Category Archives: Reviews

Reviews of books, movies, what have you.

Book Review: Book and Dagger

Book and Dagger: How Scholars and Librarians Became the Unlikely Spies of World War II
Elyse Graham
Ecco Books
Copyright 2024 by the author

You could, if you want, blame Secretary of State Henry Stimson. In 1929, he’s alleged to have stuck his nose in the air and said “Gentlemen don’t read each other’s mail”, and then shut down most of the United States’ foreign intelligence apparatus. So we were caught flat-footed when the Japanese attacked twelve years later.

Now it was up to William Donovan, the newly appointed head of the OSS, to put together his agency from scratch. The “Research and Development” side would be easy – just get a bunch of technical people to design and build all the secret devices of spycraft. But for the “Research and Analysis” department, which would collect and study the mountains of data needed by the US Military, you needed people with highly specialized training.

So that’s why a Yale English professor found himself at a “secure location”, learning how to silently kill someone with a knife, and how to deal with being interrogated by the enemy. Oh, by the way, you’d only need to hold up under capture and interrogation for 48 hours. Not because by that time they’d be done with you, or that you could expect to be rescued by then, but because that’s how long it should take for your contacts to forget they ever knew you and “vanish”….

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Book Review: Every Living Thing

Every Living Thing: The Great and Deadly Race to Know All Life
Jason Roberts
Random House
Copyright 2024 by the author

The Scientific Revolution kept rolling on. The Copernican Revolution changed how we look at the universe. Isaac Newton crystallized several lines of inquiry into modern physics. Now it was time to tackle the life sciences.

Two geniuses would set things in motion by taking on the huge task of organizing and classifying living things. In Sweden, Carl Linnaeus was set on becoming a doctor, but he found the field of botany more fascinating. In France, Georges-Louis Leclerc, the self-styled Comte de Buffon, used a lucky inheritance to indulge his passion for “natural history”. A brief work in statistics (“Buffon’s Needle”) got him noticed, and soon he was picked to be the “superintendent” of the Royal Garden* in Paris, where he was given the task of cataloging the massive collections.

Roberts treats these two contemporaries with a dual biography, showing how they approached the matter of the abundance and variety of life from two different directions.

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BOOK REVIEW: FTL, Y’All!

FTL, Y’All!: Tales From the Age of the $200 Warp Drive
Edited by C. Spike Trotman and Amanda Lafrenais
Iron Circus Comics
Copyright 2018 by Iron Circus Comics

As an “Old Fogey”, I remember when comic books were something you found in the checkout lines at the supermarket, or perhaps in a bookstore or newsstand. They were just “there”; I never had the inclination (or money, or time) to care about them. And that was pretty much what most people thought of them. Sure, we all knew about Superman and Batman (and Archie), but that was thanks to TV. No one ever took them seriously.

Then Art Spiegelman published Maus, and showed quite convincingly that the format could indeed produce works of real merit. Rather suddenly, all the comic geeks demanded to be heard, because there really was some good stuff being done in the medium. Though I have to differ with the term “graphic novel”; most of the works aren’t long enough to be called a novel – “illustrated short story” is better.

I still didn’t get into them, though. Same reasons – didn’t care to. Then a chance pickup of a little sample flyer from Iron Circus Comics piqued my interest, so I thought I’d give their website a look.

FTL, Y’All! is an anthology of stories based on a simple premise. In the near future, plans for a faster-than-light drive appear online. And the parts are all readily available for the cost of around $200, and can be easily assembled without any special skill.

What happens then, when pretty much everyone who wants to can build their own starship?

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Book Review: The Oxygen Farmer

The Oxygen Farmer
Colin Holmes
CamCat Books
Copyright 2023 by James Colin Holmes

“Mil” Harrison is a stubborn old man. In his seventies, he’s been living on the Moon for half of those years. His job? “Farming” oxygen (getting it out of the lunar regolith) to be used for life support and fuel. He’s got the knowledge that comes with his years to be able to fix most of the physical problems he deals with, the experience to know which rules can be “bypassed” when necessary, and the general respect and collection of favors to be given some slack when he does choose to “bypass” a rule.

While trekking across the lunar surface to collect a part he needs for a repair, he takes a shortcut across an “exclusion zone”. Normally, these are Thou Shalt Not Enter Under The Severest Of Penalties areas. He’s not worried; no one seems to know just why this particular area was given that designation. Then he quite literally stumbles over something that isn’t supposed to be there….. And when he investigates the site – because he can – he finds something really interesting and REALLY dangerous.

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MOVIE REVIEW: The Secret Sex Lives of Romeo and Juliet (1969)

I know you’re asking (and if you’re not, you should be) “Why is this guy reviewing an old soft-core porn flick?” Well, one of my guiding principles here is that any movie worth talking about should have something in it to justify the conversation – even if the movie is an example of what not to do.

I also maintain that there is a difference between pornography and erotica: if you remove all the sex from something and what’s left still has some value and interest, then it’s erotica, not porn.

With that in mind, let’s NOT look at the nudity and simulated sex, and see if there’s anything left that’s worth a discussion. This will require winding up the figurative time machine and program in stops in three different eras.

First, let’s go back to the late 1950s to see what was going on in the movie industry. Continue reading →

MOVIE REVIEW: Lady Death (2004)

Things keep getting worse for Hope, a teenager in 15th century Sweden. Her dad’s a right proper bastard of a nobleman, and he’s forbidding her to leave his castle grounds, much less see her boyfriend. The locals are generally OK with him, as long as he keeps winning battles against whatever heathens are in the area.

Well, Dad goes a bit too far with his “recruiting techniques”, and soon enough, there’s an uprising. Dad pulls an ace out of his sleeve – he’s actually Lucifer himself! He makes his escape – but then the mob turns on Hope. She has to be an accomplice, and must be burned at the stake for her witchcraft!

Before she can die, two flying “things” come and take her away, bringing her to Hell. Dad / Lucifer will let her live, but she must worship him. Well, Hope isn’t having that – especially since Dad has the souls of her boyfriend and mother as prisoners. She winds up being banished to the farthest reaches of Hell (apparently, Dad can’t bring himself to kill her / let her die) – where she sets about plotting her revenge. Continue reading →

Book Review: If it Sounds Like a Quack

If It Sounds Like A Quack: A Journey to the Fringes of American Medicine
Matthew Hongoltz-Hetling
Public Affairs Books
Copyright 2023 by the author

It starts out innocently enough. Maybe you see the rare occasion when an old “folk remedy” actually works. Or the lifestyle changes you promote (usually diet and exercise) along with your treatment help the patient heal themselves while your treatment does nothing. Or maybe it’s just the placebo effect. In any case, the end result is the one you hoped for. So you become convinced that you have the One True Cure that can fix all the things that ail people. You go into business promoting and selling it, and an understaffed FDA (and other government agencies) can’t get out of the way of its own bureaucracy fast enough to stop you.

Word spreads, and people dissatisfied with the current health care industry (which often seems more concerned about profits than patient care) buy your One True Cure. What can go wrong, especially now that the money is coming in?

Multiply this by the Internet which gives everyone both a platform to hawk their wares and a way to find out about these “treatments”, health care “deserts” in rural and poor regions that push people to seek out cheaper alternative treatments, and a political party that encourages “individual freedom” over the needs of the society as a whole, and you’ve got a story that, in the hands of Hongoltz-Hetling, is both funny and infuriating.

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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 →