Here We Go Again

Because I'm a glutton for punishment, I've submitted a short story to the upcoming anthology Superheroes, Super Problems. The opening scene is posted below. I figure if I can't at least get a personal rejection on this one, I need to just give up.

(I did get a nice personal rejection on this one a few years ago from a publication called Deep Magic. They folded not long afterwards. Coincidence?)

THE FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE

"Soon I--yes, I--shall control the entirety of Shady Acres Retirement Community!" shrieked Mister Twister. "Vengeance shall be mine!"

"Fool!" cried The Skullsmasher. "Shady Acres belongs to me, and me alone!"

"I'll thwart both of you," proclaimed Blue Blaze. "I and my trusty sidekick . . . my sidekick . . . um . . ." He trailed off, and looked sideways at me, then at his mashed potatoes.

I felt sorry for him, I really did, but I wasn't allowed to fill in the name for him. We're supposed to discourage the residents when they start soliloquizing. Too much potential for property damage. Management is pretty strict about stuff like that.

And I need this job.

"How about we all postpone our schemes until after dessert?" I suggested instead. "It's pineapple upside-down cake."

"I demand the largest slice," said The Skullsmasher. "Resist, and my unstoppable WoeBots will level this assisted-living facility."

"I demand two slices," said Mister Twister, smugly.

"I do not 'scheme,'" said Blue Blaze. He blinked at me sternly--I know, that shouldn't be possible--from behind his bright blue domino mask. "I am a hero, young lady. Only villains 'scheme.' Or 'plot.'"

"Tess," said Rashonda over my radio. "We need some help. OmniMan is wandering again."

"Be right there," I said. "Sorry, gentlemen. Duty calls." All three of them nodded at that. Even on their bad days, even the villains, they all understand about duty calling.

 

Things I Have Seen This Year

I haven't been posting, but I am not yet moribund. Here are some of the things I've seen instead.

The Petrified Forest and Painted Desert 

 

A Spanish fort

Native ruins 

Taliesin West

Another Spanish fort

The Fogg Art Museum at Harvard 

Emily Dickinson's house

The release of an excellent book by a friend of mine, which was dedicated to me and my wife 

A blast furnace

The Heinz History Center

Frank Lloyd Wright's most famous house, Fallingwater

A less famous Wright house, Kentuck Knob 

The world's largest operating steam locomotive, in the company of ten to twenty thousand other people

Two Carnegie Museums, one of which I liked much more than the other

The Lowell Folk Festival 

A small museum on the site of a 19th-century Utopian commune founded by Louisa May Alcott's father

 

A non-Spanish fort 

In Which I Fail to Understand the Market

Not long ago I read a mystery short story. (I'm not giving details because I don't want to badmouth a working writer.) The plot goes like this:

1. Murder.
2. Police find a fingerprint.
3. Police ask suspect about fingerprint.
4. Suspect attacks police, is guilty.

In between 1. and 2. there's a lot of window dressing, none of which turns out to be important.

I'll stipulate that I was enjoying the story right up to the end. I'll even admit that I'm a little interested in the other stories in the series.

But I'll further admit that I don't grasp why this kind of story routinely gets published.

Department of Unpopular Opinions

Wakanda Forever is not a good movie. There, I said it.

What's wrong with it? I'm glad you asked!

1. Namor & Co. are the bad guys for the single and sole reason that they are fighting the good guys, and they are fighting the good guys for the single and sole reason that the good guys need someone to fight.
2. The protagonist changes from Queen Ramonda to Princess Shuri halfway through the movie.
3. Shuri's motivation for the first half of the movie is T'Challa dying offscreen, which is then totally forgotten and irrelevant for the second half of the movie, because REVENGE! (Or not.)
   
4. Climactic fight: World's! Stupidest! Plan!
5. 90 minutes of plot squeezed into a 160-minute film.
6. Plot threads with no consequences. For example: 
1. Vibranium-seeking mercenaries
   
2. General Okoye loses her job, resulting in ... what? A battlesuit?
   

In my opinion there's also some remarkably bad overacting, but that's an aesthetic judgment that's open to disagreement.

I can turn my brain off for some of the lapses of logic--for example, the Wakandans don't bother to fight the Atlantians using, oh, say, high tech depth charges--because these things are just a given in a Marvel movie. The point of the movie is to have lots of hand-to-hand fight scenes, so by definition guns and stuff don't work well, because if they did you wouldn't have the fight scenes. But "that's just how it is" can't salvage a movie that's nonsensical and poorly structured even on its own terms.

