I actually enjoyed Michael Crichton's The Andromeda Strain, both as the book and the 1971 Robert Wise (very faithful) movie adaptation (which I actually saw in the theater). Though more than a bit cerebral and talky, it's also tense in stripped-down man-vs-man Fail-Safe sort of way.

When we went to Iron Man, we saw a trailer for the A&E 2-night mini-series, coming up Memorial Day weekend. And my reaction to Margie was, "Hey, it's like The Andromeda Strain, only with car crashes." And it seems that was pretty close to the mark.

 Andre Braugher, who plays the nefarious Gen. George Mancheck in A&E's upcoming SF miniseries The Andromeda Strain, told SCI FI Wire that the show goes well beyond the original Michael Crichton book and 1971 movie version.

"It's very anticlimactic, the book and the film," Braugher (Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer) said in an interview at the miniseries' Hollywood premiere on May 7. He added: "You've got the Andromeda; it's suddenly somehow benign, but then you've got a reactor thing, you know? ... But that movie wouldn't have held up today, you know what I mean? So it had to be re-imagined."

The premise remains the same: A satellite falls from the sky, and most of the townspeople of a small Utah hamlet die suddenly. A group of top scientists, led by Dr. Jeremy Stone (Benjamin Bratt), race time in the top-secret underground lab called Wildfire to uncover the mystery of the deaths before the cause--a contagious agent called Andromeda--can spread.

Writer Robert Shenkkan has updated and expanded the story well beyond the parameters of the original 1969 book and Robert Wise's movie, taking a lot of the story outside Wildfire and boosting the action elements. "I think our screenwriter and [director] Mikael [Salomon] together have done a really wonderful job bringing that together," Braugher said.

Because, of course, the idea of a mysterious space contagion that might wipe out humanity if not identified and contained is simply too ... passé for modern audiences, too conventional. We have to do something to "boost the action elements." Like car crashes. And we definitely need a "nefarious general," and all those other "environmental, political and military storylines."

See, that's what was missing from Lord of the Rings -- a cabal of Elven, Dwarvish, and Human military juntists that were out to take over the One Ring to further their own purposes. Similarly, a remake of Casablanca wouldn't be complete without an examination of the European-Islamic relationships in Morocco and the imposition of French hegemony over North Africa. And let's not forget the animal abuse subtext that was woefully under-represented in Gone with the Wind, but will clearly need to be added into the next version filmed. And don't get me started on Bambi and the need to "punch up" the impact of strip-mining upon the denizens of the forest ...

*sigh* I'll still record it, though ...

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Andre (Alice Marie) Norton was one of my SF/Fantasy staples growing up, and I still reread some of her books. This is a new Baen reissuing of two of her novels: Catseye (1961) and Night of Masks (1964). Alas, neither novel is one of Norton's finest. 

Masks of the Outcasts by Andre Norton (2007)

Overall		Story
Re-Readability		Characters

As with most of these Baen pair-ups, there's a theme here, in this case a common setting. Both novels start on the planet Korwar, a rich resort world on the outskirts of which lies the Dipple, a bitter refugee camp from worlds destroyed or occupied by a recent interplanetary war. Protagonists in both stories start their tales in the Dipple.

While there are references in common with most of Norton's shared universe (the Thieves Guild, stunners, blasters, etc.), if it's meant to be so, it's early on in that continuity, when Terra was still known and alien races like the Zacathans were not yet encountered.

Catseye focuses on Troy Horan, exile of a "ranch/plains rider" sort of world. He gets an opportunity to work in an exotic pet store, a temporary escape from the Dipple. But the animals being imported there from Terra are not what they seem, and Horan's unexpected abilities set him in the middle of a power struggle between various factions on Korwar. 

This is pretty standard Norton YA fare -- intelligent and telepathic animals, heritage of lost worlds, a down-on-his-luck exile making his own way in the world and establishing an identity that defies both his enemies and those would would use him. The book plays out with few surprises, but is entertaining enough.

Night of Masks is far less successful. Nik Kolherne is another Dipple refugee, a rootless orphan, with a hideously disfigured face. He's offered a job -- and a new face -- by the Thieves Guild, but soon discovers the mission is (of course) more than he expected, and he's soon caught in factional fighting as well as pursued by the Patrol, trapped on the nightmare planet of Dis, uncertain who to trust, or who can trust him.

