Books I've Read Twice

Every now and then, I see posts online, or hear people in real life, talk about favorite books. I really can't say that I have a favorite book any more than I can say I have a favorite movie.

And then comes the silly part: they talk about how many times that they've read a particular book. Or that they've lost track of the number of times that they've read them. It's like returning to an old friend.

In a similar vein, there are people out there who will reread entire series of books. This becomes a case of triangular numbers as they reread from Book 1 to Book (N - 1) whenever Book N is published. My wife bought Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows on the day of its release, and then proceeded to let it sit on the shelf until she had reread the first six books. And, no, no one else was allowed to touch it first. (*) Likewise, some online acquaintances reread every book in A Song of Ice and Fire before A Dance With Dragons came out, and will do so again whenever (ha ha!) The Winds of Winter is released. (And some people read them all annually, any way.)

I am the first to admit: I am not the world's greatest reader. I don't read quickly. I get easily distracted. And I don't retain a lot of what I read, particularly if I try to speed-read through or just "soldier on" to the finish. This is part of the reason for this blog, like someone with a speech impediment taking singing lessons.

There are just so many books that I would like to read either because I have an interest in them, or because I want to know what other people are talking bout, that I just couldn't find the time to reread the same books over and over. Granted, sometimes a reread is much quicker. But only sometimes.

So I reflected on it, and I tried to think of what books I have read more than once. This is tricky. There are books that I have returned to that I didn't get through the first time. There were books from high school and college that I thought back then, if I ever have a chance to read these at leisure, and not "by next Tuesday", I might try this agin.

As best as I can recollect, in my entire life, I have only reread five books total. These fit into two categories: I wanted to read a series from the beginning, or I wanted to read an assigned book because I wanted to not because I was told to. There could also be a third category: I forgot that I had read it before until I was halfway through.

This is the List I came up with:

• B is for Burglar, Sue Grafton. In the 90s, I listened to quite a few of the alphabet series on tape while commuting from Brooklyn to Parsippany. I believe I picked up Burglar before that as a used book store. Sometime in the 2000s, I started reading the series. I don't count books on tape as rereads because those are abridged, excerpts of the real books. (The same goes for the other books, like Tom Clancy novels.) After A is for Alibi, I happily picked up Burglar again. I probably still had my original copy, as this was before I started downsizing my library of mostly unread books.
  Honorable mention for, I think, G is for Gumshoe. I started reading 2 or 3 books in this series per summer, and somehow, I picked up the same book I had read the previous year. But I don't remember which was it was.

• The King Beyond the Gate, David Gemmel. In the late 80s, my brother and I attended a science fiction convention in Rye, NY known as Lunacon. One of the panels was about new books coming out, and there were freebies at the end. They asked everyone to limit themselves to one of the three books. We both passed on the one that had the most copies, figuring that there would be leftover copies, and we'd grab an extra. I don't remember what my brother took, but I got this book. I still have it. (The third book was garbage.)

  After reading it, I went to exchange with Thomas, and I told him, "Remember when I said that other book was kind of dopey with a video-game mentality set-up and didn't hold my interest?" I handed him King and said, "This. Book. Is. Good!" He took my meaning and read it immediately. What I didn't expect was that he would buy the other three books that were (then) currently in release, read those and pass them along.

  The story of Druss the Legend is mentioned in King, without being spoiled. It takes place about a generation later, and is an enjoyable standlone book. The second read added to the enjoyment.

• The Western King, Ann Marston. For a while, I wasn't sure if there actually was an Ann Marston, or if it was a psuedonym used by multiple writers in the series. Actually, I still don't know, but I don't think I care any more.

  There was a time in the 90s that you can buy remainder paperbacks off racks in drugstores for 69 cents or so. Keep in mind, you usually get what you pay for, and there's a reason why these books were remaindered. On the other hand, if you bought 3 or 4 books and struck pay dirt with one, you could toss the others and be satisfied. Such was the case with The Western King, which was book two in The Kingmaker's Sword trilogy (which later became two trilogies, and I wasn't particularly happy about that). There was some stuff up front that I didn't follow as well as I could, but everything I needed to know was summed up early on. The rest was the story of the sons of Red Kian of Skye.

  Some time later, after not encountering the first book anywhere, it dawned on me to try the library, and inter-lirbrary loans. I enjoyed the first book as much as the second, and then I went on to enjoy Western King more than the first time. The series unfortunately went a little sideways after that, and I'm glad I didn't spend $7-10/book to buy them online. Oddly, I was able to borrow the last book from a library in Florida. The librarian in Brooklyn was quite helpful. However, when she mentioned that she knew who Ann Marston was and enjoyed her work, I'm sure she was confuing authors. Marston is credited with these six books, and that's the end of the publishing history.

  
  
• A Separate Peace, John Knowles. Techinically, this would've been the first book I reread. Sometime in the late 80s, after college, I took this high school assigned book off the shelf and wondered if it was as bad as I remembered it. Yeah, it was. It might be the reason I haven't reread other books.
  
  
• The Mysterious Affair at Styles, Agatha Christie. Back in December of 2020, I saw that I could download an ebook collection of Agatha Christie novels for free. So I did. Back in high school, I had to read this and Curtain. I might've struggled with it a little back then, but as a more accomplished reader, I figured I wouldn't have much trouble with it now. Actually, I did. I fell asleep more than a few nights before reading another two pages. I didn't remember much about the story other than "It wasn't strychnine, was it?"

