! Here is a collection of somewhat dated but still great essays on science, taken from his long standing column in fantasy & Science Fiction Magazine. These are really good, and the master's logic trails are interesting to study. For example, he narrows down the possible life bearing planets in the galaxy to 50 million out of the few billion stars in the Milky Way, in the ironically titled 'Fifty Million Big Brothers'. Or how he explains why the Sun may have an unknown and unnoticed binary partner orbiting around out there somewhere. There are actually a few theories of this vein floating around out there nowadays, as in Lost Star of Myth and Time. If it sounds interesting to you it will be, if it doesn't, it won't. So be it. Still, science lectures from Asimov should be required reading somewhere if I had to choke down To Kill A Mockingbird in High School.

OK, this has taken over an hour and I'm anxious to read some of my Tolkien Miscellany. What outstanding stuff! 'There was a village once, not very long ago for those with long memories, nor very far away for those with long legs.' What a great way to start a story, especially one called Smith of Wootton Major. British names are so funny. Oh yeah, the 40th season of Sesame Street starts tomorrow and I'm actually getting up on my day off to watch it. I've been surprised with how funny it is for the grown-ups who watch it with little kids.

Hey, DP! You have read lots of books! I did not realize that the movie The Sands of Iwo Jima had those three in it! Now, I want to see it again. With Veteran's Day coming up, I bet it will be on tv.

I totally agree about the play-off system. It is really the only fair way to do things. I also think that bowl games can be incorporated into it. How else will we know if Boise State could have beaten everyone the year they beat OU? (By the way, I loved that they used the Statue of Liberty play, which I had always heard of but never seen, in that game! That made the whole season for me.)

I have read lots of Agatha Christie but I don't think that I have ever read one of the Tommy and Tuppence books. I hope to read more AC next year. The 999 Challenge controlled too much of my reading this year.

What did you think of all those clips of the girl in the soccer game for New Mexico against BYU? I have never seen anything like it.
--BJ

Hi! Wow, you have read quite a few Agatha Christie books this year and other than By the Pricking of my Thumbs; I've read each and every one of them. It feels great to see that someone else enjoys these books too! I loved The Labours of Hercules! Speaking of short stories and AC, I’d like to recommend The Thirteen Problems (or The Tuesday Club Murders as it is sometimes called) to you. It combines two of my favorite things, short stories and Miss Marple.

43. Sherlock Holmes was Wrong: Reopening the Case of The Hound of the Baskervilles by Pierre Bayard
Egad, I say. Whatever is this? Apparently 823.912 is the Dewey number for criticism and commentary on 19th and 20th century English authors, so as I ogled my way through a shelf of books looking for Tolkien commentary, I saw things like 'The James Joyce Companion', several Agatha Christie readers, a dozen books about Dickens, and this one that caught my eye. It presents an astoundingly sound re-examination of the case and also had some essaying about the reality of fictional characters. Really, it was more like two short books mixed together. The author discussed how we psychologically enter the realm of fictional characters (which is what makes the good stories so universally appealing), and, in their own way, the fictional personas enter into our reality. This is more obvious with Holmes, as his methods of observation and deduction are quite handy and impressive. I have amazed people by noticing the white line where a ring has been or asking someone where they got their pantlegs wet on a sunny day. I love the human intellect. It's such a fun buddy to have around. But I digress from my point. Apparently Conan Doyle really grew to hate Holmes because the clamor for more Holmes tales took time away from what he considered his more important writings, like the White Company and all that other stuff of his that almost nobody reads. That's why he killed of Holmes at Reichenbach Falls and had to invent an anti-Holmes to carry out the murder. The public uproar was such that his publishers demanded more Holmes stories and Conan Doyle did so reluctantly, and only with the doubling of his royalties. Bayard then goes on to show how Doyle's hatred for Holmes carried into that return story, The Hound of the Baskervilles. He builds up a surprisingly strong case around Holmes errors, of which there are actually several in the corpus of stories, shows how Doyle portrayed Holmes as a feral hound himself, points out that Holmes is actually absent in person from almost the entire story, then finishes with an alternative solution that actually makes more sense than the original. I was very surprised with this book, most notably with the psychological reality of fiction part. That alone made this a fairly valuable read and explains why fantasy lovers really, really love their favorites. Or why others hate it, I suppose. The bit about Doyle was fairly old news to me, but it may not be to others, and the parsing of a fictional story was the highlight of the book in theory, but was actually not that important. It's not like Monsieur Bayard found Jimmy Hoffa's body or solved some real crime. Still, I say if your library has this book, go ahead and check it out as it is a pretty fulfilling and yet short read. Oh, Bayard also wrote Who Killed Roger Ackroyd? along the same lines, and as a minor warning he throws in a total spoiler of Christie's Towards Zero as part of his theory about the Baskerville murders.

