Film Review: The Northman

The Northman < Conan the Barbarian < The Green Knight < Gladiator

But still not bad.

Look, I HATED Eggers’ The Witch which was ponderously boring, not at all frightening as it was billed, just downright silly at times, and impossible to take seriously. So when The Lighthouse was released I skipped on viewing despite all the accolades and awestruck reviews.

But a Viking epic of revenge that looked like it had high production values and took its content seriously without camp or tongue in cheek? I’m in.

What you get is pretty much that…Eggers knows how to craft an image and a feeling, I’ll give him that. Still have issues with fake snow though…Yes, I get that real snowflakes won’t stay and are very small, but do the fake ones really need to be like 1/2” in circumference and look like fuzzy plastic??

So the atmosphere throughout the film is excellent. We get the dirt and blood and sweat that such a film needs. Everyone is filthy (well, except the female characters). Aleksander Skarsgard is good in his role as the Northman himself. A lithe barbarian he is here. Strong but not overly bulky. Young and at the peak of male power but having suffered enough to be vulnerable to both weapon and word. Anna Taylor-Joy as the eventual female lead fills the role of lover-Valkyrie-mother with skill and is the character most investable from the audience’s perspective.

And that perhaps is one of the bigger shortcomings of the film.

Where with Conan the Barbarian you see the boy’s family killed and Conan enslaved, having to kill others just to survive or to fend off monsters or to get revenge. Here? While perhaps more accurate in terms of just what an outcast may have to do in order to survive, Skarsgard as the Northman in what is the best sequence of the film is seen (without background for conveying actual motivation) attacking a village/outpost and proceeding to slaughter everyone in sight along with his rampaging companions who then set up to carry off all the women, children, and surviving men into slavery themselves. It is only when he hears the name of his uncle uttered in mention of now being outcast to Iceland is there a spark of something beyond unadulterated anger and brutality and accompanies the cutting of his hair to a more “civilized” and less threatening length. Without context or meaning, observing the protagonist laying waste to a village does not endear him to the viewer.

This isn’t my biggest quibble however…That comes in the form of feeling like we’ve seen this all before. The killing of the Northman’s father including his beheading in a forest while he watches from the side is pulled from the aforementioned Conan, the use of nom-de-guerre “The Northman” elicits Gladiator, the “big reveal” in the film is cribbed directly from Hamlet, and even the final battle (of course, we can’t have a film without a culminating battle between “good” and “evil”!!) at the base of a fiery volcano is a marginally better version of the lightsaber duel present in Revenge of the Sith complete with lava that isn’t actually hot.

The Northman was a film I hoped so much more for…it isn’t often that I will go out and see a film in a theater but this one seemed like it might be worth it. Maybe the social media algorithms are too good and convinced me it would warrant my attention. Its not that its bad…it isn’t…it looks good and has sequences that are downright excellent—the panning shot that follows the Northman through the village he so efficiently dispatches is downright brilliant—its just that the film does not add up to more than the sum of its parts…and so many of its parts, while nice to look at, have been done before.

Windham Varsity Lacrosse vs. Alvirne 04/18/22

I had not posted anything on the past Friday’s game—which was a 16-0 shutout of Kingswood who was supposed to be a decent team this year due to it being an evening game under what passed for “lights”. I quit taking pictures at the half as it just wasn’t worth it. I can crank the ISO and get shots that look fair on a .25” by .25” square but its not worth my time to even look through those let alone edit them…so into the trash they go.

Monday’s 15-2 win over Alvirne is a different story. At least there are some good shots from that game, as relatively uncompetitive as it was. Likely the most physical game of the year so far there were some decent hits given in both direction and a number of fouls as well. Windham kept up its heavy scoring attack and were kept to 15 goals by some great play by the Alvirne goalie who was their best player on the day. Despite the score, Windham got frustrated at times with the saves he was making to the point of trying trick shots and a number of skip shots to try and get past the keeper. Prior games saw Windham scoring on what appeared to be about 2/3 of their shots where here they got more shots off but only were scoring on about 40% if I had to guess.

Windham’s defense also had to play on its heals a bit more than in prior games with a number of “man down” situations. This was what was most notable as Windham’s D in these situations stood strong and kept the Alvirne shooters to the outside and frustrated their ability to get clean looks in a dangerous position. This bodes well for the remainder of the season if they can keep it up. Too often do High School lacrosse players allow shooters to get their arms and hands free vs. staying in the chest and hips of their opponents and here we saw great improvement in this area. Windham goalie Jack Milano was once again more than up to the task of saving the bulk of shots sent his way and remains an anchor in making smart and crisp passes out of the crease.