  Ironically, my thinking was to read this novel quickly so I could up my count for the end of the year. I almost didn't finish it by the end of the year. However, I am not opposed to revisiting the collection when I have other books taken care of.

Update: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, J. K. Rowling (2004). I found a note that said I reread this prior to seeing the movie.

Other possibilities

At some point, I may update this post, or just make a second one. It seems to me that there should be a few -- not many, but a few -- more books. One that comes to mind is Dracula. I bought a copy in the early 90s when I participated in a Dracula-themed musical production with Xaverian Alumni Community Theater. However, I can't swear to the fact that I had read it before that. Similarly, Frankenstein I know I tried once before but couldn't get past the first few chapters.

Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn were once each.

Anthem was assigned to be read the summer before high school. To say that the point of the book was lost on me would be putting it kindly. I remember joking to classmates that the character's names were all phone numbers. Um, yeah. I might have read it again during college but I honestly don't remember if I ever did.

I can't think of any Asimov books I've done twice, or any other author. The Doc Savage books in the basement (another series) was once each, for the ones I got to. When it comes to that series, I stopped reading because I started reading books that I was going to get rid of afterward. I don't plan on getting rid of those. Silly reason not to read them, I know.

(*) (Side note: I was away camping that week. As I had picked up The Half-Blood Prince a few minutes after midnight when it came out, I assumed it was my obligation to pick up the final book as well. So we had two copies.)

ANALOG PLUS 50: Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact, March 1971

ANALOG PLUS 50: Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact, March 1971

The third issue in my ANALOG PLUS 50.

At some point, I'll stop numbering, but probably not until I do this for at least a year.

In this issue:

The Editorial: "The Stay-Home Bodies", by John. W. Campbell. Written at the height of the Apollo program, Campbell writes about the opposition toward the manned space program coming from liberal-arts-type folks who don't want to spend the money and from scientists that just don't want to spend so much on that while neglecting their own very special research, when automated drones would suffice and leave the science to scientists and not engineers.

There are two basics truths: The Truth of the Universe, and Truth by Consensus. The latter one is as problematic as deciding who is to judge, and what happens if consensus changes. Also, the Universe doesn't care about your consensus.

Novelette: "The Missing Man" by Katherine Maclean, with an illustration by Kelly Freas, showing a cityscape in the background of mixed architecture, seeming to span centuries, and in the foreground, there is a silhouette of a man with a nuclear detonation superimposed on his body, along with some starbursts. The caption reads, The trouble with complex automation is that it follows blindly any order to its logical catastrophe!

Maclean builds an incrediby dystopic world set in a distant future New York City, and then proceeds to tear it asunder. This story would've been written in 1969 or 1970, and I'm wondering the author's frame of mind. It was out there. The mixed architecture in the illustration represents how the city had been broken down into communes and kingdoms of people. The population is dispersed and balanced. Things run fine without any panic of the populace. Until a fellow by the name of Carl Hodges disappears. He's a city programmer who not only knows how the city operates but his maintenance predictions can anticipate ways in which catastrophes could happen by something as small as a refrigerator failure in the lunchroom of a power plant which gives the crew food poisoning, which causes an exposion along a fault line. Big consequences continue from small mistakes. Hodges walks through the wrong kingdom and gets kidnapped by a teener gang, a nihilistic bunch that doesn't see much of a future for anyone who isn't a tech. In this dystopian nightmare, there are many obstacles to having children, and many are encouraged to give up that right, selectively breeding those undesirable to society out of existence.

Enter George Sanford, who works for the Rescue Squad, and who uses Predictive Behavior to find people. He also seems to be telepathic and empathic, which both helps and hinders his efforts. George gets close to finding Hodges, up to meeting the same teener gang. Instead of kidnapping or killing George, they give him a warning beating and leave him tied up on the sidewalk. George runs off and climbs the ironwork under the GWB to get away for a while.

The gang realizes what they have, and they managed to exploit a weakness that causes the destruction of the underwater Brooklyn Dome. George is called back in by his supervison, Ahmed Kosavakats, who has George tune in Hodges again. They are on the trail when they are called to the Jersey Dome for fear that it will meet a similar fate. Once there, they try to avoid spreading panic, while panic is spreading. They are "admiring architecture" more than looking for flaws, but human error (both deliberate and careless) can worsen the situation. They make it out of the Dome before calamity strikes again.

In the end, Hodges is found because of George tunes into him. Ahmed questions Hodges through this connection, and they figure where he is. Then it's just a mater of getting him out without him being moved or killed.

Could this be televised? I don't know. It's a bit cerebral, and a little "out there" for a general audience. On the other hand, genre-loving folks might like it, if done well, but it likely won't have broad appeal. I would think that this could be a budget buster, even for an hour of television, and I don't think the story merits the expanse. As for casting, there are four main characters, and a number of minor speaking parts, which could go any which way. The only restricition I would set is that George and Carl should be somewhat similar, but not overly so.

Amusing side-note: in the future there will be public telephones with video screens, courtesy of Bell Telephone. The story was about a little more than a decade before the break-up of Ma Bell.

Science Fact: "Celestial X-Rays" by Margaret L. Silbar. The caption reads, It's long been obvious that these immense fusion generators, the stars, were bound to radiate X-rays, and that no Earth-bound observer would ever "see" them. throught he shielding atmosphere. But the things that have been found by X-ray astronomy wasn't expected.

