robert.admin – Page 133 – Robert Raymond’s Blogtorium

October 4, 2015

Flashman (Review)

‘ve mentioned the Flashman series elsewhere, but I wanted to read the initial book over again (I’m about to loan it out to a literary friend and want to make sure I can talk about it correctly). Anyway, what the hell is this thing, anyway? Harry Flashman is a character from the old novel Tom Brown’s Schooldays, a windy old moralistic piece. The villain, the bully Flashman, really gave the work its shine (what a name, so classic!). And Fraser, the author, picks up Harry’s life from the moment he’s tossed out of school (recounting in his diary that he […]

October 1, 2015

Keys (DOG EAR)

e’ve all seen it. The writer of the 40’s rattling on his typewriter, clickityclickityclick – ding! Zip! Over and over and then, rrrrrrriiiip! Onto the stack, another page ratchetted in, and away! Right? That image of the hard-paced typewriter jockey only holds amongst those who never used one. The entire illogical setup of our QWERT keyboards is because the keys jam if you go too fast. And then, ever fumble, every typo, every mistake, you have to go into full stop and white-out or white-ribbon your fix in. Years back, when stunning break-out authors were making their way onto the […]

September 27, 2015

Learned Optimism (Review)

mentioned in Dog Ear how I wasn’t going to review this. I then decided, what the hey, a book’s a book, right? This kinda came to light in a recent rough patch in the relationship (like YOU don’t have them). I mentioned that I have problems with a depression (and how to tell if your’s are extreme – they certainly feel extreme, don’t they?). So the book was pushed on me. I swallowed it like I would caster oil. Ugh. Just dry medical studies, cases proving the good doctor’s point, and little inter-psychology battles he faced. At first I didn’t […]

September 24, 2015

Doornail (DOG EAR)

o advice here, nothing about prose and pacing and prattle. Just a little slice-of-life (and why one should always back up their current masterwork). Got home from the train club two weeks back. Had been thinking of an argument my character Mergenstein was having with High Padre Ricken (it’s a long story) (220+ pages so far). I wasn’t happy about how it was currently going – I’d written myself into a box canyon with dull sides. No good. Had to back up, toss out a couple of paragraphs, and accelerate a different way. It took me something like 15 minutes […]

September 23, 2015

OpsLog – LM&O – 9/23/2015

sually this set of SP black widow F’s is on the point of 373 and 374, the intermodal service from Watsonville to San Luis Obispo. They’ve run up and down that route for years. But today I put them on the Zanesville local, running through the Pennsy highlands, working a cut from Martin Yard to Carbon Hill and back (with most of its work in Zanesville). So, yeah, out of place a bit. But fun. I sorted out the cuts on the lead track to the auto plant, and worked one side of the line, then the other, nice and […]

September 20, 2015

Moon and Scorpion (9/20/2015)

asn’t intending on going star gazing tonight but the sky was so clear (after the Mordor clouds we’ve had for weeks) that I figured I needed to get the dust off the scope. Did some moon-looking (of course, she’s up and showing half her face) – nice shots of some of the craters along the Apennines Range (where my heroes Tubitz and Mergenstein are currently at, if I’d ever get off my can and start writing again). Found a line of craters with their central peaks clearly defined, their central shadows forming clock-hands that must have been stretching for miles. […]

September 20, 2015

OpsLog – WPR – 9/19/2015

‘m on the Denver platform, watching a standard gauge crew drive standard gauge rails through the midst of the Western Bay Railroad’s narrow gauge yard. Wonder if SP will be hiring? Frowning, I’m checking my watch – just got in from another train and am conducting Number 2 back to Alamosa. It’s almost 2pm, the platform is filled with passengers yet the tracks are empty. Where’s our train? My engineer comes up, a guy I’ve never run with but we exchange courtesies and decide who’s going to do what and confirm waterstops and so forth. Out in the yard. I […]

September 20, 2015

Hiero’s Journey (Review)

his one takes me back to my days in college. Back then, the world was certain to end in massive atomic warfare. And the world would grow from it, different and mutated. And the mutations would be quick, varied, and exotic. Yeah, that was our thought, anyway, before we had The Road to show us what it would really be like. Still, it was like opening the box for Gamma World again and rolling up an RPG character who was a two inch tiger with psyonic powers, this sense of a crazy post-holocaust world. Hiero is a priest in what […]

September 17, 2015

Not for Fun (DOG EAR)

very so often, it happens. Instead of reading something I want to read (like that Japanese scifi Jesse Markowitz sent me), I’m stuck with something tedious. I don’t want to read what I’m reading right now. It was given to me, a self-help sort of thing (yes, I need self-help, but I need the relaxation time more). It’s a book written by a Pfud (PHD) and while he’s got an interesting concept, you can tell he’s packing it with filler to justify that a simple article can expand to make a book. I mean, some of the little side stories […]

September 13, 2015

End of the Beginning (Review)

‘ve read this before. It’s Bookish Vu. A huge carrier force blasts it’s opponents on the approach to the Hawaiian islands. Pearl Harbor get’s flattened. A landing is made on the north side of the main island. The defenders do what they can to stop it but are largely swept away, in part because of their enemies’ air superiority. Then the last of the desperate fighting, the blood, the tears, all that. Where was that? Oh yeah – Days of Infamy, the first book to this two-parter. Then, it was the Japanese turn. So our cast of characters from the […]