Wednesday brings what should (though I thought this of the Alvirne game too…) be the first big test of Windham’s season. Losing out in the first round of the ‘21 playoffs to Hollis-Brookline in a bitter 18-9 defeat, Windham will be out for a bit of redemption but as we saw last year where Windham came into the playoffs with a higher seed…nothing can be taken for granted.

Windham Varsity Lacrosse vs. Bow 04/12/22

Good game to start the year. 14-1 was the final score against an overmatched Bow team. Coming into the season Windham was ranked in the top 4 or 6 teams in DII and Bow in the bottom 6 or 8 so this was expected. Bow only managed three shots on goal for the game, was unable to control faceoffs and couldn’t force Windham turnovers. Offensively Windham looked strong on faceoffs which is key for them and while on the smaller side physically, Windham didn’t put a lot of balls on the ground, distributed the ball well resulting in balanced scoring from mid-distance chances (not many bombs that went in by luck and not many easy dumpins from up close—both of which are good signs) and stayed out of any need for physical play. The starters were in until about the final 5 minutes of the game and more than held their own in all phases of the game.

Friday’s upcoming night game on the road vs. Kingswood will be the early test of the season as the teams are ranked closely to start the year. That should give a better view at any cracks in the team’s capabilities and willingness to punch back when hit in the mouth.

Film Review: The Third Man

A general fan of noir films of all ages as well as a Welles fan, I got around to watching this one in the past week. While not as “fun” or as “enjoyable” as say Casablanca it is just as much a classic.

Start with the cast and production…you have the widely underrated Joseph Cotten in the lead as an American fiction writer traveling to post WWII Vienna in hopes of filling a job for a friend he hasn’t seen in a long time played by Orson Welles. A more perfect duo has likely not been seen on film between this and Citizen Kane and other Welles works, they work magic with one another. The film’s writer? Graham Greene, he of The Quiet American and other landmark novels. The producer? David O Selznick of Gone With the Wind, Rebecca, King Kong and numerous other famous films. That just scratches the surface of which I won’t dive here which includes director Carol Reed’s use of camera angles, deep focus on some truly lush sets, lighting design, and a deep examination of the concluding chase through the sewers of Vienna which is simply legendary.

The ruins of postwar Vienna are filmed extensively showing the destruction across large swaths of the city while it tries to get on with its life while being partitioned by various competing parties in the Americans, Brits, Russians, and French. This makes the film dark enough in its tone itself before we even get to the root issue which is the theft and reselling of diluted penicillin to the needy by the friend Cotten has come to see and who is now reportedly dead of a car accident. Hundreds of children and Austrians in general are dying or coming down with crippling diseases because of the actions of Cotten’s scamming friend. Further, a Czech actress posing as a local Austrian under false pretenses to escape the clutches of the Russians is in love with Welles character. All of which creates a doomed love triangle with no hope of redemption for anyone. Some of the darkest, nihilist dialogue created for a Hollywood film is found here: “You know, I never feel comfortable on these sort of things. Victims? Don't be melodramatic. Look down there. Tell me. Would you really feel any pity if one of those dots stopped moving forever? If I offered you twenty thousand pounds for every dot that stopped, would you really, old man, tell me to keep my money, or would you calculate how many dots you could afford to spare?”

Just great stuff. You won’t come away with a smile but will come away with a knowledge you have just watched of the best films ever made.

Book Review: The Last Man by Mary Shelley

Woof…at some 400+ pages and written in early 1800’s English this one was a bit of a struggle.

It was worthwhile however. It definitely has its drawbacks as not only is it written in a language/spelling that is often not aligned with our modern speech and structure causing the reader to interpret what the actual words are or a rereading various passages, but Shelley is extremely verbose and overly flowery. A laundry list of adjectives, similes, and metaphors accompany even the simplest of events and items. Shelley was in desperate need of an editor with a sharp pen and to encourage a much more direct approach from her.

