Blog – Page 96 – Robert Raymond’s Blogtorium

July 3, 2016

The Last American (Review)

his was a crazy little book pushed out in 1889, evidently hardcover (from the Gutenberg pictures), the cover bright yellow fabric, Middle-eastern stylized with patterns and a side view of a sailing cog, yet braced with the curious title The Last American). It’s short, a lunchtime read (I can attest to that – that’s when I read it). And it’s a lot of fun. It’s the year 2951, and off a wildly wooded coast a Persian vessel staggers towards shore, jubilant (and who wouldn’t be, facing starvation as they were) by land-ho! So the next day, they sail into the […]

July 7, 2016

Double Negative (DOG EAR)

is complexion was dark, the eyes and hair almost black; the former very bright and penetrating; his brow was high, broad and square; his nose was prominent, and there was about the mouth an expression of firmness, not unmixed with kindness. This from Caesar’s Column, a book by Ignatious Donnelly, written ornately in 1890. Now, I understand the baroque dialog of the time and often (as in the case of War of the Worlds) love it. But here it gave me pause. And not in a reflective good-way. No, I had to stop and decode what was being said. So, […]

July 10, 2016

My Tank is Fight! (Review)

kay, first thing – don’t ask me to explain the title. I never did understand it. So what this is is a book on the more incredible (and idiotic) weapons systems that had been cooked up on the drawing boards of the military designers of World War Two. Of course, it could have been called Wacky Wehrmacht Weapons since only the flying tank (you gotta be kidding) and the trans-Atlantic iceberg base were allied ideas. Everything else, the super-gigantic tanks, the London guns, the helicopter packs, all that crazy stuff, it was all German. I was hoping for some mention […]

July 14, 2016

The Loaner (DOG EAR)

t’s been a weird sorta a year. Maybe it’s because my site pulls in about 200 readers per blog (not many, but I’m proud of the hits). Or maybe it’s because I’ll chat about books and reading at work and over at the model train club. But I’m known as a writer and a reader, and suddenly this year I’ve been buried in loaned books. Last year it started with The Name of the Wind and A Wise Man’s Fear, two monster books you can use to chock a car’s wheels to keep it from rolling. And then the deluge […]

July 17, 2016

The Race for God (Review)

t’s gotta suck to be Brian Herbert. Everyone always identifies him as “you know, son of Frank Herbert, the Dune guy”. And Brian’s put out a lot of books but nothing really comes to mind (then again, look who’s talking – Robert Who?). But I picked up The Race for God over at Mayas and figured I’d give it a go. So the story is that a religious fraudster, a guy who (on a lark) started a church about a cosmic chicken, he gets a clear voice from God in his head telling him where He happens to be located […]

July 21, 2016

The Dream (DOG EAR)

t’s been a rough couple of weeks. Actually, looking back at that opener, I nearly deleted it because of its triteness. Rough? Forty-nine dead in my hometown, then Dallas. And this brings up my feelings about the massacre at Virginia Tech, my alma mater. Yet through it all, on Facebook, with friends and at work, I get to listen to simplistic statements, slogans, and opinions of people who want to take tragedy and reshape it in my mind. As if in my quiet and thoughtful life, where I bike or drive across the city without the distraction of radio or […]

July 24, 2016

The Eyre Affair (Review)

his is a weird book. Man, what can I say? It takes place in a world where French time-travelers are mucking with things downstream, where the Germans won World War Two but life is going on pretty much as it should, the war in the Crimea has been going on for a century and where literature is such a big deal that there are flying brigades of police assigned to track down book crimes. And overall, I liked it, weird as it was. This bastard story of The Big Over Easy and Shades of Grey was a fun deal. The […]

July 27, 2016

OpsLog – LM&O – 7/27/2016

as shaping up to be a good night. Came in and the lot was filling in front of the clubhouse. Everyone cleaned. We had all sorts of improvements ready to try. A bunch of new people upshifted their jobs to more difficult ones. The crewcall sheet filled up. I set up in the office, got everything running, and we were off. A good flow. The Harris Glen summit was packed and along the river route, a general freight, a passenger train and a coal drag chased each other along the winding route. The newbies picked up the warrants pretty well […]

July 28, 2016

Backed with fists (DOG EAR)

as going to lunch, my wife and another couple the other day. Mentioned I was reading The Eyre Affair. The woman in the front seat hardly turned. “By Jasper Fforde”? I blinked. “Wow! How would you know that?” She told me she’d started it a couple of weeks ago. Me, I’m midway through and really enjoying it. I started to babble about how funny it was (militant astronomer groups?) and she sniffed (you couldn’t hear it, but all the evidence was there for a down-her-nose dismissal). “Oh, I dropped it after the first chapter. It wasn’t very good.” I started […]

July 30, 2016

OpsLog – FEC – 7/30/2016

itting in Palm Bay on a hot Florida day, up in the cab of 208 (a through freight with a sprinkling of setouts), looking at a red board. Not going anywhere. Turns out a train up the line in Melbourne has tripped the new automatic detector, identifying something dragging, hanging, or on fire. So his conductor is out walking the train. And for the thirty minutes that takes, we’re waiting for the line to clear. Finally, finally, finally I see blue boxy engines pushing through the heat simmer, running south towards me. I nod to the crew of the delayed […]