I Like Bugs

I Like Bugs by Margaret Wise Brown, illustrated by G. Brian Karas, afterward by Leonard S. Marcus

A kid mentions all the ways that he likes bugs. It is s simple story that enables fun illustrations.

Half Magic

Half Magic by Edward Eager

Some kids find a magic charm that grants wish - sort of. It only grants half of what is wish for. How this half ends up outside your control. You may end up halfway there, or get half of something. The kids go oon some crazy adventures and have some bizarre things happen. They eventually realize that they can wish for double what they want to try to get it. It is short and must have been fun to write.

The Two Towers: Book Two in the Lord of the Rings Trilogy

The Two Towers: Book Two in the Lord of the Rings Trilogy by J.R.R. Tolkien

The audiobook production of Two Towers. The voicing and the singing of the various little chants helped add to the story. The story itself is a different matter. I have struggled to "get" Tolkien. I've read the first book and watched the first movie. I had little idea what happened other than that there were some Hobbits and some monsters. With this book, Frodo and Sam were doing things. Gandalf and Gollum also played important roles. It felt like Gollum was somewhat struggling between two different sides. The book ends with a near death.

The Long Ships

The Long Ships (originally Röde Orm in Swedish) is a viking epic set around AD 1000. The vikings have what would seem today as naive view of the world around them. They have a great sense of loyalty, and take what comes to them. The main goal is to seek out plunder and women to support themselves and their crew. However, with this lifestyle comes the likelihood of death or slavery.

The protagonists of the main religions of the day. A Jew helps lead them to a a great deal of plunder. However, they later fall victim to a Muslim leader who enslaves them. They take what happens. One viking is able to pick up the language. The vikings fight valiantly for their Islamic leader, adopt his religion and save his life. Eventually, the time arises for them to escape and they commandeer a ship to return home.

Back home, there are bouts of armed combat to resolve issues (often leading to the death of the loser.) Christianity has come to Scandinavia and many vikings convert. They often take a practical view to the religion. In Iberia, they convert to Islam as that god seems strong there. Later they convert to Christianity to restore their luck. Sometimes there are bits of confusion with the different religions.  The strong loyalty to family and one's word is often the predominant factor in guiding their life decisions regardless of the current religion.

The book is episodic, with many of the sections easily standing alone. The style seems to have been an inspiration for the Brotherband books by John Flanagan 

The Fellowship of the Ring (The Lord of the Rings, Book 1)

The Fellowship of the Ring (The Lord of the Rings, Book 1) by J.R.R. Tolkien

[August 2009] I must confess that I have never been a Tolkein fan. I have tolerated C.S. Lewis, but the Tolkein works never had much appeal (in spite of hearing many friends rave about The Hobbit.) Now that the Lord of the Rings series has became a mega movie blockbuster, I decided I should try to tackle the book. Alas, the book (and the movie) still do not have much appeal.

I found the book to be rather tedious. Some sections seemed to detail numerous characters that I could not keep them straight. I also became rather annoyed with the different 'accents' and 'songs' the narrator used in the recording. Perhaps for somebody that is already familiar with the story, this would be a nice way to go over it again. However, if you don't know it well, prepare to get lost.

Apparently, Tolkein may have once written in the preface to Lord of the Rings that "Some who have read the book, or at any rate have reviewed it, have found it boring, absurd, or contemptible; and I have no cause to complain, since I have similar opinions of their works, or of the kinds of writing that they evidently prefer." Now I just need to hunt down more of the works that Tolkein disliked.

Selected Short Stories of Philip K Dick

Philip K Dick short stories are popular fodder for movies. He has an innovative mind, and explores bizarre situations that have some relevance to the current life. This collection had a few stories. Alas, it has been a long time since I started to write this, so I can't remember some of my original thoughts, but here we go.