I did find the effort rewarding however. Really the book breaks down into two parts, or two stories. The first being the growth of Verney the narrator from castoff youth to an educated and worldly second fiddle to his eventual Brothers-in-Law Adrian and Raymond. It is through him that the romantic and political machinations are viewed and are the primary topics of this first half. Expecting the work to devolve into a zombie apocalypse in the first 200 pages will bring disappointment when you are instead read of loves won and lost, descriptions of differences between England’s benefits gained by a “republican” form of government vs. one of royal bequeathed power, battles between Greeks and Turks, suicides, infidelity, and so on. Its here where Shelley establishes the personalities and orbits of each of the main characters as a proxy for herself and her friends in real life. I’ll leave description of the linkages between each character and their real life compatriots for elsewhere but leave it as Verney equating to Mary Shelley, Adrian to her husband Percy, and Raymond to Lord Byron, as just some examples. Written after the death of her husband, Byron, and her own children there is a lot to be interpreted here as a reflection of her own views of her compatriots after their passing.

The second half of the work is where the undefined “plague” makes its appearance and drives the action after having been near entirely unmentioned in the first half. After depopulating the rest of the globe the plague arrives in England and begins its ravages, forcing all to resign themselves to their early fates. Over 200 pages all individuals and civilizations are stripped away with each loss weighing on the reader as Shelley keeps the descriptions of the lose the most succinct part of the work. Children and spouses are lost and moved on from in a matter of a sentence or two whereas prior events (a trip from one town to the next) might take up 5 pages. Shelley’s own frequent interaction with death certainly has an impact here.

I originally picked up this work as a result of some of the attention it received during this Covid pandemic. A scourge unseen and unstoppable driving irrational behavior among a global populace seems relevant, no? Shelley is far ahead of her time in many things including the idea that if you survive a virus driven malady you will have immunity from it going forward, as her character Verney does here even if he is the only one to do so resulting in the titular Last Man. It will leave you feeling more that man is doomed to fail no matter what his efforts, reasoning, or inherent goodness may be. Nothing stands in the way of the plague, not love, not intelligence, not courage, not beauty, wisdom or any admirable characteristics. In the end we all fall before death’s scythe whether by virus, our own hand, or any other myriad happenstance. All that matters then is how we face it and what we do with the limited time we’re given. While not a happy resolution to the work…its one I can be satisfied by.

NER SCCA Into the Darkness RallySprint 2/19/22

the NER region of the SCCA tends to be the most active true rally region in the country that I am aware of…always pushing for an expansion of true rally events and has constantly been oversubscribed when it comes to its Rallycross program. It also appears to be the most active when it comes to RallySprints as well holding a number of them each year in partnership with the Team O’Neil rally school.

This weekend saw the first nighttime RallySprint stages and also (obviously) were winter/snow/ice stages as well. This could have been a complete cluster but the drivers were smart, generally conservative, and stayed out of any significant disasters…all boding well for the continued support of the program.

The relatively small entry count (15) resulted in a few DNFs with (as far as I know from minimal interactions with competitors) a broken CV on the RAV4 of Matt Stryker and a puking codriver of Anthony Burden among the day’s casualties. TJ Pullen in the #909 Subie Wagon was the winner of the event, some 17 seconds clear of a brilliant 2WD effort of Michael White with the #911 Saab truly putting on a show with no effs given, and then another 26 seconds back of that the #409 Impreza sedan of Dylan Gondyke.

Photo conditions were great…the winter light was plentiful and bright off the snow in the day and even some of the early night shots were good. Cold temps at about 19 degrees didn’t drain my batteries too quick which was a surprise but the depth of the snow off the side of the roads (at least thigh deep) was. All in all a good day. Didn’t hang around for the winner’s circle or late stages as without a remote flash my photo taking time was done around 6 and I had dinner and a beer calling me before heading home. Enjoy.

Windham Varsity Boys Basketball vs. Portsmouth 2/9/22

And so it ends…

The fact that it ends this way for every team but one each year makes it no less disappointing. The Windham boys team exited the DI tournament in the first round with a loss to Portsmouth in a score of 57-39. The loss dropped Windham to a record of 9-10 on the year.

The loss really came down to two factors—the largest being an inability to score inside or put any real pressure on the interior defense. As a point of note…Windham did not go to the line a single time in the game and drew only a couple fouls (literally). You can’t compete if you can’t impose your will and draw contact. This has been a consistent issue for Windham the past two years. In the prior season they posted a record of 8-5 under then coach EJ Perry but again bowed out in the first round of the DI tournament. Last year they had the dynamic scoring of Joey DaSilva to bail them out at times and while the team this year had some great outside shooting, it was not of a nature that could create its own shot like DaSilva could. Spot up and open shooting off skip passes or defensive lapses this team had down…it just was not able to put a player one on one and beat the other team.