An interesting article and I kept up with the gist of it, even if the Science was beyond me (or just not anything I've ever followed). Astronomy had been an optical science an optical science until the 1930s when radio waves were detected. These are the only other electromagnetic radiation that penetrates the atmosphere, and this gave rise to radio telescopes.

It was only "recently" (particularly 50 years ago) that astrophysicists could use rockets to launch detection equipment into the air. At the time, scientists suspected that the Sun emitted a few X-rays. They weren't prepared for the huge amounts they found being emitted from elsewhere. The article goes on to discuss tracking the sources. It is amusing to read this knowing that it was likely written before Apollo 14 launched, and it's mentioned the upcoming eclipse of the Crab Nebula by the Moon in 1972, which only occurs every six years, to get another five minutes of data recorded. Now we have telescopes in space gathering data continuously.

Fun fact 1: the Sun has a diameter of nearly a million miles but it has about the same mass as a white dwarf with a 6,000-mile diameter or a neutron star with a 10-mile diameter.

Fun fact 2: Californium 254 was discovered among the products of the first man-made fusion explosion at Bikin Atoll. A quick Internet search says it has a half-life of about 55 days. The article implies a long decay process. Cf 251 is closer to 900 years (which is close to the 1,000 years mentioned in the article), and Cf 252 has a half-life of 2600+ years.

Fun word: other than repeating the phrase "iron ion" in my head a bunch of times, there was a reference to a process called bremsstrahlung, a German word for "breaking radiation". I could see that as the title of a short story, or the name of a ship (or both).

Novelette: "The Operator" by Chirstopher Anvil, with an illustration by George Wilson, showing a man, wearing an outfit reminiscent old space serials, coming out of a hatch of some kind next to a long-barrelled mounted weapon. He's being attacked by a bear-like creature. Two more of those creatures are approaching in the background. The caption reads, In a harsh environment, you find tough organisms. In a really savage environment, the only ones left are also smart!

Dave Hunsacker and Jim Fielding are two colonists in a settlement on a planet that is experiencing a very cold winter. Their cabin barely has enough heat. Worse, they're both experiencing an illness that is characterized by "dirt" on their faces, which leads to feverish delusions. Other dangers include termite-like greevils, which are bad news for wooden cabins, and badgers, which are bad news for your supplies should they get inside the cabin. Worst would be the packberas, with teeth like daggers, which are currently hibernating. As the two recuperate, they go in search of a young woman that Jim spotted in the forest. Getting to the edge of a bluff, they spot a couple of tents and a space yacht camped near the base, right outside a cave of bears, and the temperature is warming up. They wind up counting 8 women among the group. The first time they try to make contact, they are fired upon. They come back again, with a third colomist to try again. This time, two skimmers filled with young men (outlandishly dressed under bubble protection) show up to bother the ladies, who aren't interested. The guys make enough noise to rouse the bears. Tragedy ensues. The three do what they can to scare away the bears and kill any bear that gets near the tent. None of the young men survive.

I enjoyed the story up until this point, but it is here that it goes off the rails a little. The first is a complication that Dave wished could've been avoided and I wished was left out of the story because it was a little to deus ex machina: two Space Polic skimmers show up. They're like Space Patrol, but Police. Except that they aren't even from the planet. So where did they come from? Did they answer a distress beacon? And they came that quickly? This is such a harsh environment, you'd think that more people would've called for help by now!

Dave then manages to scare off the Space Police with talk of the Pox, but before they race away, they basically quarantine the planet and give salvage right to the men's yacht to whoever claims it first. Rounding out the oddities: they check out the men's yacht to find a smelly mess and a giant frog statue (huh?). There's also a mention of another distant settlement on the planet, but it doesn't matter to much at all. Finally, they head back to their settlement, mindful of giant, killer birds.

This is probably the first story in this 50-Year Deep Dive that I both liked and found problematic. It definitiely has outdated views. For starters, one of the reasons that Dan and Jim are cabin mates is that neither has a woman in his life right now. (People have died.) They got together to save resources, and so that the empty cabin could be used by a family whose cabin was ruined, and which can't be repaired so easily in the middle of winter. It's a new settlement, and it needs people to survive. Moreover, they need women. Here are a bunch of young ladies. Keep in mind, the title is "The Operator", which is what Dave is.

While you could make everyone in those space yachts a bunch of rich, spoiled college-aged brats on a leisure trip, the fact that they are getting marooned on a planet because the settlement needs women is troublesome. The fact that Dan lies (through omission, but still) makes it worse. Were this to be brought to be brought to the small screen, the final act would need a rewrite, including a decent reason for some of the women to stay, while others left in the other ship. And it would need to leave out the "Space Police". Beyond that, this could be filmed cheaply enough anywhere in Canada with a hill, trees, a bit of snow and space to build a space yacht.

Serial: "The World Menders" by Lloyd Biggle, Jr., with an illustration by Kelly Freas, showing a man on a throne, flanked by two more people, one on other side. There is a line of people queued up to present gifts. The caption reads, Second of Three Parts. The problem of the olz might be dominant -- but there are plenty of others in understanding Branoff IV. And part of the trouble was they'd never done a real cultural analysis of the people!

This Part 2 of 3, so I chose to wait to read this. I may do a separate entry for two or three serials.

