Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Destroyermen

March, 1942

Destroyermen


My thumbnail review:

An entertaining read with equal parts science fiction escapism and a loving treatment of WWII naval heroes, Into the Storm was fun enough to continue on with the series but too light for a serious recommendation.

If that satisfies your curiosity, you should stop reading here. If the word 'Lizardmen' peakes your interest, read on.

Once again, militarism smacks me in the face with technical lingo and a lot of sweaty men living together on a boat in this Navy based saga. But these books are a loving tribute to the Destroyers of old, and even when the details should bore me I am held rapt by a narration rich in respect and tribute for World War II sea craft.
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The main characters are straight out of some kind of old fashioned black and white serial adventure. The strong and silent captain, aided by the resiliant nurse, both of them aching with longing for each other but afraid of the ramifications of their emotions. Where the battle scenes thrive on a love of high seas adventure, so do the crew and their "lovable" personalities. It should all be very cliche', and yet it works because the author so fully believes in it himself and simply wants you to share in his fun, camp as it may be.
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Oh yes, and there are lizardmen. The plot is simple and probably written on the dust jackets. WWII Navy Destroyer disappears in battle with the Japanese, only to reappear in an alternate history earth populated by lemur-cat people who are systematically being slaughtered by a race of lizardmen. The sailors, for lack of something better to do (like getting home or finding human women) pick a side and join in battle.
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The lemur-cat-people were my biggest turn-off. A lot of time is spent describing how beautiful and great their primitive culture is, but furry primitives will always bring me back to how the Ewoks killed Star Wars by regressing a culture that was so great because of how alien and advanced it was. Now, it's not to say the lemurs aren't in some ways cool and fun characters, but you know me- I want something crazy and different to take me to the next level. I guess I prefer a blaster to hokey religions.
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Now the lizard dudes: Yes, yes yes. For the most part these guys are also predictable (well, we've seen evil lizards before, right?). But this particular batch of dinosaur descendants are especially cruel and awful, in a way that makes our fun sailors throw up on each other when they see the slaughter houses. Everyone loves an enemy that you can hate- it's a simple formula but one that too often gets diluted or forgotten.
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I won't review each issue of the first trilogy- they pretty much carry on an ongoing serial about the adventures of US sailors in an alien land. There is a second series out now, but I probably won't read it until I come back around to WWII when I have grandchildren. I very much enjoyed these fun stories, but can wait another ten years to find out what happens.

Sunday, June 26, 2011

Wiseman's Silver

Today, I'm going to help my wife clean up my father-in-law's house. It's a floating home. His life's raft is packed like a rat's nest with years of memorabilia and other used-to-be-useful stuff. But as the collected ponderance of his possessions weigh him down, literally anchoring him deeper into the river, he has found himself unable to move forward in life. This man has literally dammed himself on the Willamette River.

He's an old sailor.   His hair had been proudly jetblack and had transitioned into a distinguished salt & pepper, before giving way to a wiseman's silver . . . that has eventually tarnished into a nicotine stained corn silk.  He smokes because men smoke.  He knows things about living on a boat that you and I don't know.  For instance: you don't set a screwdriver down.  Not when you're working on a boat.  You use the screwdriver or put the screwdriver away.  Otherwise it's goin' in the drink.

He lives with a cat named Junior; because he named the cat after himself.   And he mostly keeps himself company.  Even when he's entertaining others; he's often really just entertaining himself.


We'll take loads of tacky mid-century thriftstore chatchkies and estate sale treasures back to the Goodwill: returning the crap to it's homeland. I'm hoping this creates a bit of karma for us. It's important not to mess with the junk gods.

 Maybe hoarders are not victims of their own minds.  They probably aren't even crazy.  They may be suffering from a curse. A pox from the hoarder god, Clearancesale, has been put on their house. Swarms of accessories have attacked their lands.  The Junk Gods are purposeful and merciless; and will not rest until they've imprisoned your most cherished moments.

These unlucky hoarder bastards have actually had their memories ripped out of their hearts and put into inanimate objects.  Dreams trapped inside dusty things.  Nostalgia has become a genie in a lamp, and a stack of magazines, and a Tupperware box of belt buckles, and three unmatched socks. The spirit of their pasts live inside the things they collect.

I will try to free one man's genies today.  Or at least keep the houseboat from sinking.  Collectors are weird and I totally respect weird.  So I'm helping my Father-in-law because he needs it and has begrudgingly accepted our offer to help.  I'll be there to ease some weight . . . not to bring anything heavy with me.  So I'm gonna just leave my judgement at home.

You use an anchor or you put the anchor aweigh.

Friday, June 3, 2011

Return Engagement (Settling Accounts)

June 22, 1941



Harry Turtledove is known as the Master of Alternative History fiction. Many of his book series look very interesting. This isn't one of them. While his Worldwar series is about aliens invading during world War II, and would've made a neat addition to my book list, I picked this one instead, which is about the South winning the Civil War and how that plays out to WWII, and it really bore no interest or relevancy to my timeline readings.
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This series seems to be loaded with political and social commentary, all wrapped into Turledove's trademark militarism. I can only imagine that the drama of the primary characters relationships couched into meaningful twists on real life issues such as race, which is then couched into a whole lot of talk about battle strategy and tanks makes this both a thrilling read for war strategy fans who also take pride in being just a little literate about their warfare porn.
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Not that I'm knocking the genre (much). I get people who fawn over chess, Stratego and shooting toy soldiers with rubber bands. I'm sure that part of my indifference to games and story of strategy are a result of a lack of understanding or education. But I also was brought up to be just a bit of a hippie, so... like, peace, man. And my daddy didn't play chess. As entertainment I don't mind violence. I found the battle scenes in Avatar to be very exciting (if mostly for the special effects) and I love Apocolypse Now (but again, more for the overall cinematography than pure army violence). Clearly, the difference for me is adding a twist, be it aliens or humor or outstanding filmography.
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In this case I thought that the alternative history aspect would really make things exciting. But it just made things... different. The narrative is really quite straightforward and actually a bit boring in my opinion. I really thought such a prolific writer would bring his own style, but it basically came down to "It's WWII, but the South won the Civil War, so that's an extra thing going on."
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I attest in this blog to being a hardcore reader who finishes what he started, but this was one of those rare cases where the library told me I couldn't renew the book, and I said, "Hey, that's just fine", and returned it the next day. I think I will give HT another try sometime, but I'll be careful to do my research better before I devote myself to another nine book series about people firing guns at each other.