The second factor in the game that came to the forefront was a lack of cohesive defense on backdoor cuts and pick and rolls. While Windham had throughout the years shown an ability to effectively double team ball handlers and switch on open players appropriately, they struggled here against the slashing and cutting Portsmouth team leading to numerous easy layups.

All in all it was not a bad season. 9-10 isn’t a bad showing for a team that lost its leading scorer and numerous starters from the year before and also switched coaches. The style they play however, regardless of the coach, will always be subject to letdowns, cold streaks, and ineffective play if they can’t develop an inside presence both offensively and defensively and multiple ball handlers who can break the press on their own. Being completely absent in the former (perhaps a bit by choice and style) and possessing only a single one of the latter leaves them subject to more physical, aggressive teams.

Oh…and the lighting and gym in Portsmouth? Wow…how horrid is that place? Its like playing in a dungeon…almost as bad as Timberlane. You can’t hardly see your hand in front of your face at times its so dark, the lights are literally from about 1920 and cast these weird shadows and sickly pall over everyone. And the rims? I’ve never heard a ball come off the metal that way before…it sounded like the ball was bouncing off a tin shanty out on a local pond…No wonder Portsmouth isn’t an outside shooting team…they can’t see the basket and there is zero chance of the ball getting a fair bounce off those hoops…just…wow….

On to the spring sports!

Windham Varsity Boys Basketball vs. Spaulding 01/25/22

I’ll be honest and say I felt sorry for Spaulding in this game. Eventually losing by 20 behind solid all around Windham play underneath (Jack Runde returning to form with key rebounds and putbacks and inside scoring after two pointless games) and timely shots from long distance, Spaulding was outmatched from the start. Now 0-17 on the year Spaulding looked dejected coming off the floor at the end. Meanwhile Windham was ebullient having had a chance to play some teammates that do not often see the court allowing them their moments to shine and have the crowd cheer behind them.

What I truly felt bad about was the decisioning of some schoolboard admin or athletic director with no actual education who sits watching the View and MSNBC mainlined into their grey matter, forcing the poor kids and Spaulding staff to wear masks. As if its not bad enough to be outmatched by a decidedly middle of the road (about .500 on the year) Windham team, they had to pretend that masks hung around their ears and over their throats while playing or in some half assed semblance of compliance while on the bench, were actually doing anything for what are healthy, vaccinated, young adults that see more of them die on ski slopes each year than at the hands of an octogenarian targeting virus. They looked like fish out of water…as if they had been left behind when everyone else has moved on…like I felt in second grade when my mom made me wear hand-me-down, plaid cotton pants that went out in the mid 70s and never seen again but I was begrudgingly wearing circa 1983…

On the other hand, rules or not, Windham has dispensed with the idea of complying with bureaucratic, do nothing, hacks…for the most part... Sure, sprinkled among the crowd here and there was a mask or two. But overall it was a maskless environment with everyone going about their lives. Even a number of parents with whom I have had significant disagreements with over the past two years appear to have come around and were now running around the court now sans-mask. Just takes people a while to get where they need to go sometimes I guess…

With Windham finishing out the year against some weaker opponents they should be able to target a winning season as an overall goal. They won’t lose a ton of players between ‘21 and ‘22. But what they will lose is size with Chris Billone (their leading scorer as well) graduating. It will fall upon Jack Runde to take on an even more physical, post presence in the next year because they will continue to be undersized. I’d like to see the year finish out with a two guard operation of Brian Desmarais and George Fortin on the floor for extended periods as even in last night’s game, with just the slightest of full court pressure from Spaulding, there were too many turnovers and silly passes. Having two individuals who can deftly handle the ball and smartly break the press is going to be a huge need. We’ll see how many more games I get to!

Dakar 2022 Nissan Results

We’ll wrap up here what the end results were for this year’s Dakar….all in all not bad. A fair showing for a grossly undersupported marque that continues on with supportive fans, privateer builders, and durable vehicles of both a current and historic nature.

