Light-Years from the Vatican

For a long while the only Louis L’Amour books I’d read were not westerns: The Walking Drum (set in Europe in the Middle Ages), and The Last of the Breed (about a Native American pilot who is shot down by Soviet Russia). I liked both books, but having heard that L’Amour writes westerns (ha ha) I tried a few, and I love them. I have read a handful of them now, and yeah they are good.

The Quick and the Dead is a terrific quick read about a city dweller family of three who gets in over their head on their way across the prairie. Luckily, Con Vallian happens by and lends a hand.

I read this book while in a rented cabin in central Utah near the Capitol Reef National Park. I left it in there on the bookshelf for the next person…

I’m still keeping up with Shawn D. Standfast’s Asimov Future History Project. For three weeks (including next week; I’m a week ahead now) we’ve been reading the I, Robot trilogy written by Mickey Zucker Reichert and published from 2011 to 2016. The books are: I, Robot: To Protect; I, Robot: To Obey; and I, Robot: To Preserve. I’ve read all three now, part of the second and all of the third on audio.

They… are not terrific. But there’s some good in there too.

The books are about Susan Calvin, the famous robopsychologist character in some of Isaac Asimov’s robot stories. In Asimov’s stories, she’s described as a cold, logical, and brilliant.

But that Susan Calvin isn’t the one in these novels. From the first pages, I knew we weren’t in Asimov’s universe, since those pages say “Chapter 1: July 2, 2035” and introduce us to a twenty-something Susan Calvin who is starting her clinicals as a psychologist (treating humans) at a Manhattan hospital. Asimov’s Susan Calvin was born in 1982, so there was no attempt to fit this Susan Calvin with Asimov’s.

What I liked best about the books didn’t have anything to do with robots. Reichert skillfully wrote several character medical scenarios that would have fit very well in episodes of House, with Susan Calvin playing House. Solving those mysteries was compelling stuff, and it kept me going.

Robots are not the main part of the plot in books one and two. The third book is a robot mystery. The overall aim of the plots are to bring this book’s Susan Calvin from a brilliant psychologist solving problems for humans to the brilliant but cold robopsychologist we all know. Reichert’s Susan goes through a lot.

In the end, though, I can’t recommend the books. They were quick easy reads and I read all three, which says something positive about them, but the characters and situations didn’t rung true for me.

Julie and I finished Njal’s Saga and posted a Good Story podcast. I enjoyed it even more the second time. I’ll leave the talking about it to the podcast, but we barely scratched the surface! There was so much more to Hallgerd and Njal and Gunnar… if you want a fantastic resource to learn everything you ever wanted to know about Njal’s Saga (and other Icelandic sagas), check out the Saga Thing podcast.

I originally read this saga in a Booktube group. The hosts of the group included myself (first video here) and these fine folks:

Elena Makridina
Bookish North
Richardson Reads
A Cruel Reader’s Thesis
Steve Donoghue
The Bookish Bryants
Rambling Raconteur

In April, this group and I will do this again with Egil’s Saga. We all posted an announcement video on the Saturday I was on vacation, so here’s mine. It’s got absolutely no information about the saga AT ALL.

Books In:

The Captiol Reef Reader, edited by Stephen Trimble. Purchased at the Visitor Center at Capitol Reef National Park. Essays and excerpt from lots of authors, including Wallace Stegner and Edward Abbey.

The Portable Medieval Reader, edited by James Bruce Ross and Mary Martin McLaughlin. Found on eBay after it was recommended to me by a friend. Lots of good stuff in there!

 

Those vampires are still waiting. And so is Asimov.

How to Live Like a Monk: Medieval Wisdom for Modern Life is a beautiful little book. Daniele Cybulskie, part of the crew over at the medievalists.net website, blog, and podcast, wrote this book about monks, nuns, and their practices during medieval times. I really like the author’s style, and loved the details of monkish life. I wasn’t as enamored with the “wisdom for modern life” parts, but it’s the smaller part of the book. It’s possible that I’ve read enough life advice over the years that nothing offered here struck me as new. But the medieval monkish bits I liked quite a lot!

