Category Archives: Reviews

Reviews of books, movies, what have you.

MOVIE REVIEW: Shadow of a Doubt (1943)

Everyone in the Newton household in Santa Rosa is delighted that “Uncle Charlie” (Joseph Cotton), the younger brother of matriarch Emma Newton (Patricia Collinge), is coming over to stay a while. Especially Charlotte “Charlie” Newton (Teresa Wright), the oldest child in the family, who seems about to die of boredom in the small town. Uncle Charlie has apparently been living a well-traveled life, filled with experiences of all sorts, and can always be counted on to shower the family with presents.

But what they don’t know while we do (because we’ve seen the “prologue”), is that Uncle Charlie is some sort of ne’er-do-well. He’s living in a rooming house where he has wads of loose cash scattered about, and is dodging two men who have “staked out” the place. And he’s heading to Santa Rosa not because he wants to see his family, but because he needs to get out of town post-haste.

Will anyone in the household figure out what Uncle Charlie’s really been up to before it’s too late?

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Book Review: Pax

Pax: War and Peace in Rome’s Golden Age
Tom Holland
Basic Books
Copyright 2023 by the author

We’ve long been fascinated with the Roman Empire. It’s not just that their language of Latin is one of the grandparents of English, or that a good deal of our shared culture and society can be traced back to Roman origins. There’s something about the Empire that has led it to keep reappearing in popular culture, from the epic costume dramas of the 1950s to the TV shows of more recent times. Could it be we’re obsessed with the details of Roman life – the food, drink, and clothing? Or perhaps it’s the more abstract things – the philosophy, the “ethos”, the “mindset” of what a Proper Roman Citizen aspired to?

Oh, come off it, it’s the palace intrigue, corruption, and depravity of the ruling class. It’s the rise to power of Julius Caesar and his assassination, the depravity of Caligula and Nero, and the slow, sputtering decline of the Empire that attract us.

With this third work (the previous, Rubicon and Dynasty, covered Julius Caesar and Augustus through Nero), Holland continues his chronicling of the Empire. This volume takes us from the reign of Nero through the death of Hadrian – the final ascent to the peak of the Imperial power. It’s an interesting journey; there’s the “Year of the Four Emperors”, revolts in Judea, and fighting on the frontiers from Scotland to the Danube to Persia.

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BOOK REVIEW: Stranded in the Sky

Stranded in the Sky:
The Untold Story of Pan Am Luxury Airliners Trapped on the Day of Infamy
Philip Jett
Turner Publishing Company
Copyright 2023 by the author

In the late 1930s, the epitome of luxury travel was aboard one of Pan American’s “clippers”. These huge seaplanes crossed the oceans while passengers enjoyed all the accommodations and amenities one would expect from a four star hotel. Within the space and weight requirements, of course. A single round trip ticket across the Pacific might cost you the equivalent of $40,000 today. So only celebrities, government officials, wealthy businessmen, and the occasional Pan American employee would benefit. It was still much faster than travel by sea. The airline maintained their own network of dedicated hotels on islands across the oceans to allow for refueling, maintenance, and overnight R&R for flights longer than the planes’ abilities.

“Overnight to Hawaii” – 1940 Pan American Clipper promotional film:

In the early hours of December 6/7, 1941, the Hong Kong Clipper was in Kowloon Harbor in it’s namesake territory, waiting to begin its regular shuttle flight to Manila. The Pacific Clipper had already departed Honolulu, heading for Auckland, New Zealand, via stops in Canton Island (in what is now Kiribati), Fiji, and New Calendonia. The Anzac Clipper was ready to leave San Francisco for its journey to Singapore, stopping at Honolulu, Midway Atoll, Wake Island, Guam, and Manila. The Philippine Clipper was already along that route, heading for Wake Island…. Continue reading →

BOOK REVIEW: Crooked

Crooked: The Roaring ‘20s Tale of a Corrupt Attorney General, a Crusading Senator, and the Birth of the American Political Scandal
Nathan Masters
Hachette Books}
Copyright 2023 by the author

When most people think of Warren Harding’s presidency, one of the first things that will come to mind is the “Teapot Dome” scandal, where federal oil reserves were sold off to oil companies to the benefit of people in the Harding administration. Less well-known to us today, but even more outrageous was the contemporary scandal at the Veterans’ Bureau. The Bureau was purchasing goods for far more than market price, surplus goods were sold off for much less than they should have been, and millions of dollars were flat out unaccounted for.

Senate committees were investigating all this. But the biggest scandal was, quite simply, that the US Attorney General and the Justice Department weren’t doing anything at all to help the investigations.