Short Story: "May The Best Man Win" by Stanley Schmidt, with an illustration by Leo Summers, showing a girl, in front of a man, in front of a voting poster. There is also a sword with a blade that melts into the background. Edit: it wasn't the hilt of a sword. It was a rocketship, with a trail of smoke. The caption reads, There are many ways to measure a man's age--and most are pretty meaningless. There's only one important measure of a man.

Stanley Schmidt would later be the editor of Analog.

Story takes place in a hotel room where the 2076 nominating convention is taking place. It represents a return to an old process of nominating the candidate at the convention, not knowing who it will be in advance. Matthew Kilroy is the odds-on favorite. The leader of the first mission to Epsilon Eridani is beloved nationwide, but there's a problem. As he keeps telling his friend Pete, his birth certificate may say he's fifty, but chronologically, he's only 34 and will be 34 at the time of the inauguration. The people don't seem to care. What to make of this dilemma?

I don't know if this plot has been used in science-fiction television before, particularly in reference to an election. It's a fun little tale that could easily fill the last 10-15 minutes of an hourlong anthology series, and it can be filmed on a budget. You basically need a hotel room and a conference room full of extras. Pete and Killroy are generic enough for diverse casting.

The Analytical Library: The top five stories from December 1970. Gordon R. Dickson's serial takes the top spot. The only other name I recognize is Christopher Anvil, and only because he's in this issue as well. Two stories published in Analog three months apart? I could only dream!

The Reference Library , by P. Schuyler Miller. The intro talks about regional cons, including my gone and lamented Lunacon. This reference would've been abotu 15 years before my first one (even my friends hadn't been there yet). Books reviews are The Atlas of the Universe (an actual atlas), Dimension X, compiled by Damon Knight, The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, edited by Robert Silverberg, and I Will Fear No Evil, by Robert Heinlein. Miller really didn't care for Heinlein's novel.

Brass Tacks: There is a very lengthy letter about nuclear power, which I had to choose to slog or skim the latter half. Then there's an interesting letter from a member of the 19th Special Forces regarding psionics and the U.S. Army codifying the use of a "sixth sense" with snipers.

On to April, and whatever else is in the TBR stacks in Kindle, iBooks, and the physical nightstand.

A Peck of eSpec Stories

(Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.)

I've particpated in a bunch of Kickstarters over the past few years. As a result, I wind up with not only a bunch of books to read, but bonus stories and gaming pdfs as nice little extras. These get sorted into folders on my hard drive. So I decided to knock off a few of them while I'm between books.

How many is a "peck" of stories? However many it is that I decide will fit into this post. The batch should all be from eSpec Books bonuses and stretch goals. Update: I gave a "peck" is 12 in this particular instance, but these were mostly the shorter stories.

In order that I read them:

Cold Iron by John L. French was originally published in Here There Be Monsters (2006), which is a Bianca Jones collection. The story begins in Tir no nOg, home of Tuatha de Danann, and quickly moves to Baltimore, and Morgan's Rare Books and Collectibles. There's been a baby swap between our world and Faerie. Bianca Jones is a detective with the Baltimore Police Department, also known as the Watch. When magical means reach a dead end, Bianca puts the BPD resources to work. The differences in the flow of time don't help much.

The Case of the Cursed Weenie by John L. French was originally published in Hellfire Lounge 2 (date?), and is another Bianca Jones story. This tale begins with the statement: The story you are about to read is somewaht true, and could have only happened in Baltimore. A riff on the Dragnet opening? I assume the true part of the story is the fact that no matter whatever else goes down in Baltimore, if some puts lawn chairs in the street to hold a spot, you respect the lawn chairs. Gregory Tanner is new to town and isn't aware of the rule, and when he can't find parking amidst the massive amounts of snow, he takes a space that was reserved with lawn chairs. He gets a warning that the spot belongs to Miss Solomon, who practices witchcraft. Soon after there's a confrontation between the two, and when Tanner refuses to apologize, Solomon curses him. The titular curse refers to neither dachshund nor frankfurter. It's what you think. However, the story isn't played for laughs. Bianca Jones and her crew, which appears to be comprised of people from other stories, are on the case.

Endgame by Patrick Thomas is "a tale of Terrorbelle" and was originally published in Bad-Ass Faeries (2006). I've read Patrick Thomas before in other anthologies, plus his first Murphy's Lore book. I hadn't heard of Terrorbelle before. Thomas takes the "badass" theme to heart with a villain named Badass who has ... what it says on the tin. It's humorous in its own way, but not the humor I go looking for. Terrorbelle is another bad-ass faerie, but only in toughness. And both faeries are described as having hourglass figures with emphasis on where most of the sand is. This one takes place on the streets of Manhattan.

Henkin's Last Lies by James Chambers was originally published in Bad Cop, No Donut (date?). It opens with Detective Gary Henkin giving someone bad news about a case, and he has to lie to do it. Dennis Brancusi is a writer with a nose for racketeering and rooting out crooked cops, and who saw his parents and pregnant sister blown up in by a bomb that was intended for him. They both knew who was responsible for it, a man named Bruno with a nice hideaway overlooking Long Island Sound. My favorite of this batch so far, but also the first non-fantasy story in the bunch.

The Street of All Designs by Brenda Cooper was originally published in Cracking the Sky (date?). There's a brief introduction to the story that mentions "Fremont", which I assume is a reference to Cooper's other works, which I haven't read yet. The story is set on a strange planet called Silver's Home. Bryan and Alicia are walking around the city talking in the strange sites. They are brought by a woman named Induan to the Street of All Designs, which is a like a shopping mall for body mods like wings, extra arms, a camera in the back of your head. Bryan doesn't know what kind of mod he wants as he can't picture himself afterward. By the way, wings are a bad idea. The flyers never seem to be happy.

