I just finished this fantastic book by Jeff Janoda who took one of the Icelandic Sagas (specifically the Eyrbyggja Saga) and fleshed out the characters and plot to make it more palatable for us 21st century types. The story reminded me a great deal of a tragedy in the Shakesperean tradition where you have people of power to think they can shape their own destiny yet find that fate takes them down paths they could never have imagined (usually to terrible consequences).
He tackles the difficult problem of explaining the numerous traditions and beliefs that ruled 10th century Iceland without drowning the reader in exposition or watering down the concepts to the point where the setting becomes generic. Most of the concepts are placed in a glossary in the back with the list of the dramatis personae in the front. In no time even the most unfamiliar names and similar sounding characters distinguish themselves as separate entities (not easy when you’ve got characters named Thorfinn, Thorgils, Thorleif, Thormod, Thorodd, and Thorolf).
Usually, books I finish either are given away because I know I’ll never crack them open again or they might go back on the shelf with the intention to enjoy them again after the passage of time erases all but the general flow of the story. Rarely, I’ll finish one and want to start right back at the beginning because I enjoyed the story so much and Saga easily fell into that category.
I’m not sure what (if anything) the author is working on next (his website is maddeningly out of date) but a sequel or retelling of another one of the stories would certainly worth while. Unfortunately, too many examples of literature that are cornerstones of our (or other) civilizations are being lost because they just aren’t accessible to the general population (the Iliad, Odessey, Aeneid, Beowulf, Canterbury Tales, etc., etc. etc.) but work like this can really help to make such works relevant to new audiences.
I’m getting ready to take a vacation to the land of the Great White North…no wait, that’s Canada. I mean this frozen northern land with a brief excusion to Estonia. Therefore I won’t be blogging for awhile but, due to the wonders of WordPress, I’m going to try to make a virtue out of necessity and get a few weeks worth of blogging done tonight. I can then arrange to have my posts published every so often so that it will seem like I’m still actively writing while I’m actually stuffing myself with Surtromming (or maybe just having a nice meal in Stockholm if I can’t find the required HAZMAT suit). This plan will hopefully catch me up on everything I haven’t blogged about but wanted to recently.
So…first things first. I know I’m not giving you a lot of time, dear readers but I’m packing and need to select what book(s) to bring with me on my vacation. My only requirement is that it must be in paperback and ideally in pocket size since I hate packing extra weight/bulk. You’ve got about 36 hours to make your recommendations so get cracking!
I just finished reading/listening to the books above and they made an interesting trilogy. Legacy of Ashes was a phenomenal book which traced the history of the CIA from its origins until 2007. I found it particularly interesting how, from its very inception, the agency was characterized as one that saw any sort of control (from the President, congress, or the constitution) as interference. The inability of the agency to voluntarily stay within the limits of its charter raises serious questions about the wisdom of having a secret agency whose central function requires deceit and subversion in an open democracy.
I have to admit, I’ve bought into the myth of the CIA as much as everyone else so it was a bit of a disappointment to hear the numerous instances where intelligence and analytical work was shoddy or took a back seat to political considerations or cowboys who decided they knew what was in the best interests of the U.S. and did their own thing. It was that covert action, usually done with no consideration of possible consequences that has to make one wonder if we wouldn’t be better off without such an agency.
A good (semi) counter point would be Robert Baer’s See No Evil which is a brilliant description of the CIA from a covert operators point of view. After reading his book you do kind of think that perhaps Baer (and those few like him) really does know what’s best for the country and should be allowed to just ‘get on with it’. I’ll have to spend some time trying to reconcile those two accounts. Both books do seem to agree, however, on the idea that the CIA is hobbled by a new wave of inexperienced analysts, agents as well as a glut of bureaucrats.
State of Denial doesn’t really tell you anything you don’t already know providing you haven’t been in a coma during the past five years. Still, it just lets you know that the gross incompetence is a well documented fact and not just a strong suspicion.
Armed Madhouse is great because its one of those books that gives you an alternative narrative to what’s going on today in America’s political landscape. I’m not entirely convinced that Palast is providing the best explaination for what’s been going on in America since 2001 (when a book tries to question so many closely held assumptions like this one does, it would be a big help to provide links to supporting evidence) but it does get you to think. I found his defense of Hugo Chavez particularly interesting.