First we have the Classic category which ran on a completely different track than the primary racers but still covered thousands of miles of desert terrain at speed. 10 of the 11 entrants finished which is really solid and the top Classic finisher was the the Nissan Patrol of team #806 who finished 38th

#719 Nissan Terrano of Maurizio Traglio finished 68th of 129 finishers

#751 Nissan Terrano of Francisco Javier Benavente withdrew and DND’d on Stage 8 of 12

#753 Nissan Patrol of Michel Blanc finished 43rd of of 129 finishers

#759 Nissan Terrano of Luciano Carcheri finished 88th of 129 finishers

#761 Nissan Patrol of Gian Paolo Tobia Cavagna finished 49th of 129 finishers

#767 Nissan Terrano of Giacomo Clerici finished 111th of 129 finishers

#770 Nissan Patrol of Guido Dallarosa finished 82nd of 129 finishers

#795 Nissan Patrol of Eje Elgh finished 46th of 129 finishers

#806 Nissan Patrol of Luis Pedrals Marot finished 38th of 129 finishers

#819 Nissan Patrol of Noemi Rodriguez Moreno finished 55th of 129 finishers

#828 Nissan Patrol of Francesc Termens finished 59th of 129 finishers


Then we have the big boys in the full on real Dakar…

#291 Nissan Patrol of Ibrahim Almuhna, finished 72nd of 72 finishers!! Way to close it out with a finish!

#280 Nissan Proto of Jose Manuel Salinero, DNF’d and withdrew on Stage 4

#272 Nissan Patrol of Silvio Totani, finished 60th of 72 finishers!

#265 Nissan Navara of Markus Walcher, finished 44th of 72 finishers!

#267 Nissan Navara of Daniel Schroeder, finished 36th of 72 finishers!

Windham Varsity Boys Basketball vs. Manchester Central

A close fought loss (79-74) it was also high scoring for a high school basketball game but without Windham’s typical bombing away from 3.

The high scorer for the night was once again Jack St. Hilaire with 27 who maintained his ability to do damage from deep while the rest of Windham’s deep threats were generally quiet. Supporting Hilaire was Jack Runde who funneled in 20 of his own, mostly from near the hoop, physical play.

Windham could have taken the game and had fought back from some seven down in the second half to take a three point lead with under three minutes to play but a series of extremely costly inbounding turnovers and difficulty in breaking a half-hearted press by Manchester Central, caused the loss and dropped the team to 3-6 on the year.

Book Review: Rendezvous With Rama by Arthur C. Clarke

I’ll be honest and say that I grabbed this book and read it due to Denis Villeneuve announcing that he is now attached to turn the work into a film and with his brilliant versions of Blade Runner 2049 , Arrival, and Dune as well the non Science Fiction but still brilliant Sicario and Prisoners among others, I knew I needed to read the source material. The fact that Rendezvous is written by one of the masters of SciFi that I really only knew from watching 2001 and 2010 only solidified my desire to read it.

I shouldn’t have waited so long.

Its a fantastic work of real (meaning “hard”) scifi. There is no attempt to shoehorn quasi-fantasy stuff in here or silly tangents that seem to scratch the itch of the author, publisher, editor, or audience’s bias or flavor of the day. Yes, that means that character exposition takes a REAL distant backseat as many critics point out. The astronauts that carry the action here are given only the thinnest of backgrounds and descriptions. One is essentially interchangeable with another and any one of them could be a “red shirt” at any time and the reader wouldn’t care.

That said, the lack of character development ends up being one of the strengths of the book. Because of this the reader can put themselves behind the eyeballs of any character and drop themselves right into the middle of any action. It is the READER who is gazing in awe and Rama…it is the READER who is discovering Rama’s secrets and viewing the biots and trying to figure out just what is going on.

This is so effective in part because Clarke is able to convey the truly “awesome” and unknowable craft that is Rama. I was reminded most often of works like Lovecraft’s At the Mountains of Madness as Clarke’s characters look out across the plains of Rama or the Circular Sea…It was the same sort of experience there as it was for Lovecraft’s…The human mind and experience is just not equipped to see and know these things as they are so far outside our limited comprehension. The old “technology sufficiently advanced from existing experience will seem undistinguishable from magic” saying comes to mind here and Clarke is a master of describing in concrete terms, the unknowable or incomprehensible.

The book on its own provides no answers, resolves few questions and leaves the reader just as dumbfounded as its characters. It creates a sense of wonder and questioning and impresses upon the reader just how small humanity is and how little we actually know. We are a small, inconsequential race on a small, inconsequential rock, floating in an unknown sea. Reading Rama is like staring up an endless night sky and feeling a sense of vulnerabilty we don’t commonly encounter…and any work able to generate such sefl reflection is worth my time.