I started Dayworld by Philip Jose Farmer, a book recommended by Tom LA Books and a book I’m buddy reading with David Wiley, who has a website and a YouTube channel, both worth your time.

Dayworld starts with a quick few pages of info dump. Farmer explains a bit about the world in a way that doesn’t feel like part of the narrative, but like the author talking to the reader. This is fun stuff, Farmer says. Check it out. On this crowded world, people spend 6 of 7 days in a “stoner”, and 1 glorious day out and about in the world. In other words: every day of the week, one seventh of the population runs around living while the other six sevenths sit in their stoner pods, hibernating.

Our protagonist, though, is a daybreaker. He has found a way to stay active all seven days. I’m 100 pages in and have seen his Tuesday life and part of his Wednesday life. I’ve seen his Tuesday wife and his Wednesday wife. And I’ve seen how complicated it was getting safely from Tuesday to Wednesday. Fun book so far!

I haven’t read a lot of Philip Jose Farmer, but I did like To Your Scattered Bodies Go.

I’m listening to Stolen Focus by Johann Hari. The subtitle is: Why You Can’t Pay Attention–and How to Think Deeply Again. I’m interested in books about reclaiming deep thought and have read several of them. This is a good one because Hari is a very good writer (and a very good narrator), and he looks at the problem of lost focus from a number of different angles, including but not limited to the what-is-social-media-doing-to-my-brain angle that other authors focus on (if they’ve figured out how to focus, that is).

Some sample chapter titles:

Cause One: The Increase in Speed, Switching, and Filtering

Cause Two: The Crippling of Our Flow States

Cause Three: The Rise of Physical and Mental Exhaustion

Cause Four: The Collapse of Sustained Reading

Cause Five: The Disruption of Mind-Wandering

Cause Six: The Rise of Technology That Can Track and Manipulate You

Cause Seven: The Rise of Cruel Optimism

Cause Eight: The Surge in Stress and How it is Triggering Vigilance

Cause Nine and Ten: Our Deteriorating Diets and Rising Pollution

Cause Eleven: The Rise of ADHD and How We Are Responding to It

Cause Twelve: The Confinement of Our Children, Both Physically and Psychologically

 
He addresses each subject in a conversational style, and interviews experts in various disciplines, letting us know what he found. Christopher Hitchens once said that “the most satisfying compliment a reader can pay is to tell me that he or she feels personally addressed”. Johann Hari makes me feel personally addressed in both his prose and narration, and the book, so far, is time very well spent.

I’m currently in the “Cause Six” chapter. Could fixing social media be as simple as moving away from an ad-supported model to a subscription model?

Last thing: I am continuing Njal’s Saga, more than halfway there. Still enjoying this second visit quite a bit. More on Njal soon!

Books in:

Titan by John Varley (this is a gap in my reading. Looking forward to it.)

Wizard by John Varley (sequel to above, bought them together)

The Church in the Dark Ages (430-1027) by Phillip Campbell (part of an excellent series of short Church histories collectively called Reclaiming Catholic History, published by Ave Maria Press)

Orbitsville by Bob Shaw (in from Paperbackswap, I’m sdanielson on there)

The Ragged Astronauts by Bob Shaw (also Paperback swap)

Lenten Gospel Reflections by Bishop Robert Barron (Lent is fast approaching!)

Going to Church in Medieval England by Nicholas Orme (really looking forward to this)

 
 

My goodness time flies. January is behind us.

I haven’t read a whole lot in the last two weeks. I did read another five Asimov stories in the Future History Project, but the goal was ten, so now I’m a week behind. The five stories I read were “Segregationist”, “Let’s Get Together”, “The Tercentenary Incident”, “First Law”, and “Runaround”.

These stories were all vaguely familiar and very enjoyable. My favorite was “The Tercentenary Incident”, in which the president of the future United States (which is now part of a bigger Earth government) is assassinated right after giving a Tercentenary speech on July 4, 2076. The method of assassination was interesting; the president simply disappeared in a “glitter of dust”. Clearly a Q36 Explosive Space Modulator. Shortly after that, the same president reappears and gives a different speech. Now we know one of the two presidents is a robot, but which one? Lots of that kind of thing coming as we move forward with Asimov’s stories.