While Nik is like most Norton protagonists -- starting from a serious deficit position -- he is pretty unsympathetic, battered about by fate and motivated by fear and uncertainty. Only very, very late in the game does he start to redeem himself, but it comes so late and happens so fast that it defies plausibility. While the world of Dis is nicely painted, it holds a lot in common with other "nighmare / humid / wasted world, populate by degenerate / slimy / deadly / psychic creatures who lurk amongst mysterious ruins" locales that are a Norton standard.

NoM is, due to its protagonist, the most disappointing of the books (I kept rooting for greater danger to Nik, just so that he'd either step up or get killed). Catseye is better, but the various plot elements are too cliché especially for Norton, for it to be anything more than pedestrian fare.

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American Creation by Joseph J. Ellis (2007)

Overall
Writing		Info
Re-Listenability		Audio

Writing: The subtitle of the book is "Triumphs and Tragedies at the Founding of the Republic," and Ellis sticks with that theme as he reviews various episodes in the early US -- from the Revolutionary War to Louisiana Purchase -- to recount unexpected triumphs that made the US an unexpectedly viable republic, and the unquestionable tragedies (dealing with Indians east of the Mississippi and the issue of slavery) where the Founders were unable (or unwilling) to do what we feel is right.

The text is folksy and episodic, easy to listen to (even if sometimes Ellis overdoes his introductory and wrap-up sections in each chapter). His theme stands up without too much propping, and he manages to treat the Founders in a way neither "idolatrous nor iconoclastic." 

Info: Nothing stood out as a glaring inaccuracy or distortion of history from my listening. Though each chapter is relatively short, Ellis manages to include a lot of information. 

The seven "episodes" he details are: 1775, which marked a critical mass in the impulse toward independence; Washington at Valley Forge, shifting the war from a traditional European fight to a broadly dispersed insurgency that the British could not afford to fight; the Constitutional Convention, which set up a dynamic between state and federal sovereignties that still has an impact on modern US politics; the Treaty of New York with the Creek Indians, an attempt to establish a "just peace" with a large set of tribes that was doomed from the outset by American demography; the establishment of the (two) party system, which nobody claimed to want, but which quasi-conspiracies against demonized opponents made necessary; the Louisiana Purchase, which established American primacy on the continent, doomed the Indians, made inevitable the Civil War, and, ironically pushed through by Jefferson, spelled the beginning of the end for Jeffersonian states rights.

Of all of these, the Indian chapter is the most fascinating, and probably the least well-known to me, as Washington and Knox -- and the other Founders on the stage -- get to express their repeated desire to make something positive about relations with the Indians, and even go so far as to try to make treaties with them work, but fail due to political clashes and the rapid population growth of the American states.

Re-Listenability: The "small tales" nature of the book makes listening to it in chunks quite doable, and will make it more likely I'll come back to it again.

Audio: John H. Meyer provides a voice both folksily conversation and erudite. Pleasant to listen to, he works with Ellis to be telling a story to the reader, rather than the reader eking a story out of the page. Judging from some of the comments, he does a good job of turning some of Ellis' prose into a more enjoyable "listen."

Technically, okay, though some of the sound levels between recording breaks are off a bit.

Overall: A solid historical survey by Ellis. There are no tremendously new insights here, but it's a refreshingly entertaining review of the Founding period, and of the Founders itself. If there's anything to critiquie, it's that it is just a survey, sprinkled with tidbits of facts, whereas any of the individual chapters -- or people -- here could warrent (and have) full books of their own. But in touching on so many aspects of the Founding, Ellis does a good job in creating a bigger picture in which to examine the period and its players as a whole.

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This is an odd little volume -- odd in ways not the way you'd normally think of as a Gaiman book being odd -- but quite enjoyable and eminently suited to small blocks of reading time.

Adventures in the Dream Trade by Neil Gaiman (2002)

Overall		Writing
Re-Readability		Info

This book is a collection of odds and ends. The first half or so is a collection of book introductions and afterwords and magazine articles written by Gaiman -- all of which are entertaining, and all of which contain some interesting tidbit or twelve of info. Made me add a lot of books to my wish list.

That's followed by some poetry and song lyrics, then the contents of Gaiman's blog back when it was first started (2/9 - 9/27/2001) as a "here's what life's like waiting for American Gods to get published, and what sorts of things writers get/have to do besides just write." It's a fascinating look at book tours, signings, cover selections, galley proofs, differences between US and UK publishing, etc., and is worth the price of  admission for anyone getting into the writing biz.

That's followed by three ultra-short stories, and a small collection of "About the Author" blurbs, some (all?) of them written by Gaiman himself.