Book Review: Final Spin by Jocko Wilinck

Lets first start with the fact that I am not a Jocko fanboy. Yup, I listen to many of his podcasts and I admire his service as a SEAL and I find common viewpoints with his focus on self sufficiency and self improvement. That said, I’m not one to simply laud a work just because I enjoy other efforts of an individual and I am also more than just a bit critical when it comes to the written word, nor am I running around playing dress-up and in the gym 24-7 scarfing down supplements in an attempt to replicate Jocko’s physique or impression.

With that out of the way, perhaps we can put my commentary on this work in its proper place.

As an interesting novella (which is what it is, not really a full length novel) its worth running through. Its topics are nothing earth shattering—disaffected youth stuck in dead end jobs with no perceived hope of advancement or material improvement. I find no issue with the salty language, descriptions of drinking, or very cursory descriptions of sex either real or implied…those clutching their pearls over such items in the Amazon reviews of the book are not living in the real world nor have ever read Shakespeare, Hemmingway, Homer, the Bible or anything else worth a damn…Life is ugly, messy, and full of icky people doing icky things. Jocko is actually quite reserved in his language and portrayals. There is nothing prurient or juvenile here.

The structure of the work could potentially be offputting to some readers…its not conventional in that the reader is often put inside the head of the main character and rides along with brief snippets of thought. One or two word flashes of cognition are common and move the reader quickly from one page to the next. No need for long expositions, just moving from point to point as the characters make rapid fire decisions. You won’t find flowery metaphors here, just hard edged visuals and movement.

By the end of the work I wasn’t quite sure what Jocko’s position in writing it was. Was he saying that the “down on their luck” males that are the focus of the work should have made better decisions? Was he saying that he (Jocko) could have ended up on this same self-destructive path if not for certain choices? Was he saying we all deserve better than the lives we are commonly “stuck” with? I’m not sure. There are no heroes here, the readers (or at least I) don’t empathize much with Johnny the protagonist, and the topic of an America that has been left behind wishing for something more fulfilling than a brown-collar job stocking shelves is not really unplowed earth.

Is it worth a quick read for a high schooler looking for direction? Yeah, I think that’s who this might be best targeted at…someone who is searching for direction and a way out. I’m not sure it will result in the best course of action but at least it might get such an individual thinking of what they want their life to become. If it serves that purpose in a few cases, then Jocko likely should be happy with the end result. For me? Its a bit “fast food-ish” Quickly consumed, enjoyable the time spent with it, but not entirely fulfilling or weighty.

Book Review: Astounding by Alec Nevala-Lee

I have read a number of novels/stories by the authors focused on in this work of scholarship (Asimov, Heinlein, and Campbell) with the exception of Hubbard. I was always put off by the ridiculous TV advertisements with exploding meteors and claims of intellectual wonders used to promote Dianetics in the 1970s and ‘80s.

Nevala-Lee’s work here however brings all four of these individuals together and weaves their relationship with one another with their frequent editor, collaborator, mentor, and frenemy, Campbell at the center of everything.

I had not known how tightly they were associated with one another professionally and personally—from employment as writers to that as workers within industry during WWII…from sharing ideas on their work to familial relationships. Coming together and falling apart numerous times over the span of 40+ years, each on to their own deserves a deep biography.

Here it is more their interconnected stories and how they relate to Campbell as the force that pushed them out into worldwide acceptance that is the focus. The work stands as a fantastic primer for understanding any of these complex men who all had deep faults yet unique geniuses as well.

Nevala-Lee doesn’t preach at the reader regarding these faults and largely is able to stay in the background, revealing what they are without being overly judgmental—which must have been immensely difficult given what some of these faults were (gross racism, parental negligence, fraud, sexual assault, and so on). Now…to be fair, some of these behaviors were products of their time, simply doing business as business was done and what were acceptable societal norms at the time and so Lee does an excellent job of steering away from applying modern mores to distant years.

Leaving that behind, the work is stunning in its capture of the cultural impact that these writers and Campbell in particular have had on our views and media. With Dune coming out this year in its second full film workup, it is worth noting that as we see in Astounding Herbert was yet another of Campbell’s discoveries as a writer and had a major if not primary influence on other contributors to how we see science interacting with, benefiting, and threatening humanity including Philip K. Dick, Ray Bradbury, Harlan Ellison, Carl Sagan, Arthur C. Clarke, and numerous others. Also note the recent Amazon development of Foundation as a long form series broadcast this year and George RR Martin’s Game of Thrones mid ‘10’s juggernaut as examples of Cambpell’s influence 40+ years after his death.