Doesn't Ring True

Well, it's no Picard . . . but Amazon's Rings of Power is no masterpiece, either. It's high-school-level Tolkien fanfic (believe me, I'd know). The writers clearly have only the vaguest idea of what JRRT was trying to do; they seem to think they can replicate The Lord of the Rings by throwing in a bunch of pointy ears and adding special effects. It looks gorgeous, but it's hollow.

And it's predictable. I spotted the obligatory BIG TWIST in the finale right around episode 4. Don't believe me? Ask my friend Allen; he and I discussed it extensively.

The Lord of the Rings is one of the best-loved novels of all time. If you think you're a better fantasy writer than its author . . . well, you're probably wrong. The writers of The Rings of Power certainly are.

---

Here's another writer's longer take. I mostly agree with it, though with less passion and more meh.

Make It Slow

I have just endured the . . . whatever it was . . . that was Star Trek: Picard season 2. I may have more to say on the subject in a longer post. Right now, I just feel the need to highlight two three four gargantuan problems that haunt the whole season.

1. It is God-awful slow. There are entire episodes that don't contribute at all to the main story arc. There are others (Episode 8, I'm looking at you) in which the characters get out of trouble, after a full hour, by doing something they could have and should have done in the first ten minutes.
2. Speaking of the main story arc, what the hell is it? Who's the antagonist? Is it Q? Is it Soong? Is it the Borg Queen? Is it Renee Picard's inner demons? Is it the authorities? What exactly are any or all of the above trying to achieve?
   
3. "We need to go back to the past to fix the timeline" is OVER. Don't do this setup again.
4. Apparently Jean-Luc Picard experienced a childhood trauma that was so fundamental, so foundational to the man he became, that he sat two meters away from an empath for eight hours a day over seven years and she never noticed.

I'm sorry, I have to stop now. They're coming with my medicine.

---

Go watch Strange New Worlds instead.

Strike Two

I tried another Ngaio Marsh mystery, The Nursing-Home Murder.

Roderick Alleyn decides, for absolutely no reason whatsoever, to recreate the crime.

At the recreation, a supporting character--entirely by accident--nearly knocks over a piece of equipment.

This reveals the killer's identity and method.

Also, the killer's motive makes absolutely no sense. He's a fanatical eugenicist, but the victim neither has, nor has any prospect of having, children. (highlight to view)

Concerning Dame Ngaio Marsh

 Recently a close friend forwarded this review to me:

Every Roderick Alleyn Novel (Fiction, Ngaio Marsh, 1934-1982) Roderick Alleyn, the Shakespeare-quoting, handsome, aristocratic Chief Inspector of Scotland Yard, spans the gap between Sayers’ Lord Peter Wimsey and P.D. James’ Adam Dalgleish. Not as inventive (in plot or dialogue) as Sayers, and not as deep (in character and psychology) as James, Marsh still easily beats Christie for human stories, and her puzzles are reliably honest legerdemain, the best kind. The early novels have a Sayers-Wodehouse sort of air, and she never approaches the psychological starkness of late Allingham, but at her best (Surfeit of Lampreys, Scales of Justice, and the near folk-horror of Dead Water, all Recommended) she combines knowing lightness, humanity, and cruelty better than most mystery writers. Many Alleyn novels have a theatrical setting, combining two hothouse genres with general success. –KH

Now, I am well known as a swooning devotee of the traditional whodunit mystery, featuring puzzles and clues and stuff. There are very few practitioners of the art nowadays, although I would be remiss not to cite the inimitable Steve Hockensmith and the always-excellent Aaron and Charlotte Elkins. (Although, come to think of it, I myself have imitated Hockensmith, so maybe he's only mostly inimitable.) I'm always searching for new authors in the classic mold. So nothing would please me more, at least within the confines of the literary universe, than to find that I'd unjustly overlooked Ngaio Marsh.

The thing is, I've never thought much of her. Her writing style is good, but her plotting always struck me as pedestrian at best. On the other hand, my wife likes her, and brought a dozen Marshes to our library. So I resolved to try again. I picked out one of the books I hadn't read, Death in Ecstasy.

