stars, sand, soap
Dec. 30th, 2007 09:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sergebroomI recently finished reading military SF novel Courageous, third book in series The Lost Fleet, written by John Hemry under the nom-de-plume of Jack Campbell. I usually stay away from that subgenre of SF, for various reasons(1), but rules are made to be broken and I never regretted following Hemry’s JAG-in-space stories, or this new series.
For those who don’t know what the latter is about, two political entities have been at war for over a century. In the early days of that war, there was a fight in the Grendel star system, but the Allaince's John Geary had saved those under his command thru his gift as a tactician. He died in that battle, but a legend grew around Black Jack Geary. But the war went on and on, getting worse and worse, and essential military knowledge was lost along with many lives. As a result, the Alliance’s fleet was ambushed in the middle of hostile territory and it’s fighting its way back home every step of the way. The reason anybody is still alive is because Geary is back in command. He had not perished. His lifepod had recently been found drifting in space, with him in suspended animation for 100 years, but his revival has been a mixed blessing because, for the sake of the fleet's survival, he's had to be the legend of Black Jack.
”How long can you stop him, John Geary? Black Jack gets to do whatever he wants because he’s a legendary hero. Because he’s won dramatic victories in command of this fleet.”
Geary glared at her. “If I don’t win victories, this fleet dies.”
She nodded. “And if you do, your legend grows. Your power grows. Every new victory carries a hazard, because it would be so much easier for Black Jack. He wouldn’t have to convince others to do what he asks; he can just command them and punish those who disagree. He wouldn’t have to worry about rules or honor. He could make his own.”
Geary sank back as well. “What do you suggest, Madame Co-President?”
“I don’t know. I wish I did. I fear for you…”
Argh.
Why? Because Courageous ends with a major cliffhanger and I have to wait 12 months to find out how it turns out.
Other things I’ve read over the last few weeks…
The fanzine Diet Soap’s first issue(2) was about surveillance. Especially interesting was an article about modern photographic surveillance having apparently begun in 1913, in Great Britain’s Holloway Prison. “…All this was necessary because a certain group of inmates (18 political activists who’d been imprisoned for the “violence” of their tactics) refused to have their pictures taken by prison authorities…” Who were those dangerous people? Suffragettes.
Maybe it’s just me, but, as I was going thru Elizabeth Peters’s The Snake, the Crocodile and the Dog, I found myself thinking that the Amelia Peabody mystery series had run out of steam. It’s probably because my reading of it was interrupted a lot, which made it feel very scattered. It was not helped by the setting being the same archeological dig as that of of the first novel and by Amelia having to make her husband fall in love with her all over again because a bop on the head has made him forget the last 10 years of his life. Oh well. I already have many of the series’s next books. I’ll see if that was the case of the author having an off day, or, again, maybe it was me.
To say the least, Rick Remender’s 18-issue comic-book Strange Girl was unusual. How else to describe it? It begins with Bethany, a 12-year-old girl in Sacramento, who often goes against the will of her parents. Unfortunately, the Rapture comes along and she find herself Left Behind. Then the story jumps 10 years forward, with Bethany working in a San Francisco bar that caters to Hell’s denizens, until the day her boss, a literal Devil, gets peeved at her. She now has to run away across America with her sidekick, demon Bloato, following rumors that there is one gate still open that might allow her to finally ascend to Heaven.
Did you know there's a comic-book out there where each issue adapts a separate story by Cory Doctorow? So far, they've done Anda's Game then When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth, and Craphound. I don't know how well the adaptations work, because Sysadmins is the only one where I had read the original story. That being said, I especially liked Craphound, about aliens and their fascination for Earth’s yard sales.
For a long time I had heard of British comic-book Dan Dare, but never had access to it. Until it was recently revived. Daniel McGregor Dare, premier pilot of Earth’s international space fleet, has called it quits. To say that things are not going well on Earth is an understatement, with America and China having bombed each other out of existence. But England endures, and something has come up that forces the Prime Minister, an incompetent who’s no Churchill and who has no sense of History, even of what the Battle of Britain was, comes begging for help. Dare of course accepts, much to the Prime Minister’s surprise.
”There’s just one thing that puzzles me, mister Dare…”
“What’s that?”
Well, not to look a gift horse in the mouth or anything, but you obviously want no part of what Britain is today – or you wouldn’t be living all the way out here, would you? So I simply don’t understand why you’re still so willing to fight for it.”
“No, Prime Minister, I don’t imagine you do.”
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(1) Yes, the politics of an author, or what I assume them to be, do matter to me. Heck, it’s my money and my time being invested, after all.
(2) Yes, an actual fanzine, printed and all. For more information, you can visit www.dietsoap.org
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Date: Dec. 31st, 2007 06:59 am (UTC)That said, as far as I'm concerned, it held my interest until the last one (Tomb of the Golden Bird), which I felt she just mailed in to tie up loose ends.
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