A very readable work of literary scholarship I’m sure Lee’s efforts here will spawn numerous imitators and inspiration for other works diving into these authors to treat them with the respect they deserve from the standpoint of real “art”. This may be one of the best (not first) steps towards putting Campbell, Heinlein and Asimov in particular on pedestals alongside others such as Aldous Huxley, George Orwell, Mark Twain, Poe, and others who are deemed worthy of such examination. Not Hubbard though…I still can’t get past those exploding meteors…

Truly I am only scratching the surface of what is contained in Astounding. There is so much here that warrants mentioning that Lee goes into. Campbell’s story on the development of a nuclear bomb that came under scrutiny from the Feds during the Manhattan Project because it was felt that it was too close to the truth is one. The absolute batshit insanity of Hubbard and Campbell’s earnest beliefs that things like Scientology, psionics, telepathy, reincarnation and other such fantastical ideas were not only legitimate but that personally controllable, is another. There will be works to come that Astounding will be used as a primary source for a hundred years or more. It is not a good work…but a great one and one that anyone seeking to understand much of our modern culture and thinking must understand given how influential these authors have been on the great powers and thinkers of our time.

Book Review: The Big Time by Fritz Leiber

This will be relatively short.

The book should have been titled “The Big Suck”…cause boy does it disappoint.

Leiber is one of the biggies of mid to late 20th century Sci-Fi along with contemporaries of Heinlein, Asimov, Bradbury, Hubbard, Clarke, Poul Anderson and others. I knew of him some near 40 years ago from my early D&D days with the connections there to the Fafrd and the Grey Mouser line of stories (though never read them), and I may go back and read some of his fantasy work given its supposed similarity to Lovecraft and Howard that I enjoy.

This however? Despite its having been awarded the Hugo Award 1958 it never should have even been published in book form. Starting as a serial tales in Analog magazine, it really should have been boiled down to a very short story and might have been better of.

Essentially a “closed room” or “lifeboat” story, it revolves around a handful of individuals who have been placed in a “R&R House” that is separated from ongoing space-time by a macguffin like device to allow individuals fighting in an ongoing war between unknown groups, to recover their mental and physical wounds. I guess the fact that some of these individuals are “aliens” is supposed to interest us. It doesn’t. beyond hearing that one has tentacles and another is centaur-like…we don’t really know or care anything about them. Nor do we learn to care about the German soldier from WWII or the English poet-soldier from WWI or the women/doctors/bartender who inhabit this R&R space.

Told from a first person perspective of one of the female “entertainers” the story jumps around and results in finding an atomic bomb being placed in this “room” and threatens everyone’s existence because for a period of time the “room” is cut off from other space-time access in a “bubble” that can’t be escaped. Within this trapped bubble the characters attempt to find out who cut them all off and put them at risk…within this various characters try to work out their issues with popping in and out of history to fight a war they don’t understand why they are fighting…zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz….

None of it is very enthralling, the characters don’t carry any weight, and there isn’t much development over the length of the work. The story doesn’t go anywhere literally or figuratively. No real lessons are learned by either the reader or the characters. It should have remained a brief snippet of a magazine rather than being dragged out for near 200 painful pages. Blech.

Windham Varsity Boys Basketball vs. Merrimack 12/23/21

Well, that was close…after being up 14 at the half and double digits well into the tail of the third quarter, the Windham boys found themselves down three with under two minutes left. They are most certainly a live by the three and die by the three team. Consistently out rebounded (but not out efforted) and outscored in the paint, Windham had just enough deep shooting to claw back to a 61-58 win. Much like last year Windham has the opportunity to step up and bite nearly any other team if they aren’t locking down on outside shooters but could also lose to potentially any team. Led by Chris Bilone and Jack St. Hilare bombing away from three and with Jack Runde providing the bulk of the dirty work underneath, they are less one dimensional than they were in ‘21, but are still going to be subject the highs and lows of outside shooting that can go cold for long stretches. A very good win here against a taller, more physical, Merrimack team, which makes it two in a row. Well done.