Here's what happens:

1. A woman is poisoned while attending a peculiar religious service.
   
2. Ordinary police work reveals that she had a serious quarrel with someone, regarding the theft of some bonds which she had given to the sect. 
3. It's not clear with whom she quarreled, but it's presumed that that's who killed her.
   
4. One of the suspects actually overheard the quarrel, but he won't tell the police who the other party was.
5. Except that, a couple chapters later, he does tell them who it was, and that's your murderer.
6. The end.

There are a lot of melodramatic trappings, but that's it. That's the mystery.

Ngaio Marsh fans, please tell me: what am I missing?

Failure to Think, Episode 1

Like it says on the tin, I think about stuff. Also, I get unreasonably irritated when people with whom I might otherwise agree fail to do so. Today's exhibit, therefore, is entitled "How to Be Smarter than Marjorie Taylor Greene." 

Greene has been in the news lately because she's facing a hearing, in which various activists are trying to get her disqualified from running for Congress again. I've heard various people, including some NPR folks who ought to know better, who sound like they're practically salivating at the the thought.

I yield to nobody in my distaste for Marjorie Taylor Greene. But . . . let's suppose, for the sake of argument, that the highly improbable has happened. Greene has lost the case, she's lost the appeals, she's been thrown out of office, she can never run for federal office again. Liberals get everything they dreamed of and more.

Now what?

What about the 229,827 voters who supported her in 2020? Are they suddenly going to see the light? Will we find them holding hands with Black Lives Matter activists, singing "Kumbaya" and peacing out on weed?

No. We will not.

If Marjorie Taylor Greene's supporters can't vote for her, they'll vote for someone else just like her. And if they can't vote for someone else just like her, they'll vote for someone worse. By getting rid of Greene, you have accomplished precisely one thing: you've confirmed her supporters in their strongest (and most destructive) beliefs. 

The problem isn't Greene. The problem isn't even that 229,827 people voted for Greene. The problem is that nobody is making any effort to provide those 229,827 people with an affirmative reason not to vote for Greene. Democrats seem to think they can just go in front of those voters and say "See? You're wrong about everything!" and then We will win and They will lose and everything will be OK again. 

Uh-huh. Sure. 

Let me know when the magic sparkly unicorns come flying down, too.

---

P.S. I will continue to point out that my own record as a prognosticator isn't bad.

 

Remember Me?

No, of course you don't. That's the problem, really.

Of all my character defects--I can provide lists, with references--one of the most vexing is this: I lose enthusiasm for things. It's not just this blog; it's all of my hobbies. The culpa is definitely mea.

Having said that, the fact is that nobody reads this blog. I mean actually, literally, nobody. So, no, you don't remember me. The Internet, remarkably enough, seems to have survived my several-years' hiatus unscathed.

On the other hand, I said when I started that this was, basically, a way to be obscure on a larger and more permanent platform. Yes, the Internet has survived this far, but why risk it?

So here I am. As proof of life, I offer photographic evidence containing my wife Robin, our emergency backup cat Biscuit, and a small fraction of our books. (Robin is the one wearing glasses.)

Nailed It.

 Look what I wrote on November 9, 2016.

"I think we are likely to see our politics dominated by mobs of insecure and angry white people for some time to come."

Random Impressions From a Visit to Japan

Bear in mind that these are the product of a single trip, covering a mere two cities and eleven days. Don't expect deep analysis here.

• If you go, endeavor to go sometime that is not June, July, or August. June is the rainy season; July and August are brutally hot and humid.
• Reports of Japan being ferociously expensive are grossly exaggerated. A good hotel room in Kyoto, right across from the Imperial Palace gardens, cost us $85/night. Perfectly decent meals can be had for $10 or so.
• You could scrape by with no Japanese, although you'd be pretty limited in what you could accomplish. 
• Transportation, even city buses, displays enough English to let you know where you are and where you're going. 
• The general level of English proficiency is not very high, but people in public places--hotels and train stations, for example--tend to know just enough to do their job. 
• Menus usually have pictures. Point. You can say "kore o kudasai" ("this, please") if you want.
• Buying stuff at a cash register is the same everywhere: look at the number, fork over the cash.
• Museums and attractions mostly have text and/or audio in English, although it's not always extensive.
• Take some time to study how the transit systems work before you go. For example, on the subways and trains in Tokyo and Kyoto, you look at a map and find the station you're going to; that tells you what you need to pay for a ticket.
• Taxis are easy to find and not particularly expensive.
• Japan is a modern, wealthy, industrial country. Don't expect to be overwhelmed with the exoticness of it the moment you get off the plane. If you look for cultural differences, you will certainly find them; you will also find many similarities.
• Tokyo is a modern business-oriented city with no particular character but plenty to do. Kyoto is not particularly beautiful or ancient in its streets and urban fabric; its setting is gorgeous, however, and it's positively ringed with splendid temples and shrines of every description. 
• You could eat nothing but western food, if you insisted.
• Many Japanese, in interacting with you, will behave as if doing so were the most wonderful thing that's happened to them for the last month. You should reciprocate, at least to the extent of not being a boor. Learn, at minimum, the rudiments of polite Japanese expressions: "sumimasen" ("excuse me"), "arigatou gozaimasu" ("thank you very much"), and so on.