I seem to be going through a phase where I am listening to audio versions of books that I enjoyed as a teenager. My latest foray down memory lane is the Riverworld series by Philip Jose Farmer. The first book of the series, To Your Scattered Bodies Go, sets the stage with a world in which everyone who has ever lived being resurrected along a 10 million mile river. The concept certainly gives an author tons of possibilities (what would happen if Elvis met Ghengis Khan?). Farmer focuses on some neat historical figures (notably Sir Richard Francis Burton in the first book) and meshes them well with his fictional ones.
The book holds up quite well over time and contains a good mix of action with the mundane needed to flesh out the details to make the world seem ‘real’ and carry the story over three more novels. The series actually consists of five books but the story arc really concludes at the end of the forth (if I remember correctly) and the last book felt a bit forced.
As I was listening to the story, it occurred to me that Riverworld might just be a superb setting for an RPG campaign. It appears that I was a bit too late to profit from that idea myself (Steve Jackson Games beat me to it) but that’s probably for the best (left up to me it probably never would have seen daylight). I’m still convinced it could give you some fascinating genre bending opportunities and the age of the series (it was written 30 years ago) means that most gamers will be totally unfamiliar with the stories allowing you to lift entire plot lines from the story when developing initial campaigns. I found this forum post from several years ago that describes the opening sessions of a campaign did just that and it sounds like a lot of fun.
I just finished listening to an audiobook version of Elric of Melnibone. I first read the book in my teens and was written just a couple of years after I was born (1972) and really enjoyed the whole series (there were six books when I read them). When I first hit play on my mp3 player to listen to the book however I was a bit hesitant. What I thought of as incredibly cool at 16 might not hold up particularly well after 23 years, I thought and I wasn’t sure I wanted my fond memories dashed upon finding out I had listened to some sort of tripe.
Well, I’m glad to say I apparently had great taste as a teenager. The book was done by Audio Realms which, in addition to a brilliant reading by Jeff West, they added a great soundtrack and prologue by the author Michael Moorcock (a name which I’m sure resulted in childhood taunting). I’ve listened to quite a few audiobooks over the years and this, more than any other, made me feel like I was experiencing an ‘audio movie’ experience.
I enjoyed the book so much I quickly ordered the second in the series. After not receiving a response within a couple of weeks I called the company and was surprised to get a call back from the guy who runs the place (it’s a small company) who apologized and told me that my order would ship out in a week or so.
I got to talk to the guy (I think his name was Fred…I don’t remember now) for a bit and had a really interesting conversation. My impression was that this was a guy who really loved his work and the books he’s getting into audio format.
I’ve also listened to some of the H.P. Lovecraft audio recordings they’ve done and they are, likewise, of extraordinary quality.
So, here’s a chance to do a couple of good things at one time. Enjoy some great stories and support a small business!
A little while ago, I wrote that I had been experimenting with the self publishing site Blurb.com. I wanted a way to capture some of my better photos and old school picture albums just weren’t cutting it. They just didn’t seem particularly satisfying or complementary to my pictures and in many cases, they don’t leave you any opportunity to put the photos into context with text. I guess I could hand write notes around the pictures but given my handwriting style, I think that would just give readers the impression that I was some sort of escaped mental patient. At a minimum, I’m sure it could be used against me at any sort of commitment hearing.
That leads to the second problem with photo albums. They’re difficult to reproduce. I’m not going to kid myself into thinking I’ll make the NY Times bestseller list (although with nonsense like this topping the non-fiction lists perhaps I do have a decent chance of making the list) it is nice to be able to have a way to make copies if friends, family or others would like them.
So, dear readers, because I’ve come to think of you as one big happy family (the kind that keeps meaning to visit but can’t seem to find the time because they have to lance that nasty looking boil on the cat), I’m posting my works so far on the right hand side of the screen (See? Those nifty little thumbnail images over there?).
The “War is Heck” book contains many of the stories you’ve seen here (with serious editing to correct the grammatical/spelling mistakes and to punch up the stories) as well as a few I haven’t posted. In addition, there are 100+ photos of my time there, most quite good, if I say so myself. I’ve had to blot out the faces of U.S. soldiers so they aren’t recognizable just to stay on the safe side of any potential legal issues.