Film Review: Dragonlance-Dragons of Autumn Twilight

Wow…going into the wayback machine for this one.

I had seen a brief note elsewhere yesterday that the original writers of the Dragonlance series (Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman) had settled a lawsuit with the Wizards of the Coast and would be releasing a new series of novels in the near future. This got me thinking of this movie that I had never watched despite loving the novels (first six) as a young adult.

Created in 2008 this movie was made seven full years after the original Lord of the Rings film by Peter Jackson. It also featured some fairly name worthy actors doing the character voiceovers such as Kiefer Sutherland and Lucy Lawless. It went straight to video, deservedly so, and has been largely forgotten as another failure in the long line of attempts to portray well known Dungeons and Dragons settings and stories to the large and small screens.

There are LOTS of issues with the animation of the work. First the baseline animation is extremely aged. It appears they used the same artists and techniques as were used in the original Dungeons and Dragons Saturday morning cartoons or similar. Maybe it was intended to elicit that sort of imagery but it doesn’t work here…the story is darker and deeper with impaled bodies and blood splatters…a child’s story this isn’t and the images should carry the detail and grittiness that such implies. Then there is the choice to mix in computer imagery for certain characters—the dragons and draconians in particular as perhaps a way of calling them out. The effect is jarring and doesn’t work. The hand drawn cartoons mixed with computer images don’t mesh and is distracting. Add to the fact that none of these computer images of the dragons or draconians are very impactful—neither is really threatening and both come across as bumbling, clumsy, and inept—something that was certainly not the case in the novels. Lastly we come to the decidedly juvenile male POV of the “artists”…Their choices for how to display female characters is beyond moronic. Every female character has porn start breasts pointing at the stars and bouncing this way and that, barely concealed behind plunging necklines and unbuttoned shirts. I actually came away feeling dirty at points for having watched the film it was so over the top and offensive.

The story hews close to the original novel but has to be so condensed that there is never time to understand what is going on or why, the dialogue is stilted and poorly attempts humor where there shouldn’t be any. None of the “evil” characters come off as being truly “evil”…just more bumbling like as if they were in a “He-Man” or “She-Ra” cartoon…yet as I said…there are attempts here to pivot the work towards adults with violence and titillation.

In short? Its a mess. Unappealing to children or adults whether they know the books or not. Its ugly and boring. Its backwards and cheap. It also made me realize how derivative the works are as compared to LOTR and similar…you have many of the same characters and circumstances—the outcast, the protective woods, the dragons on piles of loot, the emotionally distant elves, and on and on…I still fondly remember the written words of these novels but certainly not this “movie” and I wonder if I’ll now ever go back to reread them as I once might have…and that’s dissapointing.

Book Review: Masters of Chaos by Linda Robinson

Damn…I should have liked this book. Right up my middle-aged, white guy, desk-jockey, alley.

Unfortunately it is a 400 page “report” by a “reporter” vs. a story or a consumable work that provides any context or analysis. The most interesting part is the last 20 pages when the author begins to draw conclusions about the things she has seen, people interviewed, and the longer arc of history.

The rest of the work sounds simply like a restatement of an amateur reporter’s list of “who, what, where, and when”…without including even much of the “why”.

All of the special forces members covered in this deserve better. They are reduced to mere shells or cardboard standups. No reader can distinguish one from another or trace the events of a reappearing individual from one event to the next. Simply recounting “Bob was in Panama in 1990 where he led team X in the conflict” and then 100 pages later “Bob returned to the conflict zone in Somalia four years later where he roped into a village” and then 100 more pages later “he retired to write a book on unconventional warfare” does not make for an insightful or interesting read.

None of this is to say what Robinson is recounting her is fake, embellished, or unremarkable…it is. The Special Forces have done remarkable things with limited resources and in ways the American public doesn’t recognize—very different things than the more widely heralded SEAL Teams and other “Tier One” operators. These special forces deserve their skills and accomplishments recounted with the full background, analysis, commentary, color, description, and character that they possess. This isn’t that.

My last gripe here is with the hacks doing the back cover recommendations of the book. In no way did these individuals actually read the book before they were paid to provide a quote. Hell…John McCain and Robert Baer use nearly the same language in their first sentences in these promotions that tell you they were given a script and told “I’ll give you $5000 if you sign off on having said this so we can promote the book under your name”. There is a TON of work done on the actions special forces of all kinds (using the SF term here very generally) over the past 20 years. Choose a different one than this.