Electric Ant
Novelty Act (1964) - jug blowing, furry animal make feel good. When you get by with a crutch, you also get in trouble when it leaves.
The Last of the Masters (aka Protection Agency) (1954) - ruled by "company" of robots. They try to do whats best for people, but that isn't what the people want. Oh, and their usefulness expired years ago.
A Little Something for us Tempunauts (1974) - time Travel closed loops
Progeny
The Exit Door Leads In
The War with the Fnools - I think these were people-like things that infiltrated earth.
The Preserving Machine - a shoe?

Invasion of the Body Snatchers

Some alien pods come down from space and take on the shape of living things. They typically spend a few years taking over a planet, then zoom off to conquer another areas. They are initially discovered by some people in Marin county who find their relatives are acting a little "different". (The aliens don't show strong emotions.) Eventually, people manage to light fires and do other ruckus to scare them back in to space, thus saving the earth. (Though people still question whether this was a real event or just a psychological hysteria.)

It sounds like a great B-movie. And it has already produced one and its remake.

Many of the plot elements seem familiar. Perhaps this is a testament of the books influence, since many of the other works were written well after this books 1955 release. I had initially suspected it was written in the 70s (due in part to the mention of the 70s dates and familiarity of some of the deices.) However, the repeated mentions of "chesterfields" and doctors that make house calls placed in its proper time period.

The Golden Man

In a future world, "mutants" are seen as a menace. Most or filtered and eliminated at birth. However, an elite squad is in place to hunt down and exterminate any that manage to slip through the cracks. One agent masquerades as a salesman near Walnut Creek and managed to uncover a stray comment about a stray mutant on a nearby farm. They capture the mutant (who is a beautiful "golden" man") and bring him in for investigation and potential extermination. He doesn't communicate. However, he seems to be able to avoid any attempts to fire weapons at him. They discover that he can see shortly in to the future just as we can see the present. Eventually, he uses this "power" to find his path to escape. The people then worry that he will seduce other women and eventually spread his genes, potentially becoming the post-human dominant race. Has the ability of "intelligence" reached its apex, to be replaced by this reflexive, future-seeing species. The novella is very much written in Dick's style. I enjoy the 1950s few of San Francisco suburbia. (dusty farms in Walnut Creek are a little harder to come by today.) The thought of another species with a set of enhanced skills in one area that can supplant other, possibly superiod development is interesting. It has often been carried out in a smaller scale socially. (Betamax, anyone?) Could we see it apply to a species? However, the story was underdeveloped, and spent more time explaining the situations than actually presenting them for the reader to explain.

The Selected Stories of Philip K Dick Volume 2

This collections contains the following stories:
Colony
Upon the dull earth
The short happy life of the brown oxford
Faith of our fathers
The days of perky Pat
The variable man
I hope I shall arrive soon

Many of the stories deal with a post-apocalyptic world.  The Variable Man is the longest. In it, earth is planning to use a special faster-than-light bomb to defeat some intergalatic overlords.  The leaders depend on an odds machine to calculate the chance of winning. Unfortunately, another experiment accidentally brings a man from the early 1900s to the current day. This throws the odds all out of wack. The leaders try to have him destroyed. However, the scientist in charge of bomb-making "saves" him to assist him in the effort. Unfortunately for earth, this causes the bomb to fail to detonate, and the earthlings lose the battle. Fortunately, this also unlocked the key to faster-than-light travel, and now the earthlings can span the universe.


In Perky Pat (1963), most of the earth has been leveled, with a few people left. The adults spend all day playing a "doll" game, Perky Pat.  Some people discover that a nearby group has a different doll. They compete and win, but from that they are shunned out of town.

In Colony (1953), a planet is seen to be perfectly benign. Then inanimate objects start to attack. A local lifeform disguises itself as these objects to then consume humans. They think that the solution is to either annihilte themselves and the planet or try to escape without any inanimate objects. Since they will be naked, they ask for an unmanned spaceship to rescue them. It comes earlier then expected and they all board. Later we hear of the real ship coming and not finding anybody.  (And we wonder - did the lifeform sneak back to earth on the ship?)