Photos to follow.

Travel Advisory

It is well known that the movie Jurassic Park was filmed on Kaua'i. What is less well-known, doubtless because the tourism industry is engaged in a massive cover-up, is that the movie is based on fact. I, personally, have seen it with my own eyes: the island is overrun with dinosaurs. Here is a typical example, clearly in threat-response mode:

Even more alarmingly, the dinosaurs have learned to associate humans with food. Here, a pack threatens my wife:

Stay safe, people.

Book Review: The Line Upon a Wind

The Line Upon a Wind: The Great War at Sea, 1793-1815
Noel Mostert
History

When you start reading a book that's 800 pages long, you kind of know what you're in for. You know, for example, that it's not going to be a general overview for the novice. You also know that the quality of the writing will make a difference: 800 pages of good writing can be a challenge,  but 800 pages of dull writing is torture.

By this measure, The Line Upon a Wind qualifies as "good enough." I'm a non-specialist, and I finished it. I didn't rush through it in big gulps, but I didn't stall out either.

Having said that, you need at least a Horatio Hornblower or Aubrey-Maturin level of engagement before you start TLUaW. There's a certain amount of nautical terminology, for instance, that isn't always explained. There are a lot of characters. There are descriptions of battles, but not enough maps of same, and those that there are aren't terribly good.

Moreover, you need a certain level of tolerance for the Great Man School of History. In Noel Mostert's case, the Great Man is Horatio Nelson. When Nelson is on-stage, the book leaps; when he isn't, it tends to plod. Since the book has ten years left in it when Nelson dies, the wind (as it were) rather goes out of its sails in the last third. There are a couple of chapters, intriguing in themselves, that nonetheless read like outtakes from other books (e.g., the material on discipline in the R.N.). Nor does the whole thing add up to a cohesive geopolitical synthesis.

I'd describe the result, then, as useful background reading. If you want to get a lot of information, newspaper-style, The Line Upon a Wind delivers. It won't kill you to skip it, though.

Book Review: The Story of Greece and Rome

The Story of Greece and Rome
Tony Spawforth
History

It's an expansive title, but it's not a very thick book. You might suspect, then, that The Story of Greece and Rome would be a general overview without much depth. And you would be correct. It's not the Cliff Notes version, but it's necessarily a synopsis.

This would be a good book for someone who didn't know much of the history in question. I know a fair amount, so I'm not the ideal reader. I enjoyed it, though, for what that's worth. The Story of Greece and Rome does what it sets out to do, and does it pretty well. Tony Spawforth is good at drawing parallels and contrasts between his two titular civilizations. He's also good at providing understandable summaries of complex questions, and scrupulous about indicating where academics disagree. The writing is both clear and learned--I suppose it would be too much to expect that it would be witty as well, but it's at least never dull.

So: a perfectly decent read for the knowledgeable, and a valuable introduction for the curious. The Story of Greece and Rome doesn't quite achieve must-read status, but it's a pretty decent achievement.

Book Review: The Mysterious Commission

The Mysterious Commission
Michael Innes (J.I.M. Stewart)
Mystery

There were quite a few respectable mid-century Englishpersons who moonlighted as detective novelists. "Nicholas Blake", for example, was actually Cecil Day-Lewis, Poet Laureate (and father of the actor Daniel Day-Lewis). To this tribe belongs "Michael Innes": J.I.M. Stewart, academic literary critic and student of J. R. R. Tolkien at Oxford.