The Piece at the Fulcrum by Jeff Young was originally published in Realms and then Tales of Indiscretion Special Edition 2: Diversiforms (dates?). Dom Perival and the pregnant Jyn are playing chess. Jyn is a mistress of M'Lord Chanden and looks to Dom Perival for protecting, and bastard heirs tend not to live long, and she wants to keep the baby safe. Aside from teaching chess, Dom Perival tells her a parable before taking his leave. She's been secretive about the pregnancy until the time is right and she can plan to escape. Until that tell, she does her best to collect gold, even though it isn't enough. When Chanden discovers the situation, he isn't happy. I missed the foreshadowing of whatever catalyst set events in motion during the endgame. That said, I still enjoyed the story. (And I might reread the beginning later to find what I missed.) (Okay, I think I got it.)

Child of the Wood by Jeff Young, Special eSpec Books Kickstarter Rewards Edition (date?). Once there was an 8-year-old boy named Jeremy who wanted to be special, so he bizzarely decided to cut off his pinky with garden shears and bury it in the woods. When he woke up in the hospital, it was too late to reattach it, and he couldn't remember where he'd buried it anyway. He and his family move away. In the wood itself, there were only two houses, one owned by widowed Mrs. Hollerbush and other by the nosy Miss Rive (who owns telescopes to spy on people). One night, a dirty, naked boy wanders into Mrs. Hollerbush's home. And it's a bit of a fairy tale from there, but it gets a little Grimm.

Sunday in the Park with Spot by Keith R. A. DeCandido, Special eSpec Books Kickstarter Rewards Edition (date?). This is the tale of two humans, Bob and Sue, who live in a magical place called Riverdate, the Bronx, New York, and is told as a bedtime story between two beings that are neither human nor from the Bronx. Bob and Sue take care of a cat named Mittens, who is a Chaos Wrangler, and a dog named Spot, who is thick as a stump because dogs are even less smart than humans. Humans aren't capable of noticing that when a cat is scratching an itch and dancing around, it is really tracing a sigil, which is important for wrangling chaos. Mittens sometimes sneaks out to give instructions to other animals. However, Bob is taking Spot to the park, a grassland where dogs are free to run about, so Mittens trusts Spot with a mission, giving explicit details so he can't muck it up. Or can he? He is a dog after all. (Funny, I type "god" the first three attempts.) Cute tale. I liked it, and not just because my "Dog Listener" story has simple-minded dogs running around a park. I didn't think to add a cat to my story -- I probably could've gotten another thousand words out of that!

Towfish Blues by John A. Pitts, originally appeared in Talebones Magazine (2008). A dirigible in a lightning storm flying low over the water. What could go wrong? When they do, making EVA repairs can be tricky. A survey team, the low bidders on a contract, are gathering data on a new planet. The storm causes difficulties, and the captain and crew cause some more. The survey people need the money as they are low on funds. Marta, who suffers from migraines, leads the team consisting of Mitch, Robert, Susan and Steve. There's an intro by Brenda Cooper.

Trainer of Whales by Brenda Cooper, originally appeared in The Future We Wish We Had (date?). Kitha is an deep-sea kelp farmer for Downbelow Dome, which gets supplies delivered by blue whale. After an earthquake, the dome is in trouble become a large metal structure fell across three of the dome's six air scrubbers. Communication has been cut off. She's too far to swim back on the remaining air in her tank, so she swims to the break station with her shift-mate Jai. No one is getting in or out of the Dome, as it is reserving all resources. They travel to the dome using a motorized bed used for medical transport. Once there, they encounter a small pod of whales, which have been trained to make deliveries. The problem is that there is no one to remove their harnesses, so they are swimming about the Dome. Using a translation device, Kitha must bond with one of the whales to get them assist in freeing the scrubbers from the debris, before they swim away.
Fun little story.

Damned Inspiration by Hildy Siverman, originally published in Bad-Ass Faeries (2010). A member of the Tuatha De Danann, missing her wings, serves as a muse to a poet in New Orleans, Gabriel Lanier, who writes songs of the sidhe. Time passes (weeks or months), and the faery encounters Gabriel again at a coffee shop in the French Quarter. He chants the tale, but it's now gone terribly wrong, even though the audience enjoys it. Gabriel has been corrupted by a member of the Unseelie Court, who promises him fame but is sucking his life of its energy. He is fine with this arrangement. The narrator is not. (Okay, if there's a name in here, I missed it. Quickly skimming the text isn't helping me.)

Faerie Ring Blues by James Chambers, originally published in In All Their Glory (2011). Rollin' Joe Linnet works six steel strings like no mortal should be able to, and Gorge, exiled from the Faerie Kingdoms, knows it. And what sounds wonderful to mortals is grating to faerie who knows what those songs should sound like when played properly on proper enchanted instruments, by an enchanted person, in an enchanted world. He wants to know the source of Rollin' Joe's abilities. He made a pact with Nick, the Devil, or at least someone or something pretending to be. Gorge and his human companion and soulmate Delilah go off in search of it and find an faerie ring and an old acquaintance, Rade. A showdown ensues.

The Literary Handyman: Tips on Writing From Someone Who's Been There (Ackley-McPhail)

The Literary Handyman: Tips on Writing From Someone Who's Been There by Danielle Ackley-McPhail, with introduction by Ty Drago (2011)

(Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.)