In short, it's nothing like most of Gaiman's works, but it remains a very personal work. And, as I said, one that's very easy to put down and pick up again when one must/can.

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Peter David has written a lot of very entertaining and well-crafted Star Trek novels. This, alas, is not one of them. 

Star Trek: The Next Generation - Before Dishonor by Peter David (2007)

Overall		Story
Re-Readability		Characters

Story: This book, part of the new Next Generation novels, is a sequel to Resistance. Unfortunately, that book was written by J.M. Dillard, and David tries, but can't quite manage, to pick up the threads from the prequel and carry them along.

The Borg are back -- but, of course, that's old hat, so they have to be New, Improved Borg. Q is back -- or a different Q, rather, which is a shame because David has proven himself quite adept at writing that character.

Things Happen. Lots of Assimilation takes place, and more. A Planet Dies. Lots of Big, Futile Space Battles Wherein Many Starships Get Trashed. Earth is Threatened. Picard Disobeys Orders. There is Self-Sacrifice, Hard Decisions, etc.

David, unfortunately, seems to be doing the book by the numbers. His sense of humor seems muted. His grasp of character is blunted. If told he was working from an Official Outline of where the book franchise owners wanted things to go, I could well believe it -- it seems to grate on him, and ends up producing a far less interesting story, with far fewer twists (and those more clumsily handled) than usual.

Way too much "And then something unexpected happened ..." ending chapters -- and way too much deus ex machina (sometimes literally). 

Characters: The book touches heavily on both Voyager and Next Generation (with a smattering of David's own New Voyages book series), but evolutions in the STU have left the characters largely adrift and out of familiar context, and it shows here. Katherine Janeway and Seven of Nine play lead roles, but largely in a vacuum. Picard is the third protagonist, but he's surrounded by plenty of new officers and crew -- and the new ones feel like cardboard cutouts (this one's the Angry Shouting One, this one's the Thoughtful Dedicated One, this one's the Annoyingly Arrogant One), while the old ones are simply following old patterns without much insight or growth. I don't expect much out of Geordi LaForge, but making both Worf and Spock dull is actually difficult to do.

I know, from earlier TNG novels, that David can do an excellent job with characters -- there's a reason he's the only Star Trek novelist I'll buy -- but the drive toward Big Action and the new setting seem to have either impacted his interest or his feel for interpersonal chemistry, because nobody feels all that real or believable here. 

It doesn't help that the Borg have been done to death (indeed, they're the subject of the prequel). While their threat level here is ramped up a serious notch, it's still, ultimately, the same ol' same ol' "Resistance is Futile."

Oh -- a Significant Name dies by the end of the book. That's probably the most exciting aspect of the whole thing, which is kind of sad.

Re-Readability: There's so little substance here, so little solid characterization or interesting story, that it's only David's name that makes me want to put it on the shelf and read it again some other time. Disappointing.

Overall: I don't know if David was contractually obliged to do another book and resented it, got stuck writing a sequel he didn't want to, or what, but this is as close to "phoned in" a novel from him as I've ever run across. Even though he tries to do work all the usual interesting bits -- humorous exchanges, homage lines, coincidental character interactions, bits of old Star Trek trivia suddenly brought into the present and made significant -- the overall effort falls quite flat.

Overall, only suggested for dedicated Star Trek fans. Peter David fans should probably skip it.

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The Lord of the Rings as Property Law:

Stewart v. Gustafson sets out four factors to further help determine if property has been abandoned:

1. Passage of Time: As the years go by, the likelihood of abandonment increases. In this case 3000 years passed, which is a not insignificant lapse of time.
2. Nature of Transaction: Certain transactions lend themselves more to assuming abandonment, having objects cut off your hand does not appear to be one of them.
3. Property Holder’s Conduct: Abandonment can be inferred if a property holder does not try to require possession a reasonable time after receiving notice. After finding that the Ring still existed, not only is Sauron trying to retake possession but he is described as “seeking it, seeking it, and all his thoughts [are] bent on it.”
4. Nature of the Thing: As the value of a chattel increases, the likelihood of inferring abandonment decreases. The extreme value of the Ring (it could be used to conquer all Middle Earth) cuts against an abandonment. The specific nature of the Ring also cuts against abandonment. Gandalf specifically states that “[the Ring’s] keeper never abandons it”.

It appears to be that the evidence points to no abandonment having occurred.

However, it seems likely that 3,000 years well exceeded the limitations period.