The books are really of quite good quality in terms of binding, paper quality, etc. I’ve only ordered the hardcovers thus far and was very pleased.
So, help out a starving artist, and pick up one of these fine books today (Christmas ain’t that far away, after all).
I just started working with the military this week for what looks like a six month assignment and I just started a new class for my MA titled Foundations of Peace:
This course is a history, development, and future outlook for the approaches to peace, with particular emphasis on peace through coercive power, peace through nonviolence, peace through world order, and peace through personal and community transformation. The course will study the phenomenon of peace through examples and cases from the international/strategic level down to the local/tactical/community levels.
This means I’m likely to get a bit behind in my postings. But I really wanted to give some brief reviews of stuff I’ve just discovered to tide you over until I get more time to write…
My MP3 player crapped out this week and while it was an adequate player (not outstanding but it did the job) I had enough problems getting it to work with Microsoft Vista that I took it as a sign that I should get a newer model. So, I picked up a Zune and I have to admit I’m pretty impressed so far. It’s got some minor drawbacks, mostly in terms of managing my collection either from my player or the software but it’s a very simple interface and quite frankly I don’t find that I need to manipulate my collection as much as I did with my own player.
I particularly like how the Zune handles podcasts and have taken advantage of that by subscribing to a few. After I’ve give a them a chance I’ll review them.
In the meanwhile, I humbly recommend ‘His Majesty’s Dragon‘. It had been sitting in my book shelf for awhile and I picked it up because I needed a book to keep in my cargo pocket for down time and I quickly got hooked. It’s a story of Napoleonic wars with the added twist of having dragons flying around as well.
I just started reading Meredith’s ‘The Fate of Africa’ hoping, unrealistically I know, it finish it before my next class starts on the 7th. Even if I don’t, I’m hoping there might be some applicability to the subject matter of the class, titled ‘Foundations of Peace’.
I haven’t even gotten fifty pages into the 750+ page behemoth yet but I have to say that the author’s writing style is quite inviting. Perhaps it’s just me but it seems like history and political science writing has gotten much, much better over the past 20 years and reputable authors no longer view accessibility to a general audience as synonymous with selling out.
A preview of the book is available from google here.
As I was reading this morning, I briefly began thinking about the current crisis in Sudan and the difficulty in getting an effectivepeacekeeping force there.
The International Peace Operations Association (the lobbying organization for private military companies) has held the position that they could do an effective peacekeeping mission (at lower cost and higher efficiency that traditional alternatives) if nations or international organizations (like the U.N.) would pony up the money. For some reason, I began wondering if such a mission could be raised if private citizens raised the money instead. Then I saw this article (linked from here) that talks about George Clooney and Don Cheadle offering to raise $20 million out of $47 million needed to equip the arriving UN force with 24 helicopters.
I think the offer is a moot point because it doesn’t seem that money is the problem but rather political reluctance (and here let me recommend Samantha Powers’ The Problem from Hell for more examples of such behavior).
So what if the $47 million was entirely financed by private individuals? If Ron Paul supporters (relatively few in number, burdened by campaign finance laws on donation size and not exactly overflowing with high income supporters) can raise $12 million in one quarter, how much could a semi-organized movement raise to support something as widely supported as peace in Sudan?
If one or more PMCs were offered a significant amount of money to conduct peacekeeping missions (or, more likely, peace enforcement missions since the Khartoum government would not be open to such a mission and some sort of combat would be required) would they do it?
I haven’t thought this through but it’s an interesting idea.
I went to see I Am Legend last night and thought it was a pretty good action flick. Without Will Smith, however, it would have been a ’so-so’ movie at best. He’s one of those actors that can make you ignore plot and scripting shortfalls.
The movie differs significantly from the book. So different, in fact, that you can’t really discuss which version was ‘better’. The book had a darker, more complex ending for sure (although the movie doesn’t exactly end with a ‘happily ever after’ either) but the special effects in the movie are pretty powerful and a even a mildly active imagination will force you to enjoy the post apocalyptic mayhem of the film.