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BOOK REVEIW: Time Trials

Time Trials
M.A. Rothman & D.J. Butler
Baen Books
Copyright 2023 by the authors

I don’t usually care for novel series. More often than not, you have to commit to reading the complete set of novels in order to get the entire story. Or the follow-up novels are just a case of the publisher telling the author “That book did really well. Write another one, with the same characters and same universe.” It gets annoying when you can tell it’s just a cash grab on the order of the Transformers or Fast and Furious movies.

The worst ones are where they can’t be bothered to indicate anywhere on the cover that the book is part of a series. Do I need to read all the ones that came before it to figure out what’s going on? Will I have to read all the following books? Do I have to read them all in a specific order?

Fortunately, there’s a blurb from Kirkus Reviews right on the cover that lets you know what to expect with this one: “An entertaining first entry in what promises to be a fantastic time-travel series.”

 

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Book Review: The Clockwork Dynasty

The Clockwork Dynasty
by Daniel H. Wilson
Doubleday Books
Ccopyright 2017 by the author

June Stefanov is an expert in the repair and restoration of antique “clockwork” devices and automata. She got into the trade thanks to some unintentional inspiration from her Russian grandfather, who survived the Battle of Stalingrad and bequeathed to her both a tale of a mysterious soldier of superhuman ability and an unusual bit of metal he recovered from that hellscape.

Now, she’s been summoned to an old church in Oregon, where they have one of these devices in storage – and is badly in need of repair. Unfortunately for her, there are people who would rather she didn’t fix it – and she finds herself caught up in a centuries-long battle among a hidden cabal of quasi-immortal machines.

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MOVIE REVIEW: Grabbers (2012, Ireland and UK)

It’s so common a trope that there’s got to be a name for it. A monster appears / arrives in a small isolated community. A few strange things happen, and then some people disappear. A few people in the community investigate, and discover the monster. For some reason, authorities outside the community cannot come to the rescue. So it’s up to our heroes to figure out how to defeat it and rally the community for the fight.

Movies from The Blob to Tremors have used it, and even movies outside the “monster movie” genre (like Jaws and Halloween) use at least some of the parts.

Given how common it is, any movie that uses it should be judged not on how well it uses the trope, but on the strength of any other ideas or sub-plots that are used. Continue reading →

MOVIE REVIEW: Colossus: The Forbin Project (1970)

Seems every week there’s another article out about people being Concerned over the possible dangers posed by artificial intelligence (AI for short). A lot of the tech people involved in developing it are asking for some government guidelines and regulation, Somehow, they can’t seem to slow down on their own. Can’t afford to let someone else get it first, you see.

The big worry is that somehow, any AI might determine that its goals are not in line with those of humans, and it will take over the world. The one movie that’s constantly referenced is The Terminator (1984), in which the military gave control of its weapons systems to something called “Skynet”, which became self-aware and turned against humanity. Some commenters might mention War Games (1983), where a supercomputer was given control of the US’ nuclear missiles and then, thanks to some glitches, thought that a simulation was a real attack…..

So far, though, I haven’t seen anyone mention what is probably the first of these “give a supercomputer control of the nukes” movies – the adaptation of D.F. Jones 1966 novel, Colossus: The Forbin Project. Continue reading →

Book Review: The Called Shot

The Called Shot: Babe Ruth, The Chicago Cubs, & The Unforgettable Major League Baseball Season of 1932
Thomas Wolf
University of Nebraska Press
Copyright 2020 by the author

It’s one of the most iconic moments in baseball, if not all of sports. In the top of the fifth inning in Game 3 of the World Series, Babe Ruth is at the plate with two strikes on him. He faces / looks at / glares into the Cubs dugout, waves / motions / points emphatically at / towards / in the direction of the pitcher’s mound / outfield / the centerfield bleachers, possibly says / yells something, and then slams the next pitch soaring into the Chicago afternoon for a home run.

Wolf decides not to spend a lot of time and ink going over that moment; instead, he looks at the season that led up to it. Continue reading →

BOOK REVIEW: Empire of Ice and Stone

Empire of Ice and Stone: The Disastrous and Heroic Voyage of the Karluk
Buddy Levy
St. Martin’s Press
Copyright 2022 by the author

It’s the explorers going for “firsts” that get all the press. First to the South Pole, first to summit Everest, etc. The ones doing the actual science and cartography, filling in the blank spaces on the map, are the ones who get forgotten – even if their travels and travails are far more interesting and exciting.

In 1913, Vilhjalmur Stefansson decided to lead an expedition to the “High Arctic”, setting out from Alaska and moving up into the Canadian north. The “Canadian Arctic Expedition” would map the territory and do assorted scientific explorations, looking for sea life and recording the weather – and staking claim to any new lands. Stefansson, meanwhile, knew where the real profit was; he arranged for exclusive publication rights to pretty much everything produced by the expedition. There would be two ships to take all the scientists; Stefansson would captain the Alaska; Robert Bartlett would head the Karluk. Continue reading →