Three of the next five stories are Susan Calvin stories. I’m looking forward to them!

I read Dan Simmons’ first published story, a horror tale called “The River Styx Runs Upstream”. It reminds me of Bradbury, but darker. In the story, the mother of the family dies for an unknown reason. The father spends a great deal of money, a financially ruinous sum, to have “The Resurrectionists” reanimate the corpse in some kind of technological way. The mother is now present physically, but not at all present in spirit. She walks around but doesn’t respond to interaction. I won’t spoil the story further, but it’s unsettling. This family is not at all well.

In the introduction, Simmons talks about Harlan Ellison reading this story during a workshop, and how he felt being taken seriously by both him and other writers.

I’m also well into Njal’s Saga for the second time. I’m loving it again, and look forward to reading other Icelandic sagas. I have a big book full of them right over there. We’ll talk about it on Good Story soon, but first we’ve got a movie to discuss: “Master and Commander” starring Russell Crowe, which was a terrific movie that reminds me of a whole mess of books I’d like to read.

And I still haven’t forgotten about Mignola’s vampires. Huzzah!

Books in:

Dayworld by Philip Jose Farmer (recommended to me by Tom, of Tom LA Books fame)

Cyteen by C. J. Cheeryh (one of those books I’ve been meaning to read forever)

The Word of the Lord: Reflections on Sunday Mass Readings for Year C by John Bergsma (thank you, Julie!)

Christmas on Ganymede and Other Stories, edited by Martin H. Greenberg (I am almost certain that I’m going to replace my Christmas book choice for the Good Story podcast with this one)

Turns out that Death Comes to the Archbishop was NOT completely free of murders. I mean, things were pretty rough out in the New Mexico Territory in the 1800s. The book was terrific, and there will be a lot to talk to Julie about on the podcast later this week. In the book, a Bishop and a priest created and served a diocese while the history of the American West, with all the dangers that implies, carried on around them. It was quite good, and I’ll talk more about it after we record. Thanks (yet again!) Julie.

I also managed in this very busy week to keep up with the Future History Project, reading five more stories: “True Love”, “Robbie”, “Robot AL-76 Goes Astray”, “Victory Unintentional”, and “Stranger in Paradise”. Even though Asimov invented eHarmony in “True Love” and “Robbie” is one of his most famous robot stories (and a good one), my favorite this week was “Robot AL-76 Goes Astray”.

“Robot AL-76 Goes Astray” was published in Amazing Stories in February 1942. See the glorious green cover on the right. Asimov sold his first story in 1939, so he was still fairly new and therefore wasn’t mentioned on the cover. Very nifty (or should I say “Amazing”?) to see Edgar Rice Burroughs and Isaac Asimov in the same magazine. I checked to make sure that Pellucidar story wasn’t a reprint – it wasn’t. ERB died in 1950 and at this time was still writing.

In Asimov’s story, Robot AL-76 is programmed to work on the moon, but escapes on Earth before being sent there. The robot wanders, meets a person, wonders why the person isn’t wearing a spacesuit, because isn’t this the Moon? The robot then builds a mining tool called a “Disinto” out of a pile of rubbish and two flashlight batteries. We don’t know what a Disinto is until he kicks it on, but kick it on he does, and it disintegrates the surrounding area. The story is funny, enjoyable. A great Asimov story. I loved how the engineers were heartbroken that the robot dismantled the Disinto.

I didn’t revist the vampires in Baltimore by Mike Mignola and Christopher Golden this week, but I’m headed back that direction soon.

Books In:

• Drive, Part 3 by Dave Kellet (a science fiction comic, find it here)
• The Bachman Books by Stephen King (an older paperback that includes Rage)
• Roadmarks by Roger Zelazny (I ran across this article, and recalled the paperback)
• Artificial Things by Karen Joy Fowler (a short story collection)
• Pilgrim by David Whyte (poetry)

 

I remember how Baltimore, or The Steadfast Tin Soldier and the Vampire by Mike Mignola and Christopher Golden got on my reading list. I was watching a panel discussion with editor Anne Groell at Worldcon 2020 (via Zoom; Worldcon was remote that year due to COVID), and she talked about editing this and having the idea of structuring it “like a mass”. Like a Catholic Mass.