The evil doers of the film were pretty two dimensional but gave a few small hints at being more interesting. Either there were some scenes left on the cutting room floor (wait for the DVD!) or, when combined with the ending, it may have been a set up for a sequel (which I do not think would be particularly good).
The original film, with Vincent Price, was closer to the book (you can watch it here) but it has it’s own faults and, in my opinion, the movie has difficulty in capturing the despair Neville feels in the book or the sense of how empty the world is in the story. I watched it again recently but it didn’t do much for me.
Another movie called Cloverfield will be kickin’ the crap out of NYC soon. I don’t have high hopes for this one. It looks like the Blair Witch Project meets Godzilla where a bunch of clueless 20-somethings decide to film a huge monsters assault on the city. The movie obviously intends on making a lot of mileage out of the fact that they have the monster decapitate the Statue of Liberty. That’s fine with me but if you have to reference that gimmick three or more times in a two minute trailer I’m guessing you don’t have much else to show.
I just finished The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan which formed the third in an (unintentional) trilogy of food related media that I’ve readwatchedlistened to absorbed over the past year or so. The first was the film Super-Size Me and the second was the audio version of Fast Food Nation. Taken together they give a pretty shocking view of where much of our food comes from and the effects on our bodies and our society.
I’ve been a pescetarian since 1997 so perhaps I was impressed with these works because they generally reinforced my preexisting notions about food. Even so, it was stunning how little I knew about the industry that feeds us and how apparently ‘green’ choices about food aren’t always as good or sustainable as you might thing.
Super-Size Me (you can see the whole movie here) will convince you (if you actually needed convincing) that ‘fast food’ not only tastes terrible but the toll it takes on your health far outweighs any ‘convenience’ value that could justify in any but the most extreme circumstances. It becomes even more clear when you find out how many people eat that crap on a regular basis (one in three children eat fast food every single day – remember that when you see a long line of obese kids huffing and puffing their way to the school bus). In fact, I’ve heard that the current generation of young people is the first in our country’s history that has a poorer health prognosis than the one before it.
Fast Food Nation (read extensive excerpts here) begins with an explanation of how fast food came to dominate the American culinary landscape (admittedly the least interesting part of the book for me but it does put the rest of the book into perspective). It then goes on to discuss the process in which the food (particularly the meat) ends up in that burger you ate the other day. That process involves illegal labor practices, contaminated food and unethical behavior on the part of companies processing that food. Not just food destined for the local McJoint either. That beef, chicken and pork you get at your local supermarket is pretty bad as well, loaded with chemicals, assorted detritus and, yes, fecal matter. That, of course, leads to all sorts of badhealtheffects. Don’t worry though, the industry has a plan. They want to irradiate the food to kill any contaminating microbes and make the food safe to eat. You’ll still be eating fecal matter but it’ll be sterile fecal matter.
Mmmmmmmmm…….that’s a spicy meatball!
Omnivore’s Dilemma begins where Fast Food Nation leaves off and looks at three different meals (even though the subtitle is “A natural history of four meals” he really focuses on three):
Fast food
Organic
Hunter/Gatherer
The organic section was particularly fascinating in that it discussed how the organic movement is split into two camps. Industrial organic attempts to mimic the regular food industry in size and scale and just takes out the pesticides and pastoral organic (I’m not sure that is its official name) rejects large scale production and huge distribution networks as inherently destructive counter to the basic premises of the organic movement. Instead they favor local producers growing and raising food in ecologically sustainable ways for local consumers.
Pollan also gives one of the best summaries of the basic tenets for vegetarianism I’ve seen as well as some serious counterpoints that any vegetarian (or pescetarian) should consider. Is it more responsible to eat a chicken from a nearby farm where it was raised free-range, free from chemicals and antibiotics and fits into an ecosystem which is mutually supportive with few additional inputs or get eat a vegetable (organic or not) that was raised in a mono-culture setting, transported across continents and sold for prices that make it impossible to buy by the very people who were responsible for harvesting it?
He doesn’t advocate any particular food style for people to follow (except perhaps less of the fast food) but rather thinks that if we understand where our food comes from and how it gets to our table, we’ll be much more inclined to make the right food decisions.
I recommend any of the three but all three together (particularly in the order I described here) create an environment in which each author can support and riff off of each other.