The "Innes" novels, from early to late--and this one is quite late--all have a certain flavor to them. It's not easy to describe. Irony is a big part of it, but it's an understated irony. Imagination, sometimes run wild, is there too. I'm tempted to call the writing "urbane", but that sounds a little too mannered. It's a little bit gently snobbish, quite witty, and even  . . . gulp . . . cozy. That latter word has been co-opted latterly by a mystery subgenre that would mostly be better described as "cutesy", which is a pity, because otherwise it would fit the Innes model well.

That aside, The Mysterious Commission is an enjoyable little book. The protagonist is a portrait painter, rather than Innes's usual Sir John Appleby, and the artistic side of the story is nicely handled. There's some good puzzlement and some funny bits. The air goes out a little bit in the last chapter, for the simple reason that the baddies could have accomplished their goals in a much more straightforward fashion. Getting there, however, is at least half the fun. The writing is usually good enough to carry an Innes novel even when the premise is a little lacking in credibility. This one isn't a classic, not even a minor classic, but it's an enjoyable read nonetheless.

Book Review: The Rubber Band/The Red Box

The Rubber Band/The Red Box
Rex Stout
Mystery

If only it were possible to retroactively combine the virtues of Ellery Queen and Rex Stout.

Stout was, by most measures, much the better writer--particularly in the early years. Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin are engaging characters, much better realized than Queen, and always fun to spend time with. The descriptions are better, the dialogue is better, the supporting characters are better, and the Wolfean aphorisms are irresistible.

Only . . . there's the plot. Stout's mysteries are not only not fair-play; they're barely mysteries. Wolfe conjures his solutions from thin air, or using the flimsiest of assumptions. Sometimes the entire book consists of waiting around for the [message, hitherto unknown character, newspaper story, other plot device] that will reveal all. Other times, it's a matter of Nero Wolfe simply declaiming and everyone else nodding.

These two mysteries are fun to read, but they both fall flat at the end. Wolfe makes his pronouncements, and (surprise!) they somehow all turn out to be accurate in spite of being grounded in nothing at all. The Red Box, in particular, depends on a plot device that was elderly and feeble long before Stout got hold of it. Whatever the shortcomings of early Ellery Queen, you'll always get what you paid for: a strong puzzle and a fair solution. 

Book Review: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Holmes

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Holmes
Loren Estleman
Mystery

While this is written in an acceptably Watsonian style, it adds absolutely nothing to Stevenson's story. It's nothing more than a rewrite of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde with Holmes and Watson stuck into it. Every single development in the original is here. "Watson's" introduction promises that this book reveals hidden and shocking depths behind the published version . . . which is exactly what it fails to do! There's one trivial addendum near the end. Unless you've somehow managed to avoid knowing the Big Reveal in Dr. J. and Mr. H.--in which case, I want to know how--you've already read this book. 

Loren Estleman was a noted Sherlockian. He should have known better.

Book Review: The Best American Science and Nature Writing

The Best American Science and Nature Writing (2018)
Sam Kean (editor)
Science

I had read a number of these pieces before, particularly in The Atlantic. Is there no great but little-known writing out there that this series could promote? The book opens with some editorial political rants, which I largely agree with but which could have been dropped. (That said, the piece on Scott Pruitt's dysfunctional EPA is predictably infuriating.)

The articles themselves are, not shockingly, good. I can't say that any of them stood out particularly, although Ross Anderson's "Welcome to Pleistocene Park" is jaw-dropping in its scope.

Book Review: Death at Breakfast

Death at Breakfast
John Rhodes
Mystery

Death at Breakfast is very much a matter of taste (har har!). To put it another way, it's a mixed bag. How much you'll like it will depend mostly on what kind of mystery reader you are.

Specifically, Death at Breakfast is a Golden-Age mystery of a fairly standard sort. A puzzle is given, characters move around asking questions, and a solution is revealed. If you're looking for depth of characterization, this is not the book for you; the detective character isn't even described, and the other characters are absolutely flat. A few hints at a love element are not an asset.

Nor, to be honest, is the puzzle especially startling. A reader well-versed in this subgenre will recognize a good many familiar elements. Applying meta-textual thinking will tell you who the killer is, too.

What remains is a reasonably enjoyable way to spend a couple of hours. There are some ingenious clues, reliable pacing, and a clear explanation. I like this sort of thing; ergo, in spite of its limitations, I rather liked the book. I won't go out of my way to search down more John Rhodes, but I'll read him if I get the chance.