Why would a published author need tips on writing? Like sharpening the tools in your toolbox, honing one skills is an ongoing process.

The Literary Handyman (besides being a woman) provides bite-sized tips for the craft of writing, as well as the business end. And while no book is going to guarantee sales, I did review the sections on good dialogue right before I submitted a piece that was accepted for publication.

The middle of the book is filled with writing prompts, with plenty of space to jot down your thougths and ideas... unless you're like me and can't write in a book even if it was made for that purpose. But I can use a journal or a blog because I love my writing prompts.

Soft-cover book, first in a series. I have a digital copy of one of the later books. I picked this up at a Book Release event (for a different book) at HeliosphereNY a couple years ago, purchased directly from the author.

Full-disclosure: Danielle Ackley-McPhail is not only a writer, but an edior and a publisher. Moreover, she is my editor and publisher for In A Flash 2020, and In A Flash 2016 before that.

Scythe ( Shusterman)

Scythe by Neal Shusterman (2016)

(Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.)

I almost labeled this one fantasy as well as sci-fi, but it's just a sufficiently adnaced society. There was anything "magical" about it. This was another book recommended by a friend who wants to have a pandemic book club.

In the future, the Cloud becomes self-aware and becomes known by humans as The Thunderhead, which becomes the arbiter of all laws and disputes. Soon, diesase and death are eradicated as every human has nanites that will eventual heal them no matter how badly they are hurt. The only exception, it seems, is when the body is burned beyond recognition and cannot be repaired. On the other hand, "splatting" from a tall building dozens of stories high leads to only temporary deadification until you're body is repaired in a few days. Even old age can be reversed by "turning the corner", and moving the body's clock back to its 40s or 30s or 20s.

In a world without death, population control falls to an orgazination of Scythes, who operate separate from the Thunderhead. Scythes chose people to be gleaned, killed irrevocably. Scythes themselves cannot be killed permanently, except through self-gleaning (and I had a question about that but I'll leave it).

Citra Terranova and Rowan Damisch are both picked to be apprentices to Scythe Faraday. It's unusal to pick two but Faraday is not the usual scythe. He intends to let them compete for the spot, with one becoming a scythe and the other returning to their "normal" life. Neither wants the job, but they find out that this is the first qualification to getting it.

Scythes take the names of patrons, giving up their birth names, but I don't see this dictating behavior much, except that Curie is one of the good ones. Goddard is the bad guy trying to upend everything "scythedom" stands for and usher in a new age for scythes.

It was a quick read despite its length (400+ pages) and entertaining despite its dark subject matter. It seemed that rules got broken a few times, and I wasn't sure how this competitition survived a few plot twists. By the end, it seems that both had earned the right to be scythes except for a judgment from months earlier.

Other tidbits that I could mention just so I don't forget them, but after the next book club meeting, I don't know if I'll be talking about this any more. There are a couple of sequels, and I wouldn't rule out reading one, if the thought to do so crosses my mind a few months from now.

ANALOG PLUS 50: Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact, Feb 1971

ANALOG PLUS 50: Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact, Feb 1971

The second issue in my ANALOG PLUS 50.

I was neither bored nor disappointed by my first foray in the Analog vault, as it were. So I decided to continue with this venture. As a reminder, I read these with an eye toward televising the stories. No, I'm not a producer. I'm a fan that sees so much poorly-written sci-fi developed for TV (particularly anthology shows), when there are so many existing stories that can mined, and, if necesary, updated for the science and technology, or to make the cast more diverse.

In this issue:

The Editorial: "Traditioanl Values", by John. W. Campbell. It starts with "Any fundamentally sound idea can be carried too far and become a fanaticism -- and the essense of any fanaticism is, simply, that there is One One Right Way and We've Got It." I can hear echoes of current events in the background even though this is 50 years old.

Applied to science, a researcher who works solely in a lab might start to believe that only labratory evidence is sound data. But this is really limiting is some fields of study.

Serial: "The World Menders" by Lloyd Biggle, Jr., with an illustration byKelly Freas, showing a man seated in a chair, showing a long curved whip, a naked man holding a skull, and a backdrop of pyramids, the Sphinx and buildings of various architectural styles. The caption reads, That a planet's culture had problems was obvious -- but finding out what the root nature of the problem was, so it could be cured, was NOT easy!

This Part 1 of 3, so I chose to wait to read this. I may do a separate entry for two or three serials.

The Analytical Library: The top five stories from November 1970. Apparently, lower values are better? I may have misunderstood this last month. Two of them are Gordon Dickson and Vernor Vinge. The other names I don't recognize.

Short Story: "Wrong Attitude" by Joseph Green, with an illustration by Vincent di Fate, showing a man in full spacesuit, carrying a briefcase or box, on a lunar (or similar) landscape. A ship is resting behind him, along with something that looks like a helicopter, without an overhead propeller. The caption reads, Many a time, it's what a man knows that keeps him from learning!

Buzz Baxter is the physicist, and Ed Alderman is the commander and back-up physicist. They're onboard a crashed spaceship belonging to a race that was thinner and taller than humans. Buzz is examining a fusion engine that's smaller than they thought could be possible, but he can't get it to work

This is the first instellar mission to Alpha Centauri, which has been going on for six years, and it'll be another before they get home. They investigated the wreck, hoping to find something. It was deviod of any lifeforms. However, the fusion drive got there attention. The problem is that it's too big to be taken back with them, so they have to figure out how it works now, with only the supplies avialable in the shuttle (that includes food) because there's only enough fuel for this one trip. And they want to bring back something, or this first interstellar trip may be the last.