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1. A guide to the French.
2. Inauthentic Medieval Food.
3. Freakonomics book covers from around the world. I'm amused by the subtle differences, and by the huge ones.
4. Forty percent of spam comes from one source.
5. Modular Windows?
6. Dean Kamen's amazing water machine. I saw this on Colbert. Hopefully this won't be another Segway (as cool as the Segway remains).

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Appaloosa by Robert Parker (2005)

Overall		Story
Re-Readability		Characters

Take one of Parker's Spenser novels -- the newer ones, that aren't as interesting or complex as the originals -- strip it down to the frame, taking out all the tired backstory and too-oft-trod set pieces, then inject it with guns and horses and injuns and bad men and bad women and not-so-bad men, mix with heavy doses of myth and icon, then swig down in about 180 minutes of steady reading, and you have Appaloosa. 

Everett Hitch is a wandering ex-soldier in the Old West, who's been riding with Virgil Cole for fifteen years now, moving from place to place, serving as local law enforcement for any little ramshackle cow town or mining burg that needs someone to reestablish order. The town of Appaloosa, Colorado, is no exception, with the local sheriff and one deputy having been gunned down by a band of buzzard-like hoodlums in the opening scenes, and the frightened aldermen being more than happy to pay Cole and Hitch to bring them to justice.

The story is one long series of clichéd anecdotes and events, each marching inevitably to the next, yet rendered so starkly and well that the clichés are more Campbellian myth than hackneyed plot. Men are men, women are women, thugs are thugs, whores are whores, language is colorful but terse, utterences are potentious in meaning and spare in frills, characters are complex in their simplicity, honor means everything except when it doesn't, and it all slowly rolls downhill to its inevitable conclusion of blood and betrayal in the final scene.

As I said, this is not a long book -- 276 pages, but widely space and largely typed, and I finished it pretty much in two lunch hours. I got the hardcover off the remainders shelf at Barnes & Noble, so I paid less than the paperback runs for. It was an entertaining read, a lean and sun-bleached Western, and a demonstration that formula can make a good read and even keep you guessing when it counts.

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RIP Arthur C. Clarke. He was one of the classic sf writers I grew up on -- various shorts, as well as novels like The City and the Stars and Childhood's End, both of which I still pull down on occasion to read.

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After somewhat enjoying the movie, and being a bit torqued over the vehement condemnation of the source books by various religious conservatives, I really wanted to like this book series. Well, I liked it enough to get the rest of the trilogy -- but it's not as good as I'd hoped.

The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman (1995)

Overall		Story
Re-Readability		Characters

Story: Pullman tells a story of an intricately crafted world, similar to ours, but where magic is treated as science, technology is vaguely Edwardian, and everyone has an external expression of their soul in the form of a familiar animal, a daemon.

The background of the story -- with its various lands and peoples, it's strangeness and familiarity, ruled over by the churchly Magisterium -- is lovely, well thought out presented. The story is far more pedestrian, as a young girl -- who coincidentally is the subject of a mysterious prophecy -- gets caught up in the various machinations of the Magisterium, her iconoclast uncle, a mysteriously dangerous woman, various freedom loving peoples, a disgraced war-bear, and Something Awful Going on Up in the North. Coincidence tends to snowball with coincidence, with little Lyta at the center of all of them.

Characters: Pullman's characters, for the most part, are well played cardboard cut-outs. Aside from way too much Nobody Is As They Appear (and Nobody Can Be Trusted Except Those Who Can), all of the major players tend to be somewhat (or terribly) unpleasant, while the supporting cast is all unrealistically nice. The aforementioned war-bear is the most interesting one of the lot, and even there he's not all that complexly drawn.

Re-Readability: There's probably plenty there that bears re-reading -- for the background of the world, if nothing else -- but the miasma of general unpleasantness might make it a while before I do so.

Overall: The Golden Compass isn't a bad book, it's just not as enjoyable, innovative, or interesting as I'd hoped it would be. I'm hoping the succeeding volumes showed improvement.

Bearing in mind I haven't read the next two (though I plan to), I found nothing presented that I'd call a nasty or unfair attack on religion. The Magisterium is clearly not a nice bunch of folks, but we don't encounter them all that much, and the plotting and scheming of various groups within it certainly has precedent in our (non-fictional) history when religions take over the state. That's not a condemnation of religion, faith, or theism -- but of the frailty of humans. You'd think religious types would actually applaud that recognition -- but in the context of church governance, perhaps it hits too close to home.

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