Daily Thoughts

The Erythraean Sibyl Michelangelo 16th Century

Daily Thoughts

Another book came in for me today, The Last Wish by Andrew Sapkowski. It is a game based on a video game, The Witcher. This is the second book I am reading based on a video game, the other is Halo, The Cole Protocol by Tobias Buckell. Both of these are standalone titles, not parts of longer series. I am not a huge fan of serial game novels.

A lot of people like them, there is Warhammer 40,000, Forgotten Realms, and many other series. In fact, when I go to my local library, I find most of the paperbacks in the science fiction and fantasy section to be fantasy series based on games. Serials can be fun occassionally, but I often think an excessive focus on series saps creativity. I much prefer to read original series or novels.

In science fiction, there are the Star Wars paperbacks and Star Trek paperbacks. I like the new Romulan Empire novels and the Klingon Empire novels which have been coming out recently. They are a little bit different than the stories of the federation which I find rather bland. I even like a few of the authors. Peter David is my favorite of the novelists who wrote for star trek. I like the Timothy Zahn books in the Star Wars series. My favorite Star Wars novel was Splinter of the Minds Eye by Alan Dean Foster. Still, I like original novels better.

I shifted some New York Law annuals downstairs. They are government documents. In order to discard books if you are depository library, you have to prepare a list of the items you are discarding and send it to the government to get permission to discard the items. Sometimes, they don't give permission. We are a partial government depository. I also discarded some law books.

We have had to buy a computer database Westlaw Patron Access Terminal recently to replace our cd-rom databases. Like most libraries with a law collection we have a very large amount of books. This is because law is based on precedent, everything that has come before it.

Space Vulture by Gary K. Wolf and Archbishop John J. Myers

Space Vulture by Gary K. Wolf and Archbishop John J. Myers

Space Vulture is a classic story modeled after the old science fiction pulps. The story could have jumped right out of Amazing Stories or Planet Stories. The book is meant to evoke Flash Gordon or Buck Rogers. However, for me it comes closer to Basil Wolverton's Spacehawk. It is full of daring do and desperate escapes. The authors, Gary K. Wolf and Archbishop John J. Myers were childhood friends and used to share the old pulp magazines with each other.

Captain Corsair, a law man is on a routine mission to catch a two bit thief, Gil, who is attempting to steal mushrooms that have no calories from a colony world. The mushrooms are worth their weight in gold. Gil has to pay his debts from his bookie who has taken his arm and eye and replaced them with an insect arm and a robotic eye. (There is a lot of this kind of wonderful silliness in this book.)

While Captain Corsair is capturing Gil, Space Vulture sweeps down with his slave chipped crew destroys Corsairs ship and rounds up the colonists to sell as slaves. Captain Corsair is locked up with the other prisoners. Cali, the beautiful blond lady leader of the colony falls in love with Corsair and secretly slips him a small jeweled knife from Space Vultures treasure room. Oh the villainy, you can feel it in every pore.

From there it gets better and even sillier. Will Gil get his human arm and eye back from his bookie. Will Captain Corsair escape from the clutches of Space Vulture's evil minion, #1, the lizardo warrior. Will the colonists get saved from slavery? Of course they will in grand fashion.

See every trick in the book of classic space opera. Watch the evil Space Vulture sleep in his rejuvenation coffin, see Captain Corsair gun down the evil minions of Space Vulture. Daring do, wonderful escapes. Listen to the self-righteous, narcissistic hubris of the greatest pirate of them all, Space Vulture.

From the mind of Gary K. Wolf creator of Roger Rabbit, and the heart of Archbishop John J. Myers we get classic space opera with a dose of morality. Space Vulture dies, experiences a bit of hell then gets rejuvenated in his mad scientist coffin. Throw in some carnival tricks by Captain Corsair and you can even get a recommendation from Stan Lee.

Quoting Stan Lee, "What a time machine! Space Vulture takes me back Alex Raymond's classic Flash Gordon comic strips and to all the other great science fiction adventures that thrilled me as a kid. The book is full of color, action, and fun. Gary Wolf and John Myers have brilliantly managed the neat trick of not only evoking a beloved genre, but actually surpassing it."

You can't have said it better. If you want to read some fun, nostalgic, silly, adventurous pulp space opera, this title is for you.

When The Tide Rises-- David Drake-- Review

When The Tide Rises by David Drake is military space opera. The book is part of a larger series, The Republic of Cinnabar Navy series. The main character, Lieutenant Leary is patriotic, astute, politically savvy, and willing to take risks. He is a gentleman adventurer much in the style of the historical Lord Cochrane who the character is based on. The book is an ode to the sailing ships of old. The space ships even use sails and rigging to travel through the matrix (hyperspace).

The setting is rather interesting. It is in a distant future. The Republic of Cinnabar, an imperial elitist republic, and the Alliance, a totalitarian government are at war. Both control many different worlds. The Cinnabar characters are jingoistic, patriotic, and class conscious. The naval men and women act like sailors, they fight, brawl, drink, and carry on with the native populations. The main character, Lieutenant Leary has a loyal servant, Hogg, and his freind, the spy, Adele Mundy, has a servant Tovera.

This is one of the few science fiction novels that describes the freindship between a male and female lead character well. Adele Mundy, spy for Cinnabar is a close freind of Lieutenant Leary, commander of the corvette Princess Cecile.

In this novel, Lieutenant Leary is sent to Bagaria to help the rebel government remain free from being taken over by the Alliance. The Bagarians are plagued by inept and corrupt leaders. By todays standard, they would be called a "banana republic."

Lieutenant Leary promptly starts a series of commerce raids, capturing prizes for the Republic of Cinnabar. He also attacks an Alliance base. One of the nice things about this book, is that it is not in the slightest bit politically correct. A spacer is a spacer, and Leary recruits naval troops from his captured ships, as well as calls some of the natives "wogs."

A lot of the action is based on deceiving the enemy. Leary uses the tactics of surprise, espionage, subterfuge, and first strike. On a few occassions, he poses as the enemy using captured ships.

The fights are fast and furious, but often unreal. This is of course a story. However, I find not enough people die or are wounded in the story. Leary loses a few of his allied ships, and one of his crew members Woetjans is injured. This is explained away by Adele Mundy's ability to penetrate the enemies communication networks and collect critical intelligence to turn the tide. She after all was a librarian and is a communications specialist and spy.

There is a political element to the story. Leary's father is a senator in the Cinnabar republic. Also, Admiral Vocaine views Leary as a potential enemy. Because of this, Leary is sent into the hot situations where he will have to be savvy or end up rotting in prison or dead.

Adele Mundy and Daniel Leary also help refine the environment of the science fiction worlds they visit. Daniel Leary is interested in the "natural history" of alien worlds. He observes the odd plants and animals. For example at one point in the novel he is watching a small tentacled flying creature the size of his thumb. Adele Mundy is interested in archaeology, literature, and librarianship. At the end of the book, she visits the megaliths of Diamondia.

I am looking forward to reading more of this excellent series. At the end of the book, Lieutenant Leary is to become Captain Leary. David Drake, the author is an interesting writer. He is best known for his series, Hammer's Slammers about a mercenary tank company in the far future. David Drake also served as an interrogation officer during Vietnam. He is described as often making very exacting descriptions of combat. The books in this series are With The Lightnings, Lieutent Leary Commanding, The Far Side of the Stars, The Way to Glory, Some Golden Harbor, and When The Tide Rises. With the Lightings is available for free from the Baen free library if you want to see what the series is about. http://www.baen.com/library/defaultTitles.htm