I forgot to mention above that the French author uses a French translation for his thesis and the english translator has to do some fancy footnote work to explain a few oddities that in no way diminish the overall message. And in his 'Who Killed Roger Ackroyd?' book, he apparently spoils many Christie mysteries in an analysis of her writing and clue hiding methods. Just a friendly warning that you can read for yourself in the member reviews here on LT.

As to that women's soccer mauling (there's three words that should never go together) I don't know what to say. I've never seen anything like that in sports, except in pro wrestling, which doesn't really count. At least in the repeatedness of it, anyway, as I have seen plenty of dirty tricks like that in the singular. Why was there no ejection? Are the referees awful in NCAA soccer too? Probably. What to do about it? Her collegiate career is over as far as I'm concerned, but I'd bet she makes money out of it by boxing or trying out for MMA or the WWF. Excuse me, it's the WWE now and has been for several years. My apologies to panda bears everywhere.

Also I did check out the Tuesday Club Murders while at the Library, as well as Murder on the Orient Express, which I have waited for all summer and the aforementioned Towards Zero, just to see what it's like. I noticed it was dedicated to Robert Graves, who is one of the few classical authors that I have gotten into on recent years by reading The White Goddess, which is awesome, and his Greek Myths. I've decided that if I keep seeing the same books in Bibliographies and Endnotes that I should read them as well. He also wrote a really nice Foreword in my New Larousse Encyclopedia of Mythology. As far as his poetry is concerned, I'd really like to read more.

I really wish I had seen that Boise St./Oklahoma game in full. I spent an ornery evening helping a friend move in to my apartment during that game, which involved me and good pal Scott hauling our buddy's stuff down the stairs and packing it into a minivan and a K-car while our erstwhile pal sat upstairs and packed trash bags full of his crap. I saw that Statue of Liberty play and three plays in overtime and perhaps 5 or 6 plays in the second quarter. Boy was I mad, but not as mad as when he stiffed me on rent, threw fits at the neighbors to where they called the police and was a general pain which cost me a rather nice apartment and I had to move my library yet again.

44. A Tolkien Miscellany by J.R.R. Tolkien
This is a collection of Tolkien's short faerie stories that are a delight to read for yourself and a greater delight to read to a receptive youngster. My nephew always alls asleep when I read to him, which is handy. The miscellany contains Smith of Wootton Major (my favorite of the bunch), Farmer Giles of Ham, The Songs of Tom Bombadil, Leaf by Niggle and it's accompanying essay on the nature and allure of faerie stories, as well as his translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, which is bundled with Sir Orfeo (a similar tale in some ways to the homecoming of Odysseus) and The Pearl. The last one is a sad poem about a man whose daughter dies and he laments the loss of his 'pearl'. I couldn't finish it but I'm sure I'll read it for completenesses sake at some point soon. I've learned the hard way that the better collection is Tales From The Perilous Realm, as it has all the children's stories plus Roverandom and it includes some great pencil art by Alan Lee. The Tales does not have Sir Gawain, but that seemed out of place with the rest of the stories in the Miscellany. Tolkien was clearly a master of language and these simple little tales really attest to that. Truly fun, put a smile on your face reads. The Sir Gawain stuff is very different and is more of a serious scholarly read.

45. The Tuesday Club Murders by Agatha Christie
A nice little gem and discovered through a kind recommendation. I wouldn't say it's the best of the Miss Marple books, but it would make for a nice introduction to the old lady. The book is basically a short story collection of neat ideas that may not have been worthy of a novel of their own. As usual, there are a few twists involving the main characters, which are the dinner guests discussing mysterious murders that they have been witnesses to or whatever. All of the stories were intriguing and I actually figured out a few of them, notably the Blue Geranium story. Science class pays off at the strangest of times.