Despite personality profile matches, Buzz and Ed don't get along well.

Working with Ed is his wife Jan. (There are six altogether on this mission, and another rocket is mentioned.) It is Jan that eventually stumbles onto a clue that gives Ed the answer he's been looking for. Since Ed "knows" how things should work, he doesn't seem how other things might work. Jan, on the other hand, not knowing how an engine should operate, is free to observe other things in the engine room.

This could make a good TV story visually, but it's basically people talking inside a box. There's a puzzle to work out. With the right script, it could be made, but it wouldn't be one of my top picks to adapt.

Novelette: "Polywater Doodle" by Howard L. Myers, with an illustration by Vincent di Fate, showing a star/planetary map, the backs of two men along with a woman facing the reader. The man in the foreground seems to have a shield or turtle shell on his back, and could be kneeling before the woman. The caption reads, Sometimes a man doesn't know what's good for him -- like being marooned by a couple of crooks on a desert planet. But you can learn some useful things that way . . .

Around the time this story was published -- possibly even more likely around the time it was written -- I might've found myself singing the words "polly waddle doodle", as my age was in the mid-single digits. That's what the title evokes to me now. In actuality, through an online search, I discovered that "polywater" is a thing (which the spell-checker acknowledges), and was big in the late 60s. It was the idea that water polymers could be formed, joining water molecules together into something with unusual properties. In reality, it turned out that the samples were contaminated, but that discovered probably happened after this story was published.

The story opens with escaped prisoners on a patrol ship, one of whom is a former "proxad", and it was half the story before I discovered that meant "Proxy Admiral". Events that happened prior to the open include their jailbreak, their trip to a pot planet to get some "super-pot" to feed their habits and to sell at the Dusty Roost, a region of space controlled by outlaws or all kinds, in competition with each other, and an onboard fire caused by faulty circuits which destroyed all the super-pot. It's at this point that Omar Olivine realizes that his psychological profile in the Patrol computers could've predicted all of his moves, and this escape was a set-up, an excuse to raid the pot planet, Douthit Three. Olivine is frozen to the point of inaction wondering how many steps ahead the Patrol computers have thought. He finally releases command of the ship to fellow fugitive Icy Lingrad, who decides to get some sleep before making a decision.

Olivine climbs into a sleep pod himself, and wakes up marooned on the planet Flandna, which isn't very hospitable. Settlements probably wouldn't last long. He believes rescue is likely as long as he survives, so he needs to find some food and water. He was left with survival gear because the third criminal, Holbien, insisted. The main item is an improved rationmaker, which can take animal or vegetable matter and convert it to edible proteins and carbohydrates. Plus it purifies water, but also separates out the polywater. After being attacked by a shrub with tentacle-like vines that only ensnare prey, waiting for it to rot and enrich the soil, Olvine defeats it by shoving the vines piece by piece into the ratiomaker until finally stump and all has been converted. At a later time, when he has a chance to open the polywater compartment, he discovers that the polywater is somewhat sentient and moves around like a plant tentacle. This is one thing that could not be predicted, and it becomes a bit of a wild card.

How he goes about training it isn't exactly clean to me, even in a scene where he's actually trying. If this were made into a TV show, I would hope the writers make some kind of mental connection between him and the plant, and then the diddle. He refers to the thing as a diddle, and it's made of polywater. Thus the title. Olivine gets arrested by another Patrol officer whom he knows and who is someone who doesn't care for him in the slightest. He's brought aboard a cargo ship that will eventually bring him back to prison. But before then, he and the diddle have to make a plan.

There are a total of five people in the story, four male, one female, but a couple of these can be switched for casting. Plus many bit parts by people flying ships that will get "blowed up real good". It's a good story, and could fill a half or full hour of television.

Science Fact: "Ptolemy's Red Sirius", by Robert S. Richardson. One of the great difficulties in astrophysics is that we have such a short time-span of observation. Even the ephemeral stars -- the super-giants that last only a million years or so -- last far longer than human history. But it my be that some phenomena have been observed and misunderstood--

This article may have influenced the editorial.

In Ptolemy's great work, the Almagest, published about A.D. 140, he refers to Sirius as blood red, not as a diamond in the night sky. What might have caused this? Did it look different then, or maybe he had vision problems. You can check the latter by noting how he described other stars, remembering that no color at all would mean it appeared white. But rainbow flashing colors could be explained by light rays passing through the atmosphere like a prism, which happens with stars viewed near the horizon.

The earliest evidence that is was Not red came in the tenth century, by a Persian astronomer.

This discussion leads into one about "brightness" of stars and their "apparent magnitude" (as opposed their absolute magnitude.)

Ptolemy classified the brightest stars he could see as magnitude 1 and the faintest one as magnitude 6. Each magnitude is 2.512 brighter than the next one, which comes from the fifth root of 100. (Seriously.) Why this gives Sirius -1.42, I'm not sure. I understand the negative values for the Moon (-12.5), Venus(-4.2) and the Sun(-26.5).

To get the Absolute Brightness, you would have to consider how bright an object appears at the same distance, using the Sun as Brightness of 1 for convenience.