So of course I was interested. I looked into the book, and sure enough the chapter titles are “Arrival: Kyrie”, “The Surgeon’s Tale: Offertorio”, “The Sailor’s Tale: Sanctus”, and onward.

I find Mike Mignola interesting, too, but I haven’t followed through on that interest with any actual reading. I love the Ron Perlman/Guillermo del Toro Hellboy movies, so his Hellboy graphic novels are probably my kind of thing. And I love the art!

But instead, I have Baltimore and today I read the prelude on my Kindle. “Prelude: Requiem” opens with a quote from Hans Christian Anderson’s The Steadfast Tin Soldier:

There were once five and twenty tin soldiers, all brothers, for they were the offspring of the same old tin spoon.

In this Prelude, there is, “on a cold autumn night”, a battle from World War I happening and our man Captain Henry Baltimore is in the thick of it. The folks on the other side of this battle are the Hessians. So we’re definitely in some kind of fantasy or alternate world here, but the battle is very recognizable World War I style; two armies in trenches facing each other across a field strewn with barbed wire and corpses.

The title of the book has the word “vampire” in it, so it’s no surprise to state that those vampires make an appearance right here in the beginning. So far this book is grim, but I’m intrigued and will continue. I need to take a look of a hardcopy of this one because I’m interested what the layout looks like with Mignola’s art. In the Kindle version, there are small pieces of black and white artwork here and there. I bet the hardcopy is a thing of grim beauty.

Another book I’ve got going right now is the next book for the Good Story podcast: Death Comes to the Archbishop by Willa Cather. I’m embarrassed to admit that I was as wrong as could be about the plot of this book. I thought it was going to be a murder mystery! Some crossed wires in my head for sure. This book is about a bishop and a priest establishing a diocese in New Mexico in the 1800’s. No murder mysteries here! No vampires, either. At least in the first part.

Jehoshaphat, it’s 2022!

I’m sure that’s exactly how Elijah Bailey would say that. On January 1, a big ole project started over on Booktube, with Shawn D. Standfast at the helm. He’s calling it The Future History project, and the plan is to read all of Isaac Asimov’s stories and novels that are part of his overarching Future History. This mainly includes his Robot stories and his Foundation stories, which eventually merge into one big thing. There are also stories on his list that are written by other authors in the same universe. See Shawn’s announcement video, in which he outlines the Big Plan, and which includes a reading list for January.

Shawn has made an effort to create the list in chronological order, so the stories this week are the earliest stories on the timeline. Not the earliest written, but the earliest in timeline of Future History! (echo, echo)

This week I read 5 short stories: “A Boy’s Best Friend”, “Sally”, “Someday”, “Point of View”, and “Think!”, all by Asimov.

I was delighted to re-read “A Boy’s Best Friend”, which is a very short story that I’ve read out loud to various middle school library groups I’ve done over the years when talking about science fiction. It’s just short enough to read out loud, and there are plenty of ideas in there to discuss with a group to fill an hour. Life on the moon, robot dogs (are they better than real dogs?), can a dog wear a spacesuit, why does the Earth not move in the lunar sky from day to day? That kind of stuff.

Asimov is such a clear writer. If there’s a dud in these five, I’d call out “Point of View”, in which a boy solves the problem of the story by pointing out that the Multivac computer probably needs to rest (or play) for part of every day so that it works properly. (The clear and obvious solution was to turn it off and on again.)

Earlier today I re-read for the second time in a week The Book of Ecclesiastes in the Ignatius Study Bible. This is in prep for the first episode of the year of the A Good Story is Hard to Find podcast.

Here is the well known part of Chapter 3, King James version:

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:

A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;

A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;

A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;

A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;

A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;

A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;

A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.

What profit hath he that worketh in that wherein he laboureth?