"I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon" (1980) deals with a man who cannot fall asleep during a long-distance space journey. He becomes tourmented with his childhood memories of persumed animal cruelity.

"Upon the Dull Earth" (1954), a girl is "taken" too soon. She comes back, but then consumes everyone else, destroying her universe.

In "Faith of Our Fathers" (1967), the great leader turns out to be an alien form that most people see as an old man. The main character takes an anti-hulucinatory drug to see him as who he is. It is not pleasant, and he thinks of him as good and evil.

In "The short happy life of the brown oxford" (1954), an "animator" is used to turn inanimate things alive. A shoe is turned alive, and then uses the machine to turn a girl shoe alive for it.

While the stories seem to espouse many sentiments of the time they were written. However, the stories provide some interesting fodder for thought - especially in the realm of human relationships.

The Horse and His Boy

This is a light, simplistic fantasy story that even I liked. A boy runs away from servitude with a talking horse. They eventually meet up with another horse and person. They then take part in a big battle where the good guys win and people get married and live happily ever after.

The story seems more simple than the other Narnia stories and feels much lighter in tone. It feels more like a 30 minute cartoon than a feature length movie.

And some more books (Nickel and Dimed, The Great Bridge, Lord of the Flies, Crucial Conversations)

Barbara Ehrenreich - Nickel and Dimed: (2001) A well-off, highly educated writer attempts to 'live with the lower classes' to see how things really are. However, her effort comes across as somewhat half-hearted. Her insights seem to show more of the middle-class snobbery than anything else. While attempting to live the life of a lower-class service worker she looks down at the "wealthy" people she is working for, while also looking down at the "poor" people she is working with. One interesting is the disparity in drug policy. In her 'upper middle class' life, her Marijuana usage is no big deal, and doesn't impact her ability to work. However, in her 'lower class' life, the fear of marijuana detection cause her to turn down 'good' jobs.

David McCullough - The Great Bridge: The Epic Story of the Building of the Brooklyn Bridge (1972) : I listened to an abridged audiobook that, rather unfortunately, turned this book in to a biography of the Roeblings. The audiobook was 'nice enough' to provide brief summaries of the missing chapters, so I knew I was missing what sounded like good discussion of the actual building of the bridge.

Golding - Lord of the Flies (1954): When boys are alone, things start out alright, but then gradually drift in to savagery. Would somebody be tried for murder when they returned to civilization? Or would there be a big civil law suit? There would probably be plenty of rationale for just acting out in the harsh conditions. However, how would you rationalize other people not being "as bad"? What would have happened if they were not "rescued" at just the right time?

Patterson, et. al. - Crucial Conversations (2001): Turn brain on at the precise moments when brain wants to go off to "fight". Remember the big goals, not short term "win" in a conversation.

(More details of these below at updated post due to tag limit)

Russell Shorto - Descartes' Bones: The odd history of Descartes' bones show some of the prejudices of the "religion" of rational thought. This is filled with irony. Descartes was religious, yet is treated as the father of a (primarily atheist) rationalism. His bones become a "relic" for those against the church. He sought to find the means to overcome death, yet died in middle age. This book contains plenty of interesting tidbits on the philosopher and his followers and philosophy. However, the main point is the trail of his bones and how they relate to societal sentiments.

Stephen Mitchell - Gilgamesh, a new English version: This is really graphic. It does have similarities to the "Joseph" and "Noah" stories from the Bible. Are they both referring to the same previous event?

Barbara Kingsolver - Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: local eating. Properly raised domestic animals do have a place in the food chain. (They can convert non-human-edible plants in to human food. They have also been adapted to live with humans, and wouldn't do very well in the wild.) This provides a very balanced approach to environmentally sustainable food habits, with an emphasis on local and organic to decrease energy consumption, and even eat with a lower cost. The narrative provides an example of "mostly" local eating for a year. It does require hard work in the yard. However, good food plus hard work is exactly what the doctor ordered...

Thomas Aquinas: Interesting rational religious philosophy