The article next gets into stellar evolution from birth to red superiants and white dwarfs. The universe isn't old enough for there to be a black dwarf, but if there was one, it would be hard to find. Side-note: look up Herschel's "Loch im Himmel". Something about the space between stars have more matter than the stars themselves, and instead holes, there are vast obscuring clouds.

Could Sirius B have evolved from red giant to white dwarf? Is it possible that the companion star itself has a companion star?

Some interesting information if I ever wanted to write something with more science in the fiction.

Short Story: "The Claw and the Clock" by Christopher Anvil, with an illustration by Leo Summers, showing a large crab-like creature talking to another on a viewscreen on the control panel in front of him (it). The caption reads, So many people confuse "He doesn't!..." with "He can't..." And that can be Step One to a total disaster. ...

The crab race (or they could be lobsters) is introduced to us as having rescued a merchant ship and then killing its crew, and blaming the deaths on the crew. Had the met the crabs wearing armor, the crab's kill instinct would not have kicked in, becuase no one wants to break a claw. However, the humans assumed the rescue craft was friendly because it gave a Ursoid call signal. From the brief interrogation, they learned of a planet called "Faith", that Earthmen called "Storehouse".

Faith was founded by a religious sect that managed to wipe out violent tendencies from their race, on that planet, which is independent of the Earth Federation. It's refered to Storehouse because they've achieve a method of storing privisions for long periods with zero loss.

Iadrubel Vire, head crab, plans to establish contact in the hopes of being slighted enough to claim provocation, which would necessitate retaliation against a peaceful world.

There are numerous back and forth messages, with Elder Hugh Phillips trying to be as diplomatic as possible. Naturally, the crabs continue to escalate until they are in a state of war. Faith announces that they will not tolerate war above or around the planet.

It doesn't end well for the crabs. There's more to it, but that means spoilers.

This would have to be an entire hour of television. First, there's the expanse of the Crab/Lobster race, the space ships and the invasion and the end result. There is enough story here, complete with the B story (not mentioned here) that is actually essential to the narrative.

Short Story: "The Pickle Barrel" by Jack Wodhams, with an illustration by Leo Summers, showing three men apparently floating weightlessly inside a ship. There's a console and a window. The caption reads, There is a difference between taking care of every known hazard -- and taking care of every hazard . . .

This line sums up the story "This vessel is a stagnant pool, filtrated ever more perniciously by the accumuation of contaminat juices." Filters working at 98% aren't going to be sufficient. And cleaning up contanimants, like expected an fungus, require using solvents that might add to a smell that won't go away completely for the next 15 months.

This story is basically a series of unfortunate events that compound every time the system recycles the reserve tanks. Simple organisms, such as the plants they're eating, will start to adapt and not be as useful. This would be a little too depressing for TV, particularly since it's just three people sharing 100 cubic feet of space, more of a larger 1970s capsule than recent sci-fi TV. Side note: it would have to be 3 guys, or 3 women, on this first trip to swing around Mars. A co-ed trip would just add extra problems that aren't in the story. If filmed, this would have to be played for laughs, right up to the conclusion, and then an off-screen character at mission control, could fill in for the story's narrator.

Filler: Deadly Poisons A half-page post-script (I don't think it's related to the story) that docuents that useful things can be dangerous and deadly at certain times in certain quantities.

The Reference Library , by P. Schuyler Miller. There's a long discussion about how hard it was to find good sci-fi films in 1970, aside from 2001 and Planet of the Apes. Part of this is because back then in towns like Philadelphia, a hit move would play for a few weeks, and be replaced with another. In smaller towns, films might come and go every few days. But there was another problem there. Sometimes they'd change the titles or advertise them as something they weren't, so potential viewers might've been turned away.

Another problem is that the general movie-going audience feels the same way about sci-fi movies told as a sci-fi story as sci-fi fans feels about sci-fi movies that aren't told that way.

Next is a list of the 1970 Hugo winners, and I've heard of most of the stuff that mentioned (yay!) but haven't read much of them (aw!).

Books reviewed: Time And Again by Jack Finney (set in 1882 New York), The Organ Bank Farm by John Boyd, And Chaos Died by Joanna Russ, and a couple of fan-made bibliographies for sale. Also mentioned are four Arthur C. Clarke novels, which were rereleased to libraries after "2001": Reach for Tomorrow, Prelude to Space, Expedition to Earth, and Tales from the White Hart. I've read none of those. (I think I've read three Clarke books: Fountains of Paradise, Imperial Earth and 3001.)

Brass Tacks: Again, I'm reading the letters to the editor because they're fun, or at least interesting. And because I read them every issue back when I had a subscription, even before I read some of the stories. And what could be more interesting than a letter from L. Sprague deCamp, complete with a home address, asking readers if they know the whereabouts of groups of original letters of Howard Phillips Lovecraft, which are not at Brown University. Side note: on my one trip to Brown, I took an excursion to the cemetery and stopped at H.P.'s grave. "I Am Providence." A response to a population/pollution editorial states "If we're lucky, those dirty, messy old power plants which will 'fuel' our electric cars will be replaced by fusion-powered stations, following a major breakthrough." There's a claim, which Campbell agrees with, that Mozart's Cosi fan tutte ("And So Do They All", they meaning women) rates as science fiction because the speculation that a huge horeshoe magnet could revive the dead. And a reader elaborates on V.P. Spiro Agnew "giving expression to the feeling that something is wrong with the information conveyed by our news media."

On to March, and a couple other things.