I'm off to do some Tolkien study, reading T.A. Shippey's commentary/biographies. Shippey was Tolkien's successor at Oxford and a personal friend and I'm curious to see an objective(?) view of the old master's literary evolution. After that, I plan to read those few Christie books from the library, followed by the Dragonlance books I've been so tardy getting to. That should take me up to Christmas and well past my 50 book mark for the year. And only since early May! Not too shabby, although I read more shorter works (Christie, vintage SF, etc.) and less of the big scholarly history books I'm used to. The World History of Warfare, Don Quixote, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire and R.A. Schwaller de Lubicz's esoteric masterpiece The Temple of Man (over 1000 dense pages in two huge profusely illustrated volumes that cost me $125) are some pretty major books to get to after the holidays. And that Robert the Bruce biography that keeps getting shuffled down the line. And the second part of the Uplift Saga. And, well, as Johann Strauss used to say after a certain long piece of waltz variations, 'And so on and so on!'. Dang...

But isn't it nice to have so many great books to look forward to?

My husband said that soccer player is the Tonya Harding of soccer. The coach must have known that she was behaving that way and did not stop it. I think that is terrible.

Sorry that you have such bad memories of the OU-Boise State game. I think that it comes on ESPN classic occasionally. Do you ever watch old football games on tv? We do. Another old fav is the Stanford-Cal game where the band came on the field. I saw that one live, too, and it is one that I will never forget. Talk about don't count your chickens before they are hatched!!!

You read such interesting books. I am adding the book about Sherlock Holmes to my wishlist so that I will remember to look for it. Hope you have a good Thanksgiving! :)
--BJ

I have seen that Boise game on ESPN Classic a few years ago, but we just have basic cable these days and no satellite. I used to watch old games on Classic and the College Sports network several years ago. I think it's part of the Fox networks now. I remember watching an amazing Notre Dame at Ohio State game from 1920. The formations were cool, like the tackle snapping the ball at an angle over three RB's to a fourth on the other side of the formation, 7 and 8 man fronts, and the neatest option plays out of some sort of box formation of four RB's. Actually the neatest thing was the eerie similarity of the band then and now and the sideline cameras still way up high in the exact same spot. Must be a well designed old Horseshoe.
I remembered that I need to read the supposedly classic Red Mars, Green Mars, Blue Mars series as well. That book about Holmes and Doyle was way more interesting than I anticipated and hopefully your library has it. It's probably not worth a purchase unless it falls in to your lap for a pittance, but still worthy of an evening's pondering. As is a good Conan story, but they may not mix well with your Letters of Pope Pius the Whatever. Actually, you might be surprised; Conan is a bit different than you think, which is probably influenced by that mish-mash Schwarzennegger movie.

#121 So glad you liked The Tuesday Club Murders! As for me, I LOVE this book but then I love everything Marple. I do wish there were more of her stories. Sigh!

The Blue Geranium is one of my favorites from the book. I also love The Tuesday Night Club, The Idol House of Astarte, The Bloodstained Pavement, The Companion, The Four Suspects, A Christmas Tragedy and The Herb of Death. The Idol House of Astarte gave me the chills even though I read it on a bus filled with my chattering classmates while on the way to a fieldtrip! But that was a few years ago.

Hey, DP!
Did you see that LSU game? Oh my gosh!! I could not believe it. And poor Notre Dame, although I did not see that one. We have our big rivalry game this Thursday.

We went about 15 years with no cable at all. Plus our duplex that we were renting most of that time was in a low spot with no antennae so we really got no tv at all. We had to go to a sports bar and grill to see football games on tv. At least I didn't have to cook dinner those nights. :) I think that football was what I missed most in those years.

I think that I will like the Conan story. The reason I haven't started it yet is that I have two challenges left to finish. And I have totally fallen off the Group Reads -- SciFi and Group Reads -- Literature groups. I hope that maybe someday I will be able to catch up. Luckily for my genre challenge I get to read a Tom Clancy book which I haven't read in a long time. I will never forget reading The Hunt for the Red October back in those days of no tv. That was the first Clancy book I ever read, and it is still my favorite.

Happy Turkey Day!!
--BJ

46. Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie
I hadn't had any plans to read this but it was sitting on the shelf at the library for the first time all summer. At least, I hadn't seen it and, as my mom always told me, "Just because you don't see it, doesn't mean it's not there", so I grabbed it. I came close to reading it in one evening, just nodding off at the conclusion. Without going in to details and spoiling the story, I thought it was silly how some of the characters were familiar with each other, and also how such an odd group would be traveling on a train through Eastern Europe, but then I had a similar idea to Poirot's and voila, mon ami. My little grey cells did their job. This one seemed a tad too obvious, given all the coincidences, but any Poirot is at least intellectually entertaining.

