robert.admin – Page 138 – Robert Raymond’s Blogtorium

May 31, 2015

Clash of Eagles (Review)

triking cover that originally caught my attention back in the 80s – an ME109 shooting down a something or other with the Empire State Building in the background. Yes, the Nazis are invading New York! Well, when I read it, I really didn’t get it. See, after that action-packed cover, the Germans are actually on the ground, having swept down from Iceland and up from Bermuda, taking the Northeast while the US was distracted with the fall of Hawaii and the Japanese fleet off the west coast. It isn’t about the short blitz that took the city – it’s about […]

May 27, 2015

OpsLog – LM&O – 5/27/2015

t was a day today. Started at 7am, early at work, when I had to deal with the fallout of a backstabbing and kowtow to someone who lorded over me. Ugh. And when I went jogging at lunch, the fly button on my shorts popped off, leaving me to jog while holding my pants up. I mean, FerChristSakes, how bad could this day go? At the restaurant tonight, I had a bourbon. I’m just burned out. And it’s ops night. And I already knew a lot of my operators were out of town. Got in and found that it was […]

May 24, 2015

The Glass Hammer (Review)

fter my first not-so-good 80s novel (Venus of Dreams), I started this one, The Glass Hammer with a little trepidation. After all, I remember (echoing so faintly) that I’d not really cared for this the first time around. But evidently the experiences and growth of thirty years can make a difference. Really enjoyed this one. So it’s Cyberpunk from that heyday (dystopian worlds with running-on-the-edge punks manipulating a world equal parts real and meta), a tale about a guy who is really good at the nightly game of running computer chips across the great desert from Phoenix to L.A. while […]

May 23, 2015

OpsLog – FEC – 5/23/2015

think the wisdom of getting older comes from learning what not to do. You learn from mistakes, and tell yourself never to repeat them. Like today, when I’m talking to Ken (the host) before the running of his Florida East Coast, a neat railroad with all sorts of fun runs on it and a dispatcher panel that is second to none. The mistake? Robert (pontificating): “Well, Ken, I love running all jobs on a railroad, and I feel I’m good at all. No, if there is one job I don’t seek out, it’s working the yard.” Ken (smiling): “You’re on […]

May 21, 2015

Resources (DOG EAR)

ast night, while writing, I discovered just how powerful a tool the internet can be. In the original Tubitz and Mergenstein, there was a scene where they attempt to conceal themselves in a small boggy port (where the idiotic inhabitants work long hours harvesting ferns used for animal fodder). Originally it was on a planet, now it’s simply a port in this sprawling fantasy world. Most of the dialog for the chapter comes from Tubitz (the svelte thief woman, all deadly and grim and such) talking to the bartender. The point of this conversation is to establish that this fern […]

May 17, 2015

Saturn again (5/17/2015)

onight is the closest Saturn will come to Earth – the wife and I have been keeping up on this and kinda wanted to see it. So, at sunset, we planted the telescope in the backyard. I knew Saturn would be coming up at it’s highest angle above the southern horizon at 2:00am, and it would be somewhere just ahead of Scorpius. Of course, given the fact I couldn’t make out that constellation, not with all the city lighting, made things tricky. I ended up doing the Galileo method – that is looking at every bright star in the sky. […]

May 17, 2015

Venus of Dreams (Review)

efore heading out on vacation, I broke open one of my old boxes of yellowing paperbacks, to take a handful with me for my relaxing time off. In the coming weeks, I’ll be reviewing a number of older titles from the eighties. You’ve been warned. I wish someone had warned me about Venus of Dreams – why didn’t I write myself a note inside the cover, letting myself know what I was in for? It would be one of those time travel deals, where a past me could have let my current me know what I was getting myself into. […]

May 16, 2015

OpsLog – L&N – 5/16/2015

ood session today on John Wilke’s Louisville & Nashville railroad. A couple of the old sweats I’m familiar with across Florida got together with a fresh batch from elsewhere. The thing about the L&M is that you need to be up on your layout lore – this isn’t point-A-to-point-B stuff. Two mainlines tangle about each other through the southern Appalachians, crossing and recrossing. Some of them, the Southern RR dominates, some the L&N. This means the dispatchers need to trade off and work together to get things done. For me, I was on the quieter Southern panel. In this, it’s […]

May 14, 2015

Green Light (DOG EAR)

ust got the green light the other day on my new effort, Tubitz and Mergentein. No, it wasn’t anything as fantastic as that literary agency call or the proverbial “rich and famous” contract. No, this was from the first reader to run eyes along it. I’m out to 100 pages now, double-spaced, which is about a 50% reduction from the initial effort 30 years ago (and, frankly, I think it’s far superior). It’s been a couple of weeks of chapter-here, chapter-there work, just writing and remembering how much I enjoy writing. So now it’s done, the first book section. My […]

May 10, 2015

The Second-Class Passenger (Review)

first leaned of this, oddly enough, through an old radio serial (Escape). See, while I audit at work, I sometimes listen to old radio programs. I loved the idea of this story and when I heard it came from a book, I had to check. And yes, Project Gutenberg had it for free. Written in 1913? Hmmm. But it turns out I was pleasantly surprised – Perceval Gibbon is more of a modern author. In fact, I’d say he was one of the kings of the gotcha ending. The free eBook I found was a collection of fifteen of his […]