47. The Road to Middle-Earth by T. A. Shippey
Wow. The genius of Tolkien is herewith explained in this biography of the master's mind and thought processes by the professor who took over Tolkien's Chair at Oxford upon his retirement. The best way to explain this book is through examples, that being the origin of the names of Bree, Frodo, Baggins, and Sackville-Baggins. Mind that these are just a small few examples in a fairly large book filled with references to old sagas and poems of the middle ages. Bree is from the villiage of Brill, near Oxford, which is a shortening of Bree-Hill. Bree is Welsh for hill, hence Brill is a contraction of what technically translates as Hill-Hill, and was given life as the town of Bree on Bree-Hill (similar is the nearby town of Chetwode, wood-wood). Baggins comes from an archaic word for a four o'clock tea. Sackville-Baggins is probably the best example of his thought. Tolkien hated 'interloper' French words from after the Norman invasion corrupting his 'precious' Old English. Cul-de-sac is obviously french, but it is nonsense, coming from a time when anything that even sounded french must be better than English (1300's). So, to show his ire and displeasure, Bilbo's despised cousins are the Sac(k)ville-Bagginses. Even the -ville is french. Frodo is from an old Scandanavian saga about Fenja, Menja, and their mill that grinds out gold, peace and prosperity. The king of this time was Froda, apparently a pre-Christian Christ-like figure who reigned over a peaceful friendly time when there was no crime nor interest in crime. Eventually Fenja and Menja grew bored grinding out peace and created a war band to destroy Froda's realm. Destruction ensues, including that of the giantesses Fenja and Menja and their mill, which now sits in the mythic maelstrom at the bottom of the sea grinding out salt. As an aside, much has been written about this myth, from its first known telling in pre-civilization Iran (Ugartic? I don't feel like wandering to the basement to research so I'll trust my memory), through Europe to Norway, and even in Hamlet (derived from the older form Amlodhi or Amhlodi). If you dare, find a copy of the complex Hamlet's Mill: An Essay Investigating the Origins of Human Knowledge And Its Transmission Through Myth by Giorgio De Santillana and Hertha von Dechend. Also, he used the word pipe-weed instead of tobacco because tobacco is a spanish version of a native American word, like potato or tomato, and thus did not fit with his Old English etymology. Hence Sam Gamgee's talk about his Gaffer's 'taters' and not potatoes. Denethor's funeral is copied from the first few verses of Beowulf, Bilbo and Gollum's riddle contest is taken from this saga and Bilbo's interview with Smaug is from that one, etc., etc., etc., and so on. Unless you really enjoy language study or are curious as to the timeless appeal of middle-Earth, this would actually be some pretty dull reading. Luckily, I'm set on both counts.

48. Towards Zero by Agatha Christie
I felt like reading this one as it was completely spoiled by Sherlock Holmes was Wrong (see above #118). How could I Turn down such an opportunity to study methods as I went along? Admittedly, it takes some of the fun out, but there was a different level of interest involved by knowing the solution in advance. This story has to rank right up there with the best of Christie that I have read, but it probably would not be very high in any poll of her fans. I could have done without the part at the very end with McWhirter (for anyone familiar,as I wouldn't dare spoil a mystery story by giving out details). Still, I really liked the clarity and depth of description without overdwelling on it. Maybe that has something to do with this particular book being dedicated to Robert Graves, who is a master of the English language. To connect him with my earlier comments on Tolkien, they were both contemporaries, both WWI veterans, both Oxford folk, and both poets. I really wish to read more of his works in the next few years, such as 'I, Claudius', his novelized version of the Iliad 'The Anger of Achilles', and some other Greek heroic material that he has translated. I should even check out his poetry, even though poetry and I go together like a chocolate covered steak, of course with whipped cream.
Anyway, I'd like to finish this very short Tad Williams story before I start my 50th, which will be J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of the Century, and then I shall start a new 50 with Great Expectations. A good friend spent the better part of a year reading Tad Williams' mammoth Memory, Sorrow and Thorn trilogy per my recommendation (it's actually four volumes in the paperback as the final book was so huge). We have had some chats about who the greatest authors are ever and he had the idea flash into his head, 'Hey! That dickens guy wrote stuff 150 years ago and people still read them and love them. Must be pretty good and I have GE downstairs. Let me get it...' So now he says I owe him one and as a lure he claims that I AM Pip, so it's off to the library again next week. We even had a weird quinkydink moment after discussing those fancy ebook readers. I told him I was waitingto read Dickens and some of the old clasics until I got one, because I'm out of room in my library and don't feel like spending hundreds of dollars on stuff I might not like, when I have an extensive ebook library on my computer. He chided me and said that there is nothing better than having an actual book and all that and not to limit my library, blah, blah. Then the Best Buy commercial came on where they are singing that fake christmas carol about ebook readers and headphones and at the end when they showed the actual reader, guess what was on it's display. Dickens' A Christmas Carol. Take that, you old curmudgeon! And if you're wondering what our little consensus on great authors is, how about Asimov, Robert Howard, Stephen Lawhead, E.R. Burroughs, Tolkien, Tad Williams and now Dickens. There are many more greats, but these are the ones that we agree on.

Dickens is one of my favorite authors. I've enjoyed reading Great Expectations immensely. Hope you like it too. I too have an extensive ebook collection on my computer but I do not own an ebook reader yet. Maybe some day I'll get one of those but I do like having an actual book in my hand.

Hey, DP!
That Middle-Earth book looks great! I am having serious computer problems, so when my computer is working better, I will add it to my wishlist.

Just a quick question since my computer could stop working at any moment. What do you think about the rumor that Bob Stoops is going to Notre Dame? Initially, I thought no way. But it just keeps growing. I am conflicted about it as I am a big Notre Dame fan, but not so much a Stoops fan. Would he really leave OU where he has been in 3 or 4 National Championship games to go to ND?

How about those Aggies? They look scary good!!
--BJ

49. Child of an Ancient City by Tad Williams and Nina Kikiri Hoffman
I love Tad Williams. Well, at least his writing. Let's not get too overboard here. This is a pretty awesome but short story in a Scherezade mold, where a sultan is called upon during a drunken revel to tell a story. His tale is one where he is much younger, in a group of soldiers accompanying a caravan from Araby into the Caucasus mountains. They are attacked by some brigands, and the few survivors try to escape back to the desert. However, the vampyr stalking them has other ideas. They know from a young lad that they apprehend that the vampyr must stop to listen to any stories told to it, and that this is their only chance to survive. So this is what they do, until the vampyr walks up to their fire and declares his boredom. It challenges them to a contest of sad tales. If the wanderers win, they are free to go, but if the vampyr wins, he gets to eat one of their members.
Vampyr tales are always so grim and foreboding that I usually don't like them, but if Tad Williams writes one, I might as well try it. He uses the best metaphors (or are they similies?), like 'The vampyr's laugh sounded like bark being ripped from a rotting tree.' Or, from his Otherland series, 'Getting him to do anything was like pushing butter through a stone.' Great stories, great characters, even in a book as short as this one, but he does push the boundary of too much data. Within sight of the border, but not too close. Anything by Mr. Williams is to be immediately read, at least until you run out of books, then you have to make do with his mutterings on his website. The only things by him that I haven't read yet is his debut Tailchaser's Song, because I really dislike cats, and his multiple new series that are as yet incomplete. And the 8 or so issues of Aquaman that he wrote a few years ago. Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn is, in my opinion, the best modern fantasy story out there, just for sake of saying.

I'm pretty much done with J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of the Century, which will be #50. Yay! It's very similar to The Road to Middle-Earth, but a bit more general and written with 20 or so years more of hindsight and posthumous publications. They make a nice pair of books about Tolkien and each has some merits over the other. A nice omnibus edition of them together would be nice, but the similarities would make that seem unlikely.
I'm actually going to spend an evening with JRRT's Father Christmas Letters before I dive in to the Dickens. I really should have grabbed A Christmas Carol while at the library, but I don't think it was in. If I had seen it, I think I would have snagged that up for a holiday season read.

Congrats on reaching book 50!!

And so many good ones, too!
--BJ

50. J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of the Century by Tom Shippey.
This is a bit of an anticlimactic way to end my challenge but I think I've said all I need to say about this book above in #132 & #127. Plus my desk lamp just burned out, so it's hard to see a black keyboard. I've had that lamp for years and it's had the same bulb in it. I hope I can find a replacement for this mystery unmarked bulb...

Let's all wander off to ...
http://www.librarything.com/topic/78753